A BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP (continued 4)

She went on talking, talking, talking: I cannot remember all she said. Unless I am mistaken she began by thanking me gravely but quite coldly for all I had done for her and her children. Then she suddenly began to reproach me:

“And yet you drove him to his death for something which was not worth the trouble!”

She lowered her voice as if she wanted to keep secret what she was saying to me, and there was more warmth in her tone of voice, due no doubt to her love for Guido, and perhaps also—or did I merely fancy it?—for me:

“I forgive you for not having come to his funeral. You were unable to do so, and I forgive you. He would have forgiven you too if he were alive. What good would you have done beside his grave? You, who never loved him! Kind as you are, you might have shed tears for me, you might have wept to see my tears, but you would have shed none for him. You hated him! Poor Zeno! My poor brother!”

It was monstrous that she should say a thing like that, which was such a parody of the truth. I protested, but she would not listen to me. I believe I must have screamed; anyway I had the sensation of doing so, in my throat:

“But it is all a mistake, a lie, a calumny. How can you possibly believe such a thing?”

She went on, still in a low voice:

“But I did not really love him either. I was never unfaithful to him, even in thought, but I felt for him so little that I had not even the strength to protect him. I watched your relationship with your wife, and I envied you both. I thought what you gave her was better than what he offered me. I am grateful to you for not having come to the funeral, for otherwise I might not even yet have understood anything. But now I see it all; I understand it all. No, I did not love him either; if I had, how could I have hated even his violin, which was the most perfect expression of his great soul?”

When she said this I rested my head on my hands and hid my face. The charges she brought against me were so unjust that it was impossible to discuss them; and their unreasonableness was so mitigated by the gentle, almost affectionate tone of her voice that I had not the heart to refute them sternly, as I must have done if I was to issue victorious from this duel. And then Augusta had set me an example of consideration, by keeping silence in the presence of such bitter grief. But when I closed my eyes I saw in the darkness that her words had created a new world, like all words which are not true. I seemed to see myself as having always hated Guido, as having stood by his side ever on the watch for an opportunity to strike him down. And then she had spoken of Guido and his violin together. If I had not known that she was almost beside herself from grief and remorse, I might have thought she had set up his violin as a part of Guido, in order to bring home to me my hatred of him.

Then in the darkness I saw again Guido’s dead body, still wearing that expression of astonishment on his face at finding himself lying there lifeless. I raised my head in horror. It was better to face Ada’s accusations, unjust as they were, than to go on looking into the dark.

But she still continued talking about Guido and me:

“Poor Zeno, you went on living with him without realising that you hated him. It was impossible! It had to end like this! There was a time when I was foolish enough to think I might use the love I knew you felt for me, to build up a defence for him who so much needed it. But he could only have been protected by someone who loved him and, between ourselves, he was loved by no one.”

“What more could I have done for him?” I asked. Hot tears fell from my eyes, to persuade her of my innocence, and to persuade myself. Tears sometimes take the place of loud argument. I was not even sure if I ought to speak at all; still less could I cry out and dispute loudly with her. But I had somehow to crush her assertions—so I wept.

“You might have saved him, dear brother. Between us we ought to have saved him, you and I. But I, though I was at his side, could not save him because I did not really love him; and you were never there; you were absent, always absent till he was actually in his grave. Then you appeared armed with a great love for him. Till then you gave no thought to him at all. Yet he was with you up to that last evening. And you might have guessed, if you had paid any attention to him at all, that something serious was going to happen.”

Tears prevented me from speaking, but I stammered out something to the effect that the night before he had spent amusing himself out shooting in the marshes, so that no one could possibly have foreseen in what way he would spend the following night.

“He had to have shooting, he had to have it!” She rebuked me in a loud voice. Then, as if all her strength had been spent in the effort of that one cry, she suddenly collapsed and fell in a faint on the floor.

For an instant I remember that I hesitated to summon Signora Malfenti. I thought her fainting might reveal the meaning of what she had been saying to me. The next moment I called for help.

Signora Malfenti and Alberta came hurrying in. Her mother bent over her, and said to me as she lifted her up:

“Has she been talking to you about those hateful speculations?” Then: “This is the second time she has fainted to-day.”

She asked me to go away for a moment, and I went out into the passage and waited there till I heard whether I was to go in again or go away. I prepared myself for further explanations with Ada. She was forgetting that if only they had done what I had suggested, the catastrophe would never have happened. It ought to be enough to remind her of this, in order to convince her of the wrong she was doing me.

Soon after Signora Malfenti joined me, and said that Ada had recovered and would like to say good-bye to me. She was lying on the sofa, where I had been sitting up to a few minutes ago. When she saw me she began to cry, and those were the first tears I saw her shed. She held out her hand to me, damp with perspiration, and said:

“Good-bye, Zeno dear! Please remember! I want you always to remember! Don’t ever forget!”

Signora Malfenti broke in to ask what it was I was always to remember, and I told her that Ada was anxious for an immediate settlement of Guido’s affairs on the Bourse. I blushed as I uttered this lie, and was afraid lest Ada might contradict me. But instead of that she burst out:

“Yes! yes! everything must be settled at once! I don’t ever want to hear that horrible place spoken of again!”

She had become very pale again, and to quiet her Signora Malfenti said that everything should be done at once as she wanted.

Then Signora Malfenti accompanied me to the door and begged me not to be over-hasty. I was to do whatever I thought best in Guido’s interests. But I answered that I had lost confidence in myself. The risks were enormous, and I could no longer venture to play with other people’s money in that way. I didn’t really believe in gambling on the Bourse, and I no longer believed in my power to influence the rise or fall of stocks. So I should make an immediate settlement, and be thankful that things had gone as well as they had.

I did not repeat to Augusta what Ada had said. Why should I distress her? But just because I told them to no one, those words continued to beat on my ears like a drum, and went on echoing for many years. Even to-day I often find myself brooding over them. I can hardly say that I loved Guido, but only because he was such a strange man. And I stood by him as if he had been my brother, and helped him in every way I could. No, I don’t deserve Ada’s reproof.

I was never alone with her again. She did not feel the need to say anything more to me, and I never demanded an explanation, perhaps because I did not want to intensify her grief.

On the Bourse things turned out as I had foreseen, and Guido’s father, after hearing in one cable that he had lost the whole of his fortune, was naturally pleased to find that half of it still remained intact. Unfortunately I did not get the pleasure I expected from my handiwork.

Ada behaved affectionately to me up to the time when she set off to Buenos Aires with her children to join her husband’s family. She always liked to see Augusta and me. I sometimes tried to believe that her speech had been due to a sudden mad outburst of grief and that she did not even remember it. But once when she talked of Guido before us she repeated and confirmed in two words everything she had said that day:

“No one loved him, poor darling!”

Just as she went on board the boat, she kissed me. (She was carrying one of the children who was not very well.) Then, at a moment when no one was by, she said to me:

“Good-bye, Zeno, my brother. I shall always remember that I did not love him enough. I want you to know this. I leave my country gladly, for I feel as if I were leaving my pangs of conscience behind.”

I reproached her for tormenting herself like that, saying she had been a good wife, and that I knew all about it and could bear witness to it. I don’t know if I succeeded in convincing her. She said no more, her sobs overcame her. But long afterwards it seemed to me that in taking leave of me like that she had wanted to renew her attack on me. But I know that she judged me unfairly. I certainly have no need to reproach myself with not having loved Guido.

It was a gloomy, miserable day. One innocent-looking cloud seemed to be spreading over and darkening the whole sky. A great cargo boat, with its sails hanging inert from the masts, was being rowed out of the harbour. Only two men were at the oars, and row as they might they scarcely succeeded in stirring the great ship. Perhaps out at sea they would find a slight breeze to help them.

From the deck of her steamer Ada waved good-bye to us with her handkerchief. Then she turned away. Her last look must be for Saint Anna where Guido was buried. Her slender little figure took on a fresh grace as she was carried away from us. The tears blinded my eyes. She was leaving us for ever. Never again should I be able to prove to her that I was innocent.