A BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP

It was Guido who wanted me to join him in his new commercial undertaking. I was dying to do so, but I never allowed him to guess how much I wanted it. It was natural that having nothing to do, the idea of working with a friend should have been sympathetic to me. But there was something besides. I had not yet given up hopes of becoming a good man of business, and I thought I should learn more by teaching Guido than by taking lessons from Olivi. Many people can only learn by listening to themselves, or at least cannot learn anything by listening to others.

I had other reasons for wishing to ally myself to Guido. I wanted to be of use to him. In the first place I was very fond of him, and although he made a show of being strong and sure of himself, he seemed to me a weak creature who was in need of the protection I was so anxious to give. Further, I sincerely felt, not only on Augusta’s account but on my own, that the closer my relationship to Guido, the more evident would appear my absolute indifference to Ada.

I was only waiting for a word from Guido in order to put myself entirely at his disposal, and if he did not call upon me sooner it was because he assumed I had a distaste for business, as I always refused to have anything to do with it in my own family.

One day he said to me:

“I have been all through the Higher School of Commerce, but I still don’t find it so very easy to arrange properly all the details necessary in order to guarantee the sound running of a business. Of course no business man need really know anything, for if he wants his goods weighed he has only to get a weighing-machine, if he wants to go to law he consults a solicitor, if he wants to know how his accounts stand he calls in an accountant. But it seems hard to have to hand over one’s accounts straight away to a stranger.”

It was the first open allusion to his proposal that I should join him; to tell the truth my experience of accounts was confined to the few months during which I had kept Olivi’s register, but, on the other hand, I was certainly the only accountant who was not a stranger to Guido.

Our first frank discussion of the possibility of going into business together was when I went with him to choose the furniture for his office. He ordered two writing-desks for the manager’s room. I asked him, blushing, why he had ordered two? and he replied:

“The second one is for you.”

I felt so grateful to him that I could almost have hugged him.

After we had left the shop Guido, with a touch of embarrassment, explained to me that he was hardly in a position yet to offer me a post in his business. He had ordered a desk to be put in his room for me in the hope that I might come and keep him company sometimes if I felt so inclined. He didn’t want to bind me to anything, and he must be free too. If his business went well he intended to ask me to become a partner in it.

When he talked about his business Guido’s handsome face became very serious. He appeared to have already thought out all the transactions he proposed to engage in. He took a long view, right over my head, and I was so much impressed by his seriousness of purpose that I came to see things with his eyes, the financial operations, that is to say, which were to make his fortune. He was content neither to walk in the path so successfully trodden by our father-in-law, nor in the humble path of “safety first” pursued by Olivi. According to him they were quite out of date in their methods. One must strike out quite a new path, and he wanted me to be connected with him because he thought the old men had not had time to ruin me yet.

I quite agreed with him. I felt I had scored my first commercial success, and I again blushed with pleasure. It was really out of gratitude for his good opinion of me that I went on working for him for two years with varying degrees of energy, and with no other reward than the glory of a desk in the manager’s room. This was the longest time I had ever spent up to now at the same occupation. But I cannot boast of it, because all my energy produced no results either for Guido or me, and in business, as everyone knows, you can only judge by results.

I preserved my faith in the undertaking for about three months, just time enough for getting it started. I knew it would devolve on me to arrange such details as the correspondence and the accounts, as well as keeping an eye on the business generally. But Guido kept a great ascendancy over me; in fact so much so that I was nearly ruined by him, and was only saved by my lucky star. He had only to beckon, for me to rush to him at once. I still wonder at it even now, after having had time to think it over for the greater part of my life.

I have decided to write about those two years, because my devotion to him seems to me a clear symptom of disease. What reason had I for attaching myself to him in order to learn big business, and then for remaining attached to him in order to teach him the details? What reason had I for being so satisfied with my position just because I thought my great friendship for Guido showed that I did not care about Ada? Who obliged me to do this? Was not our mutual indifference sufficiently demonstrated by the existence of the children we both produced so regularly? I did not dislike Guido, but he was certainly not the friend I should have chosen. I saw his faults so plainly that I was irritated by his way of thinking, even when I was not put off by some act of weakness on his part. I sacrificed my freedom to him for years and allowed him to place me in the most odious position, simply in order that I might help him. It was either a real manifestation of disease or of great benevolence, both of which qualities are closely related to each other.

This remained true, even though with time we developed a strong affection, as often happens between people who see each other every day. My feeling for him was very strong indeed. When he disappeared I went on missing him for a very long time: in fact my whole life seemed empty, so great a part of it having been usurped by him and his affairs.

I can’t help smiling when I remember what a muddle we made of our first transaction, the buying of furniture. We had saddled ourselves with the furniture, but could not make up our minds where to have the office. There was a difference of opinion between Guido and me about the choice of an office, which considerably retarded our getting one. In the case of my father-in-law and Olivi, I had seen how important it was to have your warehouse near to the office if you were to keep it under proper supervision. Guido protested with a sort of disgust:

“Those offices down in the town stink of fish and skins!”

He asserted that it would be quite easy for him to keep control of the warehouse from a distance, but meanwhile he delayed about taking one. One fine day the firm from which he had bought the furniture informed him that if he did not fetch it away it would be thrown into the street, whereupon he dashed off to take an office—the best that had been offered him—with no warehouse near it, and in the very middle of the town. And so it came about that we never had a warehouse at all.

The office consisted of two very large, well-lit rooms and a small room without windows. A notice was pinned on the door of the uninhabitable room with “Accountant’s Office” inscribed on it in large letters. One of the other doors bore the inscription “Counting-house,” and the third rejoiced in the very English appellation of “Private.” Guido had studied business in England too and had brought back several useful ideas. The “Counting-house” had of course a magnificent iron safe and the customary grid. Our room, marked “Private,” was a luxurious apartment upholstered in brown velvet and furnished with two desks, a divan and several very comfortable arm-chairs.

Next came the purchase of books and various smaller articles of furniture. In this department my position as director was undisputed. I had only to give an order and the things arrived. I would really have preferred a rather less implicit obedience, but it was my job to decide exactly what was necessary in an office. It was then that I began to discover the fundamental difference between Guido and myself. All the knowledge I had acquired was used by me for talking, and by him for action. When he had acquired all the information I could give him he would buy. It is true that he sometimes decided to sit still and do nothing at all—neither buy nor sell—but even this impressed me as the act of someone who is very sure of himself. I should have been much more troubled by doubts, even if it had been a question of doing nothing.

I was very cautious about the purchases I made. I hurried off to Olivi to take the measurements of the duplicating-machine and account-books. Young Olivi showed me how to open the accounts and explained to me about book-keeping with double entries, all of which is easy enough to learn, but rather difficult to remember. When the weighing-machine arrived he promised he would explain this to me as well.

We were not yet very clear as to what we were going to do in the office (for I now know that Guido was equally ignorant) and we had great discussions about the proper conduct of the business. I remember we spent several days in discussing where we should put the other employees and whether we really needed them at all. Guido proposed putting as many as possible in the room labelled “Counting-house.” But Luciano, the office-boy, who was for the moment our only employee, said that only those who were actually connected with the Counting-house ought to be in that room. It was hard to reconcile ourselves to taking lessons from the office-boy! I had an inspiration: “I seem to remember that in England they pay everything by cheque.”

I had been told so by someone in Trieste.

“Bravo,” said Guido. “I remember it too now. It is odd that I should have forgotten!”

We began explaining to Luciano in great detail that it was no longer the custom to use coins in dealing either in large or in small sums of money. People are accustomed to doing all their business by cheque, whatever the amount may be. Our victory was complete, and Luciano was silenced.

He was to learn a great deal from Guido. Our office-boy has now become a highly respected man of business in Trieste, but he still greets me with a deferential smile. Guido spent a part of each day in teaching Luciano, then me, and finally the lady member of the staff. I remember that for some time past he had entertained the idea of doing business on commission, so as not to risk his own money. He explained the essentials of that sort of business to me, and as I grasped it too readily he proceeded to explain it to Luciano, who would listen to him as long as he liked with the keenest attention, his great eyes lighting up his boyish face. No one could say that Guido wasted his time with him, for Luciano is the only one amongst us who has made a success in that kind of business. And yet they say that science always wins!

Meanwhile the pesos began arriving from Buenos Aires. That was a serious matter. At first I thought it would be quite simple, but the Trieste market was not accustomed to that exotic coinage. We had to call in young Olivi again who showed us how to get our money changed into the native currency. But at a certain point Olivi thought he had taught us enough, and left us to our own devices; and Guido remained several days with his pockets bulging with kronen, till at last we found our way to a bank and were able to exchange our uneasy burden for a cheque-book which we soon learned to make use of.

Guido felt it his duty to point out to Olivi that in helping him he was running the risk of being cut out by him.

“But I promise I will never compete against my young friend’s firm,” he added.

The young business-man, who had quite a different conception of trade, replied:

“My God! I should be only too thankful if there were more people dealing in our particular goods. We should be much better off.”

Guido listened open-mouthed, at once grasped the idea with his usual facility and proceeded to propound it to anyone he could get to listen to him.

In spite of the Higher School of Commerce, Guido had no very definite idea of credit and debit. When I opened our capital account and entered our expenses, he watched the proceedings with the utmost astonishment. Later on he became so versed in book-keeping that the first thing he did when any business proposition was put before him, was to analyse it from a book-keeper’s point of view. It really looked as if a knowledge of book-keeping had made him see the world in quite a new light. He saw debtors and creditors everywhere, even when two people were only fighting or kissing each other.

On his first entry into business he used the utmost caution. He turned down many business propositions, and continued to do so for six months, with the calm air of one who knows better.

“No!” he would say; and the monosyllable always appeared to be the result of careful calculation, even though he had never set eyes on the goods in question. All his meditations were directed towards discovering exactly how a certain transaction would figure in the accounts, whether successful or unsuccessful. As book-keeping was the last thing he had learnt it filled his whole horizon and coloured all he saw.

I am sorry to have to speak so ill of my poor friend, but I must tell of things as they were, if only to understand myself better. I remember the intellectual effort that went into lumbering up our poor little office with a mass of worthless stuff which entirely prevented any proper work being done. Once when we were about to start business on commission we sent out by post about a thousand circulars. Guido argued as follows:

“What a lot of stamps we should save if we could know beforehand how many people will take any notice of them!”

The remark was in itself quite harmless, but Guido was much too pleased with it, and began throwing the sealed circulars up into the air, and would only send those which fell with the address uppermost. This experiment reminded me of something rather like it which I had done in the past, but I don’t remember having carried it to such a pitch. I naturally did not pick up or post the ones he rejected for I could not be sure that he had not really had an inspiration, and in that case it would be wrong to waste stamps which he was obliged to pay for.

It was my good fortune not to be ruined by Guido, and the same good fortune prevented my taking too active a part in his affairs. I proclaim it aloud here, because there are some in Trieste who do not believe it; during the whole time I was with him I never intervened with any inspiration, such as that of the dried raisins. I never urged him either to go in for anything in particular, or to avoid it. I was only there to admonish him to further activity and prudence. I would never have ventured to speculate with his money.

All the time I was with him I did nothing at all. I tried to put him on the right path, and perhaps I should have succeeded if I had been a little less passive. But when two people are working together it does not rest with them to decide who is to be Don Quixote and who Sancho Panza. He did all the work, and I, like a good Sancho, followed him at a leisurely pace in my account-books, after first submitting everything to a searching criticism.

Our sales on commission ended in complete failure, but without any loss to us. The only firm who sent us any goods was a stationer in Vienna, and part of what he sent was sold by Luciano, who gradually got to know how much commission we expected and managed to persuade Guido to give most of it to him. Guido finally agreed, because it was only a small amount and because the first stroke of business we had done was sure to bring us good luck. We stored the remainder of our stock of stationery and office requisites of all kinds, which we were obliged to keep and pay for, in the lumber-room. We had enough to keep a much more flourishing firm than ours supplied for a number of years.

Our bright little office in the heart of the city provided us with a delightful retreat for several years. Very little work was done there (only two business deals, I think, in empty packing-cases which we sold the same day that we acquired them, making a small profit), but there was a great deal of conversation in which Luciano joined; he got as excited talking about business as other lads of his age do about women.

At this time I found it pleasant enough to wile away the time with those two innocents, because I had not yet lost Carla. I remember every hour of those days with pleasure. When I got home in the evening I had a lot to tell Augusta, and I had no need to hide from her any single thing that went on in the office, nor to falsify it in any way.

I was not the least worried when Augusta anxiously exclaimed:

“But when are you going to begin to make money?” We had not begun thinking about that yet. We knew that the first thing we had to do was to lie low and observe; to take stock of the goods, the market and all the background of business. You couldn’t improvise a business house on the spur of the moment. Even Augusta’s mind was set at rest by my explanations.

Soon a very noisy inmate was introduced into the office, a sporting-dog only a few months old, a lively and absorbing companion. Guido was devoted to him and ordered a daily supply of milk and meat. When I had nothing else to do or think about I used to love watching him too, dashing about the office with those four or five doggish gestures which are so endearing because we know just what they mean. But I could not help feeling that a dog who made so much noise and brought in so much dirt was out of place in the office. It was the presence of the dog which first made me feel that Guido was not really worthy to conduct a house of business. It proved conclusively that he was entirely lacking in seriousness. I tried to explain to him that the dog could not in any way promote our business, but I had not the courage to insist on his being sent away, and Guido always had some answer ready which silenced me for the moment.

So then I thought it was my duty to devote myself to training our new colleague, and I took great pleasure in giving him a kick or two when Guido was not there. The dog howled, and at first came back to me, thinking I must have kicked him by mistake. But a second kick explained matters, and then he would go and lie down in the corner, and till Guido arrived we had peace in the office. I was sorry afterwards to think I had wreaked my vengeance on an innocent dog, but it was too late. I loaded him with attentions, but he no longer trusted me and showed clear signs of his dislike in Guido’s presence. Guido said:

“It’s very odd! It is lucky I know you, or I should feel rather suspicious of you. Dogs don’t often make a mistake in the people they dislike.”

To dispel Guido’s doubts I was on the point of telling him how I had succeeded in making myself disliked by the dog.

It was not long before I fell out with Guido about something which really ought not to have upset me so very much. The result of his passionate interest in book-keeping was that he took it into his head to put down his private expenses with those of the office. After talking it over with Olivi I made a fuss about it, and tried to look after the interests of the old señor. It was really unheard of to put down to his account everything that Guido and Ada spent, not to mention the twins. Those were all expenses which ought to have been borne by Guido personally, not by the firm. As a compromise I suggested writing to Buenos Aires to ask Guido’s father to pay him a salary. The father however refused, saying that Guido was already receiving seventy-five per cent. of the profits, while he only got the remaining twenty-five. It seemed to me a reasonable enough reply, but Guido at once began writing long letters to his father, discussing the matter from a loftier point of view, as he said. Buenos Aires was a very long way off, so that the correspondence went on all the time our firm was in existence. But I won my point. Our general expenses account remained intact, and was not encroached on by Guido’s private expenses, so that when our business collapsed, the whole undiminished capital went with it.

The fifth person to be introduced into our office (including Argo) was Carmen. I was present when she took up her duties with us. I had come to the office after having been to see Carla, and I was in a very serene state of mind, the sort of eight-o’clock-in-the-morning serenity which Talleyrand speaks of. I saw a young woman standing in the dark passage, and Luciano told me she wanted to speak to Guido. I had something I wanted to do so I asked her to wait outside. Guido came in soon afterwards, evidently without having seen the young woman, and Luciano gave him the letter of introduction which she had brought with her. Guido read it. Then he said sharply:

“No!” at the same time taking off his waistcoat, because of the heat. After a moment’s hesitation he added:

“I suppose I had better just find out who sent her.”

He had her in, and I saw her for the first time just as Guido had snatched up his waistcoat and was putting it on, with his handsome dark face and shining eyes turned towards the girl.

I am quite certain I have seen other girls just as pretty as Carmen, but none whose beauty made so startling an appeal at the first glance. It is generally desire which makes women beautiful, but this girl stood in no need of an initial phase of that sort. I could not help smiling—even laughing—as I looked at her. She seemed to me like a shopkeeper travelling about the world to proclaim the excellence of his wares. She was applying for a post, but I felt inclined to interpose with the question: “What sort of a post? In the bedchamber?”

I saw that her face was not made up, but her colouring was so perfect, so like the bloom of a ripe fruit, that nature in her seemed to have rivalled art. Her great brown eyes refracted so much light that every movement she made with them seemed significant.

Guido made her sit down, and she kept her eyes fixed modestly on the point of her sunshade or more probably on the toes of her patent-leather shoes. When he spoke to her she raised her eyes quickly and gave him such a brilliant glance that my poor chief was quite overwhelmed. She was modestly dressed, but her modesty served no purpose, for it was completely contradicted by her body. Her shoes were the only luxurious thing about her and reminded one of the snow-white paper which Velasquez used to place under the feet of his models. In order to make Carmen stand out from her surroundings, Velasquez would probably have given her a black lacquer background.

I listened curiously to their conversation in an impersonal, calm frame of mind. Guido asked her if she knew shorthand. She admitted she did not, but said she had had a great deal of practice in writing to dictation. It was odd that such a tall graceful creature, whose movements were so harmonious, should have such a hoarse voice. I could not conceal my surprise.

“Have you a cold?” I asked.

“No!” she replied. “Why do you ask?”

She was so astonished at my question that the look she gave me was more than usually searching. She had no idea that her voice did not ring true, and I was obliged to conclude that her ear was not so perfect as it looked.

Guido asked if she knew English, French and German. He gave her a choice of languages, as we did not yet know ourselves which one we should have most need of. Carmen replied that she knew a little German, but only very little.

Guido never made any decision without reasoning it out. He remarked:

“We don’t need German, for I know it so well myself.”

The young woman still sat waiting for the final word (which I thought had been said already), and to hasten it remarked that she was taking a new situation partly because she was anxious to get experience, and that therefore she would be satisfied with quite a small salary.

One of the first effects of feminine beauty on a man is that it removes his avarice. Guido shrugged his shoulders as much as to say that he took no interest in such insignificant details, offered her a salary which she gratefully accepted, and gravely advised her to study shorthand. He gave her this advice entirely for my benefit, as he had rather committed himself by saying beforehand that the first member of the staff he engaged would be someone who had a perfect knowledge of shorthand.

That evening I told my wife about our new colleague. She was very much annoyed. Without my saying anything to suggest it she at once assumed that Guido had taken the girl into his employ in order to make her his mistress. I talked it over with her, and though I was obliged to admit that Guido did behave a little as if he were in love with her, I maintained that he would probably get over his infatuation without its having any serious consequences. The girl, I said, seemed quite respectable.

A few days later—I don’t know whether it was a mere chance—Ada paid us a call at the office. Guido had not yet arrived and she stayed with me a minute, asking me at what time I expected him. Then, with a hesitating step she went into the next room, where there were at the moment only Carmen and Luciano. Carmen was busy at the typewriter, picking out the letters one by one with great deliberation. She lifted her beautiful eyes to look at Ada who was gazing at her fixedly. How different the two women were! Carmen was, in a way, not unlike Ada, but a caricature of her. I could not help feeling that though she was more expensively dressed Ada was cut out for the part of wife and mother, while Carmen, though she was wearing an apron at the moment, so as not to dirty her dress with the typewriter, was obviously meant to be someone’s mistress. I don’t know whether there is anyone in the world clever enough to explain to me why Ada’s beautiful eye seemed to absorb less light than Carmen’s, which made it appear a real organ of observation, whereas the chief function of Carmen’s was to dazzle. She bore Ada’s disdainful but curious glance with perfect equanimity; I fancied there was a touch of envy in it, but I may have put that there myself.

This was the last time I saw Ada looking beautiful, as I had known her when I proposed to her and was refused. Soon after came her disastrous pregnancy, and the surgeon had to be called in to assist at the birth of the twins. This was followed almost immediately by the illness which robbed her of every vestige of beauty. That is probably why I remember this visit so well. But I also remember it because at the moment my whole sympathy was enlisted on the side of the woman whose gentle, unobtrusive beauty made so little show beside the brilliance of the other. I was not the least in love with Carmen; I only knew her magnificent eyes and splendid colouring, her hoarse voice and the circumstances under which she had become part of our staff, for which she could not be held responsible. On the other hand I really loved Ada at that moment; and it is a strange feeling to love a woman whom one has desired passionately but never possessed, and who now means nothing to one. On the whole the situation is the same as it would have been if the woman had yielded, and it is interesting as proving once more how little importance we ought to attach to certain things which for the time being fill our whole horizon.

I wanted to cut short the painful moment, and led her into the other room. Guido, who came in shortly afterwards, grew very red when he saw his wife. Ada gave some very plausible reason for her coming, but just as she was going she said:

“Have you got a new employee in the office now?”

“Yes!” replied Guido, and to hide his confusion he asked whether anyone had called on him while he was out. On hearing there had been no one he gave a snort of disgust as if he had been expecting an important visitor, though I knew we expected absolutely no one. It was only then that he said to Ada, with an air of assumed indifference:

“We needed a stenographer.”

I was extremely amused to hear him use the masculine form of the word, thus making a blunder even as to the sex of the person he needed.

Carmen’s coming gave great animation to the office. I don’t mean the animation of her eyes, her charming figure and lovely complexion; I am thinking only of business. Her mere presence gave Guido an impulse to work. In the first place he was anxious to show me and everyone else that the new member of the staff was essential to him, and every day he would invent something fresh to be done, in which he also took a share. For a long time he employed all his energy in coaching Carmen, and in this he reached an incredible degree of efficiency. He had to teach her exactly how to take down the letters he dictated, and to correct the spelling of innumerable words. He was always very patient with her; nothing the girl could do in return would have been too much.

Very little of the business invented by him when he was in love bore any fruit. On one occasion he spent a lot of time arranging for the sale of an article which proved after all impossible for us to trade in. At a certain point in our undertaking we had to face a man who was overcome with fury because we were unwittingly trespassing on his preserves. He wanted to know by what right we were interfering with that article at all, and jumped to the conclusion that we were representatives of powerful competitors abroad. The first time we saw him he was beside himself, fearing the worst. When he discovered how inexperienced we were, he laughed in our face and assured us that we should never have done any good at it. He proved to be right, but it was a long time before we could bring ourselves to accept the unfavourable verdict, and not till a great many letters had been written by Carmen. We found that the article in question was quite inaccessible, owing to the number of tariffs by which it was surrounded. I did not mention the affair to Augusta, but she spoke to me about it because Guido had told Ada, to prove to her what a lot there was for a stenographer to do. But the business we did not do was none the less important to Guido. He talked about it daily; he was convinced that such a thing could not have happened in any other town in the world. Our whole commercial life was wrecked, and any enterprising business man was strangled by it, as we now knew by experience.

In the mad, chaotic sequence of affairs which passed through our hands at that time, there was one which really did burn our fingers. It was not of our seeking either; it simply threw itself at us. We got involved in it through a certain Dalmatian called Tacich, whose father had worked in the Argentine under Guido’s. He came to see us first in order to get some business tips, with which we were able to supply him.

Tacich was a handsome youth, almost too handsome in fact. He was tall and powerfully built, with an olive complexion which blended marvellously with the exquisite dark blue of his eyes, his long eyelashes and short thick moustache with gold lights in it. He was such a perfect study in colour that he seemed to me born to be Carmen’s lover. He evidently thought so too, and came to see us every day. There were hours of conversation daily in the office, but it was never boring. The two men were both striving to win Carmen and, like all animals when they are in love, displayed their best qualities. Guido was rather handicapped by the fact that the Dalmatian came to his house too and knew Ada; but it was just that which did him most harm in Carmen’s eyes, as I, who knew those eyes so well, at once realised. Tacich however only made the discovery much later, and to have an excuse for seeing her bought several truck-loads of soap from us instead of from the manufacturer, for which he had to pay quite a lot more. Our going into that disastrous affair at all was one of the consequences of his being in love.

His father had noticed that sulphate of copper rose in price at certain seasons of the year and fell at others. So he decided as a speculation to buy about sixty tons of it in England at the most favourable moment. We discussed the affair at great length, and put the matter in hand by getting into touch with an English firm. The son had a telegram from his father telling him that he thought the right moment had come, and saying at what price he would be prepared to deal. Tacich, who was madly in love, rushed round to the office and entrusted the affair to us, receiving for his reward a long, caressing glance from Carmen. The poor Dalmatian gratefully treasured the glance, not knowing it was a manifestation of love for Guido.

I remember with what quiet confidence Guido took the business in hand, and it really did not seem as if it could present any difficulties, because in England goods could be transmitted for transport direct to Trieste and made over at once to our buyer, without having ever been touched. Guido decided exactly what his profit was to be, and fixed with my assistance the point to which our English friend could safely go in making the purchase. With the help of a dictionary we managed to send off a wire in English. Directly it had gone Guido rubbed his hands and began counting up how many kronen would rain into our funds as the reward of so short and slight an effort. To propitiate the gods he allotted me a small bonus; and the same to Carmen, with a slight touch of malice, perhaps, for having collaborated with her beaux yeux. We both wanted to refuse, but he begged us at least to pretend to accept. He said he was afraid of our putting the evil eye on him, and to please him I at once gave in. I knew, as a mathematical certainty, that nothing but good wishes could come from me, but I recognised that he might think otherwise. In this world we generally like the people we don’t actually hate, but reserve our really fervent wishes for an undertaking in which we have a personal interest.

Every detail of the business was arranged, and I remember Guido even calculating how many months he would be able to maintain his family and the office on what he would get from it; his two families he sometimes called them, or, when he was very bored at home, his two offices. It was perhaps because we had thought it all out too much beforehand that the business was a failure. A brief cable came from London with the one word “Booked” and a note of that day’s price of sulphate, a much higher one than we had got from our buyer. Farewell to any profit! We told Tacich about it and he left Trieste soon afterwards.

Just about this time I stayed away from the office for quite a month, and that was how it happened that a letter sent to the firm failed to pass through my hands. It looked inoffensive enough but was to have disastrous consequences for Guido. In it the English house confirmed their telegram and went on to say they would consider our order to hold good unless we revoked it. Guido forgot all about revoking it and when I came back to the office the transaction had quite gone out of my mind. One evening a few months later Guido brought a telegram to my house which he could not understand and thought must have been sent to us by mistake, though it clearly bore the telegraphic address of which I had notified the authorities directly we were installed in our office. The telegram consisted of only three words:

Sixty tons settled.

I understood it at once, which was not very difficult as the sulphate of copper was the only important transaction we had entered on. I said it was clear from the wire that the price we had fixed for carrying out our order had been reached, and that now we were the fortunate owners of sixty tons of sulphate.

Guido protested:

“But how can they imagine I should consent to their carrying out my order so long afterwards?”

It at once occurred to me that the letter confirming the telegram must be somewhere at the office, though Guido could not remember anything about it. In a great state of agitation he suggested hurrying off at once to the office to see if it were there; which suited me very well, as I was not at all anxious to continue the discussion before Augusta, who had no idea that I had not been to the office for a month.

We went to the office together. Guido was so upset at the thought of being forced into the first important piece of business we had done, that he would have set off for London on the spot if he could by that means have backed out of it. We opened the office door, and felt our way in the darkness till we reached our room and lit the gas. The letter was found almost immediately, and it was conceived in exactly the terms I had expected; it informed us that the order which we had never revoked had been executed.

Guido stood staring at the letter and frowning, either with rage or because he hoped, by a supreme effort of will, to destroy at a glance the fact recorded by those few simple words.

“Only to think,” he said, “that two or three words were all that was needed to save us from such a loss!”

He was not reproaching me, for I had been absent from the office, and had never even seen the letter up to that moment, though I now knew exactly where it could be found. But the better to clear myself of all responsibility in the matter I said to him rather severely:

“You might at least have read all the letters carefully while I was away!”

Guido’s face cleared. He shrugged his shoulders and muttered:

“It may still turn out to be a stroke of good luck.”

Soon after we parted, and I went back home. But Tacich was right; in due course sulphate of copper began to go down lower and lower every day, and we had plenty of opportunity for studying the phenomenon, since we could not go back on our order and could not get rid of the sulphate at the price we had to pay for it. Our losses became heavier and heavier. The first day Guido asked my advice, and I contented myself with reminding him of Tacich’s conviction that the fall in sulphate would continue for over five months. Guido laughed and said:

“It will be the last straw if I am to get someone from the provinces to run my business for me!”

I tried to make him take a different view by telling him that Tacich had for many years now spent all his time in a little town in Dalmatia watching the fluctuations in copper. I cannot therefore feel any responsibility for Guido’s losses over the business. If only he had listened to me he would have been spared them.

Later on we discussed the affair again with an agent, a short, fat little man, very much on the spot, who while blaming us for making such a purchase, said that he could but share Tacich’s opinion. According to him, sulphate of copper while forming a market of its own, was affected by the price of metal in general. This interview gave Guido a certain amount of confidence. He begged the agent to keep him informed of any fluctuation in the price; he preferred to wait, he said, in order to sell not only without any loss, but with a small profit. The agent laughed a little, and in the course of conversation said something which seemed to me very true, and which I made a note of.

“It is curious how few people in the world can reconcile themselves to small losses, whereas they have no difficulty whatsoever in reconciling themselves to big ones.”

Guido was unconvinced. I could not help admiring him, however, because he never told the agent how he had come to make such a purchase. I said so to him and he was pleased. He said he would have been afraid of bringing us and our goods into disrepute if he had told the whole story.

For some time after this we said no more about sulphate, till one day a letter came from London inviting payment, and asking us to give instructions about sending the goods. The mere thought of receiving and storing sixty tons made Guido’s brain whirl. We tried to reckon how much it would cost to store something like that for several months. The sum was enormous! I said nothing; but the broker, who would have been quite glad to see the merchandise arrive in Trieste, because sooner or later the task of selling it would devolve on him, pointed out to Guido that what seemed such a huge sum was really not so very much when expressed in terms of percentage on the value of the goods.

This remark seemed odd to Guido and made him laugh.

“I haven’t only got a hundred kilos of sulphate,” he said, “I’ve sixty tons, worse luck!”

He might have ended by accepting the agent’s calculation—evidently quite a just one, seeing that if the price rose only a little the costs would have been more than covered—had he not at that moment had a sudden inspiration. Whenever a business idea came to him quite of itself he became completely obsessed by it, and had no room in his head for any other consideration. This was his idea: the goods had been sold to him prepaid to Trieste, so the cost of transport was being borne by the sender. If therefore he were to sell the goods back to the seller, he ought to receive a much better price than he had been offered in Trieste, because the original seller would thereby save the cost of carriage.

What he said was not strictly accurate, but to humour him no one questioned it. Once he had settled the business a somewhat bitter smile spread over his face; he looked quite the philosophic pessimist as he said:

“Don’t let us talk any more about it. The lesson cost us rather dear, but let us turn it to account now.”

However we did talk about it again. He had lost his former splendid assurance in refusing business that offered, and when at the end of the year I called his attention to the amount of money we had lost, he muttered:

“It was the cursed sulphate of copper which ruined me! I was continually feeling that I must make good that loss.”

My absence from the office had been caused by Carla having deserted me. I could not stay there and see Carmen and Guido making love to each other. They were always exchanging glances and smiling, in front of me. I took my resolution whilst shutting up the office, and went haughtily away without saying a word about it to anyone. I was always expecting Guido to ask me why I had deserted him in this way, and intended to tell him what I thought about him. I could be very strict with him since he knew nothing about my expeditions to the Giardino Pubblico.

It was really a form of jealousy on my part, because I looked on Carmen as Guido’s Carla, a gentler and more submissive one. He had had better luck than me with his second woman, as with his first. But perhaps (and it was this which furnished me with a fresh grudge against him) he owed his good fortune to certain qualities of his which I envied, though I continued to think them inferior; his ease in playing the violin corresponded to the assurance and detachment with which he went through life. I realised now that I had sacrificed Carla to Augusta. When I went back over the two happy years Carla had given me I could not understand how it was that she—constituted as I now knew her to be—could have put up with me for so long. Hadn’t I insulted her daily by my love for Augusta? Guido, as I knew very well, would never be distracted in his love for Carmen by any thought of Ada. His hospitable mind could easily entertain two women at the same time. Compared to him I really felt myself to be an angel of innocence. I had married Augusta without being in love with her, yet it was impossible for me to betray her without a pang. Perhaps he too had married Ada without loving her; but though Ada meant nothing to me now, I remembered the love she had inspired in me, and I could not help feeling that if I had been in his place I should have behaved with much more consideration.

It was not Guido who came to look for me, but I who returned to the office on my own account, to try and escape from my terrible feeling of emptiness. He behaved according to the terms of our agreement, which put me under no obligation to take a regular part in his affairs; and when he ran into me casually at home or elsewhere he showed the same friendliness he had always shown (for which I felt grateful to him), and seemed to have forgotten that my place at the desk he had bought specially for me was left empty. When we were together I was the only one who felt any embarrassment. When I went back to my post he received me as if I had only been away for a day, expressed his delight at seeing me again, and exclaimed on hearing that I proposed resuming my work:

“It’s a good thing, then, that I didn’t let anyone touch your books!”

And indeed I found the register and my newspaper exactly where I had left them.

Luciano said to me:

“I hope we shall get going again now that you have come back. I think Signor Guido was discouraged by two things he tried which did not succeed. Don’t tell him that I said anything to you about it, but see if you can’t put a little heart into him.”

I very soon realised that next to no work was being done in the office, and till the moment when our losses on the sulphate of copper became a terrible reality we led a positively idyllic life there. I soon perceived that Guido no longer felt the need of supervising Carmen at her work, and therefore concluded that the period of courtship was over and she had become his mistress.

Carmen’s reception surprised me, for she at once felt obliged to remind me of something which I had completely forgotten. It appeared that before leaving the office, and during the days I ran after so many women because I could not have the one I wanted, I had assaulted Carmen too. She spoke of it to me, very severely and with some embarrassment; she said she was glad to see me again because I was fond of Guido and because she thought my advice might be useful to him, and she would like us, if I consented, to be real friends, brother and sister in fact. While she was saying this or something like it, she held out her hand with a friendly gesture. There was a severe expression on her lovely, gentle face, as if to emphasise the innocence of the relationship she was offering me.

It was only then that I remembered what had happened, and blushed. Perhaps if I had remembered sooner I should never have gone back to the office at all. It had been just an affair of a moment, among so many others of the same sort, and if I had not been reminded of it now it would have been as if it had never existed. A few days after Carla had thrown me over I had been going through the books and asked Carmen to help me; at one point I had put my arm round her waist, so as to be able to look at the same page, and had drawn her closer and closer to me. In one bound Carmen had sprung away from me, whereupon I immediately left the office.

I might have excused myself by smiling and inducing her to smile too, for women are so prone to smile at misdeeds of that sort. I might have said to her:

“I have failed in what I tried to do, and I am sorry for it, but I don’t bear you any ill-will, and will be your friend if you won’t let me be anything more.”

Or I might have assumed the rôle of a serious person, and apologised to her and Guido somewhat as follows:

“You must forgive me, and not judge me till you know the circumstances which have led me to behave like this.”

But words failed me. Resentment seemed to have dried up my throat, and I could not speak. All these women who persisted in refusing me threw a sort of tragic hue over my life. I felt I had never been so unfortunate before. Instead of replying I felt more inclined to grind my teeth, a rather uncomfortable process if you are obliged to hide it. Perhaps it was disappointment at seeing a hope I had unconsciously cherished taken from me for ever, which deprived me of speech. I may as well confess that I could imagine no one who would better fill than Carmen the place of the mistress I had lost; my unexacting Carla, who only asked to be allowed to live quietly at my side, till the day when she asked never to see me again. A mistress shared is the least compromising one can have. At that time I had not thought things out so clearly as I have since, but I had certain intuitions which I now know to be true. If I were to become Carmen’s lover I should be doing a good turn to Ada, without doing much harm to Augusta. The infidelity in either case would have been much less great than if Guido and I had each had a mistress to ourselves.

I gave Carmen my answer several days later, and to this moment I still blush to think of it. The anguish of mind into which Carla’s desertion had thrown me must still have subsisted for me to arrive at such a point. I feel more remorse about it than about any other action of my life. The foolish words which escape us sometimes react more violently than the most discreditable deeds due to a passionate impulse. Of course I mean by words only those which are not really deeds; I know very well that Iago’s words, for example, belong to the latter kind. But deeds, including the words spoken by Iago, are committed for the sake of some hoped-for profit or pleasure, and then our whole being, even that part of us which ought to rise in judgment, joins in and bears witness in our favour. But a foolish tongue acts independently, in the interests of a small part of our being which otherwise would feel itself to be defeated, and continues to simulate fight when the fight is already over. Words are spoken with intention to wound or caress, and often they turn against the mouth which utters them and burn it.

I noticed she had lost the lovely complexion which had won her such speedy admission to our office. I would not admit that it could be bodily suffering which had caused the change in her appearance, and I attributed it to her love for Guido. We men are commonly much inclined to pity women who give themselves to other men. We never can see what advantage they hope to get from it. We may perhaps even love the man in question—as in my own case—but we never even then succeed in forgetting what is the usual end to such love-adventures. I felt genuine compassion for Carmen. I said to her:

“Since you have been so kind as to invite me to be your friend, would you allow me to give you some good advice?”

She would not, because like all women in a similar situation she was inclined to look on all advice as an act of aggression. She blushed and stammered:

“I don’t understand! What do you mean?” and in order to impose silence on me added immediately afterwards:

“If I should need any advice I will certainly come to you, Signor Cosini.”

So I was not allowed to give her moral advice, which was a misfortune for me. Had I done so, I should certainly have been able to be more honest with myself, even though I might have tried to embrace her again. And I should not now be blaming myself for having assumed the lying rôle of mentor.

For several days each week Guido failed to put in an appearance at the office, because of his passion for shooting and fishing. I, on the contrary, was very regular for some time after my return, and found plenty to do putting the books in order. I spent a good deal of time alone with Carmen and Luciano, who looked on me as their chief. Carmen did not seem to mind Guido being absent, and I supposed her love for him to be so great that she was glad to think of him enjoying himself. He must have told her beforehand the days he was not coming, for she showed no sign of waiting anxiously for his arrival. I knew from Augusta that it was quite a different matter with Ada, who complained bitterly of her husband’s frequent absences. Nor was this her only grievance. Like all women who feel themselves to be unloved she put the same energy into her complaints about big or small grievances. Not only was Guido unfaithful to her, but when he was at home he was always playing the violin. That violin, which had caused me so much suffering, was a kind of Achilles’ spear in the variety of its adaptations. I discovered that it had appeared in our office, where it had assisted at the courting of Carmen with exquisite variations on the “Barbiere.” And when it was no longer needed at the office it returned home, where it saved Guido from the tiresome necessity of talking to his wife.

There was never anything between Carmen and me. I very soon felt completely indifferent to her, as though she had changed her sex; rather the same as I felt for Ada. Yes, it is quite true, I felt nothing but warm sympathy for them both.

Guido overwhelmed me with attentions. I fancy that during the month I left him alone he had learnt to appreciate my company. A girl like Carmen may be a charming diversion from time to time, but one cannot stand her for days on end. He invited me to go shooting and fishing with him. I detest shooting, and resolutely refused to accompany him. But one evening, when I was feeling particularly bored, I finally agreed to go out fishing with him. Fish have no means of communicating with us and cannot arouse our sympathy. They pant even when they are safe and sound in the water! In fact death hardly alters their appearance. Their pain, if it exists, is perfectly concealed under their scales.

One day when he invited me to go out fishing the same night, I said I must wait and see whether Augusta could spare me that evening, and whether she would mind me staying out so late. He told me he was going to start off at nine o’clock from the Sartorio quay, so I said I would be there by then if I could manage to get away. I thought he would probably not expect to see me again that evening, as I had so often before made a similar appointment and failed to keep it.

But as it happened I was driven from the house that night by baby Antonia’s screams. The more her mother kissed and caressed her the more she howled. Then I tried my plan of shouting insults into her ear. The only result however was to change the rhythm of her screams, for the little monkey began to howl with terror instead. I was about to try a more energetic method of restraint, but Augusta reminded me just in time of Guido’s invitation, and accompanied me to the door, promising to go to bed without me if it was very late before I got back. In her anxiety to get me out of the house she even promised to take her coffee alone next morning, supposing I were to stay out all night. There is only one small difference of opinion between Augusta and me: what is the proper way of treating troublesome children. I always feel that a baby’s sufferings are less important than ours, and that it is worth while making it suffer if by that means a grown-up person can be saved a great deal of annoyance; she however takes the view that having brought children into the world we have got to put up with them.

I had plenty of time to reach our rendezvous and strolled in a leisurely way through the town, looking at the women and at the same time trying to think of a new plaything which should eliminate all difference of opinion between Augusta and me. But humanity was not sufficiently evolved to accept my new plaything! It belonged to the distant future and was only useful to me now as showing me on what a detail my disputes with Augusta depended: the lack of a simple toy. It could have been very simple; an indoor tramline and a little seat provided with wheels to run on the line. On this little seat the child would spend its day; by pressing an electric button it would be sent screaming to the farthest end of the house, whence its voice, weakened by distance, would float back quite pleasantly. And Augusta and I could have remained together in peace and perfect amity.

It was a starry night without a moon, one of those transparent nights which calm and tranquillise the spirit. I gazed at the stars, seeking the constellation on which my father’s dying look had rested. The awful time would soon be over when children dirty themselves and scream. Then they would become like me, and I should be able to like them without constraint, as it was my duty to do. The vast and tranquil beauty of the night brought me peace; I did not even feel the need of making resolutions.

At the end of the Sartorio mole the lights of the town were cut off by a ruined building, set on the last rocks of the promontory which jut out into the sea. The darkness here was complete, and the high tide lapped its silent endless waters dimly against the mole.

I had stopped looking at the sea or the sky. A few steps away from me was a woman who aroused my curiosity by the patent leather shoe which I saw gleaming for a moment in the darkness. During that brief moment in the dark, I felt as if I were shut into a room alone with that tall and doubtless elegant woman. The most pleasant adventures sometimes happen when one least expects them, and seeing her come deliberately towards me I had for a moment a delightful sensation which disappeared directly I heard Carmen’s hoarse voice. She pretended to be pleased when she heard I was to be of the party. But with a voice like hers, and in the dark, pretence was impossible.

I said roughly to her:

“Guido asked me to come. But I will leave you two alone if you like, and find something else to do.”

She protested, saying that she was on the contrary very glad to see me again—for the third time that day. She told me the entire office was about to assemble in that small boat, for Luciano was coming too. It would be a terrible thing for our business if we were to founder! She told me of course that Luciano was coming too, in order to show me what an innocent rendezvous it was. Then she chattered ceaselessly, telling me amongst other things that this was the first time she had been out with Guido, and then that it was the second. She let slip casually that she found it quite pleasant to sit on the bottom-board, and I expressed surprise at her using such a nautical expression. She was obliged to confess that she had heard Guido use it the first time she had gone fishing with him.

She was evidently anxious to let me know how innocent their first outing had been.

“We went fishing that time in the morning,” she said. “We were fishing for mackerel, not John Dory.”

It was a pity I had no time to let her chatter a little more, because then I might have found out all I wanted to know; but at that moment Guido’s boat shot out from the darkness of the Sacchetta and came swiftly toward us. I was still debating whether, as Carmen was there, I had not better go away. Perhaps Guido had not meant to invite us both together, for I remembered I had half refused his invitation. Meanwhile the boat pulled in and Carmen leaped lightly into it, refusing, dark as it was, the hand which Luciano held out for her support. As I still hesitated Guido shouted out:

“Don’t let us waste any more time!”

With one bound I was in the boat. My bound was almost involuntary, and made in response to Guido’s cry. I looked longingly at the shore, but that moment’s hesitation made it impossible for me to spring out again, and I seated myself in the prow of the boat which was a fairly small one. When I got used to the darkness I saw Guido facing me in the stern, with Carmen at his feet. Luciano, who was rowing, was between us. I did not feel very safe or very comfortable in that small boat, but I soon got used to it and began watching the stars, which again had a calming influence on me. It was true that with Luciano present, who was a devoted servant of our wives’ family, Guido would never have risked being unfaithful to Ada, so that there was no harm in my being there too. I had a great longing to enjoy to the full the sky, the sea and that vast quietness, but if my being there was to cause me remorse, I might as well have stayed at home and let myself be tormented by little Antonia. The fresh night air filled my lungs, and I was conscious of enjoying myself thoroughly in the company of Guido and Carmen, both of whom I really liked very much.

We passed the lighthouse and came out into the open sea. A few miles farther out shone the lights of innumerable sailing-boats; the bait they threw for the fishes was very different from ours. We passed the military baths—an enormous building, looming darkly out of the water—and began rowing up and down close to the Sant’ Andrea shore. It was a favourite place for fishermen. Many other boats were moving about noiselessly close to us. Guido made ready three lines, and baited them with small crabs, with the hook through their tails. He gave us each one, saying that mine, the only one which was leaded, would attract most fish. In the darkness I could just see the hook through the tail of my crab which still seemed to be moving the upper part of its body to and fro. It was a gentle motion and seemed to express meditation rather than bodily agony. Perhaps what produces pain in larger bodies may, in very little ones, be so refined that it is experienced merely as a fresh sensation, a stimulus to thought. I threw it into the water, lowering it about thirty feet according to Guido’s instructions. Then Carmen and Guido let out their lines. Guido had an oar in the stern now, with which he guided the boat in such a way as to prevent the lines becoming entangled. Apparently Luciano was not yet quite equal to the task of guiding the boat like that. But in any case he was busy with the little net in which he was to collect the fish brought to the surface by the lines. For a long time there was nothing for him to do. Guido was very talkative. Perhaps it was his passion for giving instruction, even more than love, which attached him to Carmen. Rather than listen to him I should have preferred to go on thinking about the little animal I was holding in the water. But Guido kept calling to me and I was obliged to listen to his theories of fishing. He said we should often feel the fish nibbling at the bait, but we must be sure not to draw in our lines till we felt a pull. Then we must be ready to give a jerk which would embed the hook firmly in the fish’s mouth. Guido’s explanations were, as usual, very long. He wanted to explain quite clearly exactly what sensation we should feel in our hand when the fish nibbled the bait. And he went on with his explanations long after Carmen and I knew by experience the almost audible contact of the fish’s mouth with the bait. Several times we were obliged to draw in our lines and bait them afresh. The reflective little crab had been swallowed down in the jaws of a cautious fish who had learnt how to avoid the hook.

There were beer and sandwiches on board, and Guido’s inexhaustible chatter lent flavour to our picnic. He was talking now of the immense riches which lay at the bottom of the sea. He did not mean, as Luciano thought, the fishes, nor the treasure which man has spilt into the sea, but the gold which is dissolved in sea-water. Suddenly he remembered I had studied chemistry, and said:

“You ought to know something about that gold.”

I did not remember much, but I accepted his statement, and hazarded a suggestion, the truth of which I felt to be rather doubtful. I said:

“Sea-gold is the most costly of all to collect. In order to get a single one of those dispersed napoleons you would have to spend five.”

Luciano, who had turned eagerly towards me for confirmation of the rumoured riches over which we were floating, turned his back in disgust; he no longer took any interest in that kind of gold. But Guido agreed with me, and thought he remembered hearing that the price of sea-gold was exactly five times higher than that of ordinary gold, as I had just said. His confirmation of my statement (which I knew to be a fiction of the brain) was meant as high praise. He clearly did not look on me as at all dangerous and felt no shadow of jealousy in regard to the woman lying at his feet. I was tempted for a moment to embarrass him by saying that I had suddenly remembered it would cost only three napoleons to extract one from the sea, or that it would cost ten.

But at that very moment my line suddenly gave a terrific jerk. I gave another jerk, and screamed. In one bound Guido was at my side and took the line from my hand. I gladly yielded it to him. He began drawing it in, first a small bit at a time, then, as the resistance diminished, in great handfuls. We could see the silver body of a huge fish gleaming in the dark water. It resisted no longer, but ran swiftly to meet its pain. At last I felt I understood the dumb creature’s suffering; that swift flight towards death seemed like a cry. Soon it lay gasping at my feet. Luciano had pulled it out of the water with his net, and seizing it roughly in one hand pulled out the hook with the other.

He prodded the great fish all over:

“A John Dory, and it weighs about seven pounds!”

He was quite overwhelmed by its size, and named the price they would have asked for it in the fish-market. Then Guido remarked that the tide was on the turn, and that we were not likely to catch any more fish. He said fishermen believe that the fish won’t bite when it is slack water, and that therefore they cannot be caught. He moralised on the dangers an animal was led into by its appetite. Then he began laughing and said, quite unaware that he was compromising himself:

“You are the only one here this evening who knows how to fish.”

My victim was still flapping about in the bottom of the boat, when Carmen gave a scream. Without moving, and with suppressed laughter in his voice, Guido asked:

“Another John Dory?”

Carmen replied in confusion:

“I thought it was, but it has let go of the hook!”

I am convinced that Guido, unable any longer to contain himself, had squeezed Carmen in the dark.

I was beginning to feel ill at ease in that boat. I no longer cared about catching anything, and kept moving my line to and fro so that the poor creatures should not bite. I said I was sleepy, and asked Guido to put me on shore at Sant’ Andrea. Then I tried to remove any suspicion that I might be going because I was shocked by what Carmen’s sudden cry had betrayed, and told them about my baby’s screaming fit, saying that I should like to get back and make sure it was not ill.

Guido, obliging as usual, brought the boat to shore. He offered me the fish I had caught, but I refused. I proposed to throw it into the sea again and set it free, at which Luciano set up a howl of protest and Guido good-naturedly observed:

“If I thought I could give it life and health again I gladly would. But the poor creature is no good for anything now except to be served up on a dish.”

I followed them with my eyes, and noticed that they did not take advantage of the space left free by me. They were still sitting as close as possible to each other, and the boat put off again, with its prow rather far out of the water, because of the extra weight astern.

I regarded it as a punishment from heaven when I found that my baby had an attack of fever. Hadn’t I caused it to fall ill, by pretending to Guido to be anxious about its health when I was not really so in the least? Augusta was still up, but Dr. Paoli had just been and had reassured her by saying that so sudden and violent a fever could not mean the beginning of a serious illness. We stood for some time watching Antonia who was lying huddled up in her little cot, with dry lips and feverish cheeks, her brown curls all in disorder. She did not cry at all, but moaned quietly from time to time, then fell back at once into a state of torpor. My God! How dear she seemed to me now that she was ill. I would willingly have given years of my own life if only it would make her breathe more easily. How could I ever forgive myself for thinking for a moment that I was not very fond of her, and for having spent all the time while she was suffering away from her, and in such company!

“She is so like Ada,” Augusta said with a sob. It was true! We noticed the likeness now for the first time, and it became more and more striking, the bigger Antonia grew, so that I sometimes trembled to think her fate might be like that of the poor creature she resembled.

We went to bed at last, after putting the baby’s bed beside Augusta’s. But I was unable to sleep. I felt a weight on my mind, just as I used on those nights when my sins of the preceding day were mirrored in images of pain and remorse. My baby’s illness weighed on me as if it had been my doing. I rebelled at last against my own sense of guilt, for I was innocent and had nothing to hide. I could tell Augusta everything. So I told her about my meeting with Carmen, of the position she had occupied in the boat, and of her scream, which I attributed to some violent caress on Guido’s part, though I could not be certain. But Augusta was quite certain, for otherwise why should Guido’s voice have betrayed so much amusement? I tried to make her take a less serious view of it, but she insisted on my going into every detail. I made a confession on my own account, describing the feeling of exasperation which had driven me out of the house and my remorse at not having loved Antonia more. I at once felt much better and fell sound asleep.

Next morning Antonia was better; she had almost lost her fever. She was lying there quite quietly, and her breathing was regular, but she was pale and exhausted, as though she had spent all the strength of her little body in the short battle for life from which she had come out victorious. In the midst of my sense of relief I remembered with regret that I had compromised Guido horribly, and tried to make Augusta promise not to tell anyone of my suspicions. She protested that it was not a question of suspicions, but definite evidence; and I could not convince her to the contrary. However she promised whatever I wanted and I went off quietly to the office.

Guido had not yet come, and Carmen told me they had had very good luck after I left them. They had caught two more John Dory, not so big as mine, but weighing quite a lot. I did not believe her, and thought it was very unlikely they should have employed themselves otherwise after my departure than before. Had there been no slack water then? And how many hours had they stayed out at sea?

In order to convince me Carmen called on Luciano to confirm her statement that they had really caught two John Dory, and from that moment I believed Luciano capable of any baseness in order to ingratiate himself with Guido.

During the idyllic calm which preceded the sulphate of copper deal, something rather odd took place in the office, which I have never forgotten, partly because it throws light on Guido’s extraordinary conceit, partly because it reveals an aspect of myself which I find it a little difficult to recognise.

One day we were all four in the office together, but as usual the only one who talked about business at all was Luciano. Something he said sounded to Guido like a reproach, which he found it hard to endure with Carmen there. But it was not easy for him to defend himself, for Luciano could prove that some deal he had advised Guido to go in for months ago, and which he refused to touch, had turned out very well for the person who had interested himself in it. At last Guido said that he despised business, and that if fortune did not favour him in this direction he could find plenty of ways, much more intelligent, of earning money. The violin, for example. Everybody agreed with him, but I made a certain reservation:

“You will have to work hard at it,” I said.

He was annoyed by my qualified agreement, and hastened to say that if it was a question of working he could have done a lot of other things too, literature for example. Again everybody agreed with him, but I showed a little hesitation. I could not remember very clearly what any of the great writers looked like, and I tried to recall their faces, hoping to find one who resembled Guido. He positively shouted at me:

“Would you like to hear some good fables? I can invent them quite as well as Æsop.”

We all laughed except him. He had the typewriter brought, and wrote off his first fable rapidly just as if he were writing under dictation, with sweeping movements hardly suited to the ordinary operation of typing. He handed the sheet to Luciano, but thought better of it, and took it back and fixed it in the machine again. His second fable however gave him more trouble than the first, so that he forgot to make his inspired gestures, and was obliged, on the contrary, to correct what he had written several times. It is my opinion that the first fable was not his at all, and that the second only was of his own invention; it was indeed just what I should have expected from him. The first fable was about a bird who suddenly noticed that the door of its cage was open. At first it thought it would take advantage of this to fly away, but on second thoughts decided not to do so, feeling that if the door got shut during its absence it would lose its liberty. The second was about an elephant, and really was elephantine. The huge beast, feeling weak in the legs, went to consult a famous doctor, who when he saw his enormous limbs exclaimed: “I never saw such strong legs!”

Luciano was not to be taken in by such fables, partly because he did not understand them. He laughed a great deal, but obviously because he thought it comic that a thing like that should appear to anyone to be saleable. He laughed out of politeness when it was explained to him that the bird was afraid of being deprived of the liberty to return to its cage, and that the man admired the strength of the elephant’s legs, however feeble they might be from an elephant’s point of view. Then he said:

“What would you get for two fables like that?”

Guido replied condescendingly:

“The pleasure of writing them is sufficient reward, but if one went on writing them one would make a great deal of money.”

Carmen, however, was in a great state of excitement. She asked for permission to copy the two fables, and was profuse in her thanks when Guido offered to give her the sheet they were written on, signed with his own hand.

What had all this to do with me? There was no need for me to compete for Carmen’s praise, seeing that, as I have already said, she did not interest me at all; but when I remember how I behaved I am obliged to conclude that we can be armed for the fight even by a woman we do not desire. And after all did not the mediæval heroes fight for ladies they had never seen? It happened that my bodily pains suddenly became acute at that moment, and I felt that the only way to relieve them was to meet Guido in the lists by writing fables like him.

I asked for the typewriter, and I really did invent mine. It is true that the first fable I wrote had been in my mind for some days, but I improvised the title on the spot: “Hymn to Life.” Then, after a moment’s reflexion, I wrote underneath it “A dialogue.” I thought it would be easier to make animals talk than to describe them. My fable sprang from the following very brief dialogue:

The Crab (impaled on a hook, reflectively): Life is sweet, but one must watch where one sits down.

The John Dory (just off to the dentist): Life is sweet, but one must rid it of those treacherous monsters who hide steel fangs in tasty flesh.

Now came the second fable, but my supply of animals ran out. I looked at the dog lying in his corner, and he looked back at me. His gentle eyes reminded me that a few days ago Guido had come back from hunting covered with fleas, and had gone to clean himself in the lumber-room. I at once found the fable I wanted and wrote it down easily:

There was once a prince who was bitten by a great many fleas. He prayed to the gods to grant him one flea to himself (as large as they liked, but only one), and to distribute the others among the rest of mankind. But not one of those fleas would consent to stay alone with that fool of a prince, and he was obliged to keep them all.

At the moment I wrote them my fables seemed to me excellent. The things which issue from our own brain have a peculiarly charming air, especially when they are newly born. To tell the truth I still like my dialogue, even now that I have had so much practice in composition. “The Hymn to Life” sung by a dying creature cannot fail to arouse the sympathy of those who have to watch it die. It often really happens that the dying spend their last breath in describing the cause to which they think they owe their death, thus raising a hymn of praise to the life of all who succeed in avoiding that accident. As to the second fable I have nothing to say about it. It was acutely interpreted by Guido himself, who laughingly exclaimed:

“It is not a fable, it is only an excuse for calling me a fool.”

I laughed too, and the pain which had inspired me to write it at once vanished. Luciano laughed when I explained what I meant by it and decided that no one would pay anything either for mine or Guido’s fables. But Carmen was not at all pleased. She gave me a penetrating look, which was something quite new in her eyes, and which I understood as readily as if she had said in so many words:

“You don’t like Guido!”

I was quite startled, for at the moment she was right. I thought it was foolish of me to behave as if I did not like Guido, just when I was working so disinterestedly for him. I must be more careful how I behaved in future.

I said gently to Guido:

“I readily agree that your fables are better than mine. But you must remember they are the first ones I have ever written in my life.”

He would not give way.

“Perhaps you think that I have written some before?”

Carmen’s look had already become kinder, and to make it kinder still I said to Guido:

“You certainly have a particular gift for fables.”

This compliment made them both laugh and myself too; all of us quite good-naturedly, for it was obvious that I had spoken without malicious intention.

The sulphate of copper business brought a much more serious atmosphere into our office. We had no time now for fables. We accepted almost everything that offered. We occasionally made a profit, but when we did it was a small one, whereas our losses were always considerable. Guido, who was so generous at other times, was curiously mean in business. When something turned out well he immediately made haste to liquidate it, for he was always in a hurry to pocket his small gains. But when he got involved in an unprofitable transaction he could not make up his mind to get out of it; for he always wanted to put off the moment when he would have to pay out of his own pocket. I think that is why his losses were always considerable and his gains so small. A business man’s qualities are simply the sum of all that is contained in him from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. The Greek phrase “Wise fool” would be very appropriate to Guido. He was often very astute, but he was often very stupid. He was full of ideas, but did nothing with them except to grease the steep incline on which he kept slipping lower and lower.

The twins descended on him at the same time as the sulphate of copper. His first impression was one of unpleasant surprise, but directly after he had announced their arrival to me he made a joke which I thought so funny that I burst out laughing; and he was so gratified by his success that he could not help laughing with me. Speaking of his two children as if they were on a par with sixty tons of sulphate he said:

“I am condemned to work wholesale, I am!”

To comfort him I reminded him that Augusta was again in her seventh month, and that I should soon have reached his tonnage in the matter of babies. He replied smartly:

“To me, as an experienced book-keeper, the two things don’t seem to be the same.”

After a few days he had grown very fond of the two infants, and for a short time remained much attached to them. Augusta, who spent part of each day with her sister, told me that he devoted several hours to each of them every day. He nursed them and sang lullabies to them, and Ada was so grateful to him that a new love seemed to spring up between husband and wife. He paid a pretty large premium to an insurance society to guarantee a small sum to his children when they came of age. I remember this because I had to enter the sum on the debit side of the account.

I was invited to come and see the twins. Augusta told me that Ada would like me to go in and see her too. She was still obliged to stay in bed, though it was ten days since the children’s birth.

The babies were in two cradles in a dressing-room adjoining the parents’ bedroom. Ada called to me from the bed:

“Are they pretty, Zeno?”

I was startled by the sound of her voice. It seemed to me softer; even though she had put a certain amount of effort into it to make it carry, it was all the same softer than it used to be. No doubt it was motherhood which gave it that softer character, but I was moved by it because I noticed it particularly when she addressed herself to me. That new quality in it made me feel as if instead of calling me by my Christian name, Ada had added some other affectionate title like “dear” or “brother.” I was truly grateful to her and felt very gentle and affectionate. I replied gaily:

“They are darlings, and so exactly alike! I really don’t know which I like best!”

I thought them two horrid little monsters really. They were both crying at once, in different keys.

Guido very soon returned to his former way of life. After the sulphate business he came to the office more regularly, but on Saturday he always went off shooting and only returned late on Monday morning, just in time to look in at the office before lunch. In the evenings he went fishing, and often stayed out at sea all night. Augusta told me how unhappy Ada was, partly because she was terribly jealous, and partly because he left her alone for a great part of the day. Augusta tried to calm her by reminding her that there were no women when he went hunting and fishing. But Ada had been told—Augusta did not know by whom—that Carmen sometimes accompanied Guido when he went out fishing. Guido had admitted it himself when she confronted him with it, but said there was no harm in his being nice to a member of his staff, especially as she was so useful to him. Besides, had not Luciano always been there too? In the end he promised not to invite her again, if Ada did not like it. He said he could not give up shooting or fishing, though it was true the former cost him a good deal. He was working hard, he said, (there certainly was plenty to do just then in the office), and he thought he deserved a little recreation. Ada did not agree with him; she thought the best recreation he could have was with his family, and to this theory Augusta gave her unconditional support, though I ventured to suggest that it might be rather a noisy recreation.

Augusta exclaimed:

“But don’t you come home every day at the times you should?”

This was true, and I was obliged to confess that there was a great difference between Guido and me, though I did not feel much inclined to boast about it. I kissed Augusta and said:

“You deserve all the praise for having employed such drastic methods of education.”

Meanwhile poor Guido’s affairs went from bad to worse. At first they had only one nurse for the two children, for it was hoped that Ada would be able to feed one of them herself. She was however not strong enough to do so, and they had to take another nurse. When Guido wanted to make me laugh he would walk up and down the office, beating time to the words: “One wife ... two infants ... two nurses...!”

There was one thing which Ada specially hated: Guido’s violin. She could stand the children’s crying, but the sound of the violin was intolerable to her. She said once to Augusta:

“I feel as if I should like to howl like a dog when I hear him playing.”

It was very odd, for Augusta loved to hear the unmusical strains of my violin proceeding from the study when she passed by.

“But surely Ada was in love with him when she married him,” I exclaimed in surprise. “And isn’t his violin the best part of Guido?”

All this gossip was forgotten the first time I saw Ada about again. It was I who first realised that she was ill. One day early in November, a cold, damp, sunless day, I left the office earlier than usual, at three in the afternoon, and hurried home, thinking how nice it would be to rest and dream for several hours in my warm little study. I had to go down a long passage to reach it, and when I got to Augusta’s work-room I stood still because I heard Ada’s voice inside. It was very soft or uncertain (which was perhaps the same thing), just as it had been the day she had spoken to me. I opened the door and went in, curious to see how Ada, who was usually so calm and self-contained, came to have a voice like that; it rather reminded me of an actress who is trying to move other people to tears without being able to weep herself. The voice was somehow artificial, or seemed so to me because, without being able to see the person to whom it belonged, I was hearing it again for the second time after so long, and detected in it the same emotional quality. I thought they must be talking about Guido, for what other subject could move Ada in that way?