THE STORY OF MY MARRIAGE (continued 2)

I pretended to interest myself in a game of billiards. A man who was leaning on a crutch came in and sat down beside me. He ordered a lemon squash, and the waiter looked at me for my order, so I also absent-mindedly ordered a lemon squash, though I can’t endure the taste of a lemon. While he was fetching it, the crutch, which was leaning against the sofa we were sitting on, slipped to the ground and I instinctively bent down to pick it up.

“Why it’s Zeno!” exclaimed the poor cripple, recognising me just as he was about to thank me.

“Tullio!” I cried in surprise, and stretched out my hand. We had been at school together and had not seen each other for some years. All I knew about him was that after he had left school he had gone into a bank, where he had a good position.

But I was so distrait that I promptly asked him why it was that his right leg was shorter than his left, so that he needed a crutch.

He good-humouredly said that he had had rheumatism six months ago which had caused the trouble in his leg.

I at once suggested to him a number of cures. It is the best way of simulating keen sympathy without much trouble to oneself. But he had tried them all. Then I made a further suggestion:

“Why are you not in bed at this hour? I don’t think it can be good for you to expose yourself to the night air.”

He laughed good-naturedly and said that he did not think the night air could do me much good either, and maintained that even if one had not got rheumatism one might easily get it. Even the Austrian Constitution, he said, allowed the right to go to bed in the early hours of the morning. Besides, contrary to the general opinion, cold and heat had nothing to do with rheumatism. He had studied his illness, in fact he did nothing whatever but study its cause and cure. He had got long leave from the Bank for that very purpose, though it was supposed to be for his treatment. Then he told me about the strange treatment he was undergoing. Every day he had to eat an enormous quantity of lemons. He had already swallowed thirty that day, but he hoped with practice to arrive at a very much higher figure. He told me that lemons were good for a number of other diseases too. Since he had begun taking them he suffered much less from the effects of over-smoking to which he was a victim.

I had cold shivers at the thought of so much acid, but this was at once succeeded by a more cheerful view of life; I did not like lemons, but if they could procure for me immunity from the results of doing all the things I most enjoyed I would have eaten quite a number. Complete freedom consists in doing what you want on condition that you do something else as well which you like less. True slavery is being forced to abstain: Tantalus, not Hercules.

Tullio pretended to be anxious to hear my news. I was determined not to tell him anything about my unhappy love-affair, but I had to find an outlet somehow. I gave him such an exaggerated account of my bodily symptoms (which I am sure were very slight) that I ended by having tears in my eyes, while Tullio began to feel better and better at the thought that I was worse than he was.

He asked if I was working. It was always said in the town that I did nothing, and I was afraid he was going to begin envying me, whereas at the moment I felt it was essential that I should be pitied. So I lied to him. I told him that I worked in my office about six hours daily, and that my father’s affairs had been left in such confusion that I was obliged to work six hours more at them after I got home.

“Twelve hours,” remarked Tullio, with a contented smile; and he proceeded to offer me what I most needed: his pity. “I must say I don’t envy you.”

The conclusion was obvious, but I was so much touched by it that I could hardly restrain my tears. I felt unhappier than ever, and in such a morbid state of self-pity one may easily fall a prey to unwholesome suggestions.

Tullio and I began talking again about his illness, which was his principal distraction. He had studied the anatomy of the leg and foot. He told me with amusement that when one is walking rapidly each step takes no more than half a second, and in that half second no fewer than fifty-four muscles are set in motion. I listened in bewilderment. I at once directed my attention to my legs and tried to discover the infernal machine. I thought I had succeeded in finding it. I could not of course distinguish all its fifty-four parts, but I discovered something terrifically complicated which seemed to get out of order directly I began thinking about it.

I limped as I left the café, and for several days afterwards walking became a burden to me and even caused me a certain amount of pain. I felt as if the whole machine needed oiling. All the muscles seemed to grate together whenever one moved. A few days later my first trouble got better, but was followed by a much more serious one, which I shall have cause to speak of soon. Even to-day, if anyone watches me walking, the fifty-four movements get tied up in a knot, and I feel as if I shall fall down.

Ada was responsible for this trouble too. Many animals fall a prey to the hunter or to other animals when they are in love. I fell a prey to disease. I am certain that at any other time I might have heard about the infernal machine without it doing me the slightest harm.

A few words on a sheet of paper I have kept remind me of another curious adventure at that time. Besides a note of a last cigarette, and an expression of faith in my capacity to recover from the disease of the fifty-four movements, there is also an attempt at poetry about a fly. If I had not known I should have supposed those verses were produced by a respectable old maid who calls the insect she sings of “thou”; but as I know them to have been by me I can only suppose that anyone is capable of anything if I was capable of them.

This is what gave rise to the verses. One night I had gone home late and, instead of going at once to bed, I went into my study and lit the gas. A fly, attracted by the light, began to torment me. I aimed a blow at it, but only a light one, for fear of dirtying myself. I forgot all about it, and then saw it slowly recovering on the table. It was standing right up, and seemed taller than before because one of its legs was paralysed by the blow and it could not bend it. It was industriously cleaning its wings with its two hind legs. It tried to move, but fell over on its back. Then it picked itself up again and returned obstinately to its task.

I wrote those verses in my surprise at discovering that the fly’s tiny, pain-racked organism was acting on two mistaken assumptions. First of all, in cleaning its wings so persistently the insect showed that it did not know which was the wounded limb. Secondly, its persistent efforts showed that it assumed health to be the portion of everyone, and that though we have lost it we shall certainly find it again. These errors are quite excusable in an insect which only lives for one season and has no time to learn by experience.

Then Sunday came. It marked the fifth day since my last visit to the Malfentis. Though I work so little, I have always felt a great respect for this holiday which divides life into short periods that make it endurable. My plans underwent no change, but I decided they did not count for that day, and that it was permissible for me to see Ada. I did not propose to endanger my plans by writing, but I thought I ought to see her because there was always a chance of things having altered in my favour, and then it would have been a great pity to go on suffering needlessly.

So at midday, as fast as my poor legs would carry me, I hurried into the town, by the way which I knew Signora Malfenti and her daughters must take coming back from mass. It was a lovely sunny day, and as I walked along I thought of the longed-for discovery which was perhaps awaiting me in the town—Ada’s love!

It was not to be, but for a moment I had the illusion of it. Fortune favoured me in an incredible manner. I suddenly found myself face to face with Ada, and she was alone. I staggered and my heart beat violently. What must I do? According to my resolution I ought to have stood aside and let her pass, with a measured bow. But my mind was slightly confused because of the other resolutions I had made earlier, one of which was to speak openly to her and learn from her lips what my fate was to be. I did not stand aside, and when she greeted me as if we had only parted five minutes ago, I joined her and walked along beside her.

She said:

“Good-morning, Signor Cosini! I am in rather a hurry.”

And I:

“May I walk with you a little way?”

She smilingly agreed. Ought I to speak now? She added that she was going straight home, so I realised that I had only five minutes to do it in, and I wasted part of that time by calculating whether it would be long enough for the important things I had to say. Better not speak at all than to only half speak. I was also rather confused by the fact that at that time it was considered compromising for a girl to be seen about in the streets alone with a young man. Yet she let me walk with her. Was not that enough to satisfy me? Meanwhile I watched her and tried to feel again in its entirety the love which had been overcast by anger and doubt. Should I recover my dreams? She seemed to me neither big nor small, so harmonious were the lines of her figure. My dreams revived in all their force, even while she walked a living reality by my side. They were the form desire took with me, and I felt intense joy at their return. Every trace of bitterness vanished from my mind.

But suddenly a modest voice from behind said:

“May I join you, Signorina?”

I turned indignantly. Who had dared to interrupt the explanations I had not even begun? A beardless youth, dark and pale, was gazing anxiously at her. I in my turn looked at Ada, in the vain hope that she would invoke my aid. She had only to make a sign and I should have flung myself on that individual, and demanded an explanation of his audacity. Better still if he had insisted! My pain would have vanished instantly if I had been free to abandon myself to a display of brute force.

But Ada gave me no such sign. With a sudden smile which changed slightly the outline of her face and mouth, and even the colour of her eyes, she stretched out her hand to him:

“Ah, Signor Guido!”

That Christian name was painful to me; only a few minutes before she had called me by my surname.

I looked at Signor Guido more closely. He was dressed with the utmost elegance, and was carrying in his gloved right hand a walking-stick with a very long ivory handle, which I would not have been seen with even if they had paid me so much per mile. It was not surprising if such a person seemed to me a danger to Ada. There are plenty of louche figures who dress exactly like that, and carry precisely similar canes.

Ada’s smile forced me back into the world of conventional relationships. She introduced us. And I was obliged to smile too! Ada’s smile was like transparent water stirred by a slight breeze. Mine was also like the movement of water, but when a stone has been thrown into it suddenly.

His name was Guido Speier. My smile became more spontaneous, because I at once saw an opportunity for saying something disagreeable to him:

“Are you German?”

He replied politely that he knew his name might make one think so, but documents showed that his family had been Italian for several centuries. He talked Tuscan fluently, whereas Ada and I were confined to our inelegant dialect.

I looked at him closely in order to take in better what he was saying. He was a very handsome young man. His slightly open lips revealed a set of perfect white teeth. He had bright, expressive eyes, and when he took off his hat I could see that his brown curly hair covered the entire space provided for it by Nature, whereas a great part of my own head had been usurped by my forehead.

I should have hated him even if Ada had not been there, but my hatred distressed me, and I tried to get rid of it. “He is too young for Ada,” I thought. And I said to myself that the familiarity and kindness of her greeting was probably due to her father’s instructions. Perhaps he was important in Malfenti’s business, and I had noticed in such cases that all the family were obliged to collaborate. I said:

“Are you settling in Trieste?”

He said he had been there a month and was starting a business. I breathed again! Perhaps I had guessed rightly.

I limped as I walked, but as nobody took any notice I did not make much of it. I kept looking at Ada and tried to forget everything else, including our companion. I like to live in the moment, and I never give the future a thought, unless it casts its shadow too obviously over the present. Ada was walking between us, and her face wore a vague unchanging expression of happiness which was almost a smile. That happy look was new to her. For whom was her smile intended? Might it not be for me, whom she had not seen for so long?

I listened to what they were saying. They were talking about spiritualism, and I suddenly discovered that Guido had introduced table-turning into the Malfenti household.

I was burning to assure myself that the sweet smile which played about Ada’s lips was intended for me, and I leapt into the thick of the discussion with an impromptu spirit story. No poet can ever have improvised verses on a given scheme of rhymes better than I invented then. Without any idea how I should make it end, I began by saying that I believed in spirits too after what had happened to me the day before in that very street—no, it was the street running parallel, which we could see through the next turning. I went on to say that Ada had known Professor Bertini, who had died a short time ago in Florence, where he had settled on his pension. We had seen a short notice of his death in the local paper, but I had completely forgotten this, so that when I thought of Professor Bertini it was walking through the Cascine, taking his well-earned rest. Yesterday—I pointed out the exact spot in the street parallel to the one we were walking in—I was accosted by a gentleman who seemed to know me and whom I felt I knew. He had a curious swaying walk like that adopted by certain women in order to progress more easily.

“Of course it may have been Professor Bertini,” said Ada, laughing.

I was encouraged by her laugh, and went on:

“I knew him, but I could not remember who he was. We talked about politics. It was Bertini; it was his bleating voice, and no one else could have talked such nonsense.”

“His voice too!” exclaimed Ada, still laughing, and looking at me anxiously to hear the end.

“Yes, it could only have been Bertini,” I said, feigning terror with all the art of the consummate actor the world has lost in me. “He pressed my hand when he said good-bye, and went away with the same swinging gait. I followed him a certain distance, racking my brain to think who it could be. It was only when I had lost him from sight that I realised I had been talking to Bertini; Bertini who had been dead a whole year!”

Soon after, she stopped at the door of her house. She shook hands with Guido and said she was expecting him that evening. Then she nodded to me and said that if I was not afraid of being bored she hoped I would come too for some table-turning.

I did not thank her. I made no reply. I wanted to look into the invitation more closely before accepting. It had sounded to me like an act of enforced politeness. Well, perhaps the holiday was going to end for me with this meeting. But I did not want to seem rude, and thought I would leave it open whether or not I accepted the invitation. I asked after Giovanni, saying I wanted to speak to him. She replied that I should find him at his office where he had been obliged to go for some important business.

Guido and I stood for a few seconds looking after the elegant figure disappearing through the porch. I don’t know what Guido’s thoughts were at the moment. As for me I felt extremely unhappy. Why had she not invited me before inviting Guido?

We walked back together almost to the point where we had met Ada. Guido was polite and easy in his manner, a thing which I most envied in other people; he spoke again of the story I had invented, which he evidently took seriously. The only true part of the story however was this: there was in Trieste, even after Bertini’s death, someone who talked a great deal of nonsense, appeared to walk on the tips of his toes, and had an odd way of talking. I had only recently got to know him, and he had for the moment reminded me of Bertini. I was quite content that Guido should rack his brains over my invention. I had made up my mind that there was no point in my hating him, since he was no more than an important business connexion as far as the Malfentis were concerned; but I loathed his ultra-elegance and his walking-stick. In fact, I found him so unsympathetic that I was dying to get rid of him. I listened to his final remarks:

“The person you talked to might easily have been much younger than Bertini, have walked like a grenadier, and had a manly voice, the only resemblance between them being that they both talked nonsense. Yet this would have been quite sufficient to fix your thoughts on Bertini. But to admit that, one would have to assume that you are very absent-minded.”

I was not going to make it easy for him:

“Absent-minded?” I said. “What an idea! I am a business man. What would become of me if I were absent-minded?”

Then I reflected I was wasting my time. I wanted to see Giovanni. As I had seen the daughter I might as well see the father too, though he was so much less important. I should have to make haste if I wanted to find him still in his office.

Guido went on prosing about what part in a miracle should be attributed to the inattention of the miracle-worker or of those who are present at it. I wanted to get away, and was anxious to appear at least as much at my ease as himself. This caused me to interrupt him rather brusquely, and to say almost rudely:

“For me miracles exist or they do not. There is no need to make them more complicated than they are. Either you believe them or you don’t; in either case it is very simple.”

I so little wanted to show how much I disliked him, that my words were intended as a kind of concession, seeing that I am a convinced positivist and have no belief in miracles. But it was a concession made very ill-humouredly.

I limped more than ever as I went away, and hoped that Guido would not find it necessary to look back.

I felt it essential to speak to Giovanni. I should be able to learn from him what I ought to do about accepting Ada’s invitation. His attitude would make it quite clear whether I might go or whether I ought not rather to remember that Ada’s invitation was directly contrary to Signora Malfenti’s wishes. I must know exactly where I stood with these people, and if I could not settle the question on Sunday, then I must devote Monday to it as well. I was going on breaking my resolutions, but without being conscious of it. In fact I thought I was carrying out a resolution which I had only arrived at after five days’ meditation.

Giovanni called out a loud and cheerful greeting which did me good, and invited me to sit down in an arm-chair facing his desk.

“Only five minutes! I’ll be with you at once! But you’re lame?” he added inquiringly.

I blushed. But I was in a mood for improvisation. I said I had slipped coming out of a café, and described the café where the accident had happened. I was afraid he might attribute my tumble to the fact that my mind was clouded by alcohol, and I added the humorous detail that when I fell I was with somebody who limped and was afflicted with rheumatism.

An employee and two porters were standing by Giovanni’s table. Some errors needed verifying in a consignment of merchandise, and Giovanni had made one of his violent interventions in the management of his warehouse, which he rarely interfered with, wanting, as he said, to keep his mind free for what no one else could do instead. He talked louder than ever, as if he wanted to engrave his commands on the ears of his dependants. I think it was a question of deciding just how business was to be carried on between the office and the warehouse.

“This paper,” shouted Giovanni, passing from his right hand to his left a paper he had torn out of a book, “will be signed by you, and the employee who takes it will give you an identical one signed by him.”

He fixed his interlocutors, sometimes through his glasses, and sometimes above them, and shouted at them again:

“Do you follow?”

He was about to begin his explanations all over again, but I had already wasted too much time. I had a curious feeling that if I were to make haste I should have more chance of winning Ada, though it soon occurred to me with a sense of surprise that no one was expecting me, and that I had nothing to hope for, nor was there anything for me to do. I advanced with outstretched hand, and said to Giovanni:

“I am coming to you this evening.”

He at once turned to me, while the others stood aside.

“Why haven’t you been to see us all this time?” he said simply.

I was overcome by a sudden surprise. That was the very question I had a right to expect from Ada, but which she had not asked me. If no one else had been there I should have told Giovanni quite plainly that his question had proved to me his innocence of any share in what I now felt to be a plot against me. He alone was innocent and deserved my confidence.

Perhaps I did not see things quite so clearly all at once, as is proved by the fact that I could not even wait until his underlings had gone away. I also wanted to discover whether perhaps Ada had been prevented from asking her question by Guido’s unexpected arrival.

But Giovanni was in such a hurry to return to his work that he put a stop to further conversation.

“We shall see each other then this evening. You will hear a violinist such as one does not often hear. He calls himself an amateur only because he has too much money to make a profession of it. He is going into business.” He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. “I am fond of business myself, but if I were in his place I wouldn’t sell anything but notes. I don’t know if you know him; his name is Guido Speier.”

“Really? Really?” I said, pretending to be interested. I shook my head and opened my mouth, and in fact set in motion every part of me which my will could control. So that Adonis could play the violin too! “Really? Is he as good as that?” I hoped that Giovanni was joking, and that his exaggerated praise was only ironical. But he continued shaking his head to express his admiration. I held out my hand.

“Au revoir!”

I limped to the door. I felt a doubt as to whether after all I had better refuse the invitation, in which case I ought to tell Giovanni. I had turned to go back, when I noticed that he was watching me very attentively, and was even leaning forward in order to see me better. This was more than I could bear, and I left the room.

A violinist! If it was true he played as well as that, then I was lost. If only I had not played the instrument myself or had never been induced to play it at the Malfentis! I had taken my violin there not in order to win their hearts by my playing, but as a pretext for prolonging my visits. What a fool I had been! I might have found plenty more pretexts that would have given me away less.

No one could say I have any illusions about myself. I know that I have a great feeling for music, and that there is no affectation about my preference for classical music; but my very feeling for music warned me years ago that I should never be able to play so as to give pleasure to anyone else.

I could play well if I were not ill, but I am always pursuing health even when I am practising balance on the four strings of a violin. There are certain slight inhibitions in my organism which are more obvious when I play the violin, and therefore easier to deal with. Even the most undeveloped being, if he knows the difference between groups of three, four and six notes, can pass rhythmically and accurately from one to the other just as his eye can pass from one colour to another. But in my case, after I have been playing one of those rhythmic figures it clings to me and I can’t escape from it, but get it mixed up with the following figure so that I play it out of time. If I am to play the notes right I am compelled to beat time with my feet and head; but good-bye to ease, serenity and music! The music which is produced by a well-balanced physique is identical with the rhythm it creates and exploits; it is rhythm itself. When I can play like that I shall be cured.

I thought for the first time that I would acknowledge myself defeated, leave Trieste and go off in the hope of finding distraction. I had nothing else left to hope for. Ada was lost to me. I was sure of that now! Didn’t I know quite well that she would only marry a man after she had thoroughly weighed and tested him, just as if she was awarding him an academic honour? It seemed absurd, because really the violin ought not to loom so large in one’s choice of a husband; but this was no help to me. I felt how important his playing was. It was like the birds choosing their mate for his song.

I crept into my lair, while the others went on enjoying their holiday. I took my violin from its case, uncertain whether to break it in pieces or play on it. Then I tried it as if I were bidding it a last farewell, and finally began practising the immortal Kreutzer Sonata. How many miles my bow must have travelled in this very room, and now I began to drive it along mechanically over many more!

Anyone who has practised much on those few cursed strings will know that so long as one is by oneself every little effort one makes seems to produce a corresponding progress. If it were not so who would ever submit to such unending hard labour, as severe as if one had been so unfortunate as to commit a murder? After a short time it seemed to me that my battle with Guido was not hopelessly lost. Who knows whether my violin after all might not intervene successfully between Ada and Guido?

This was not due to conceit, but to my usual incurable optimism. Every fresh misfortune which threatens, annihilates me in the first moment, but I very soon recover, in the sure faith that I shall be able to circumvent it. In this case all that I had to do was to take a more lenient view of my capabilities as a violinist. In all the arts sound judgment is the result of comparison, and that was lacking here. Besides, one’s own violin resounds so close to one’s ear that it reaches the heart very quickly. At last, somewhat exhausted I left off playing, and said to myself:

“Bravo Zeno, you have earned your reward.”

Without a moment’s hesitation I made my way to the Malfentis. I had accepted the invitation, so I was obliged to go. It seemed to me a good omen that the parlour-maid should receive me with a friendly smile, and inquire whether I had been ill, that I had not been there for so long. I tipped her. The family she represented had made the inquiry through her mouth.

She showed me into the drawing-room which was immersed in complete darkness. When I came into it from the full light of the hall, I could not see anything for a moment and did not dare to move. Then I discovered several figures sitting round a table at the far end of the room, at some distance from me.

Ada’s voice greeted me and seemed to me in the darkness more sensuous than usual, a soft, almost caressing voice:

“Sit down over there, and don’t disturb the spirits!”

If it were to go on like this I certainly would not disturb them.

Then a voice sounded from another part of the table, it might belong to Augusta or Alberta:

“If you want to take part in the evocation of the spirits, there is a corner over here.”

I was determined not to be kept out of it, so I advanced resolutely to the place from which Ada’s greetings seemed to have come. I knocked my knee against the corner of the Venetian table they were sitting at, which seemed to be nothing but corners. It was extremely painful, but I would let nothing stop me, and pressed on to occupy the seat which somebody offered me, I did not know who. It was between two of the sisters, and I imagined the one on my right to be Ada, and the one on my left Augusta. In order to avoid coming into contact with the latter I pushed my chair closer to the other.

But I thought I might have made a mistake about my right-hand neighbour, so in order to hear her voice I asked:

“Have you had any message yet from the spirits?”

Guido, who was apparently sitting opposite, interrupted me. He called out imperiously: “Silence!”

Then more gently:

“Collect yourselves and concentrate all your thoughts on the dead person you want to summon.”

I have no objection to anyone making attempts to spy on the world beyond the grave. In fact I was irritated at not having introduced table-turning myself, since it was such a success at Giovanni’s house. But I didn’t see why I must obey Guido’s orders, and therefore I made no effort to concentrate. Besides I had reproached myself so often for allowing things to reach this point, without having had any explanation with Ada, that now I had her next to me, and in the dark too, I was determined to settle it once and for all. I was only restrained by the delicious sense of having her so close after I had feared to lose her for ever. I preferred to breathe the fragrance of the soft texture of her dress which was touching mine, and I thought that, close as we now were together, my feet must be actually pressing hers. I knew she always wore patent-leather shoes in the evening. It was almost too much for me after such long torture.

Guido was speaking again:

“I do beg you to concentrate. Implore the spirits you have invoked to manifest themselves by moving the table.”

I was glad that he was still busying himself about the table. It was clear now that Ada had resigned herself to bearing almost my whole weight! She must love me or she would not have stood it. At last the hour of explanation had arrived. I removed my arm from the table and put it gently round her waist:

“I love you, Ada!” I said in a low voice, putting my face close to hers so that she could hear better.

The girl did not reply at once. Then she murmured in a faint voice—but Augusta’s:

“Why have you not been here for so long?”

Surprise and disappointment made me almost fall out of my chair. I at once felt that though I must banish this tiresome girl from my life, I must treat her with the consideration that a perfect gentleman like me owes to the woman who loves him, even though she be the ugliest of God’s creatures. For she certainly loved me! In the midst of my suffering I felt her love. It could only have been love which suggested to her not to tell me that she was not Ada, and to ask me the question I had been waiting for in vain on Ada’s part, and which she had evidently determined to ask me directly she saw me again.

I obeyed my instinct not to answer her question, but after a moment’s hesitation I said to her:

“I am glad to have confided in you, Augusta, for I know how kind you are.”

I recovered my balance on my three-legged stool. An explanation with Ada was out of the question, and there remained nothing else to explain to Augusta. Further misunderstanding was impossible between us.

Guido admonished us again:

“If you won’t keep quiet there is no point in us all sitting here in the dark.”

He could not know it, but I needed a little darkness in order to withdraw from the crowd and recover my self-control. I had discovered my mistake, but the only balance I had yet recovered was on my chair.

I would speak to Ada, I thought, but in the light. I suspected that it was not she on my left hand, but Alberta. How could I ascertain this? My uncertainty almost made me fall over on the left, and in order to recover my balance, I leaned on the table. They all began shouting: “It’s moving, it’s moving!” My involuntary act would perhaps solve the question. Where did Ada’s voice come from? But Guido, drowning everyone else’s voice with his own, imposed the silence which I should have liked to impose on him. Then in a changed voice, a voice of supplication, (idiot!) he conversed with the spirits he imagined to be present:

“I beg you tell us your name, using the letters of our alphabet.”

He provided for everything; he was afraid the spirit might use the Greek alphabet!

I went on with the comedy, still trying to pierce the darkness in search of Ada. After a little hesitation I made the table rise seven times, so that the letter G was obtained. The idea seemed to me a good one, and though the letter U which followed necessitated countless movements, I dictated Guido’s name letter by letter quite clearly. I have no doubt that in dictating his name I was inspired by the desire to relegate him to the spirit world.

When Guido’s name was completed Ada at last spoke:

“Could it be an ancestor of yours?” she suggested. She was sitting next to him. I should have liked to move the table so much that it went between them and divided them.

“It may be,” said Guido. So he believed himself to have ancestors! But this did not alarm me. His voice was transformed by genuine emotion, which gave me the satisfaction a fencer must feel when he discovers his opponent to be weaker than he supposed. He was not conducting these experiments in cold blood. He really was an idiot! Most forms of weakness arouse my compassion, but not his.

Then he addressed himself to the spirit:

“If your name is Speier make only one movement; otherwise move the table twice.” Since he was so anxious to have ancestors I obliged him by making the table move once.

“My grandfather,” murmured Guido.

Then the conversation with the spirit proceeded more briskly. The spirit was asked if it had anything to tell us. It replied yes. About business or other things? About business. I chose this reply simply because it required the table to be moved once only. Guido asked if it had good or bad news to give us? The bad news was to be indicated by two movements and, this time without any hesitation, I tried to move the table twice. But in the second movement I encountered some opposition, and concluded there must be someone present who wanted the news to be good. Ada perhaps. To produce the second movement I positively flung myself on the table and won easily! The news was bad!

But the second movement was so violent, on account of the opposition it had met with, that everyone was thrown from their seats.

“Very strange,” muttered Guido. Then he shouted decisively: “Stop! Stop! Someone present is fooling us!”

Almost everyone gladly obeyed, and in a moment the drawing-room was flooded with light from many different points. I thought Guido looked pale. Ada was deceived in that young man, and I was determined to open her eyes.

Besides the three girls and Signora Malfenti, there was another lady in the drawing-room the sight of whom caused me embarrassment and agitation, for I thought it was Aunt Rosina. For different reasons I greeted both ladies very formally.

The amusing part is that I alone remained sitting at the table, beside Augusta. That again was compromising, but I could not persuade myself to join all the others who crowded round Guido. He was engaged in explaining with great vehemence how he had come to realise that the table was not being moved by a spirit, but by a malicious mortal made of flesh and blood. Not Ada, but he himself had tried to curb the table’s eloquence.

He said:

“I held the table back with all my force to try to prevent it moving a second time. Someone must have actually flung themselves on it to overcome my resistance.”

A nice kind of spiritualism! So that a powerful effort could not be due to a spirit!

I looked at poor Augusta to see what impression my declaration of love to her sister had made on her. She was very red but she smiled on me benevolently. It was only then that she admitted having heard my declaration:

“I won’t tell anyone,” she said, in a low voice.

That pleased me very much.

“Thank you,” I murmured, pressing her hand, which was not very small but well modelled. I felt I should like to be a good friend to Augusta, though before that I should never have thought it possible to become friends with anyone who was ugly. But I felt a certain affection for her waist round which I had so lately held my arm, and which I had found smaller than I expected. Her face was really quite pretty, but for that eye which had gone off on a path of its own. I had certainly exaggerated her deformity and assumed that it went through her whole body.

They had brought Guido some lemonade.

I joined the group which surrounded him, and ran into Signora Malfenti who was just leaving it. I laughed and said to her:

“Does he need a cordial?” She made a rather contemptuous movement and said with decision:

“He doesn’t seem like a man!”

I flattered myself that my victory might have definite consequences. Ada could not set up her opinion against her mother’s. It immediately had the effect it could not fail to have on a man of my temperament. All my ill will vanished and I wanted to spare Guido any further suffering. The world would certainly be less disagreeable if there were more people like me in it.

I sat down beside him, and without taking any notice of the others, I said:

“You must forgive me, Signor Guido. The trick I played on you was in bad taste. It was I who made the table declare that it had been moved by a spirit who bore your name. I would never have done it had I known that your grandfather bore the same name.”

Guido’s face, which cleared at once, betrayed how much importance he attached to my statement. But he would not admit it and merely said:

“These ladies are too kind! I don’t need comforting. The matter is of no consequence whatever. Thank you for your frankness, but I had already guessed that someone had stepped into my grandfather’s shoes.”

He smiled with self-satisfaction and added:

“You must be pretty strong! I might have guessed that the table must have been moved by the only other man present.” I had, indeed, shown myself to be stronger than him, but I was soon to feel myself weaker. Ada eyed me with animosity, and with flaming cheeks began to attack me:

“I am very angry that you should have taken it upon yourself to play such a trick.”

My breath failed me and I stammered out:

“It was only a joke! I never really thought that any of you took the table-turning seriously.”

It was rather late in the day to attack Guido, and besides I might have known, if my ear had been more sensitive, that in any conflict between him and me he was bound to be victorious. Ada’s anger was very significant—how was it I did not guess that she was wholly his? But I persisted in the idea that he was not worthy of her, because he was not the sort of man her serious eye was looking for. Had not even Signora Malfenti seen it too?

They all defended me and made my situation worse. Signora Malfenti said laughingly:

“It was only a joke, and it came off very well.” Aunt Rosina’s huge body was quivering with mirth, and she cried out admiringly:

“Splendid! Splendid!”

I could have wished Guido were less friendly. As a matter of fact all he cared about was to be sure the bad news rapped out by the table was not a spirit communication. He said:

“I don’t mind betting you didn’t move the table on purpose to begin with. You probably moved it the first time unintentionally, and then perhaps you decided to be malicious and move it on purpose. So that there was something in it up to the moment when you let your inspiration lead you away so violently.”

Ada turned and looked at me curiously. She was betraying her excessive devotion to Guido by forgiving me just because he had done so. I refused to allow it.

“No, no!” I said emphatically. “I was tired of waiting for the spirits, and amused myself by taking their place.”

Ada turned her back on me in such a way that I felt I had received a box on the ear. The very curls on her neck seemed to me to express disdain. As usual, instead of keeping my eyes and ears open I was entirely occupied with my own thoughts. I was oppressed by the fact that Ada was compromising herself dreadfully. It caused me as much pain as to hear my mistress had been unfaithful to me. In spite of the affection she showed to Guido I thought she might still be mine, but I felt I should never be able to forgive her attitude. Perhaps I think too slowly to follow the events which go on developing, without waiting for the impression previous events have made on my brain to be cancelled. I felt compelled to go straight on in the path my resolution had marked out for me. It was sheer blind obstinacy. I also found it necessary to strengthen my resolution by renewing it. I went up to Augusta, who was watching me anxiously with an encouraging smile on her open face, and said to her gravely and earnestly:

“This is perhaps the last time I shall enter your house, for I am going to propose to Ada this very evening.”

“You mustn’t do that,” she said, imploringly. “Don’t you see what has happened? I should hate you to have to suffer.”

She continued to intervene between Ada and me. I replied defiantly:

“I shall speak to Ada because it is my duty. It is all the same to me what she replies.”

I went off, limping again, towards Guido. When I had joined him I lit a cigarette, looking at myself in the glass meanwhile. I saw that I was very pale, which for me is sufficient ground for becoming paler still. I made an effort to recover my composure and to appear unconcerned. The absence of mind produced by this double effort made me take up Guido’s glass unconsciously. Once I had it in my hand I could find nothing better to do than to empty it.

Guido began to laugh:

“Now you will know all my thoughts, for I have been drinking out of that glass.”

I have always disliked the taste of lemon. This particular one seemed to me positively poisonous; first because I felt that in drinking out of his glass I had come into horrible contact with Guido, secondly because I was struck at the same moment by the expression of angry impatience on Ada’s face. She at once called the servant and ordered another glass of lemonade, and insisted on its being brought, though Guido said he was not thirsty.

Then I felt genuine compassion for her. She was compromising herself more and more.

“Forgive me, Ada,” I said gently, looking at her as if I were awaiting an explanation. “I did not mean to offend you.”

Suddenly I was afraid my eyes would fill with tears. I wanted to save myself from appearing ridiculous, and cried:

“I have squirted some lemon in my eye!”

That enabled me to cover my eyes with my handkerchief, and I had no further need to restrain my tears so long as I succeeded in not sobbing.

I shall never forget what I endured in the darkness behind my handkerchief. It hid not only my tears, but also a moment’s utter madness. I thought: I will tell her everything, she will understand me and love me, but I will never, never forgive her.

I removed the handkerchief from my face so that everyone could see the tears in my eyes; I tried to laugh and to make everyone else laugh too. I said:

“I guarantee that Signor Giovanni sends home citric acid for making lemon squash with!”

Giovanni arrived at that moment and greeted me with his customary cordiality. This comforted me a little, but it did not last long, because he said he had come back earlier than usual in order to hear Guido play the violin. He broke off to ask why I was crying. They told him what I had said about him and the lemon squash, which amused him.

I was hypocritical enough to join Giovanni in begging Guido to play to us. I reminded myself that I had actually come there that evening to hear Guido play. And the odd thing is that I hoped to mollify Ada by asking him to do so. I looked at her in the hope that for the first time that evening we should be in complete accord. Strange! Wasn’t I going to speak to her and refuse to forgive her? But all I saw was her back and the disdainful curls on her neck. She was hastening to take the violin out of its case.

Guido asked for a quarter of an hour’s quiet first. He seemed to hesitate. During all the years I have known him since, I have found that he always hesitated before doing the simplest thing he was asked to do. He would only do what pleased him, and before granting any request he proceeded to probe the remotest corners of his mind to determine whether he wanted to do it or not.

This was the happiest quarter of an hour for me on that memorable evening. My whimsical chatter amused everyone, including Ada. It was certainly the result of my excitement, but also of the supreme effort I made to conquer the victorious violin which kept coming nearer and nearer. That short period of time which I succeeded in making so amusing for the others was remembered by me as a time of desperate conflict.

Giovanni was saying that on his way home in the tram he had assisted at a painful scene. A woman had tried to get out of it while it was still going, and had fallen and hurt herself. Giovanni gave a rather exaggerated account of his anxiety when he saw the woman was intending to jump out; he saw at once that if she jumped like that she must fall and would probably be run over. It had been very painful to look on and not be in time to save her.

I had an inspiration. I said I had discovered a remedy for the attacks of giddiness from which I used to suffer. When I was watching an acrobat perform his feats at too great a height, or saw some elderly or not very agile person jump out of a tram that was moving, I overcame my anxiety by willing them to come to grief. I even varied the formula which I used in praying they might fall and break their bones. This had a wonderfully calming effect on me, enabling me to contemplate an accident with complete indifference. If my prayers were not fulfilled I was still more pleased.

Guido was charmed by my idea, which he regarded as a psychological discovery. He analysed it as he liked to do with every trifle; he was longing for an opportunity to try my remedy. But he had one objection to it; he thought that bad wishes probably increased the number of disasters in the world. Ada laughed with him and even gave me a look of approval, which I, like a great donkey, felt quite happy about. I thus made the discovery that it was not true I could not forgive her, and of this I was very glad.

We all laughed a good deal, like children at play together. It happened that I was left alone for a few minutes in that part of the drawing-room where Aunt Rosina was sitting. She was still discussing the table-turning. She was rather fat, and sat motionless in her chair, not even looking at me as she spoke. I contrived to make signs to the others that I was bored, and they all looked at me and laughed themselves, without being seen by the aunt.

To increase their mirth it occurred to me to say to her without further preamble:

“But you look much better, Signora, than when I last saw you—quite rejuvenated.”

If she had got angry that might have been something to laugh at. But instead of this she was simply delighted and said that she was in fact much better after her recent illness. I was so surprised by her reply that my face must have taken on a rather comic expression, for everyone burst out laughing again. Soon after the riddle was explained. I discovered that she was not Aunt Rosina at all, but Aunt Maria, a sister of Signora Malfenti. So that one source of misery had been removed from that drawing-room, though not the chief.

The moment came when Guido asked for his violin. He said on that occasion he would do without the piano accompaniment to the Chaconne. Ada held out his violin to him with a welcoming smile. He took it without looking at her; but he looked at the violin as if he would like to shut himself up with it and his inspiration. Then he placed himself in the middle of the room, turning his back on most of the company, passed his bow lightly over the strings to see if they were in tune, and played a few arpeggios. He broke off a moment to say with a smile:

“It’s pretty bold of me, considering I haven’t touched the violin since the last time I played here.”

Charlatan! He turned his back on Ada. I watched her anxiously to see if she were hurt. But she did not seem to be. She had leaned her elbow on the table and sat with her chin resting on her hand, all attention.

And then, facing me, the great Bach appeared in person. Never, before or since, have I felt so intensely the beauty of that music, which seemed to have grown out of the four strings like a Michelangelo angel out of a block of marble. It produced quite a new state of mind in me, so that I sat gazing ecstatically upwards, as if at some revelation. In vain I strove to keep that music at a distance. In vain I thought: ‘Beware! the violin is a siren and you need not have the heart of a hero in order to make others weep with it!’ The music took me completely by storm. It seemed to express all the suffering of my mind and body and to soothe it with smiles and caresses. But it was Guido speaking! I tried to escape from the music, saying to myself: ‘To play like this you only need a great sense of rhythm, a sure hand and a capacity for imitation. I have none of these things, which is not a sign of inferiority, but merely my misfortune.’

While I protested, Bach swept on unerring as fate. The passionate melody on the high strings dropped suddenly to the basso ostinato, the beauty of which always takes one by surprise, however well one knows it. And the rhythm of every note was perfect! A second later, and the melody would have dissolved before the echoing harmony could reach it, a second earlier and it would have been overpowered and drowned. Nothing of that sort happened to Guido; his arm did not tremble, even in the presence of Bach; which was really a sign of inferiority, I thought.

As I write this to-day, I have abundant proof that what I thought then was true, but it is no satisfaction to me to have seen it so clearly. At the moment I was full of hatred which even that mighty music was powerless to subdue. Very soon the daily business of life was to efface it altogether, without any resistance on my part. Yes, ordinary everyday life can do many such things; but woe to the genius who should discover this!

Guido’s masterly performance came to an end. Nobody applauded except Giovanni, and for a few moments nobody spoke. Then, alas, I felt the need to say something. I can’t imagine how I dared, in front of those people who had heard me play. It was as if my violin, which so vainly strove to produce music, had suddenly found a tongue, and begun to criticise that other instrument through which music flowed like light, air and life.

“Magnificent!” I said. The word sounded more like condescension than applause. “But I don’t understand why, towards the end, you played those notes staccato, though Bach has marked them legato.”

I knew every note of the Chaconne. There had been a time when I thought my progress depended on my undertaking such Herculean tasks, and for months on end I would spend my time studying certain of Bach’s compositions note by note.

I knew that everyone in the room was regarding me with contempt and dislike. But I went on, as if by talking I thought I could overcome their hostility.

“Bach,” I added, “uses such humble means to attain his end that an artificial bowing like that is quite out of place.”

I was probably right, but the fact was that I should have been quite incapable of using that style of bowing even if I had wanted to.

Guido’s reply was as impertinent as my criticism had been.

He said:

“Perhaps Bach wasn’t familiar with that means of giving expression. I make him a present of it!”

He dared to put himself above Bach, and no one protested; whereas they laughed at me, who had merely ventured to put myself above Guido.

Then something happened, unimportant in itself, but crucial for me. From a fairly remote part of the house came the sound of little Anna screaming. It appeared later that she had cut her lip. They all hurried out of the room, leaving me alone with Ada, to whom Guido had trusted his precious violin before following the others.

“Shall I take the violin?” I asked, seeing her hesitate as to whether she should go too. I had not had time to grasp that the longed-for moment had arrived at last.

She hesitated, but her distrust of me won the day. Holding the violin still closer she said:

“No. There is no need for me to go too. I don’t expect Anna has really hurt herself. It takes nothing to make her cry.”

She sat down, still holding the violin, and by doing so she seemed to be inviting me to speak. Besides, how could I have gone home without speaking to her? What should I have done all the long night through? I pictured myself tossing from side to side in bed, or roaming about the streets in search of distraction. No! I must not leave that house without obtaining the assurance I needed for my peace of mind.

I tried to be as simple and brief as possible. I was also compelled to be, for I could hardly breathe. I said:

“I love you, Ada. May I speak to your father?”

She sat staring at me in horror and amazement. I was afraid she was going to begin screaming too, like her little sister. I knew that her calm eye and delicately moulded face had had no experience of love, but never had I seen them so remote from it as at that moment. She began to say something which sounded like an introduction to something else. But I wanted a definite answer: yes or no! Perhaps the fact that she appeared at all undecided, offended me. I wanted to force her to make up her mind quickly, by refusing to allow her time to think it over.

“Surely you must have understood!” I said. “You couldn’t have thought I wanted to make love to Augusta!”

I wanted to speak emphatically, but in my flurry I put my emphasis in the wrong place, and ended by pronouncing poor Augusta’s name with a tone and gesture of contempt.

This sufficed to relieve Ada’s embarrassment. She let everything pass except the insult to Augusta.

“Why do you think yourself better than Augusta? I don’t for a moment suppose that Augusta would consent to be your wife!”

It was only then that she remembered I was waiting for an answer.

“As for me ... I wonder that such a thing entered your head.”

The sharp tone of her reply was meant to avenge Augusta. In my great distress of mind I thought that the meaning of the words was inspired by the same thought; I believe if someone gave me a box on the ear I should begin analysing the cause. So that I tried again to persuade her:

“Think it over, Ada. I am not a bad man. I am rich. I am rather eccentric, but I can easily cure myself of that.”

Ada spoke more gently, but she still insisted on talking about Augusta.

“You think it over too, Zeno; Augusta is a good girl and would make you an excellent wife. I can’t answer for her, but I think ...”

It was very sweet to me to hear my Christian name pronounced by Ada for the first time. Was she not really inviting me to speak more plainly? Perhaps I had lost her, or at least she would not consent to marry me at once, but meanwhile it was my duty to prevent her from compromising herself still further with Guido; I ought to open her eyes to the danger. I behaved diplomatically, and told her first of all that I admired and respected Augusta, but that it was quite out of the question that I should marry her. I repeated it twice to make sure she had understood. “I could not marry her.” I hoped in this way to mollify Ada who had thought at first that I wanted to insult Augusta.

“Augusta is a dear, good, charming girl; but she is not suited to me.”

Then I went ahead too fast, because I had heard a noise in the passage and was afraid I might at any moment be interrupted.

“Ada, that man is not worthy of you. He is a fool! Didn’t you notice how upset he was by the answers at the table-turning? Did you see his walking-stick? He plays the violin well, but so do monkeys sometimes. He betrays his stupidity in every word he utters.”

She listened with the air of someone who had difficulty in grasping what is being said to them. Then she sprang to her feet, still holding the violin and bow, and interrupted me with a shower of abuse. I did my best to forget her words, and succeeded. I only remember that she began by asking me in a loud voice how I dared to speak like that about herself and Guido! I looked very surprised, because I thought I had only been talking about him. I forgot all her scornful words, but not the beauty of her noble face, glowing with health and anger, its lines rendered more precise, almost sculptural, by the fire of her indignation. That I could never forget, and when I think of my youth and my love, I see again Ada’s lovely face at the moment when she banished me definitely from her life.

They all came back into the room with Signora Malfenti, who was holding Anna in her arms, still crying quietly. No one noticed Ada or me, and without saying good-bye to anyone I left the room; I took my hat from the hall without anybody trying to stop me, oddly enough. Then I stopped myself, remembering that it would be very bad manners to go away without saying good-bye formally to everyone. The truth no doubt is that what prevented me leaving the house was my consciousness that a night even worse than all the five previous nights awaited me. I had obtained certainty, and now felt the need of something else: peace, peace with every man. If I could banish all bitterness from my relations with Ada and the others I thought I should be able to sleep better. Why must there be that bitterness? There was no reason really for my being angry with Guido, who, even if it was through no merit of his own, could not be blamed because Ada preferred him to me.

She was the only one who had noticed me going out into the hall, and when she saw me coming back she looked anxiously at me. Was she afraid I should make a scene? I wanted to reassure her at once, so I went and stood beside her and whispered:

“Forgive me if I offended you!”

She took my hand and pressed it reassuringly. It was a great comfort to me. I shut my eyes for a moment in order to be alone with my own soul and feel the peace that her pressure gave me. Fate willed that while all the others were still busy trying to comfort the child, I found myself sitting by Alberta. I had not seen her, and only realised her presence when she said to me:

“She did not hurt herself at all. It is a pity father is here, for whenever he sees her crying he gives her an expensive present.”

I stopped analysing myself, because I suddenly saw myself whole! If I wanted to have peace I must ensure that I should never be banished from that drawing-room. I looked at Alberta. She was very like Ada. She was a little smaller and still had something childish about her whole person. She would often shout rather, and laugh so loudly that her little face became quite puckered up and red. Oddly enough, just at that moment I called to mind an axiom of my father’s. “Choose a young wife, it will be easier for you to educate her to suit you.” This decided me. I again looked at Alberta. I undressed her in imagination, and the soft young body I pictured delighted me. I said:

“Listen, Alberta! I’ve got an idea. Has it ever occurred to you that you are old enough to get married?”

“I don’t want to get married!” she replied, smiling and looking kindly at me, without blushing or appearing at all embarrassed. “I want to go on studying. Mother wants me too as well.”

“But you could go on studying just as well if you were married.”

I had what seemed to me rather a bright idea:

“I think of going on studying too when I am married.”

She laughed heartily, but I saw I was wasting my time; this sort of nonsense was not the way to win a wife and peace of mind. One must take it seriously. It ought to be easy in Alberta’s case, for her reception was very different from Ada’s.

I was quite in earnest. I felt I ought to tell my future wife everything. I said to her in a tone full of feeling:

“I have just made the same proposal to Ada as I now make to you. She refused me with scorn. You can imagine what a state I am in.”

These words, which were accompanied by a gesture of profound depression, were really a kind of final declaration of love to Ada. I was getting too serious, and added in a lighter tone:

“But I think if you would consent to marry me I should be perfectly happy, and forget everything and everyone for you.”

She became very serious and said:

“Don’t be offended, Zeno, for I should hate to hurt your feelings. I respect you very much. I think you’re a very nice fellow, and you understand lots of things without having learnt them, whereas my professors only know what they have learnt. But I don’t want to get married. I may change my mind, but at the moment I have only one ambition: to become a writer. You see how I trust you. I have never told anyone else and I hope you won’t give me away. On my side I promise I won’t ever tell anyone of your proposal.”

“You can tell anyone you choose,” I interrupted angrily. I felt again that I was in danger of being banished from that house, and I hastened to put up my defence. There was only one way of taking down Alberta’s pride in having refused me, and directly I saw it I adopted it. I said:

“I shall now propose to Augusta and tell everyone I married her because both her sisters refused me!”

I laughed with extravagant good humour as I reflected on the strangeness of my proceeding. The wit on which I prided myself so much was manifesting itself in deeds instead of words!

I looked round to try and find Augusta. She had gone out into the passage with a tray on which was a glass half full of a soothing drink for Anna. I ran after her, calling her by her name, and she leaned against a wall and waited for me. I stood facing her, and said without a moment’s hesitation:

“Listen to me, Augusta! Would you like us to get married?” It was a very rough-and-ready proposal. I was proposing to marry her, and yet I never asked what she thought about it, nor did it ever occur to me that anyone would have the right to ask me for an explanation. I was only doing what they all seemed to expect of me!

The eyes she lifted to me were wide with astonishment. This seemed to make her squint more than ever. Her soft, pale face first grew paler, then suddenly became red all over. She clutched at the glass to steady it on the tray. In a voice I could hardly hear, she said:

“You are joking, it is unkind of you.”

I was afraid she was going to cry, and the odd idea came to me that I might comfort her by telling her my own troubles.

“I am not joking,” I said, gravely and sadly. “First I proposed to Ada who refused me angrily; then I asked Alberta to marry me, and she refused me too, with fine speeches. I don’t bear either of them any ill will. But I am very, very unhappy.”

She grew calmer as she saw my grief, and looked tenderly at me. She was evidently thinking hard. Her look was like a caress, but gave me no pleasure.

“So you want me to understand and always to remember that you don’t love me?” she asked.

What did she mean by that sibylline saying? Was it the prelude to consent?

Did she mean she would remember during all the years she would have to live with me? I felt like someone who has put himself in a dangerous position on purpose to kill himself, and then has to strain every nerve in order to save his own life. Wouldn’t it have been better if Augusta had refused me too, and I had been able to return safe and sound to my study, which after all I had not found intolerable even on that awful day? I said:

“It is true that I only love Ada, and now I am asking you to marry me.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to say that it was because I could not bear the thought of never meeting Ada again that I was willing even to become her brother-in-law. But it would have seemed too fantastic. And Ada might easily think that I was making fun of her again. So I only said:

“I can’t face living alone any longer.”

She remained leaning against the wall. Perhaps she felt she needed some support, but she seemed calmer and managed to hold the tray in one hand. Was I saved, and must I therefore leave the house for ever? Or might I stay there on condition that I got married? I went on talking, in my impatience to hear her reply, which was long in coming:

“I am quite a good fellow, and I think I should be easy enough to live with, even if it wasn’t very romantic.”

This was a phrase I had been preparing for Ada during the long days before, in the hope of persuading her to say yes, even if she did not love me very much.

Augusta sighed gently and still remained silent. Her silence might mean a refusal, the most delicate imaginable; I was on the point of going to fetch my hat while my head was still my own to put it on.

But Augusta had at last made up her mind, and with a dignity I have never forgotten she stood erect, no longer needing the wall to support her. So that she was now quite close, facing me in the narrow passage. She said:

“You need a woman, Zeno, to live with you and look after you. I will be that woman.”

She put out her plump hand, which I almost instinctively kissed. Clearly there was no possibility of doing anything else. I don’t mind confessing that at that moment a feeling of immense satisfaction pervaded me. I had no longer any decision to make. Everything was decided for me. At last I had obtained certainty.

And so I became engaged. We at once received endless congratulations. My success was something like Guido’s on the violin, as far as the applause was concerned. Giovanni kissed me and was most affectionate. He said he had looked upon me as a son ever since he began to give me advice about my business.

My future mother-in-law also held out her cheek for me to kiss, which I did as lightly as I could. I should not have escaped that kiss even if I had married Ada.

“You see I guessed everything,” she said, with an incredible assurance which only went unpunished because I did not choose to protest.

Then she embraced Augusta, and the warmth of her affection was betrayed by a sob, even in the midst of her joyful outpourings. I could not endure Signora Malfenti, but somehow her tears seemed to surround my engagement, for that one evening at least, with a halo of sympathy and importance.

Alberta was radiant, and shook me warmly by the hand:

“I will be a good sister to you,” she said.

And Ada said:

“Bravo, Zeno!” then in a lower voice she added: “I want to tell you this: you may think you have been too hasty, but no one has ever acted more sensibly than you have this evening.”

Guido expressed great surprise.

“I realised for the first time this morning,” he said, “that you were after one or other of the sisters, but I could not discover which.”

They couldn’t be very intimate then, if Ada had not said anything to him about my proposal. Had I really been in too much of a hurry?

Soon after, however, Ada said to me:

“I want you to love me as a sister. Let us forget all that has happened; I shall never say a word to Guido.”

It was after all very nice to have given such pleasure to a whole family; and if I was not as happy as I ought to have been, it was only because I was so tired. I felt terribly sleepy, which was a proof that I had acted with a certain amount of foresight. I was going to have a good night at last.

At supper Augusta and I received all our congratulations in silence. She felt she must apologise for not taking part in the general conversation and said:

“I can’t talk. You must remember that till half an hour ago I had no idea what was going to happen to me.”

She always spoke the exact truth. She did not know whether to laugh or cry, and looked at me. I tried to make my answering look into a caress, but I don’t know if I succeeded.

Later the same evening, while we were still at supper, my feelings were wounded again; this time by Guido.

It appears that shortly before I had arrived to take part in the spiritualistic séance, Guido had told them what I had said that morning about not being absent-minded. They at once produced so many proofs of my having lied that in revenge, or perhaps to show that he could draw, he did two caricatures of me. The first showed me with my nose in the air, leaning on an umbrella stuck in the ground. In the second the umbrella was broken and the handle was sticking into my back. The two caricatures attained their object of making people laugh by the simple fact that the figure which was supposed to represent me, and was not really in the least like me except that he was very bald, was identical in both sketches, and might therefore be supposed to be so absent-minded that he had not even changed his position though an umbrella had run through his back.

Everyone laughed a great deal, too much I thought. I was extremely pained by this very successful attempt to pour ridicule on me. It was on this occasion that I was conscious for the first time of a stinging pain in my right forearm and hip, an intense burning sensation, a turmoil of the nerves, as if they had been seized by a kind of cramp. I held my hip in alarm and clutched at the same time at my right arm with my left hand. Augusta said:

“What’s the matter?”

I said the bruise was hurting me which I had got when I fell, as I was leaving the café.

I at once made an energetic effort to get rid of the pain. I thought it would probably be cured if I could think of a way to avenge myself for the insult. I asked for a piece of paper and a pencil, and tried to draw someone being crushed by a table falling on the top of him. By his side was a stick which had fallen from his hand at the moment of the accident. No one recognised the walking-stick, so that my vengeance fell very flat. In order that they might realise for whom it was intended, and how he had got into that position, I wrote underneath it: “Guido Speier fighting with the table.” As a matter of fact nothing was visible of the man under the table but his legs, which might possibly have been like Guido’s if I had not intentionally made them bandy, and if the spirit of vengeance had not intervened to make my already childish drawing worse still.

The severe pain I was suffering made me work very rapidly. Never before had my whole being longed so desperately to wound someone, and if I could have exchanged the pencil, which I was incapable of using, for a sabre, perhaps my cure would have been complete.

Guido laughed heartily at my drawing, then remarked quietly:

“The table doesn’t seem to have done me much harm.”

It was quite true it had not hurt him at all, and it was the injustice of this which stung me so much.

Ada took Guido’s two drawings, saying she wanted to keep them. I looked at her reproachfully and she was obliged to avoid my eyes. I had the right to reproach her for making me suffer so much.

Augusta came to my rescue by saying she wanted me to put the date of our engagement on my drawing, for she was going to keep it too. I felt the warm blood course through my veins at this token of her affection, of which I now first recognised all the importance. But it did not put a stop to my pain, and I could not help thinking that such a mark of affection given me by Ada would have produced a flow of blood sufficient to purify my nerves from all their long accumulation of poison.

I have never got rid of that pain. In my old age I suffer less from it because I view its advent with more indulgence, and only say: “Oh, are you there again, to remind me that I once was young?” But while I was young it was a different matter; not that the pain was severe, though it sometimes prevented my moving and would occasionally keep me awake all night. It played a large part in my life, because I was always trying to get cured. Why must I bear the brand of defeat throughout my life, and become as it were a walking monument to Guido’s victory? It was necessary to banish that pain from my body.

And so began my series of cures. But the irrational cause of the malady was soon forgotten, and even I soon found it difficult to retrace. This was natural, for I had great faith in the doctors who were treating me, and sincerely believed them when they told me the pain was due sometimes to imperfect metabolism, sometimes to defective circulation, to tuberculosis and various infections shameful or otherwise. All my treatments gave me temporary relief, so that each fresh diagnosis seemed at the outset to justify itself. Sooner or later they would break down, but they generally contained some element of truth, because none of my bodily functions are ideally perfect.

Only once they went completely wrong. I had gone to a sort of veterinary surgeon who insisted for a long time on treating my sciatic nerve with blisters, till he was nonplussed one day by the pain darting suddenly from my thigh to the back of my head, which could not be connected with the sciatic nerve. Æsculapius was furious and showed me the door, and I remember that I went off not in the least angry but only interested to notice that the pain, though it had changed its position, was exactly the same as before. It was just as violent and as inaccessible as it had been in my hip. It is curious how every part of our body may be susceptible to the same kind of pain.

All the other diagnoses have proved their right to lodge in my body, and still continue to strive amongst themselves for mastery. There are days when uric acid bears sway, others in which it is slain, or rather cured by an inflammation of the veins. I have whole chests full of medicines, and they are the only ones that I keep tidy myself. I love my medicines, and know that even if I give one up I shall go back to it sooner or later. And I don’t consider I have wasted my time. I might have been dead long ago, who knows of what ghastly disease, if my pain had not simulated each in turn so as to induce me to get cured before it had time really to take hold on me.

But though I am unable to define its real nature I know when my pain took shape for the first time. It was really on account of that drawing which was so much better than mine. That was the last drop which made the pitcher overflow! I am certain I had never felt the pain before. I tried to explain its origin to a doctor, but I could not make him understand. Who knows? Perhaps psycho-analysis will bring to light all the changes that took place in my body during those days, and especially during the few hours immediately following my engagement.

Few hours! They seemed more than a few. When the party broke up Augusta said to me gaily:

“Till to-morrow then!”

This pleased me because it showed that I had attained my end, that nothing was over, but would go on just the same to-morrow. She looked into my eyes, and was cheered to find them respond warmly to her invitation. I went down the stairs, which I no longer counted, saying to myself:

“Who knows? Perhaps I do love her after all.”

This uncertainty has never left me during the whole of my life, and to-day I am compelled to believe that true love is compatible with such a doubt.

But even after I had left the house I was not allowed to go home and enjoy the fruit of my evening’s activity in a long, restoring night’s sleep. Guido thought he would like an ice, and asked me to go with him to a café. He took my arm in a friendly way, and I responded with like good will. He was a very important person to me, and I felt I could refuse him nothing. My fatigue, which ought really to have driven me to bed, made me more submissive than usual.

We went into the very same place where poor Tullio had infected me with his disease, and sat down at a table a little apart from the others. On the way there my pain, which I little thought was to be my life’s companion, had been very bad, and I was glad to sit down, for this seemed at first to relieve it.

I found Guido’s company almost intolerable. He inquired with great curiosity into the story of my love for Augusta. Did he suspect I was deceiving him? I told him brazenly that I had fallen in love with her at first sight, on the occasion of my first visit to the Malfentis. The pain I was suffering made me talkative, as if I were endeavouring to shout it down. But I talked too much, and if Guido had really been listening he would soon have discovered that I was not so much in love with Augusta as all that. I spoke of the most conspicuous thing in her body, namely her squint, which somehow made one expect that all her other limbs would be slightly crooked too. Then I tried to explain why I had not proposed sooner. Guido was perhaps surprised to see me turn up at the last minute only in order to get engaged? I said emphatically:

“The Malfenti girls are used to a great deal of luxury, and I could not make up my mind whether I ought to take on such a responsibility.”

I was vexed at having dragged Ada in too, but there was no help for it now; it was so difficult to keep Augusta apart from Ada! I lowered my voice so as to keep myself more under control and went on:

“I had to work things out first. I knew the money I had was not enough. So I began thinking how I could increase my business.” I think I went on to say that it took time to work it all out, and that was why I had kept away from the Malfentis for five days. By dint of exercise my tongue was beginning to arrive at a certain degree of sincerity. I was almost in tears, and pressing my thigh with my hand I murmured:

“Five days is a long time.”

Guido said he was glad to discover I was so cautious.

I remarked dryly:

“A cautious person is not necessarily more popular than a scatterbrain.”

Guido laughed.

“Curious,” he said, “that the cautious person should feel obliged to defend the scatterbrain.”

Then he passed directly to telling me in a very matter-of-fact way that he was about to ask for Ada’s hand. Had he dragged me to the café just to listen to this confession, or had he got bored by hearing me talk so long, and now felt that he must have his turn?

I feel almost sure that I succeeded in showing equal surprise and pleasure. But I very soon contrived to get my own back.

I said viciously:

“Now I understand why Ada liked your travesty of Bach so much. You played well, but you remember there used to be a notice up in the streets of mediæval Florence: ‘Gli otto probiscono di lordare.’”⁠[2]⁠

The blow struck home and Guido turned red from the pain of it. He replied gently, because he now lacked the support of his small enthusiastic audience.

“Good God!” he began, in order to gain time. “Sometimes when one is playing one gives way to caprice. Very few of them knew Bach, so I thought I would modernise him a little for them.”

He seemed quite content with his idea; so was I, because by making such an excuse he admitted he was in the wrong. This was quite enough to mollify me, and besides, I would not for worlds have quarrelled with Ada’s future husband; I told him I had rarely heard an amateur play so well.

He was not satisfied; he said he could only be considered as an amateur because he did not choose to rank as a professional.

Was that all he wanted? Very well; I agreed with him: it was obvious that he could not be looked on as an amateur.

So we became friends again.

Then suddenly, out of the blue, he began talking against women. I listened to him with open mouth. Now that I know him better, I realise that he will plunge into an eloquent discussion on whatever subject, directly he feels at his ease. I had spoken earlier about the luxury the Malfenti girls were accustomed to, and he returned to the subject and went on to discuss all the other bad qualities of women. I was too tired to interrupt him. All I could do was to go on nodding my head in agreement, and even this I found very fatiguing. Otherwise I should certainly have protested. I know that I had every reason to talk against women as represented by Ada, Alberta, and my future mother-in-law; but he had no reason whatever for attacking the sex which was solely represented for him by Ada who loved him.

He seemed to know a great deal, and tired as I was I listened to him with admiration. It was not till long afterwards that I discovered he had adopted the genial theories of the young suicide Weininger. While he talked I seemed to receive a fresh revelation, as when I had heard him play Bach. I almost wondered whether he was not trying to cure me of my love. Otherwise why was he so anxious to convince me that women were incapable either of genius or goodness? I think the cure might have been efficacious if it had been administered by anyone but Guido. But I remembered his theories and supplemented them later by reading Weininger. They never do cure one, but it is well to keep them in mind when one is running after women.

When he had finished his ice Guido felt the need of a breath of fresh air, and persuaded me to join him in a walk to the outskirts of the town.

I remember that for days past the whole city had been longing for rain to cool the air, for the hot weather had begun unusually early. Personally I had not even noticed the heat. This evening filmy white clouds had begun to collect, the kind which are popularly supposed to bring heavy rain; but a great moon was climbing up the sky, which, where it was still clear, was intensely blue: one of those full-cheeked moons which, also in the popular belief, are able to devour the clouds. In fact one could see that as she climbed the clouds dispersed and the sky became clear.

I tried to interrupt Guido’s continual chatter, which compelled me to keep nodding my head and drove me to distraction, by telling him about the kiss which the poet Zamboni thought he had seen in the moon; how sweet that kiss seemed in the moon of our dark nights, when compared with the injustice done me by Guido. As I talked, and shook off the torpor produced by my continued assent, my pain seemed to grow less. It was the reward of my rebellion, and I went on developing my line of thought.

Guido was obliged to leave women alone for a while and look up at the sky. But not for long! Directly he discovered with my help the pale woman’s face in the moon he resumed his argument with a witticism at which he laughed loudly, though no one laughed with him in the deserted street:

“What a lot of things that woman sees! It’s a pity that being a woman she can’t remember them.”

It was part of his theory (or Weininger’s) that women can never have genius because they have no memory.

We reached the bottom of the Via Belvedere. Guido said a climb would do us good. I again consented to go with him. At the top, by one of those impulses more common to quite young boys, he stretched himself out on the wall which separated the upper road from the one below. He thought he was being very courageous to run the risk of falling thirty feet. I was horrified at first when I saw him in such a perilous position; then I recalled the system I had myself evolved that very evening in a burst of inspiration, in order to escape from my depression, and I began to pray fervently that he might fall.

From that dangerous vantage-ground he still went on preaching against women. He said that they always needed toys like children, only more costly ones. I remembered Ada saying how fond she was of jewellery, so perhaps he was really meaning her! Then a fearful idea came to me. Why shouldn’t I make Guido fall those thirty feet? Wouldn’t it be only fair to do away with someone who was taking Ada away from me without loving her? For a moment it seemed to me that when I had killed him I should be able to run straight to Ada and receive my reward. On that strange, moonlight night I felt as if she were present and could hear Guido insulting her. I must confess that for a moment I really did think of killing Guido! I was standing by him as he lay at full length on the low wall, and I speculated coldly on how I had better take hold of him, so as to be sure of being successful. Then I saw that I should have no need to take hold of him at all. He was lying with his arms folded behind his head, and it would only need a sudden good push to throw him completely off his balance.