A BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP (continued 3)

He talked a great deal and rather fancifully, especially when discussing the Bourse. He spoke of the Bourse as if it were an individual, and would describe it as a terrible being, breathing out threats; or as sleepy and inert, with a face susceptible to tears or laughter. He saw it dancing up the steps of a rising value or tearing down again at breakneck speed; he saw it caressing one stock and throttling another, or again, giving people lessons in industry and temperance. Only crafty and capable people could hope to do business with such a being. There was plenty of money lying scattered about on the floor of the Bourse, but it was not so easy to stoop down and pick it up.

I offered him a cigarette and kept him waiting while I dealt with some correspondence. He grew tired of waiting after a while, and said he could not stay any longer. He had only come to tell Guido that some shares which bore the strange name of Rio Tinto, and which he had advised Guido to buy the day before, had already gone up about ten per cent. in value. He laughed heartily.

“While we sit talking here the closing prices will have done the rest. If Signor Speier wanted to buy those shares now, I don’t know what he might not have to pay for them. I saw at once in which direction they were going.”

He went on boasting of the insight which his long familiarity with the Bourse had given him. He broke off to ask me:

“At which school do you think one learns most: the University or the Bourse?”

His lower jaw fell a little more and emphasised his expression of sarcasm.

“The Bourse of course!” I replied emphatically.

This won me an affectionate handshake when he at last took his leave.

So Guido was gambling on the Bourse! If I had been more on the spot I might have guessed it before, for when I had shown him an exact list of the quite considerable profits our last undertakings had brought in, he had read it through smiling, but with a touch of scorn. He thought we had had to work too hard to win that small amount of money. Yet, with about a dozen such transactions we should have covered our losses of the year before! What ought I to do now, I who only a few days before had been singing his praises?

Guido came into the office soon after, and I told him exactly what Nilini had said. He stood listening so intently that he did not even notice I had found out about his gambling; then he rushed away again.

I told Augusta about it that evening, and she thought it advisable to leave Ada in peace, but to warn Signora Malfenti of the danger Guido was running. She begged me to do what I could to prevent him committing any further follies.

I thought carefully over what I ought to say to him. Here was an opportunity of putting my good resolutions into practice, and redeeming the promise I had made to Ada. I knew how I ought to approach Guido in order to ensure his listening to me. I ought to explain to him that it is always very foolish to gamble on the Bourse, but especially for a business man with a balance-sheet like Guido’s behind him.

Next day I began brilliantly.

“So you have started gambling on the Bourse? Do you want to end in prison?” I said severely. I was prepared for a scene, and was holding in reserve the threat that since he was acting in such a way as to compromise the firm I proposed to leave his office on the spot.

But Guido disarmed me at once. He had kept the secret so far, but now with engaging boyish frankness he went into every detail of what he had been doing. He was dealing in mineral shares of some country or other, and had already made enough almost to cover our last year’s losses. The danger was over now, and he could tell me all about it. If he were so unlucky as to lose what he had gained he would simply give up gambling. If however fortune continued to favour him, he would at once put all his books in order, for they still continued to cause him considerable anxiety.

I saw there was nothing to be angry about; that on the contrary one ought to feel rather pleased with him. As for the book-keeping, I told him he could set his mind at rest about that, because directly one had money in hand it was the easiest thing in the world to settle the most tiresome account. Directly Ada’s account had been restored to its proper place in our books, and that bottomless pit which was Guido’s account had to some extent been filled up, our book-keeping would be able to put a smiling face on things.

Then I proposed that we should begin to carry out the reforms at once, and put down his speculations on the account. Fortunately he refused to do this, otherwise I should have become a gambler’s accountant and should thus have taken on a still greater responsibility. As it was, things took their course as if I had never existed. He rejected my proposition for reasons which seemed to me good. He said it was a bad omen to pay one’s debts too quickly, and it is indeed a widespread superstition at all gaming-tables that other people’s money brings one good fortune. I don’t really believe this, but when I play I omit no precaution.

For a while I reproached myself for having accepted all Guido’s statements without protest. But when I saw that Signora Malfenti took the same view, and told me of the large sums her husband had made by gambling on the Bourse, and when I found that even Ada looked upon gambling just as if it were any other kind of business, I realised that no one could possibly blame me for anything that might happen on that score. My protests would never have sufficed to stop Guido on the downward slope, unless they had been supported by all the other members of his family.

And so it came about that Guido continued gambling, and all his family with him. I was of their train too in the sense that I entered on a rather curious relationship with Nilini. I could not really endure him, because I knew him to be ignorant and conceited, but apparently I was so successful in hiding my real feelings (which I did for Guido’s sake because he hoped for good tips from him), that he came to look on me as a devoted friend. I don’t deny that it was partly my desire to avoid the uneasy sensation his dislike had produced in me, which made me nicer to him; a sensation which was increased by the sarcastic expression on his ugly face. But I did not carry my friendliness further than to shake hands with him and greet him when he came in or went out. He, on the other hand, was extremely friendly to me, and I could not help accepting his proffered courtesies gratefully; perhaps that is after all the greatest proof of politeness one can give in this world. He procured contraband cigarettes for me and only made me pay what they cost him, which was next to nothing. If he had been more sympathetic to me I might have been persuaded to use him as my intermediary for gambling on the Bourse, which I never did because I could not face having to see him often.

I saw him too much as it was! He spent hours at our office in spite of the obvious fact that he was not in love with Carmen. He actually came to keep me company. He had apparently taken it into his head to instruct me about politics, into which he had some insight owing to his activities on the Bourse. He represented the Great Powers to me as shaking each other cordially by the hand one day and boxing each other’s ears the next. I don’t know if he foretold what was coming, for I disliked him so much that I could never listen patiently to him. I kept a silly, fixed smile on my face all the time, which he misunderstood, and interpreted as a smile of admiration; but that was not my fault.

I only know that he repeated the same things every day. It was easy to see that he was not whole-heartedly Italian, from the fact that he thought Trieste had better remain Austrian. He adored Germany, and above all the German trains which arrived with such marvellous punctuality. He was in his way a Socialist, and would have liked it to be illegal for any single individual to possess more than a hundred thousand kronen. I did not smile one day when, in conversation with Guido, he acknowledged that he possessed exactly one hundred thousand kronen, and not a penny more. I did not smile, nor even ask him whether he would have modified his theory supposing he had made a great deal of money. Ours was a very curious relationship. I could not bear to laugh either with him or at him.

When he had fired off one of his theories he would raise himself in his arm-chair so that his eyes were gazing at the ceiling, while that strange gap between his two jaws was aimed straight at me. I am sure he could see with that gap! If ever I tried to take advantage of the position he had got into in order to think of something else, he would call me to attention by saying suddenly:

“Are you listening to what I am saying?”

After that effusion of Guido’s which I found so sympathetic it was a long time before he talked to me again about his affairs. Nilini said something to me about them first, but he also had become more reserved on the subject. I heard from Ada that Guido was still making money.

When she returned to Trieste I noticed that her looks had gone off again very much. She had not exactly got fatter, but her face had become puffy. Her cheeks, which had filled out, seemed to have grown in the wrong place again, and made her face look almost square. Her eyes were bursting out of their sockets. I was very much surprised, because Guido and several other people who had been to see her said that she was getting stronger and handsomer every day. But health in a woman is surely above all her beauty.

Ada had other surprises in store for me. She greeted me affectionately, but only in exactly the same way as she had greeted Augusta. There was clearly no secret between us any longer, and she had evidently forgotten that she had ever wept at the thought of having caused me to suffer. So much the better! She would have forgotten too that she had any claim on me! I was her good brother-in-law, and she loved me solely because of the terms of perfect affection I was on with my wife, which always aroused the admiration of the Malfenti household.

One day I made a discovery which surprised me extremely. Ada still believed herself to be beautiful! Away there on the lake they had been paying court to her and she was evidently proud of her successes. She probably exaggerated them, for it seemed rather excessive to pretend that she had been obliged to leave her summer retreat in order to escape the persecutions of a lover. There may have been a grain of truth in it, I admit; for she probably did not appear so ugly to anyone who had not known her before. But there was not much in it, surely, with those eyes and that complexion, and a face that shape! She seemed, of course, uglier to us because we remembered what she had been and could realise what ravages her disease had made.

One evening we invited her and Guido to spend the evening with us. It was a pleasant family gathering, a kind of sequel to our twofold engagement. But the lustre was gone from Ada’s hair.

When they got up to go, I was left a moment alone with Ada, helping her into her coat. I at once had the sense of a slight change in our relationship. We were left alone and perhaps we should be able to say something to one another which the presence of the others made impossible. Whilst I helped her on with her coat I was thinking it over, and finally made up my mind what it was I wanted to say:

“You know that he has taken to gambling,” I said gravely. I sometimes wonder whether I did not hope by these words to evoke the memory of our last meeting which I could not allow to be so lightly forgotten.

“Yes,” she said smiling, “and he is quite right. He is doing very well now, from all they tell me.”

I smiled with her, whole-heartedly. I felt relieved of all responsibility. As she left me, she murmured:

“Is that Carmen still in the office?”

She was gone before I had time to answer. Our past no longer existed between us. But there was still her jealousy, as lively as at our last meeting.

When I look back over it, I feel as if I ought to have realised some time before I was actually told, that Guido had begun losing on the Bourse. The triumphant air disappeared from his face and it wore again that look of anxiety which had appeared on it at the time of the balance-sheet.

“Why do you worry about it?” I asked him innocently, “when you have already got all you need in your pocket for covering those false entries. You need never go to prison with all that money about you.” At that moment, as I discovered later, he had not a penny in his pocket.

I believed so firmly in the fortune he was supposed to have made that I paid no attention to all the indications which ought to have put me on the right track.

One evening in August he carried me off fishing with him again. It was very unlikely that we should succeed in catching anything, with a dazzling moon like that. But he insisted on going, for he said we should find it a little cooler out at sea. And that was in fact all we found. After one attempt we did not even bait our hooks again, but let our lines hang down from the boat, while Luciano rowed it out to sea. The moon’s rays must have penetrated to the bottom of the sea, lighting up all the wiles of the fisherman for the fishes big and small, so that they only nibbled at the bait but never let the hook come near them. Our bait only gave them a little extra meal.

Guido was lying in the stern of the boat; I was in the bows. After a while he murmured:

“How melancholy all this light is!”

He probably said so because the light prevented him from sleeping, and I agreed, just to please him, and also because I did not want to disturb the solemn peace of that scene by any stupid argument. But Luciano protested, saying that he loved the bright light. As Guido did not answer I tried to reduce him to silence by saying that the light was certainly sad because it lit up this sad world and also because it prevented us fishing. Luciano laughed and said no more.

We were all silent for some time. I yawned in the moon’s face several times. I regretted having let myself be persuaded to come out in the boat.

Suddenly Guido said:

“You’re a chemist. You will be able to tell me which is the most efficacious—pure veronal, or veronal and sodium.”

I did not even know there was such a thing as veronal and sodium. A chemist cannot be expected to know the whole world off by heart. I know enough of chemistry to be able to look up anything in my books and even to discuss—as you will see in this case—things of which I know nothing.

Veronal and sodium? But everyone knows that compounds of sodium are the most easily assimilated of any. I remembered, and was able to reproduce more or less accurately, a hymn in praise of sodium which had been sung by one of my professors at the only one of his lectures I ever attended. Sodium was the vehicle on which all the other elements rode when they wanted to move more rapidly. The professor had shown how chlorate of sodium passed from body to body till it sank, by law of gravity, into the deepest hole in the world, namely the bottom of the sea. I don’t know if I succeeded in reproducing exactly what the professor had said, but at that moment, with the spectacle of that immense quantity of chlorate of sodium in my mind’s eye, I spoke of sodium with infinite respect.

After a moment’s hesitation, Guido said again:

“If one wanted to die, ought one to take veronal and sodium?”

“Yes,” I replied.

Then, remembering that there are cases where one may want to simulate a suicide, and not at once realising that I was reminding Guido of an unpleasant episode in his own life, I added:

“And if one doesn’t want to die, one must take pure veronal.”

Guido’s exhaustive inquiries about veronal ought to have opened my eyes. But I at once became so interested myself in the possible uses of sodium that I did not notice anything odd. In the course of the next few days I was able to demonstrate to Guido by various new experiments that sodium really possessed the qualities I had attributed to it. You added sodium to mercury in order to facilitate the amalgamation of two bodies, this amalgamation being no other than a close embrace or union of bodies. Sodium, I showed, was the assimilating medium between gold and mercury. But Guido had already lost all interest in sodium, probably because his prospects on the Bourse were better at the moment.

Ada came three times to the office in the course of a single week. It was only after her second visit that it occurred to me she might have something to say to me.

The first time she came, she ran into Nilini who had planted himself there in order to continue my political education. She waited a whole hour, expecting him to go; but she made the mistake of entering into conversation with him, so that he thought it his duty to stay on. After I had introduced them to each other I breathed a sigh of relief to see the gap between Nilini’s jaws no longer turned towards me. I took no part in their conversation.

Nilini was quite witty, and astonished Ada by saying that there was just as much malicious gossip to be heard at the Tergesteo as in a fashionable drawing-room. With this difference, according to him, that they were better informed at the Bourse than elsewhere, on this as everything else. Ada thought he was being unfair to women, and said she had never heard any malicious gossip and did not know what he meant by it. At this point I intervened, and said that during all the years I had known her I had never heard a single unkind word come from her lips about anyone. I smiled as I said this, for I really intended it as a reproach. She did not talk against other people, for the simple reason that she took no interest whatever in anyone else’s affairs. When she was well she had only thought about her own affairs, and when she became ill the very small corner she had kept for other things was entirely filled by her jealousy. She was an out and out egoist, but she accepted my words gratefully, as if they were really a tribute.

Nilini pretended not to believe either her or me. He said he had known me for many years and thought me a very naïve character. This amused both Ada and me. But I was very much irritated when, for the first time before a third party, he announced that I was one of his dearest friends and that therefore he must know me thoroughly. I did not dare to protest, but I felt my modesty as much offended by his impudent assertion as a girl who has been accused in public of having given herself to a man.

I was so naïve, declared Nilini, that Ada might easily, with a woman’s well-known subtlety, have been as malicious as she liked in my presence without my being aware of it. I thought Ada was amused by his compliments, which seemed to me in very doubtful taste, but afterwards discovered that she had let him run on in the hope that he would exhaust his stock of eloquence and go away. She would have had to wait a long time for that!

The second time Ada came she found me with Guido. It was then that I noticed an expression of impatience on her face, and realised that it was really to me she wanted to talk. Till she returned the third time I indulged in my usual dreams. At bottom, it was not love she asked of me, but she too often wanted to be alone with me. It is difficult for men to know exactly what it is that women do want, for they often do not know themselves.

Her words excited no new feeling in me. Directly she had an opportunity of speaking to me her voice became strangled with emotion, but not because it was I to whom she was talking. She wanted to know why Carmen had not been sent away. I told her all I knew about it, including the effort we had made to find her a post in Olivi’s office.

She at once grew calmer, for what I was saying corresponded exactly to what Guido had told her. I heard later that her fits of jealousy came on at regular intervals. They began without any apparent reason, and a reassuring word would be sufficient to dispel them again.

She asked me two more questions: Was it really so difficult to find a post for an employee like Carmen, and was her family obliged to depend entirely on her earnings?

I explained to her that it was in fact very difficult in Trieste just then to find jobs for women in offices. As for her second question, I was unable to answer it as I knew no other member of Carmen’s family.

“And Guido knows the whole family,” she muttered angrily, while the tears again streamed down her cheeks.

When she was going, she shook hands with me and thanked me. Smiling through her tears she said she knew she could count on me. Her smile gave me pleasure, because it was certainly not addressed to a brother-in-law, but to someone who was bound to her by secret ties. I tried to prove that I deserved such a smile and murmured:

“It is not so much Carmen I am afraid of for Guido, it is his speculations on the Bourse.”

She shrugged her shoulders:

“Oh, you need not worry about that. I talked to Mamma about it. Papa used to speculate there too, and made heaps and heaps of money.”

I was rather taken aback by her reply, and insisted:

“I don’t like that Nilini. It is not at all true that he is a friend of mine.”

She looked at me in surprise:

“He seems to be a gentleman. And Guido likes him very much too. Besides, I think that Guido is very careful in business now.”

I had made up my mind never to say anything against Guido, so I was silent. When I was alone again, it was not of Guido I thought, but of myself. Perhaps it was a good thing that Ada had at last come to seem to me like a sister, and nothing else. She neither promised nor threatened me with anything in the nature of love. For the next few days, however, I walked about the streets in a very unsettled state of mind. Something seemed to have upset my balance. I could not understand myself. Why did I feel exactly as if Carla had just given me up? Nothing fresh had happened to me. I honestly believe that I have always needed to be in the middle of an adventure, or of some complication which gives the illusion of one. Yet there was nothing in the least complicated now in my relations with Ada.

One day Nilini was preaching louder than ever from his arm-chair; there was a cloud upon the horizon: money was growing dearer. The market had suddenly become saturated and could not absorb any more.

“Let us throw in some sodium,” I said flippantly.

He was not at all pleased at my interruption, but pretended he had not heard, so as not to be obliged to get angry and interrupt his sermon. He said there was suddenly a shortage of money everywhere, so it had gone up in price. He was only surprised at it happening just now, whereas he had prophesied it for a month later.

“They must have packed all the money off to the moon!” I said.

Nilini did not deign to look at me, but went on staring at the ceiling.

“This is no laughing matter,” he said. “It is extremely serious. Now we shall be able to see who is the real fighter, and who is going to give in at the first blow.”

Just as I was quite unable to understand how there could possibly be a shortage of money in the world, so I never guessed that Nilini was numbering Guido among the fighting men who were to prove their valour. I was so accustomed to defend myself from his sermons by paying no attention to them, that even this one, which I actually listened to, passed over my head without making the smallest impression on me.

A few days later, however, Nilini began to sing to quite a different tune. He had made a discovery. He had found out that Guido was doing business with another broker. Nilini began protesting in an injured tone of voice that he had never failed Guido in anything, and that he had behaved with the utmost discretion. Could not I bear him out in this? Had he not always made a secret of Guido’s affairs even to me whom he regarded as his dearest friend? But now he was going to throw all reserve to the winds and shout into my ears that Guido had lost everything and was up to his neck in debt. As far as the business was concerned which had been done through him, he asserted that it would recover with the smallest improvement in the situation, and they could afford to wait for better times. It was monstrous that the first time things went wrong Guido should have treated him like this.

Nilini’s jealousy was far worse than Ada’s. Nothing could appease him. I tried to get some definite facts out of him, but he only became more and more furious, and went on talking of the wrong that had been done him, so that, contrary to his own intentions and to my hopes, he remained perfectly discreet and gave nothing away.

That afternoon I found Guido in the office. He was lying at full length on the divan in a curious state between sleep and desperation. I said:

“Is it true that you are ruined up to the ears?”

He did not answer at once. He only raised his arm and covered his face with it. Then he said:

“Was there ever anyone more wretched than me?”

He lowered his arm and changed his position, turning over on his back. He shut his eyes again and seemed to have completely forgotten my presence.

I had no consolation to offer him. It made me quite angry that he should think himself the unhappiest man in the world; it was not even an exaggeration, it was a lie pure and simple. I would have helped him if I could, but to comfort him was out of the question. In my opinion, not even people who are more innocent and more unhappy than Guido deserve pity, otherwise there would be no room for anything but that feeling, which would be very tedious. The law of nature does not confer the right to be happy, on the contrary it condemns us to pain and suffering. Wherever the feast is spread parasites will flock to it from all parts, and if there are not enough of them they hasten to breed more. Soon there is only sufficient for the barest need, and very soon all is devoured, for nature does not calculate, she only makes experiments. When there is no more left the number of consumers must dwindle, by a process of pain and death, and thus the balance is restored for a moment. What is the use of complaining? Yet all do complain. Those who have had no share at all of the prey die arraigning the injustice of nature; those who have had their share feel that it ought to have been bigger still. Why don’t they live and die in silence? On the other hand it is pleasant to see the joy of someone who has succeeded in securing a good share of the booty, and flaunts himself in the sun, amidst the plaudits of the crowd. The only cry I should allow is the cry of triumph.

But Guido! He not only lacked the power to conquer, but even to hold the riches he had got. He would come from the gaming-table and weep over his losses. He could not even behave like a gentleman; he sickened me. That was why, at the moment when he probably most stood in need of my sympathy, I had none to give him. Not all my many good resolutions could move me so far.

Meanwhile Guido’s breathing was becoming gradually louder and more regular. He had fallen asleep! What an unmanly way to meet misfortune! They had stolen his booty and he quietly closed his eyes and dreamed, perhaps, that it was still in his possession, instead of opening them wide and trying to snatch back a small part of it.

I was curious to know whether Ada had been told of the calamity that had befallen him, and asked him in a loud voice. He started, and it was a few moments before he could accustom himself to his misfortune, which suddenly rose again before him to its full stature.

“No!” he murmured, and again closed his eyes.

I believe it is a fact that all who have received a violent blow have a tendency to sleep. Sleep restores one’s strength. I stood a few moments irresolute, looking at Guido. If he insisted on sleeping how was one to help him? It was not the moment for sleep. I took hold of him roughly by the shoulder and shook him:

“Guido!” I said.

He had really been fast asleep. He looked at me doubtfully, his eyes still heavy with sleep, and asked:

“What is it?” Suddenly he got angry, and shouted out again: “What is it you want?”

I wanted to help him, otherwise I should have had no right to wake him up. I got angry too and shouted that this was not the moment for going to sleep; that we must get to work quickly and save what we could. We must decide what was to be done, and discuss it with all the members of our family here and in Buenos Aires.

Guido sat up at last. He was still rather disconcerted by my rough method of waking him. He said bitterly:

“It would have been much better if you had let me go on sleeping. Who do you imagine can help me now? Don’t you remember what means I had to adopt last time in order to get the little I then needed to save me? But now it is a matter of very large sums of money. Who do you propose I should turn to now?”

I felt quite unsympathetic, even angry, at the thought that I should have to rob myself and my own family in order to help him.

“Aren’t I still here?” I said. My avarice, however, at once stepped in to modify my first generous impulse:

“Isn’t Ada still there? And your mother-in-law. Can’t we all combine to save you?”

He rose and came towards me, evidently intending to embrace me. But I was determined to avoid that at all costs. Now that I had offered to help him I had a perfect right to take him to task, and I made the utmost use of it. I upbraided him for his weakness and for his conceit, which had really been the cause of his ruin, and which he was even yet not free from. He had acted just as he thought fit, without consulting anybody. How often I had tried to find out what he was engaged on, so that I might restrain him if necessary, and save him from the very danger into which he had fallen; and he had always refused to tell me anything, and had persisted in confiding only in Nilini.

At this Guido smiled; he actually smiled, poor man! He said that for the last fortnight he had had nothing to do with Nilini; he thought his ugly mug would bring him ill-luck.

How characteristic of him that smile was, and that falling asleep; he could ruin everyone belonging to him and still go on smiling. I put on a very severe judicial air; if I was going to save Guido I should have to educate him first. I wanted to know how much he had lost, and flew into a rage when he said he could not tell exactly. I was still more furious when he named a relatively low figure, which turned out to be the sum that must be paid at the fortnightly settlement which was only five days ahead. Guido asserted that the end of the month was still a long way off and things might easily change before then. The shortage on the money market could hardly last for ever.

I shouted:

“I suppose if there’s a money shortage on the earth you’ll get some down from the moon!” I said he must not go on gambling for a single day longer. His losses were already huge and we must not take the risk of increasing them. I said that his losses would have to be divided into four parts, and borne by me, by him (that is to say his father), Signora Malfenti and Ada; that we must return at once to sound, unspeculative business methods, and that I refused ever to see Nilini or any other broker in our office again.

He very gently asked me not to shout so much, because the neighbours might hear us.

I made a great effort to calm myself, and succeeded in so far as only to go on abusing him under my breath. I said it was positively criminal to lose as much as he had done, and in such a way: one must be an absolute idiot and worse, to get into such an impasse. I was determined that not a word of my lecture should be lost on him.

But here Guido made a mild protest. Was there anyone who had not at some time or other speculated on the Bourse? Our father-in-law, for instance, who was such a respectable business man, had not let a day pass without some speculation. And then, Guido was sure, I had speculated myself.

I protested that there was gambling and gambling. He had staked the whole of his patrimony on the Bourse; I had only staked a month’s income.

Guido’s childish attempts to shift his responsibilities on to some one else made a melancholy impression on me. He asserted that Nilini had induced him to play for much higher stakes than he had ever meant to, by holding out to him the hope of winning a great fortune.

I laughed and made fun of him. It was no use to blame Nilini; he was only looking after his own interests. Besides, after he had left Nilini, hadn’t he plunged headlong into still further losses through the medium of another broker? It would have been time enough to boast of his new business connection if, unknown to Nilini, he had begun speculating à la baisse. What was the use of changing his broker only to pursue the same ill-fated policy as before? Guido begged me at last to leave him in peace, and with a sob in his throat acknowledged his error.

I left off attacking him. I was genuinely sorry for him now, and would gladly have embraced him, if he had allowed me. I said I would at once see about providing my share of the money and that I would also undertake to speak to our mother-in-law. He, for his part, was to tell Ada all about it.

My pity for him increased when he confessed to me that he would not mind speaking to his mother-in-law instead of me, but that he was tortured by the thought of having to speak to Ada.

“You know what women are! They don’t understand business, or at least only when it turns out well.” He said he would prefer not to speak to Ada, but could ask her mother to tell her what had happened instead.

This decision removed a great weight off his mind, and we went out together. When I saw him walking along beside me with his head drooping, I repented of having been so cruel to him. But if one was fond of him, what else could one do? He really must be brought to his senses, or he would be totally ruined. What sort of terms must he be on with his wife, if he was so afraid of speaking to her?

But he almost immediately contrived to enrage me again. As we walked along he was engaged in perfecting the plan he had thought so brilliant. Not only was there no need for him to speak to his wife, but he would not see her at all that evening, for he would go straight out shooting. Having made this proposal he cast all care aside. The mere thought of getting out into the open air and leaving all his troubles behind was enough to restore him completely, and drive every cloud from his brow. I was furious with him! He might easily go back to the Bourse with the same regardless air and play away the whole remaining capital of his family and mine.

He said:

“I am going to allow myself this one last pleasure, and I invite you to come too, on condition that you undertake not to say a single word which would remind me of what has happened to-day.”

Up to this point he had been talking gaily. But when he saw my serious face, he became more serious too. He added:

“You must agree that I need a little rest after such a shock as this has been. It will be easier for me afterwards to take my place again in the fight.”

His voice trembled with emotion; I could not doubt his sincerity, so that I succeeded in controlling my irritation, or only showed it in so far as to refuse his invitation, saying that I must remain in town to see about collecting the necessary funds. This was surely a reproof in itself! I, the innocent one, must remain at my post, while he, the culprit, could go off and amuse himself as he pleased.

We had already reached Signora Malfenti’s front door. His face had not resumed the joyous expression it had worn before at the thought of the pleasant hours which awaited him; so long as he was with me he kept on his face the fixed expression of conventional grief which I had called back to it. But before leaving me he gave vent to his feelings by a display of independence which I felt was partly inspired by resentment.

He said he was surprised to find what a good friend he had in me. He hesitated to accept the sacrifice I had offered to make for him. He wished me definitely to understand that he did not consider me bound in any way whatever, and that I was free to give or not exactly as I thought fit.

I feel certain that I blushed. To escape from my embarrassment I said:

“Why should you imagine I want to withdraw, when only a few minutes ago I offered to help you, without your having asked anything of me?”

He looked at me rather doubtfully and said:

“Since you wish it I accept without more ado. Thank you. But we must make a fresh contract, and each of us must receive the share he deserves. So that from henceforth, if business comes our way and you are willing to go on dealing with it, you must have a proper salary. Yes, we must put the company on a totally different basis. Then there can be no danger of any trouble accruing to us from our suppression of last year’s losses. It will only have been a lesson to us.”

“It is no use your thinking any more about those losses; we have finished with that. What you have to do now is to try and win over your mother-in-law. That is all that matters.”

And so we parted. I have no doubt I smiled at the naïveté with which Guido had betrayed to me his inmost feelings. He had made all that long speech solely in order that he might accept my gift, without having to show me too much gratitude. But I did not demand it of him. It was quite enough for me to know that he really owed it.

For my part, as soon as I had parted from him I felt a sense of relief as well, as if I too had just escaped into the open air. I felt I had regained the freedom I had lost when I set about trying to educate Guido and put him on the right path. The teacher is really much more chained than the pupil. I had fully made up my mind to get the money for him. It is difficult for me to say whether I was really doing it out of affection for him or for Ada, or perhaps also because I felt that a certain responsibility might attach to me for having worked in his office. In any case I resolved to sacrifice part of my own fortune, and even to-day I look back on that moment in my life with great satisfaction. The money would save Guido and procure me a quiet conscience.

I walked about till dark in this exalted frame of mind, and then found it was too late to catch Olivi at the Bourse. I was obliged to apply to him in order to get a large sum of money. Then I decided that it was not really so urgent. I had a certain amount of money at my disposal which would be enough to cover the fortnightly settlement. There was plenty of time for me to take all the necessary steps before the end of the month.

I put Guido out of my mind for the whole evening. Later on, after the children had been put to bed, I several times made up my mind to tell Augusta about Guido’s financial collapse and how it was going to affect me, but I hated the thought of discussing it, and decided it would be better to wait for Augusta to give her consent when everything had been arranged, and the settlement of Guido’s affairs was in full swing. Besides, I did not see why I should have all this tiresome business just when Guido was out amusing himself.

I slept perfectly and went to the office next morning with rather a light purse. I still had in my pocket the old envelope which Carla had returned to me and which I was saving up religiously for her or for one of her children, and I had drawn a little money from the bank. I spent the morning reading the papers, while Carmen sat sewing and Luciano employed himself in various feats of multiplication and addition.

When I went home to lunch I found Augusta quite bewildered and cast down. She was very pale, as she always was on occasions when I had made her suffer. She said to me gently:

“I hear that you have decided to sacrifice part of your fortune to save Guido! I know I had no right to have been told.”

She was so doubtful about her right that she hesitated. Then she began to reproach me for not having told her.

“But I am not like Ada. I have never opposed your will in any way.”

It was some time before I discovered what had happened. Augusta had arrived at Ada’s house just when she was in the middle of discussing Guido with her mother. When she saw her, Ada had burst out crying and told her of my generous offer, which she absolutely refused to accept. She had begged Augusta to ask me not to persist in it.

I saw at once that Augusta was suffering from her old malady, jealousy of her sister; but I took no notice of it. Ada’s attitude surprised me.

“Do you think she was offended?” I asked, pretending to look very surprised.

“No! no! Not offended!” cried the straightforward Augusta. “She hugged and kissed me ... perhaps it was really meant for you!”

That seemed an odd enough way of expressing herself. She kept her eyes fixed on me suspiciously, as if she were trying to read my thoughts.

I protested.

“Do you really believe Ada is in love with me? What can have put that into your head?”

But I could not succeed in pacifying Augusta, whose jealousy I found terribly tiresome. It was true that Guido had stopped enjoying himself by then, and was no doubt having a horrible time between his wife and his mother-in-law; but I was having a sufficiently bad time myself, and I could not help feeling my sufferings were disproportionately great, seeing that I was entirely innocent.

I tried to calm Augusta by caressing her. But she drew her face away, so that she could look at me better, and uttered a gentle reproof which moved me deeply.

“I know you love me too,” she said.

It was clearly not Ada’s state of mind, but mine, that she was troubled about. I suddenly had an inspiration which I thought must prove my innocence.

“So Ada is in love with me?” I said laughing. Then, drawing away a little from Augusta so that she could see me better, I puffed out my cheeks and opened my eyes very wide so as to make myself look like Ada. Augusta gazed at me in astonishment for a moment, but soon guessed what I was doing. She burst out laughing, but at once felt ashamed of herself.

“No!” she said; “please don’t laugh at her.”

Then she admitted, still laughing, that I had succeeded in imitating exactly the bulges which gave Ada’s face such an odd appearance. And I knew that I had, for whilst I was imitating her I had actually felt as if I were kissing Ada. And when I was by myself I repeated the process with a mingled feeling of desire and disgust.

In the afternoon I went to the office hoping to find Guido there. I waited for some time, then decided to go and look for him at his house. It was necessary that I should know whether or not I was to ask Olivi for the money. I must fulfil my duty, painful though the prospect was of seeing Ada’s face still more distorted in her efforts to express her gratitude. Who knows what surprises that woman still had in store for me!

On the steps leading up to Guido’s house I ran into Signora Malfenti who was ponderously ascending. She told me at great length everything that had been decided about Guido’s affairs up to then. When they separated the evening before they had almost agreed that it was essential to do all they could to save that unfortunate man from the ruin which threatened him. It was not till the next morning that Ada discovered I was proposing to collaborate in covering Guido’s losses, and then she absolutely refused to accept. Signora Malfenti tried to make excuses for her.

“What are you going to do about it? She cannot reconcile it with her conscience to rob her favourite sister.”

At the top of the first flight of steps the Signora stopped to get breath, to enable her to go on talking. She said with a smile that everything would turn out well for everybody concerned. Before lunch she and Ada and Guido had gone to consult a solicitor, an old friend of the family who was now little Anna’s guardian. The solicitor had said there was no need to pay; gambling-debts did not come under the law. Guido had taken the opposite point of view, and talked about honour and duty, but she was sure that if everyone, including Ada, decided not to pay, he could very soon fall into line.

“But will his business be declared bankrupt on the Bourse?” I asked in bewilderment.

“Probably it will!” replied Signora Malfenti, with a sigh, before climbing the last flight.

Guido was in the habit of lying down after lunch, so that we were received by Ada in the little boudoir I knew so well. When she saw me she betrayed a moment’s uneasiness; only a moment, but enough for me to notice and remember, for it was as clear as if she had confessed it to me herself. Then she made an effort to control herself, and offered me her hand with a decided, almost virile movement, which seemed meant to contradict the feminine hesitation that had preceded it.

She said:

“Augusta will have told you how grateful I am to you. I feel too bewildered at the moment to express to you what I really feel. I am ill too. Yes, I am very ill! I ought really to go into the nursing-home again at Bologna.”

A sob interrupted her. Then she went on:

“I want to ask you one favour. Please tell Guido that you find you can’t let him have any money. It will make it much easier for us to persuade him to do what ought to be done.”

She had sobbed before, thinking of her own illness; she sobbed again now, before going on to talk about her husband:

“He is only a child, and must be treated as such. If he knows that you are ready to let him have that money, he will cling all the more obstinately to his idea of throwing away the rest, quite uselessly, for now we know for a certainty that a bankruptcy on the Bourse is not illegal. The solicitor told us so.”

She gave me the opinion of a high financial authority without ever asking for mine. As an old habitué of the Bourse my opinion might have had some weight alongside that of the solicitor, but I quite forgot what my opinion was, even if I had ever had one. It was obvious to me, however, that I was put in an awkward position. I could not back out of the promise I had made Guido; it was in return for that promise that I had thought myself authorised to shout so many insults in his ear, pocketing thereby a sort of interest on the capital which it was thus impossible for me to refuse him.

“Ada!” I said hesitatingly, “I don’t think I can go back on my word like this, from one day to another. Wouldn’t it be better if you tried to persuade Guido to do things as you want them done?”

Signora Malfenti, with the peculiar sympathy she always showed me, said that she understood perfectly well the situation in which I found myself, but that she thought when Guido discovered he could only dispose of a quarter of the money he needed he would be obliged to submit with a good grace to their will.

But Ada had not yet exhausted her supply of tears. With her face hidden in her handkerchief, she said between her sobs:

“You did very, very wrong to make him such an extraordinary offer. Now one sees what a great mistake you made!”

She seemed to me to waver between gratitude and resentment. Then she said she did not want my offer ever to be mentioned again, and begged me not to procure the money for him, for if I did she would not let me give it him, or would forbid Guido to accept it.

I felt so embarrassed that I ended by telling a lie. I told her that I had already procured the money, and pointed to my breast pocket where that very light envelope was lying. Ada looked at me now with an expression of genuine admiration which might have given me pleasure if I had not known how little I deserved it. In any case it was that lie, for which I can give no other explanation than my strange tendency to try and appear to Ada better than I really was, that prevented my waiting for Guido and made me get out of the house as quickly as possible. It might easily have happened that, contrary to all expectation, I should have been asked to hand over the money I said I actually had with me, and what sort of a figure should I have cut then? I explained that I had urgent business at the office, and hurried out of the house.

Ada accompanied me to the door and assured me that she would persuade Guido to come to me himself and thank me for my kindness, refusing at the same time to accept it. She made this statement with so much determination that I was quite startled. I could not help feeling that so definite a resolution was aimed in part also at me. No! at that moment she certainly did not love me. My generosity had been too great. It threatened to overwhelm those whom it was supposed to benefit, and it was no wonder if they rose up and protested. On my way to the office I tried to shake off the unpleasant impression which Ada’s behaviour had made on me, by reminding myself that the sacrifice I proposed to make concerned Guido and no one else. What had Ada to do with it? I promised myself to make Ada see this at the earliest opportunity.

I went to the office simply in order to avoid having another lie on my conscience. A fine rain had been falling since the early morning, which had made the air very chilly; spring was slow in coming. A few steps would have taken me home, whereas to reach the office I had to walk down a much longer street, which in itself was sufficiently annoying. But I thought I had a duty to fulfil.

Guido joined me shortly afterwards. He sent Luciano away, so as to remain alone with me. He had on that agonised air which was such a help to him in his disputes with his wife, and which I knew only too well. He had evidently been crying, and shouting too.

He asked me what I thought about his wife and mother-in-law’s plan which he knew I had already been told of. I was not very ready with my reply. I did not want to tell him my opinion, which was contrary to that of the two women, and at the same time I knew that if I were to agree with them I should only provoke fresh scenes with Guido. I hated to seem to grudge him my assistance, and agreed on the whole with Ada that the decision ought to come from Guido and not from me. I said that we must make some calculations and work things out and hear what other people had to say about it. I was not a good enough business man to be able to pronounce an opinion on such an important matter. To gain time, I asked him if he would like me to consult Olivi.

This was enough to make him scream:

“That idiot! I beg you to leave him out of the question!”

I did not feel in the least inclined to work myself up in defence of Olivi, but my calmness had no effect on Guido. We were in a precisely similar situation to that of the day before, only now it was his turn to scream and mine to be silent. It is a matter of temperament; I felt so very awkward that all my limbs were absolutely paralysed.

But he insisted on my saying exactly what I thought about it. So I began to speak and, by an almost divine inspiration, spoke very well; so well that if he had paid the smallest attention to what I said the subsequent catastrophe would never have happened. I said that I was inclined for the moment to consider the two questions separately, that of the fortnightly and that of the monthly settlement. Not such a very large sum was required for the former and one must induce the two women to consent to that relatively light loss. Then we should still have plenty of time before us to make wise provision for the other settlement.

Guido interrupted me to say:

“Ada told me that you have got the money all ready in your pocket. Have you got it with you now?”

I blushed. But I speedily found another lie which saved me:

“As they would not accept the money when I was at your house, I deposited it at the bank. But we can draw it out again as soon as we like; early to-morrow morning, if necessary.”

He reproached me for having changed my mind. And only the day before I had declared that everything could be put in order at once, and that there was no need to wait for the second settlement! Here he was overtaken by a violent fit of rage and finally sank helpless on to the sofa. He would chuck Nilini out of the office, and all those other brokers who had encouraged him to speculate. Oh! when he had begun speculating he had foreseen, of course, that he might be ruined, but not that he would come under the thumb of women who understood nothing, less than nothing about it!

I went up and shook him by the hand. If he had let me, I would have embraced him. All that I had ever wanted was that he should make up his mind, as he had done now, to give up gambling and settle down to regular work. Then our future would be secure, and he would regain his independence. He would have a short, difficult time to go through first, but after that everything would be quite simple and straightforward.

He left me soon afterwards still depressed, but calmer. Weak though he was, he seemed to have come to a definite decision.

“I am going back to Ada,” he murmured, with a bitter but confident smile.

I accompanied him to the door, and would have gone all the way home with him, but his carriage was waiting for him outside.

Nemesis seemed to pursue Guido. Half an hour after he had left me I thought it would be wise if I were to go to his house and see if there was anything I could do for him. Not that I thought he was in any particular danger, but I was now entirely on his side, and might have helped to persuade Ada and Signora Malfenti to help him. A bankruptcy on the Bourse was not at all to my taste, and all things considered, though his losses were by no means insignificant even if divided between four of us, they were not enough to ruin any of us.

Then I reflected that my chief duty at the moment was not so much to assist Guido by my presence as to have ready the sum I had promised him for the following day. I at once went in search of Olivi, and prepared myself for a fresh struggle. I had thought out a system of paying back the large sum to my firm, over a period of several years, though I should be obliged during the next few months to spend whatever remained over of the money I had inherited from my mother. I hoped Olivi would not make any difficulties, for up to that time I had never asked for anything but my share of the profits and the interest due to me, and I could undertake not to worry him again with similar requests. It was clear that I might hope to recover from Guido at least a part of the sum.

I was unable to find Olivi that evening. He had only just left the office when I got there. They thought he had probably gone to the Bourse. But I could not find him there, so went on to his house, where I heard that he was at a meeting of the Economic Association, in which he occupied an honorary post. I might have gone on to look for him there, but by now it was getting late, and the rain was falling heavily and uninterruptedly, turning the roads into streams of water.

The deluge continued all night, and was remembered for many years as a record. The rain went on falling steadily, without a moment’s cessation; pouring, pouring down in sheets. The mud was washed down from the hills which surround the city on all sides, and combined with the refuse of the streets to block up the few canals. I decided at last to go home, after waiting vainly under shelter for the rain to stop, and finally making up my mind that it was useless to hope for a change in the weather; but even where the pavement was highest I had to wade through water. I hurried home as fast as I could, soaked to the skin and cursing the weather. I was cursing partly at having spent all that long time in hunting for Olivi. I can well believe that my time is not so very precious, but I know I suffer horribly when I have to waste it in some useless occupation. As I hurried along, I thought to myself: “I will leave everything till to-morrow, when it will have cleared and be fine and dry again. To-morrow I will go to Olivi, to-morrow I will go and see Guido. I will get up as early as you please, if only the weather is dry and fine.” I was so convinced of the reasonableness of this view that I told Augusta we had all agreed to wait till the next day before making any decision. I changed into dry clothes and nice, warm, comfortable slippers, and after supper went early to bed and slept soundly and dreamlessly till morning, while the heavy rain whipped the window panes without ceasing.

So that it was getting late before I heard what had happened during the night. First we were told that the rain had caused floods in various parts of the town, and then that Guido was dead.

It was not till much later in the day that I heard what had really happened. At about eleven o’clock, when Signora Malfenti had left them, Guido told his wife that he had swallowed an enormous quantity of veronal. He tried to convince her that all was over with him. He kissed her again and again, and implored her to forgive him for having made her suffer. Then, before his speech became incoherent and almost inaudible, he assured her that she had been the only love of his life. She did not believe this assurance, any more than she believed he had really taken enough veronal to kill him. Nor did she believe he had really become unconscious; she imagined he was only pretending, so as to get more money out of her.

But after an hour, when she saw him sink deeper and deeper into sleep, a kind of terror seized her, and she wrote a note to a doctor who lived not far from their house. In the note she said that her husband was in need of immediate help, as he had swallowed a large quantity of veronal.

Up to then there had been nothing to warn the servant that anything was wrong; she was an old woman who had only been with them a short time, and she had no idea of the nature of her mission.

The rain was responsible for the rest. The servant was almost up to her knees in water, and lost the note. She only discovered this when she was actually shown in to the doctor. But she succeeded in persuading him that it was urgent, and induced him to go back with her.

Dr. Mali was a man of about fifty-five, not the least clever, but a practical doctor who had always done his duty as well as he could. His regular practice was not very large, but he had a great deal of work to do for a Society which had a very large membership, and for which his fees were very small indeed. He had not been home long, and had just succeeded in drying and warming himself by the fire. One can imagine how reluctant he was to tear himself away from his warm, snug corner. When I was trying to unravel the causes of my poor friend’s death I made a point of getting to know Dr. Mali. All I could gather from him was this: that when he got outside the door and felt the rain soaking him actually through his umbrella, he repented having studied medicine instead of agriculture, for the peasant, he said to himself, stops at home when it rains.

When he reached Guido’s bedside, he found Ada much relieved. Now that she had the doctor there it was easier for her to remember what a trick Guido had played on her a few months ago, when he pretended to commit suicide. She was able now to shift all responsibility on to the doctor, to whom she gave a full account of what had happened, and of the reasons which led her to think this might also be a false alarm. The doctor took it all in with one ear, and listened with the other to the torrents of rain pouring down the street. As he had not been warned that it was a case of poisoning, he had brought with him none of the instruments necessary for treating the case. He stammered a few words of excuse which Ada could not hear. The worst of it was that he could not send anyone else to fetch the stomach pump he needed; he would have had to wade twice through that flood himself. He felt Guido’s pulse and found it excellent. He asked Ada whether Guido was accustomed always to sleep very soundly. She said yes, but not as soundly as that. The doctor then examined Guido’s eyes; they at once re-acted to the light. He finally left, after having recommended her to give him a spoonful of very strong coffee from time to time.

I heard also that when he had got down to the street and was setting off home again, he muttered furiously:

“It ought to be illegal to pretend one has committed suicide in weather like this!”

When I heard all this from the doctor I did not dare to reproach him openly for his carelessness; but he guessed what I was thinking, and began defending himself. He said he was so astonished when he heard next morning that Guido was dead, that he thought at first he must have come to, and taken another dose of veronal. It was impossible, he said, for a layman to realise how used the doctor becomes to protecting himself against his patients, who are continually making attempts on his life, in their selfish insistence on saving their own.

After about an hour, Ada got tired of trying to force the spoonful of coffee between Guido’s teeth, and noticing that he absorbed less and less of it, and that most of it went on to the pillow, she took fright again and begged the servant to go for Dr. Paoli. This time the servant managed not to lose the note. But she took more than an hour getting to the doctor’s house. When it is raining like that one naturally feels one must stop from time to time and take shelter under a porch. Rain like that does not only soak, it positively scourges one.

Dr. Paoli was not at home. He had been called out by a patient a little while before, and had gone off saying he hoped to be back before long. But it looked as if he had chosen to wait at the patient’s house for the rain to stop. His housekeeper, who was a kind elderly person, insisted on Ada’s servant sitting down by the fire and getting thoroughly warm. The doctor had not left his patient’s address, so the two women spent several hours sitting by the fire together. The doctor did not come back till the rain had stopped, and day was breaking when he at last got to Ada, armed with the necessary instruments. But only one task remained for him now; to hide from Ada that Guido was already dead, and to get Signora Malfenti to come, without Ada realising it, so that she might help her in her first access of grief.

And so it happened that the news reached us rather late and without many details.

As I got out of bed, anger surged up in me for the last time against poor Guido: how he complicated every misfortune by playing the fool like that! I left the house alone, for Augusta could not leave the baby to its own devices. When I got outside, I hesitated for a moment. Hadn’t I better wait till the bank opened and Olivi would be in his office, so as to be able to appear before Guido armed with the money I had promised? So little did I believe really that things were as bad with Guido as they were reported to be.

I heard the full truth from Dr. Paoli, whom I met as I went upstairs. I was so startled that I almost fell down the stairs backwards. Ever since we had spent so much of our time together Guido had been a very important person to me. So long as he was alive I saw him in a peculiar light, and in that light part of my days was passed. When he died the light was suddenly refracted as though it had passed through a prism. It was that which dazzled me so much at first. He had had many faults, but I saw at once that now he was dead nothing remained of them. In my opinion the wit who, in a cemetery full of laudatory epitaphs, asked where the sinners were buried, was a fool. The dead never have been sinners. Guido was pure now. Death had purified him.

The doctor was deeply moved by Ada’s sorrow. He told me something of the horrible night she had lived through. They had succeeded at last in making her believe that the amount of poison which Guido had swallowed must have been fatal; that nothing could have saved him. She must on no account discover the real truth.

“The truth is,” said the doctor, shaking his dead, “that if I had arrived a few hours sooner I could have saved him. I found the bottles still full of poison.”

I examined them. It was certainly a strong dose, but not much stronger than the first time. He showed me several little bottles, all labelled: “Veronal.” Not veronal and sodium then. I could appreciate the significance of this better than anyone. I knew now that Guido had not intended to kill himself. But I have never said a word to anyone.

Paoli left soon after, warning me not to try and see Ada for the moment. He had prescribed a strong sleeping-draught and did not doubt that it would soon take effect.

As I stood in the passage I heard a subdued lamentation coming from the little room where Ada had twice received me. From time to time I heard a few unintelligible, grief-stricken words. The word “he” was repeated several times, and I tried to picture what she might be saying. She was trying to set up a new relationship between herself and the dead man. It would have to be very different from the one she had had with the living. It was clear to me that she had sinned against her husband while he was alive. He had died for a sin which they had all committed, for he had gambled on the Bourse with the approval of them all. It was only when it came to paying up that they had left him alone. And he had made haste to pay. I had had nothing to do with it, yet I alone of all his relations had felt it was my duty to help him.

Poor Guido was lying all alone in their bedroom, covered by the sheet. The rigor mortis was already far advanced. There was no sense of strength in that rigidity, only an immense surprise at being dead without having wished to die. His dark, handsome face seemed to wear a reproachful expression; but the reproach could not be intended for me.

I went back to Augusta, to urge her to go and be with her sister. I was deeply moved and Augusta burst into tears and embraced me.

“You have been a brother to him,” she murmured. “I quite agree with you now, and am ready to sacrifice part of our fortune to keep his memory pure.”

I took pains that every honour should be paid to my poor friend. First of all I put up a notice on the office door, announcing that the office was closed on account of the death of the chief. I myself composed the obituary notice. The arrangements for the funeral were not made till the following day, and Ada herself took part in them. Then I was told that she had decided to follow his coffin to the grave. She wanted to give him every possible proof of her affection. Poor thing! I knew only too well what terrible pangs of remorse one may suffer beside a grave. I had suffered enough myself at the death of my father.

I spent the afternoon shut up in the office with Nilini. We were engaged in drawing up a provisional balance-sheet. The situation was really terrible! Not only was the entire capital of the firm lost, but Guido owed as much again, if his debts were to be paid in full.

I ought to have put all my energies into working for my poor dead friend, but I found I could do nothing but dream. My first thought had been to give up my whole life to working in that office for the sake of Ada and her children. But should I really be able to carry it through?

Nilini, as usual, went on chattering, while I was looking far ahead into the future. He too felt the need now of a fundamental change in his relations with Guido. He understood it all now! When he treated him so unfairly poor Guido was already stricken by the disease which was to lead him to commit suicide. Everything was forgiven and forgotten!

“I am made like that,” he said. “I can’t bear ill will against anyone. I was always fond of Guido, and I still am.”

Nilini’s dreams ended by mingling with mine and imposing themselves upon me. There was no hope of repairing a catastrophe like this by slow business methods; the only hope was in fresh speculations on the Bourse. Nilini went on to tell me about a friend of his who had saved himself at the very last moment by doubling his stakes.

We spent several hours in conversation, but Nilini’s proposal to carry on Guido’s gamble was made shortly before midday, and I at once agreed to it. My joy in accepting it was almost as great as if I had succeeded in bringing my friend to life again. I ended by buying, in poor Guido’s name, a number of new shares with such odd titles as Rio Tinto, Southern French, etc.

This was the beginning of forty-eight hours of the hardest work I have ever done in my life. I stayed at the office till evening, pacing up and down with great strides, waiting to hear if my orders had been carried out. I was afraid the news of Guido’s suicide might already have reached the Bourse, and that they might refuse to do any more business in his name. But, as it turned out, they did not put his death down to suicide till several days later.

When Nilini finally told me that all my orders had been carried out there began for me a time of terrible anxiety, increased by the fact that at the very moment of receiving the purchase papers I was told that I had already lost quite a lot on what I had bought. When I look back on it, the very anxiety I felt produces on me the impression of actual work. I have the curious sensation of having sat for forty-eight hours on end at the gaming-table trying to exercise a magnetic influence on the cards. I noted every fluctuation in the prices, I brooded over it and, if I must tell the truth, willed it up or down according as it best suited me, or rather my poor friend. I got no sleep at all.

Fearing lest some member of the family might step in and interfere with the work of salvation I had taken upon myself, I spoke to no one about the fortnightly settlement, when it came. I paid it all myself, for everyone else had forgotten about it, busy as they were in preparing the corpse for burial. As a matter of fact I had less to pay than had been supposed in Guido’s lifetime. The tide had suddenly begun to turn in my favour. My grief at Guido’s death had been so great that I thought I might mitigate it somewhat by taking every possible risk both with the money of my firm and my own personal money. I was sustained by that vision of benevolence which had inspired me long ago at Guido’s side. But I suffered so intensely from the state of agitation I lived in at this time, that I have never again gambled on my own account.

In consequence of poring over the money market, my only occupation during those few days, I was actually not present at Guido’s funeral. This was how it happened. The shares we were interested in took an upward leap that very day. Nilini and I spent all our time in working out how much of our losses we had won back. Old Speier’s fortune was now only reduced by half, a magnificent result which filled me with pride! Exactly what Nilini had predicted had now taken place. It was true that his original prophecy had been made in a very doubtful tone, but now this naturally vanished and he repeated it with the utmost confidence. I remembered that he had foreseen what actually happened, but also the exact opposite, so that it was impossible for him to be in the wrong; but I did not say so to him, for it was essential to me that he should work at the business with the whole energy of his ambition. I hoped that his will might influence the prices too.

We left the office at three, and set off at a run, for we had just remembered that the funeral was to take place at a quarter past three.

When we got to the top of the Volti di Chiozza, I saw the procession in the distance, and even thought I recognised a carriage which a friend had put at Ada’s disposal for the funeral. Nilini and I leapt into a cab and told the driver to follow in the procession. We went on talking about our speculations all the way. Our thoughts were so far from our dead friend that we even complained because the carriage went so slow. Who knows what might be happening on the Bourse, now that we were no longer there to keep an eye on it? Suddenly Nilini looked me straight in the face, an unusual thing for him, and asked me why I did not gamble at all on my own account. I blushed, I don’t quite know why.

“For the moment,” I said, “I am only working for my friend.”

Then, after pausing a moment, I added:

“I will think of myself later.” I wanted to encourage him in the hope that he might be able to induce me to gamble, simply because I was bent on keeping him friendly for the moment. But meanwhile I was saying to myself what I did not dare say to him: “I will never put myself in your hands!” He went on with his sermon:

“Who knows if you will ever have such an opportunity again,” he said. He forgot that he himself had taught me there were fresh opportunities on the Bourse every hour.

When we reached the place where the carriages generally stop, Nilini put his head out of the window and gave a cry of surprise. Our cab was still following the procession, which seemed to be going on to the Greek cemetery.

“Was Guido a Greek Catholic?” he asked in surprise. And the procession was, in fact, passing the Catholic cemetery and proceeding towards one of the others, Jewish, Greek, Protestant or Serbian.

“Can he have been a Protestant?” I wondered. But I at once remembered having gone to his marriage in the Catholic church.

“It must be a mistake!” I exclaimed, thinking for a moment that they were going to bury Guido in the wrong place.

Nilini suddenly burst out laughing, and laughed so unrestrainedly that he fell back helpless on the back of the seat, with his huge mouth wide open, seeming to fill the whole of his little face.

“We have made a mistake,” he said. When he at last succeeded in bridling his mirth, he overwhelmed me with reproaches. I ought to have noticed where we were going. Surely I must have known what time it was to be, and might have been expected to recognise the people. It was someone else’s funeral!

I was in a great state of irritation. I had not shared his mirth, and found his reproaches hard to bear. Why hadn’t he kept a better look-out himself? I suppressed my vexation simply because the Bourse was of more importance to me than the funeral. We got out of the carriage to see where we were, and made our way towards the entrance into the Catholic cemetery. Our carriage followed us. I noticed that the survivors of the other dead person looked at us with surprise, unable to explain to themselves why, after having accompanied him so far, we abandoned him at the very last moment.

Nilini went on ahead impatiently. He said to the porter, after a moment’s hesitation:

“Has Signor Guido Speier’s funeral procession arrived yet?”

The porter did not seem surprised by the question, though I thought it rather comic. He replied that he could not say. He only knew there had been two funerals in the cemetery during the last half-hour.

We took counsel together in our perplexity. There was evidently no means of discovering whether the funeral was already inside the cemetery or not. Then I made up my mind. It was obviously impossible for me to burst into the middle of the service which perhaps had already begun, and interrupt it. So I decided I would not enter the cemetery at all. On the other hand I could not risk meeting the procession on my way back. So I gave up all thought of taking part in the burial and decided to go back to the town, making a long detour beyond Servola. I left the carriage to Nilini, who wanted at least to put in an appearance, because he knew Ada.

I walked fast so as to avoid meeting anyone, and joined the country road leading to the village. I no longer minded having made a mistake about the funeral, and not having paid the final honours to poor Guido. I had no time to waste in religious practices. I had another duty to perform: I must save the honour of my friend and defend his inheritance for the sake of his widow and children. When I told Ada that I had succeeded in retrieving three-quarters of his losses (I ran through the whole account again in my mind: Guido had lost his father’s fortune twice over and now, after my intervention, that fortune was only reduced by half; so I really had recovered three-quarters of his losses), she would certainly forgive me for not being present at his funeral.

The weather had become glorious again. The air was soft and delicious, and the country-side, still wet from the recent rain, was bathed in brilliant sunshine. After being confined to the office for so many days, my lungs expanded and I found it delightful to exercise my limbs. I was full of health and strength. Health is all a matter of comparison. I compared myself with poor Guido, and rose victorious from the same battle in which he lay vanquished. Everything around me seemed to breathe out health and energy. Everywhere the young, green grass was springing; the catastrophic floods of a few days ago had sunk into the frozen earth, which now drank rapturously the sunrays it had waited for so long. Yet if that blue sky were to remain long without a cloud, it too would become hateful. It is only now as I write that I make this observation drawn from everyday experience; it did not strike me then. At that moment my soul was filled with joy: joy in my own well-being and in the perennial well-being of nature.

I quickened my steps. I rejoiced to feel myself so light and free. As I came down the hill into Servola I almost broke into a run. When I reached the promenade of Sant’ Andrea I slackened my pace again, but I still had a marvellous sense of ease. The air seemed to bear me along.

I had completely forgotten that I was coming from the funeral of my dearest friend. My whole being breathed victory. But my elation was a homage to my poor friend’s memory; it was for his sake that I had entered the lists.

I went to the office to look at the closing prices. They were a little slacker, but not enough to damp my assurance. I was determined to go on speculating, and did not doubt of attaining my end.

I was compelled at last to go to Ada’s house. Augusta came to open the door to me. She said at once:

“Whatever can have possessed you not to come to the funeral? and you, the only man in the family!”

I put down my hat and umbrella, and said, in some perplexity, that I should like to speak to Ada and her together, so as not to have to repeat myself. But meanwhile I could assure her that I had a very good reason for missing the funeral. I no longer felt quite so confident as before, and suddenly my side began to pain me again, perhaps because I was tired. It must have been that Augusta’s remark made me doubt the possibility of explaining my absence, which was naturally regarded as scandalous; in my mind’s eye I could see before me all who had taken part in that gloomy function distracted for a moment from their grief by the speculation as to where I could possibly be.

Ada never came. I heard later that she had not even been told I was waiting to see her. I was received by Signora Malfenti, who began speaking to me in a severe tone such as I had never known her to use before. I muttered some excuses, but I was very far from feeling as sure of myself as I had been during my rapid flight from the cemetery to the town. I stammered as I began to tell her a few half truths about what I had been doing in my attempt to rehabilitate Guido, and said that quite a short while before the hour of the funeral I had been obliged to wire some instructions to Paris, and had not felt I could leave the office till I received an answer. It was true that Nilini and I had been obliged to telegraph to Paris, but it had been two days ago, and we had also received the reply two days ago. But I realised that the truth was not a sufficient excuse, perhaps because it was impossible for me to tell it all, or to talk about what I regarded as my most important operation: my attempt to influence the world Exchanges by will-power. But Signora Malfenti forgave me when she heard the amount by which I had already reduced Guido’s losses. She thanked me with tears in her eyes. I again became not only the one man of the family, but the best one. She asked me to come with Augusta in the evening to see Ada. She would meanwhile tell her all about it. For the moment she was not in a condition to receive anyone. I went off only too gladly with my wife. She did not feel it necessary either, to say good-bye to Ada before leaving. The poor creature alternated between desperate floods of tears and such prostration that she was even unaware who was in the room.

A faint hope remained to me:

“So it was not Ada, then, who noticed my absence?”

Augusta confessed that she would rather have said nothing about it, for Ada’s anger at my failure to be at the funeral had passed all bounds. She had insisted on an explanation, and when Augusta was obliged to say she knew nothing about it, not having seen me herself, she gave way again to her despair, crying out that of course one must expect Guido to be treated like that when he was dead, because all the family hated him.

I did think Augusta might have spoken up for me, and reminded Ada that I was the only person who had offered to help Guido in the way he wanted. If they had listened to me he would have had no need to commit suicide, or even to pretend to.

But Augusta had said nothing. She had been so much moved by Ada’s despair that she feared it might seem an outrage to her grief to enter on a discussion. But she was sure that Signora Malfenti’s explanations would convince Ada how unjust she had been to me. I must say I thought so too, and looked forward in perfect confidence to witnessing her surprise and expressions of gratitude. Everything about her was excessive on account of Basedow’s disease.

I went back to the office, where I learned that there was again a slight upward movement, very slight as yet, but enough to warrant the hope that the shares would be up next day as high as they had been that morning.

After dinner I was obliged to go and see Ada alone; Augusta could not come with me because the baby was ill. Signora Malfenti received me, and said she was obliged to attend to something in the kitchen and must therefore leave me alone with Ada. She added that Ada had begged to be left alone with me, because she had something to say to me which no one else must hear. She led me into the little boudoir where I had twice before seen Ada alone, and before taking leave of me said laughing:

“You know she is not quite ready to forgive you yet for not being at Guido’s funeral, but—almost!”

My heart always beat faster in that little room. But this time it was not for fear of finding myself loved by someone I did not love. During the last few moments, and solely in consequence of what Signora Malfenti had said, I was conscious of having committed a serious breach of friendship towards poor Guido. I sat down and began studying the portraits of Guido’s parents. The old Señor wore a satisfied air which I felt he owed entirely to my intervention, while Guido’s mother, a thin woman in a dress with full sleeves, and a huge hat balanced precariously on mountains of hair, was very severe-looking. But then everyone puts on an unnatural face in front of the camera, and I looked away, feeling almost ashamed of myself for trying to read their character in those faces. The mother could certainly never have foreseen that I should not have attended her son’s funeral.

But the way in which Ada spoke to me came as an unpleasant surprise. She must have spent some time in preparing what she wanted to say, and she paid not the smallest heed to my explanations, protests or corrections, which she could not have foreseen. She galloped along like a frightened horse to the bitter end.

She was dressed very simply in a black boudoir gown. Her hair was in great disorder, as if she were continually running her fingers through it, in a kind of desperate need to find something for them to do. She came up to the table at which I was sitting, and rested her hands on it so as to see me better. Her face was quite thin again and had shed once more that uncanny fullness which grew all in the wrong place. She was no longer beautiful, as she had been when Guido won her for himself, but no one looking at her would have remembered her illness. There was no trace of that now, only a great sorrow which entirely transformed her. I could understand her immense grief so well that I was unable to speak. All the time I was looking at her I kept wondering what words I could think of to say to her, which should be equivalent to taking her in my arms and comforting her as a brother: then perhaps she might weep and ease her over-burdened heart. When she began to attack me I wanted to defend myself, but I did it too feebly, and she did not hear.