THE STORY OF MY MARRIAGE

In the minds of middle-class young men life is associated with a career, and in early youth that career is usually Napoleon’s. They do not of course necessarily dream of becoming Emperor, because it is possible to be like Napoleon while remaining far, far below him. Similarly, the most intense life is summarised in the most rudimentary of sounds, that of a sea-wave, which from the moment it is born until it expires is in a state of continual change. I too, like Napoleon and like the wave, could at any rate look forward to a recurring state of birth and dissolution.

My life seemed only able to supply one note without any variation, a fairly high note for which some people envied me, but nevertheless terribly monotonous. During my whole life my friends have never changed their opinion of me, and I think that since I attained years of discretion my conception of myself has not changed very much either.

Perhaps it was the tedium of producing and hearing that solitary note which put into my head the idea of getting married. Those who have not experienced it are inclined to think marriage more important than it really is. The mate you choose renews, for better or for worse, her own race in your children, but Mother Nature who ordains it thus, and yet cannot lead us straight to the goal (because when we get married it is not of children that we are thinking), persuades us that our wife will bring about our own renewal—a curious illusion which the facts in no way support. In fact one may live together quite unchanged, except that one may come to feel dislike for a being so different from oneself or envy for a being so superior.

The odd thing about my matrimonial adventure is that it began by my making the acquaintance of my future father-in-law, and feeling a great admiration and affection for him before I knew that he had daughters of a marriageable age. But obviously it was no conscious purpose which drove me towards a goal of which I was completely ignorant. I deserted a girl who at one moment I thought would have suited me, and attached myself wholly to my future father-in-law. I almost feel inclined to believe in fate.

The desire for novelty which I secretly cherished in my soul found satisfaction in Giovanni Malfenti, who was so entirely different from me and from anyone whose friendship I had enjoyed up to that time. I had a considerable degree of culture owing to my having studied at the university; and still more owing to my long, and I think very instructive period of doing nothing. He, on the other hand, was an important business man, ignorant and pushing. But his ignorance gave one an impression of quiet strength which fascinated me. I loved to watch him and envied him for what he was.

Malfenti was about fifty, with a constitution of iron; a huge, tall man weighing about fifteen stone. The few ideas which he kept in his great head had been weighed, analysed and sifted by him with such care and lucidity, and their application to the numerous cases which arose each day so perfectly thought out that they seemed to have become part of himself, like his limbs or his character. I was lacking in ideas like that and I clung to him in the hope of enriching myself. Olivi had advised my going to the Tergesteo,⁠[1] for he said it would be a good preparation for commercial life for me to frequent the Bourse, and that I might be able from thence to give him some useful tips. I sat down at the table presided over by my future father-in-law, and there I remained; for it seemed to me that I had at last discovered a true chair of commerce, such as I had been in search of for a very long time.

He soon noticed my admiration for him and responded with an affection which at once struck me as paternal. Did he know from the very beginning how things were going to turn out? When, in the enthusiasm produced in me by his great activity, I declared one evening my intention of getting rid of Olivi and managing my affairs myself, he strongly dissuaded me and even seemed rather alarmed at my proposal. He had nothing against my devoting myself to commerce, but I must always remain in close touch with Olivi, whom he also knew.

He was very ready to help me, and went so far as to write with his own hand in my notebook three commandments which he held should suffice to make any business prosper.

(1) It is not essential to work yourself, but you are lost if you can’t make others work for you.

(2) There is only one great cause for remorse—to have failed to look after one’s own interests.

(3) Theory is very useful in business, but only when the business has already been settled.

I knew these and ever so many other wise sayings by heart, but they were never any use to me. When I admire anyone I at once try to be like him. So I began to imitate Malfenti. I soon began to feel myself as astute as he was, and once I even thought I was the sharper of the two, for I fancied I had discovered a weak point in his way of carrying on business, and decided to tell him of it at once in order to win his respect. At the Tergesteo one day I heard him calling someone a blockhead to his face, and went up to his desk and began taking him to task. I explained to him that he was making a mistake in proclaiming his cunning far and wide. The really cunning business man, I said, ought to aim at appearing as stupid as possible.

He laughed at me. On the contrary, he said, his reputation for cunning was most useful to him. A great many people came to ask his advice and brought him all kinds of fresh news, while the sound advice he gave them was based on experience dating from the Middle Ages. Sometimes the people who brought him information ended by buying his goods. At this point he would begin to shout, for he had at last discovered the final argument which was to convince me: if you wanted to buy or sell profitably you always went to the man who had the greatest reputation for cunning. All you could hope for from your stupid man was to cheat him of his profit, but his goods were always sure to cost more than the other’s because he had probably been cheated when he bought them in the first instance.

I was the person whom he thought most of in his little circle at the Tergesteo. He confided to me his business secrets, and I never betrayed them. He had chosen his confidant so well that he twice succeeded in cheating me after I became his son-in-law. The first time his sharpness cost me a lot of money, but as it was Olivi who was taken in I did not mind so much. Olivi had sent me to get some tips from him, which I did. But they turned out so badly that Olivi never forgave me, and afterwards whenever I was about to open my mouth to give him a new tip he would ask: “Who did you get that from? Your father-in-law?” In order to defend myself I was obliged to begin defending Giovanni, and I ended by feeling that I had been the cheater instead of the cheated: a very agreeable sensation.

But on the other occasion I was the victim, though I could not even then bear any ill-will to my father-in-law. Sometimes he provoked my envy, sometimes my mirth. My misfortune seemed to me a perfect illustration of his principles; never had he explained them to me so well. He laughed about it too with me. He said he was only laughing because he found my folly so comic. Once however he did confess to having played a trick on me. It was at the wedding of his daughter Ada (not, alas, to me) after he had drunk some champagne, which had an exciting effect on his great body accustomed only to drink pure water.

Then he revealed what had happened, shouting in order to overcome his mirth, which almost prevented him from speaking:

“And then out came that decree! It knocked me flat, and I was just working out how much it would cost me when in came my son-in-law. He said he wanted to take up commerce. ‘Here’s a splendid chance for you,’ I said. He flung himself on the document and signed it right away, lest Olivi should arrive and interfere; and the deed was done!” Then he began singing my praises. “He knows the classics by heart. He knows who said this and who said that. But he doesn’t know how to read the newspaper!”

It was quite true. If only I had seen that decree, which had appeared in an inconspicuous place in the five newspapers I read every day, I should not have fallen into the trap. But even so I should have had to take in at once the whole bearing of the new law, which was not such an easy matter, for it concerned the reduction of a customs tax which in its turn would send down the value of certain goods.

The following day my father-in-law denied having made such a confession. The whole business assumed the same aspect it had before the wedding breakfast. “Wine is a great inventor,” he calmly said, and maintained that the decree had not been published till two days after he had concluded the affair with me. He said it was clear that if I had seen it I should have realised its import. I felt flattered by this, but it was not said to spare my feelings, for he assumed that everyone who read the papers was bound to keep their own interests in mind all the time. But when I read the papers I at once become metamorphosed into public opinion, and if I see that a tax has been reduced my thoughts turn at once to Cobden and Liberalism. This seems to me so uplifting an idea that I have no room left for my own particular merchandise.

Once I really did succeed in winning his admiration, though unfortunately on account of my least admirable qualities. He and I had both had shares for some time past in a sugar factory, which was supposed to be going to work miracles. The shares however began to go down, only a little, but quite regularly, and Giovanni, who had no idea of swimming against the stream, sold his and advised me to sell mine. I entirely agreed, and decided to order my broker to do so, and I made a note of it in the little book which I had lately started for that purpose. But no one looks in their pockets during the daytime, and for several days on end I kept coming across my entry in turning out my pockets before going to bed, when it was of course too late to do anything. Once I could not help calling out from sheer annoyance, and so as not to have to explain to my wife I told her I had bitten my tongue. Next time in my rage at such incompetence I bit my hand. “Look out for your foot,” said my wife laughing. By this time I had got so used to it that I ceased mutilating myself. I only stared in stupefaction at the accursed little book which was too thin to make itself felt during the day, and then forgot all about it till the following evening.

One day a heavy shower drove me to shelter at the Tergesteo. There I happened to meet my broker, who told me that during the last week those shares had almost doubled in price.

“I’ll sell them now,” I cried, triumphantly.

I hastened at once to my father-in-law, who had already heard of the rise in price of the shares and was lamenting having sold his and, a little less perhaps, having persuaded me to sell mine.

“Patience!” he said, laughing. “It’s the first time you have lost in consequence of taking my advice.”

The other affair had not been by his advice, but only at his suggestion, which according to him was quite a different matter.

I laughed heartily.

“But I didn’t take your advice!” I was not content with my good luck. I wanted to take credit for it. I told him I was going to sell my shares next day, and assuming an air of great importance I tried to make him believe that I had received information which I had forgotten to hand on to him, and which had induced me not to follow his advice!

He looked extremely offended and turned away as he answered:

“Anyone with a head like yours has no right to go into business. And when you have played a caddish trick like that on anyone, the least you can do is not to confess it. You have much to learn, young man.”

I hated to see him angry. It was much more amusing to have him score off me. I told him exactly what had happened.

“You see it is precisely someone with a head like mine who ought to go into business.”

His good humour returned immediately, and he laughed with me.

“It is not really a profit but a compensation, in your case,” he said. “That head of yours has already cost you so much that it is only fair you should recover some of your losses.”

I don’t know why I have spent so much time describing my quarrels with him, for there were very few of them. I was so fond of him that I always wanted to be with him, in spite of the fact that he had the habit of shouting in order to think more clearly. My tympanum managed to withstand his vociferation; if he had shouted less his immoral theories would have been more offensive, and if he had had a better education his force would not have seemed so impressive. Though I was so different from him I think he returned my affection. I should feel more certain of it, though, if he had lived longer. He went on lecturing me after my marriage, and he interspersed his instructions with outbursts of violence and sudden insults which I accepted mildly and was sure that I deserved.

I married his daughter. Mother Nature guided me mysteriously, and you will see with what violence she imposed her commands. Sometimes I study my children’s faces, and try to find, beside the small chin—a sign of weakness—and the dreamy eyes which I bequeathed to them, some traces of the brute force of the man I chose to be their grandfather.

I wept at my father-in-law’s grave, though his final farewell to me had not been too affectionate. On his death-bed he told me he admired my damn good luck which enabled me to go about just as I liked, while he was crucified on his bed. I asked him in surprise what I could have done to make him want me to be ill. And this is what he replied:

“If I could get rid of my illness by giving it to you, you may be sure that I would do so at once, and twice over! I have got none of your humanitarian bees in my bonnet!”

There was nothing offensive in what he said; he only wanted to repeat the other occasion when he had landed me with worthless goods. The loss of my second father was a terrible one for me, caveman, ignorant, fierce fighter though he was, for these very qualities showed up the better my own weakness, culture and timidity. Yes, it is true I am timid! I should never have realised it but for studying Giovanni so closely. How much better I might have known myself to-day if I had been able to have him always by me!

I soon perceived that at his desk in the Tergesteo, where he took pleasure in revealing himself exactly as he was, and even rather worse, Giovanni made certain reservations. He never spoke about his home life, except when absolutely obliged, and then very quietly, in a much lower voice than usual. He had a great respect for his home and felt, no doubt, that not everyone who sat with him at that table was worthy to hear anything about it. All that I could discover was that he had four daughters, whose names all began with the same initial, the letter A; he said that this was so convenient because anything stamped with that initial could pass from one to the other without any alteration being necessary. Their names, which I immediately committed to memory, were Ada, Augusta, Alberta and Anna. I was also told that they were all good-looking. That initial seemed to me more significant than it really was. I dreamt about those four girls linked together so closely by their names. I almost felt they were a bunch of flowers. But that initial meant something else too. My name is Zeno, and I felt as if I were about to choose a wife from a far country.

It was perhaps only chance that the first time I called at the Malfentis I had just ended an old love affair with a woman who deserved, I think, rather better treatment. But if it was chance it was a curious one. I decided to break with her on quite frivolous grounds. The poor girl thought that making me jealous was a good way of getting me to propose to her. But the fact that I suspected her was enough to make me break with her altogether. She was not to know that I was obsessed at that moment with the idea of marriage, and that I could not make up my mind to marry her just because she would not have seemed enough of a novelty. The suspicion she had tried to arouse in me by artificial means was a proof of the superiority of matrimony, which does not admit of such suspicions. When I realised that my suspicions were groundless it occurred to me that she was too extravagant. To-day, after twenty-four years of honest matrimony, I am no longer of that opinion. It was fortunate for her that I broke with her, for a few months later she married someone who was very well off. She married before I did, and almost immediately after my wedding I met her in my own house, for her husband was a friend of my father-in-law. We met frequently, but for some years—in fact during our youth—we were rather cold to each other and never made any allusion whatever to the past. The other day, however, she suddenly said, with a youthful blush on her face which was framed by grey hair:

“Why did you give me up?”

I spoke the truth because I had no time to invent a lie:

“I really don’t remember, but there are so many other things in my life which I have forgotten too.”

“I am sorry,” she said, and I was already beginning to bow in expectation of a compliment. “Now that you are old I find you most entertaining.” I straightened myself up with a jerk. There was nothing to say thank you for.

One day I heard that the Malfenti family had come back to town after an unusually long summer holiday in the country. I did not have to take any steps to get invited to the house, for Giovanni forestalled me.

He showed me a letter from an old friend of his, asking for news of me. We had been together at the university and I had been devoted to him so long as I thought he was going to become a great light in the scientific world. But I had lost all interest in him since he had become instead the head of a great cement firm, and now I never saw him.

I remember that first visit as if it were yesterday. It was a cold, dark autumn afternoon; and I even remember the relief of taking off my overcoat in the warm atmosphere of the house. I felt as if I were coming safely into port. I still cannot help wondering at my blindness, which I regarded then as clairvoyance. I was in pursuit of health and respectability. It is true that four girls were included under the initial “A,” but I at once subtracted three of them, and in my mind submitted the fourth to a searching examination. I could not however have really told you which qualities I demanded from her and which I abominated.

I was shown into an elegant drawing-room, furnished in two different styles—Louis Quatorze and Venetian—the latter containing a good deal of leather stamped in gold. There was in fact a profusion of gold. The room was divided in two, and in the window-half Augusta sat reading. She shook hands with me, seemed to know my name, and said that they were expecting me, as her father had said that I should be coming. Then she went to call her mother.

Well, that was the end of one of the four girls with the same initial, as far as I was concerned. How could they have called her pretty? The first thing that I noticed about her was that she squinted, and so badly sometimes that if one had not seen her for a while that squint seemed to sum up her whole personality. Her hair was not very thick and of a dull shade of blondeness without any lights in it; and though she had not exactly a bad figure she was rather broad for her age. In the few moments I remained alone I thought to myself: “If all the others are like this one...!”

Soon after, the bunch of girls was reduced to two, for the one who now came in with her mother was only eight years old. She was a charming child with long, curly golden hair hanging loose over her shoulders. Her round, sweet baby face was like one of those pensive angel faces painted by Raphael—so long as she did not speak!

Of my mother-in-law I feel, like many another, a slight reluctance to speak freely. I have been fond of her for many years now, because she is my mother, but I am telling an old story in which she did not play a friendly part towards me. I intend however not to say a single disrespectful word about her in this notebook, though she will never see it. Besides, her intervention was so brief that I have almost forgotten it; just a little push which, administered at the right moment, was enough to make me lose my balance. I might have lost it even without her intervention, and who knows whether she was really responsible for what actually happened? She is too well brought up ever to drink too much and so let me into her secrets, like her husband. That sort of thing could never happen to her, so I am not really very sure about the facts of my story, nor whether it was because she was so designing or because I was so stupid that I married the very one of her daughters I least wanted to.

I may say, in passing, that at the time I first called on her my mother-in-law was still a good-looking woman. She dressed expensively, but with quiet elegance and no display. Everything about her was harmonious and subdued.

The mutual understanding between my parents-in-law was just such a picture of married bliss as I had dreamed of. They were perfectly happy together; he shouted at her and she smiled back at him with a smile which expressed at the same time her agreement and her sympathy. She loved her big husband, and he probably won her heart and kept it by his business ability and extraordinary success. It was admiration far more than self-interest which bound her to him, an admiration which I shared and could therefore readily understand. An immense vitality gave a perpetual impetus to his life, though exercised in so restricted a sphere; a kind of cage containing merchandise, with two hostile parties contracting for it, and perpetually weaving fresh combinations and patterns. He told her everything about his business, and she was too tactful ever to give him any advice, knowing well that it would only distract him. He needed her silent sympathy and sometimes would hurry home during the day, merely in order to monologise aloud, but quite under the impression that he went to ask his wife’s advice.

I was not surprised to learn that he was faithless to her, and that she knew all about it and bore him no ill will. I had been married just a year when Giovanni told me one day, in a great state of excitement, that he had lost a very important letter, and wanted to have a look through the papers he had given me in the hope that he might find it amongst them. A few days later he told me gleefully that he had found it in his own pocket-book. “Was it from a woman?” He nodded, and congratulated himself on his good fortune. Shortly afterwards, when my mother-in-law and my wife accused me of having mislaid some papers, I remarked that I was not so lucky as my father-in-law whose papers found their way back into his pocket-book of their own accord. My mother-in-law laughed so heartily that I felt certain it was she who had replaced the missing paper. Evidently it made no difference to their relationship. Everyone has to deal with their love affairs in their own way. And I must say that I don’t think these two chose by any means the most foolish.

I was received very kindly. Signora Malfenti apologised for bringing little Anna with her, saying it was the hour when she always looked after her. The child gazed at me with her great serious eyes. When Augusta returned and sat down on a little sofa facing the one on which I was sitting with her mother, the child went and nestled in her sister’s lap, watching me all the time with an undivided attention which amused me, because I could not guess what was going on in her little head.

The conversation was not very lively at first. Signora Malfenti, like all properly brought up people, was rather dull when you met her for the first time. She would go on asking about the friend who she pretended had introduced me to the house, and whose Christian name I could not even remember.

At last Ada and Alberta came in. I breathed again. They were both lovely, and brought into the drawing-room a radiance which had been quite lacking till then. They were both dark, tall and slender, but very different one from the other. The choice I had to make was not difficult. Alberta could not have been more than seventeen years old. Though she was dark she had, like her mother, a pink transparent skin which added to her childish appearance. Ada, on the contrary, was already a woman. Her eyes shone gravely out of the pallor of her face, framed by thick curly hair which was gracefully though severely arranged.

It is difficult to discover the first beginnings of a sentiment which was later to become so passionate, but I am certain that in this case the so-called coup de foudre was lacking. But the absence of that lightning flash was compensated by my immediate conviction that she was the woman I wanted for my wife, the woman who was to guide me to moral and physical health in the holy monogamy of marriage. Looking back I am surprised that the coup de foudre should have been lacking and that I should have had that conviction instead. Men usually do not seek in a wife the qualities they both adore and despise in a mistress. So I suppose all Ada’s grace and beauty was not revealed to me at first, and I was charmed and delighted with qualities that I myself endowed her with, such as seriousness and energy; the very qualities, slightly modified, which I already loved in her father. If, as I still believe, Ada really did possess these qualities as a girl, I can account myself a good observer, though a rather blind one. The first time I saw Ada I was only conscious of one desire: to fall in love with her, because that was the first step necessary to marrying her. I applied myself to it with the energy that I always devote to measures of hygiene. I don’t really remember how long it took me; perhaps I succeeded in the relatively short period of my first visit.

Giovanni had evidently talked about me a lot to his daughters. They knew, among other things, that I had deserted law for chemistry, and gone back again to law. I tried to explain to them that if a man confined himself to only one subject the greater part of knowledge remained hidden from him. And I said:

“Were it not that I was obliged to take life seriously (I did not add that it was only my decision to marry which had made me realise this necessity) I should have gone on from subject to subject.”

Then to make them laugh I said it was odd that I always gave up a subject just before the examinations came on.

“Mere chance,” I added with a smile intended to suggest that I was not speaking the truth. The truth was that I had changed my subject at every imaginable time of the year.

And so I set out to win Ada, and persisted in trying to make her laugh at me, forgetting that what I had first chosen her for was her seriousness. I am rather fantastic, it is true, but to her I must have seemed positively unbalanced. It was not entirely my fault, as may be seen from the fact that Augusta and Alberta, whom I had not chosen, judged me quite differently. But Ada, who indeed was quite serious enough to be already casting round her beautiful eyes in search of a man with whom to build her nest, was incapable of falling in love with anyone that made her laugh. She did laugh of course a great deal, too much in fact, and her laughter covered with ridicule the person who had provoked it. This was a bad trait in her and ended by bringing her great trouble, but at first it was damaging only to me. If only I could have learnt when to have held my tongue things might have gone differently. I might at least have given her an opportunity to talk herself, so that I could have seen what she was really like and protected myself against her.

The four girls were seated on the sofa. They were rather cramped, though Anna was sitting in Augusta’s lap. They looked charming sitting together like that. I observed them with secret satisfaction, because I was well on the way to falling in love. Yes, they really were charming! Augusta’s rather mouse-coloured hair showed up to greater advantage the rich brown of the others.

I had been talking about the university, and Alberta, who had only one more year at school, told me about her work. She complained that she found Latin so difficult. I said I was not surprised, because it was a language unsuited to women; so much so that I thought that even amongst the ancient Romans the women had talked Italian. For my part, I said, Latin had always been my favourite subject. I was foolish enough soon afterwards to quote something in Latin which Alberta was obliged to correct. It was really most unfortunate, but I made light of it and told Alberta that when she had been two or three years at the university she would have to look out for her Latin quotations too.

Ada, who had just been spending several months in England with her father, said that lots of girls there knew Latin. Then in her grave and not at all musical voice, which was rather lower than one would have expected in such a delicate creature, she described how entirely different English women were from Italian. They were always forming societies for philanthropic, religious or economic purposes. Her sisters encouraged her to talk because they wanted to hear again things which at that time seemed very strange to girls in a town like ours. So Ada told us about women who became presidents or journalists or secretaries or political agitators, and who would go up on the platform and address hundreds of people without blushing and without losing their head if anyone interrupted or questioned their statements. She told it all quite simply without any emphasis, and with no idea of making us laugh or exciting our astonishment.

I liked her simple way of talking all the more because I myself could not open my mouth without misrepresenting things or people, for otherwise I should have seen no use in talking at all. Talking seemed to me an event in itself which must not be hampered by any other events.

But I had a particular dislike for perfidious Albion, and I showed it without fear of offending Ada who, by the way, had shown neither dislike nor love for England. I had spent several months there, but I never got to know anyone in good society because en route I had lost the letters of introduction with which some business friend of my father had provided me. So I only frequented a few French and Italian families in London, and had come to the conclusion that all really nice people in London had come from abroad. My knowledge of English was very limited. With the help of my friends I arrived at understanding a certain amount about English life, but above all I was given to understand that they hated anyone who was not English.

I described to the girls how unpleasant it was to have to live among enemies. I should have stood it out, however, and managed to endure England for the six months prescribed by my father and Olivi, who wanted me to study business methods in England (which I never did because all their business seems to be carried on in secret corners), had I not been the victim of a most unfortunate accident. I had gone into a book-shop to buy a dictionary. On the counter was stretched a huge and magnificent Angora cat whose soft fur seemed to invite caresses. Well! Just because I stroked it very gently the treacherous beast sprang at me and gave me a horrible scratch on the hand. From that moment I found England unendurable, and the very next day I was in Paris.

Augusta, Alberta and Signora Malfenti burst out laughing. But Ada was absolutely bewildered and thought she must have misheard me. Surely I had meant it was the bookseller who scratched me? I had to tell the whole story again, which is always tiresome because one never tells it so well the second time.

The learned Alberta came to my aid. The Ancients, she said, also allowed themselves to be guided by animals in making any important decision.

I refused to accept her aid. There was nothing oracular about that cat; it was fate itself.

Ada opened her eyes and insisted on further explanations. “Do you mean to say that cat symbolised for you the whole English race?”

How unfortunate I was! Though the story was quite true, it had seemed to me as instructive and interesting as if it had been invented to point a moral. It was easy enough to understand, if one reflected that in Italy where I know and love so many people the cat’s action would not have acquired such significance. But I did not point this out. I said instead:

“I am sure no Italian cat could have been capable of such an action.”

Then Ada laughed too, until I thought she would never stop. My success was really too great, for I played such a poor part in the story, and I only made the adventure seem more ridiculous by adding further explanations:

“Even the bookseller was amazed at the cat’s behaviour, because it was generally so friendly to everyone else. There was no getting over it; it happened to me just because it was me, or perhaps because I was Italian. It was really disgusting. There was nothing for it but flight.”

Then something happened which really ought to have opened my eyes and saved me from myself. Little Anna, who all this time had been sitting motionless with her eyes fixed on me, suddenly said out loud what Ada had been thinking. She cried out:

“But he’s mad, isn’t he? Quite, quite mad!”

Signora Malfenti scolded her:

“Will you be quiet? Aren’t you ashamed to break in like that when grown-up people are talking?”

The scolding only made it worse. Anna burst out again:

“He is mad! He talks to cats! You ought to get some rope and tie him up at once!”

Augusta, blushing with annoyance, got up and carried her off, telling her that she was very naughty and at the same time apologising to me. But when they had got as far as the door the spiteful little creature managed to catch my eye, made a horrid face at me and called out again:

“They’ll come and tie you up, you see if they don’t!”

The onslaught had been so sudden that it took me quite a few moments to recover myself. But I was somewhat relieved to notice that Ada suffered at seeing her own feelings expressed for her in this way. The child’s impertinence had drawn us together.

I laughed heartily as I told them that I had at home a stamped certificate guaranteeing that I was perfectly sane in every respect. And so I came to tell them about the trick I had played on my father. I suggested bringing along the certificate to show to little Anna.

When I said I must be going they would not hear of it. They wanted me to forget first the scratches I had received from their own kitten. They begged me to stay on a little and offered me a cup of tea.

I think I realised from the first that if I wanted Ada to like me I ought to be rather different from what I was; but I thought I should have no difficulty in becoming what she would like me to be. We went on talking of my father’s death and I thought if I showed her what a great grief it was to me she would sympathise with me. But in my desire to become like her I very soon became unnatural and, as you will see, only succeeded in estranging her still more. I said that the pain one suffered at a loss like that was so great that if I had children I should try to make them love me less, so that when I died their sorrow would be less unbearable. I was a little embarrassed when they asked what steps I proposed taking to attain this object. Ill-treating them? Beating them? Alberta said, laughingly:

“The safest way would be to kill them yourself!”

I saw that Ada was afraid of displeasing me; so she remained silent. But not all her good will could do more for me than that. At last she said she was sure it was out of kindness that I wanted to arrange my children’s life for them, but she did not think it was right to live by preparing yourself for death. I stuck to my idea, and asserted that death was really the great organising force of life. I was always thinking about death and so I had only one sorrow: the certainty that I must die. Everything else became so unimportant that I could welcome it with a smile, even laugh at it. I think my reason for talking in this way was that I wanted to show them I had a sense of humour, which had often before made me popular with women. She looked thoughtful and confessed with some hesitation that she did not like that way of looking at things. If you make life of little value its balance becomes more disturbed than Mother Nature has ordained. She was really saying that I did not suit her, but to me it seemed that I had scored a success, since I had succeeded in making her thoughtful.

Alberta quoted an ancient philosopher whose view of life, she said, was rather like mine, and Augusta added that laughter was a splendid thing. Her father laughed a great deal too.

“Yes, when business goes well,” said Signora Malfenti.

At last that memorable visit came to an end.

It is the most difficult thing in the world to make exactly the marriage you want; as you may see from my own case, where my resolution to get married was made long before my choice of a bride. Why didn’t I go about and meet a great many more girls before choosing one? No, I really felt I should dislike seeing too many women, and I did not want to tire myself. When I had chosen a girl I might at least have examined her more closely in order to discover whether she was prepared to meet me half-way, as is the custom in novels with a happy ending. But I straight away chose a girl with a very deep voice and rather rebellious though severely dressed hair, and thought that so serious a young lady would surely not refuse a rich man of good family who was intelligent and not bad-looking. It is true that we disagreed over the very first words we exchanged, but I reflected that discords resolve themselves into harmonies. I even thought, I must confess: She shall stay just as she is, for that is how I like her; but if she wants it, I will change to please her. I was, on the whole, very modest, for it is undoubtedly easier to change oneself than to re-educate someone else.

It did not take long for the Malfenti family to become the centre of my life. I spent every evening with Giovanni who, after he had introduced me into his household, had become more friendly and confidential than ever. His great friendliness gave me courage. At first I only called on his wife and daughters once a week, then several times, and at last I took to going every afternoon and spending several hours there. I had no lack of pretexts for establishing myself in the house, and I think I can honestly say that a good many were offered me. Sometimes I brought my violin and had some music with Augusta, who was the only one in the house who played the piano. It was a pity Ada did not play. It was also a pity that I played the violin so badly, and most unfortunate that Augusta was not a great musician. In every sonata we played I was obliged to cut out some passage that was too difficult for me, because, as I quite untruthfully said, I had not touched the violin for so long. An amateur pianist almost always plays better than an amateur violinist, and Augusta’s technique was quite good; but though I did not play nearly as well as she did, I was dissatisfied with her playing and inwardly thought: “If I could play as well as you, I would certainly play better.” While I was busy judging Augusta others were doing the same by me and, as I discovered later, none too favourably. Augusta would have liked to have some more practice at our sonatas, but I noticed that Ada was bored by it, and I pretended two or three times to have forgotten to bring my violin. After that Augusta did not mention it again.

But alas, it was not only the time I was in their house that I spent with Ada. Very soon the thought of her accompanied me all day long. She was the woman I had chosen, therefore she must be mine, and I endowed her with every ideal quality to make my life’s prize more beautiful. All the qualities lacking in myself, and which I longed to possess, I gave to her; she was to become not only my wife but a second mother to me, who would equip me for a full virile life, encourage me to fight and help me to be victorious.

In my dreams I made her more beautiful too, physically. I have run after a good many women in the course of my life and succeeded in winning a fair number of them. In my dreams I possessed them all. I do not of course make them more beautiful by actually altering their features, but I do as an artist friend of mine, a very subtle painter, who when he is painting the portrait of a beautiful woman calls up vividly to his mind some other exquisite object, like fine porcelain for instance. It is a dangerous proceeding, for it is not only confined to dreams, and the lady continues in real life to keep something of the fruit, the flower or the porcelain with which you adorned her.

It is not easy to relate my courtship of Ada. There was a long subsequent period of my life in which I tried to forget my stupid adventure. I felt so thoroughly ashamed of myself that I longed to protest loudly that it could not have been I who had made such a fool of myself. Who else then could it have been? But the mere fact of protesting gave me a certain amount of relief. If I had behaved like that ten years ago, when I was twenty, it would not have been so bad. But to be stricken with folly, just because I had decided to marry, seemed really too unjust. That I, who had had every sort of experience, and had carried through my adventures in a spirit of reckless daring, should be reduced to trying to touch my lady’s hand without her noticing it, like any timid schoolboy, and then almost worshipping my own hand for having been hallowed by such a contact! This was the purest adventure of my life; and yet, though I am old now, I still remember it as the most shameful. All that stuff was out of place, it came at the wrong time; it was like a boy of ten going back to his nurse’s breast. Disgusting!

I simply can’t explain why I kept hesitating to propose to her, and did not insist on her making up her mind whether she would have me or not. I walked straight from my dreams into that house; I counted the stairs up to the first floor and said to myself: If they are even that is a proof that she loves me. It was an uneven number: forty-three. Yet each time I went to her with the same assurance, and each time I talked about something quite different. Ada had never had any opportunity of rejecting me, but still I did not speak. I think in Ada’s place I certainly would have given that boy of thirty a good kick and shown him the door.

In a certain sense I was not an exact replica of the twenty-year-old inamorato who waits mutely for his beloved to throw her arms round his neck. I expected nothing of the kind. I meant to speak to her, but later. If I waited so long it was because I was so unsure of myself. I was always waiting to become nobler and stronger, more worthy of my divine mistress. This might always happen from one day to another. Why not wait?

But I am ashamed not to have realised earlier that I was heading for a disaster. I had to deal with a most single-minded nature, but by continually dreaming about her I had transformed her into a consummate flirt. My fierce resentment when she at last made me understand she did not want me was quite unjust. But I had so closely interwoven dreams with reality that it was hard for me to believe she had actually never even kissed me.

It is a great sign of inferiority in a man not to understand women. I had never made a mistake before, and I think I deceived myself about Ada because my relations had been false with her from the start. I approached her not in order to win her, but with the direct intention of marrying her, which is an unusual way for love to take; a wide and comfortable way perhaps, but it does not lead to the goal, though very near it. Love approached in this way lacks its chief characteristic: the subjection of the female. The male sets about his task idly, and this inertia may spread to all his senses, including those of sight and hearing.

I took flowers every day to each of the three girls, and regaled them with my eccentricities; above all I was guilty of inconceivable levity in telling them the story of my life.

Everyone remembers his past with greater vividness as the present becomes more important. Dying men in their last delirium are supposed to see their whole life spread out before them. My past clutched at me now with the violence of a last farewell, because I had the feeling that I was leaving it far behind me. And I was always telling the sisters about this past, encouraged by the eager attention of Augusta and Alberta, which covered up, I fancy, Ada’s indifference, though of this I am not quite sure. Augusta, who was of a sweet disposition, was easily moved, and Alberta listened to the recital of my student scrapes with cheeks flushed with desire to take part herself in similar adventures.

It was long afterwards that Augusta told me that none of them had believed my stories to be true. Augusta liked them all the more on that account for, as my invention, they seemed to her to belong to me more than if fate had actually inflicted them on me. Alberta delighted in the parts she thought untrue because they seemed to her to contain excellent suggestions. The only one who was really outraged by my lies was the serious Ada. With all my efforts I only succeeded in doing as the famous marksman, who really did hit the centre of the bullseye, but only of the target next to the one he was aiming at.

And yet my anecdotes were for the most part true. I don’t quite remember in which part, for I told them to so many other girls before Malfenti’s daughters that without any conscious alteration on my part they constantly suffered slight modifications tending to make them more interesting. They began to be true from the moment when it would have been impossible for me to tell the story differently. I am no longer interested in proving their truth. I should be sorry to undeceive Augusta who likes to believe that I invented them. As for Ada, I believe she has now changed her opinion and believes them to be true.

My entire failure with Ada became clear the moment I made up my mind to speak openly to her. I was very surprised and at first incredulous. She had never said a single word which might have revealed her dislike, and I shut my eyes to all those small acts which could not be interpreted as showing sympathy. And then I had never spoken the necessary word, and was thus able to persuade myself that Ada did not know that I was there all ready to marry her, and might suppose that I, the eccentric and unscrupulous student, was after something quite different.

The misunderstanding continued because of my too definitely matrimonial intentions. I had come by now to desire Ada with my whole heart; my fancy had made her cheek still smoother, her hands and feet still smaller and her waist still more slender; I desired her as my wife and as my mistress. But one’s first step in approaching a woman is the decisive one.

On three consecutive days I found myself received only by the other two girls. Ada’s absence was explained the first time by a duty visit, the second by her not feeling well; and on the third occasion no excuse was given at all, until in some alarm I asked for one. Augusta, to whom I happened to have addressed myself, made no reply. Alberta, whom she had looked at, as if invoking her help, answered for her: Ada had gone to see an aunt.

My breath failed me for a moment. It was clear that Ada wanted to avoid me. Till the day before I had borne her absence patiently, and had even prolonged my visit in the hope that perhaps she would come in. But on this last day I stayed a short while longer, unable to say a single word; till at last, pleading a sudden headache, I got up to go. It is curious that my first feeling, on becoming conscious of Ada’s determination to avoid me, was one of anger and contempt. I even thought of appealing to Giovanni to call his daughter to order. A man who is bent on marrying can even stoop to such an action as that, reverting to the customs of his ancestors.

Ada’s third absence was to become still more significant. I discovered by chance that she was in the house, but shut up in her room.

I must say that there was one other person in the house whom I had not succeeded in winning over: and this was little Anna. She no longer attacked me when the others were there, because they had taken her severely to task for it. Sometimes she even came in with her sisters and stayed listening to my stories. When I was going away she would join me at the door and ask me prettily to bend down to her; then, rising on the tips of her toes, she would put her mouth right up to my ear and say in a whisper, so that nobody else could hear:

“But you’re mad, you are quite mad!”

The comic part is that when the others were there the little hypocrite treated me very politely. If Signora Malfenti was in the room she would climb up on to her knee, and her mother would say, caressing her:

“How good my little Anna has become, hasn’t she?”

I did not contradict her and the good little Anna went on calling me mad. I smiled a sickly smile which might have been interpreted as gratitude. I hoped the child would not dare to tell her elders how rude she had been to me, and nothing would have induced me to tell Ada what her sister thought of me. In the end that child quite embarrassed me. If my eye caught hers while I was talking to the others I at once tried to look somewhere else, and it was difficult to do it naturally. I know I blushed; I felt the child’s innocent judgment might do me harm. I took her presents, but could not succeed in taming her. She must have been conscious of her own power and of my weakness, and when anyone else was there she would scrutinise me impertinently. I think we all have delicate spots in our conscience as we do in our bodies, which we keep covered and prefer not to think about. We do not know exactly what they are, but we know they are there. I was obliged to look away from that infant’s penetrating gaze.

But on this particular day, when I was leaving the house alone and quite cast down, and she ran after me as usual and wanted me to bend down and listen to the familiar compliment, I turned on her a face of such genuine madness, and clutched the air with such threatening fingers that she ran away screaming and crying.

And that was how I came to see Ada, for it was she who ran out when she heard the child screaming. The little girl explained between her sobs that I had threatened her because she said I was mad:

“But he is mad, and I am going to say so. What harm is there in it?”

I paid no attention to the child, I was so taken aback to see that Ada was in the house. So her sisters had lied, or rather Alberta had, for Augusta had only done it vicariously through her. During the second in which I guessed the truth, I saw everything quite clearly. I said to Ada:

“I am glad to see you. I understood you had gone to see your aunt.”

She did not reply at once, because she was bending over the weeping child. Her delay in giving me the explanation I felt I deserved made the blood rise violently to my head. I could not find a single word. I took a step forward as if to go out at the front door, and if Ada had not spoken I should have gone away and never come back again. I was so angry that it seemed to me the easiest thing in the world to give up the dream I had cherished for so long.

But before I could get out she stopped me and said, blushing, that she had just come back as her aunt was not at home.

It sufficed to calm me. How sweet she looked, bending in such a motherly way over the child who still went on crying! Her body was so flexible that it seemed to become smaller in order to fit the child’s small body. I stood gazing at her, and again considered her entirely mine.

I felt so much at peace that I wanted to make her forget the resentment I had shown just now, and I was infinitely polite both to her and Anna; I laughed and said:

“She so often calls me mad that I wanted to let her see what a madman really looks like. Please forgive me. And you mustn’t be frightened, Anna dear, for I am quite a kind madman.”

Ada was very polite too. When the child still went on crying she scolded her and asked me to forgive her. If Anna had got cross and run away I should probably have proposed; I should have uttered a phrase, which is doubtless to be found in some grammars of a foreign language, so well adapted is it for simplifying one’s life, if one happens to be living in a foreign country and does not know the language: “May I ask your father for your hand?” It was the first time I had wanted to get married, so that I was really in quite an unknown country. Hitherto my way of approach to the women I had had to do with had been quite different. I had put my hands on them at once without asking anyone’s permission.

But I could not bring myself even to pronounce those few words. They ought to take a certain time to say, and they ought to be accompanied by an appealing expression of the face which it would be difficult to assume after my encounter with Anna, and one might say with Ada too; besides I could hear Signora Malfenti approaching from the far end of the passage, attracted by the child’s screams.

I put out my hand, which Ada at once shook warmly, and said:

“Good-bye till to-morrow. Say good-bye to your mother for me.”

I could hardly bear to let go of that hand which lay so trustfully in mine. I felt that by going away then I was losing a unique opportunity, for at that moment Ada was ready to treat me with the utmost courtesy in order to make up for her sister’s unkindness. I followed the impulse of the moment, bent down and touched her hand with my lips. Then I hastily opened the door and went out, while Ada, whose left hand was engaged in holding Anna, still clinging to her skirts, went on holding out her right hand which my lips had touched, and gazing at it in amazement as if she wanted to see if anything were written on it. I don’t think Signora Malfenti saw what had taken place.

I stood a few moments on the steps, rather startled by what I had done, which was quite unpremeditated. Was it still possible for me to go back to the door I had shut behind me, ring the bell and ask to see Ada, and speak the words she had looked for in vain on her hand? I did not think so. I should have been lacking in dignity if I had shown too much impatience. Besides, when I announced that I was coming back I had really prepared her for my declaration of love. It only rested with her to give me an opportunity to make it. At last I had stopped telling stories to the three girls in a bunch and had kissed the hand of one of them.

But the remainder of the day passed uneasily enough. I was restless and anxious. I said to myself that my uneasiness was due only to my impatience to get my adventure cleared up. I tried to persuade myself that if Ada were to refuse me I should calmly set about looking for another wife. My attachment to her was a deliberate resolve on my part, and I had only to make another in order to cancel it completely. I did not grasp the fact that there were no other women in the world for me at that moment, that it was only Ada I wanted.

The night which followed seemed to me to be terribly long; I hardly slept at all. Since my father’s death I had given up my night life, and it would have been incongruous to return to it now that I had made up my mind to get married. So I went to bed early, longing for sleep which alone obliterates time.

By daylight I had placed the blindest confidence in Ada’s explanation of her absence from the drawing-room on three successive occasions during my visit, a confidence based on the sound conviction that the serious young woman I had chosen would be incapable of a lie. But during the night my faith in her diminished. I began to wonder whether it was not I myself who had told her of the excuse Alberta had made about her visit to her aunt, when Augusta had refused to answer. I could not quite remember what I had said to her—my head had been in such a whirl—but I thought it had probably been I who provided her with an excuse. That was a pity. If I had not done so perhaps she would have invented some other excuse and I, if I had caught her lying, should have known exactly what to think.

I had occasion to discover the immense importance which Ada had assumed for me, because in order to try and calm myself I found myself saying that if she would not have me I would give up all idea of marrying. So that her refusal would change the whole of my life. And I went on dreaming, comforting myself with the thought that her refusal would probably be a stroke of good luck for me. I called to mind the saying of the Greek philosopher that repentance awaited the married man as much as the unmarried. I had not yet quite lost the capacity for laughing at my adventure; the only capacity I lacked was that of going to sleep.

I fell asleep just as it was beginning to get light. When I woke up it was already so late that only a few hours now divided me from the moment when I might again present myself at the Malfentis. So there was really no need for me to go on exercising my fancy on the question of the state of Ada’s mind. But it is difficult to restrain oneself from brooding on a matter which concerns one so nearly. Man would be a more fortunate animal if he could. While I was occupied in dressing, which I did that day with exaggerated care, I could think of only one thing: Had I done well in kissing Ada’s hand, or had I done ill in not kissing her also on the lips?

That very morning I had an idea which did me, I think, a good deal of harm, in that it robbed me of the small amount of manly initiative remaining to me in my queer adolescent condition. A painful doubt occurred to me; supposing Ada were forced to marry me by her parents without loving me at all, even perhaps disliking me? I was quite sure that all the other members of her family, Giovanni, her mother, Augusta and Alberta were very fond of me. It was only Ada about whom I was not so sure. The usual popular novel began to take shape in my mind, about the girl who is forced by her family to marry a man she hates. But of course I should never have consented to that. That was another reason why I must speak to Ada alone at once. The phrase I had prepared would be no use at all. I must look into her eyes and say: “Do you love me?” And if she said yes I should fold her in my arms, and should know by the beating of her heart if she were telling the truth.

So it seemed to me that I was prepared for any emergency. Yet I was suddenly to find myself confronted with an examination for which I had forgotten to revise the very text I was to be examined on.

Signora Malfenti received me alone, and made me sit down in a corner of the big drawing-room. She at once began a lively conversation, and did not allow me a moment’s breathing space to ask for news of her daughters. For this reason I was rather distrait and kept repeating my lesson to myself so as to have it all ready at a favourable moment. Suddenly I was called to attention as by a trumpet call. The Signora was about to make a speech! She assured me of her and her husband’s friendly feelings towards me, and of the affection all the family felt for me, including little Anna. We had known each other for such a long time. We had seen each other every day for the last four months.

“Five!” I hastened to correct her, for I had been counting them up during the night, and remembered that my first visit had been in the autumn, while now it was well on into the spring.

“Yes! Five!” said the lady, lingering over the words as if she were trying to visualize my arithmetic. Then she added with an air of reproach: “I feel that you are compromising Augusta.”

“Augusta?” I repeated, thinking I could not have heard correctly.

“Yes!” she said decidedly. “You are putting ideas into her head, and compromising her.”

I ingenuously betrayed my real feelings:

“But I hardly ever see Augusta.”

She made a gesture of surprise and, as it seemed to me, of pained surprise.

Meanwhile I was thinking hard in order to arrive at some explanation of what seemed to be a mistake, but a mistake of which I at once realised the significance. I looked back over the last five months, and saw myself day after day engaged in watching Ada. I had played with Augusta, and it is true that I had talked to her occasionally instead of to Ada, because she was always ready to listen to me; but I only talked to her hoping that she would hand on my stories, sealed with her approval, to Ada. Ought I to speak plainly to the lady and tell her of my intentions with regard to Ada? But only a short time before I had made up my mind to speak first to Ada herself and discover what she really felt towards me. Perhaps if I had spoken openly to Signora Malfenti things would have turned out differently and, not being able to marry Ada, I should not have married Augusta either. I let myself be guided by the resolution I had made before seeing Signora Malfenti, and received her extraordinary statements in silence.

I was thinking hard, but somewhat confusedly. I wanted to understand; I felt I must find out quickly what she was driving at. If you open your eyes too wide you don’t see so well. The possibility of their wanting to turn me out of the house did occur to me, but I thought I might dismiss it. I was innocent, for I had not paid court to Augusta whom they wanted to protect. But perhaps they were only attributing to me these designs on Augusta in order not to compromise Ada. But why should they want so much to protect Ada who was no longer a child? I had never even stroked her hair except in my dreams. In reality I had only just touched her hand with my lips. I dreaded their forbidding me to come to the house, because before leaving it I must speak to Ada. I said in a trembling voice:

“Tell me what I ought to do so as not to offend anyone.”

She hesitated. I would rather have had to deal with Giovanni, who always thought at the top of his voice. Then she said firmly, but with an effort to appear polite which revealed itself in her tone:

“It would be better if you came here less often for the present; let us say two or three times a week, instead of every day.”

I am certain that if she had told me rudely to go away and never to come back, I should have clung to my purpose and implored her to put up with me for two or three days more, so that I might clear up my relations with Ada. But her words, which were so much milder than I expected, gave me courage to show my resentment:

“If you wish it I will never set foot in this house again.”

The result was what I had hoped. She protested, saying again how fond they all were of me, and begging me not to be angry with her. I magnanimously promised all she wanted: to refrain from coming to the house again for four or five days, and after that to come only two or three times a week; but above all not to bear her any ill-will. When I had promised this I made as though I would carry it out at once and rose to go. The Signora laughingly protested:

“There can be no fear of your compromising me, so you may stay on a little.”

When I asked her to excuse me on account of an engagement which I had only that instant remembered, (the truth being that I was longing to be by myself in order to reflect on my extraordinary adventure) she positively begged me to remain, saying that she would look on it as a proof that I was not angry with her. So I stayed on, though I was on thorns at having to listen to her empty chatter about the latest fashions which she did not intend to follow, about the theatre and the dry weather which had ushered in the spring.

But I was soon glad I had stayed on, for I began to feel I needed a further explanation. I interrupted her unceremoniously with the question:

“Does the whole family know that you have asked me to stay away from the house?”

At first she seemed to have already forgotten our pact. Then she protested:

“Stay away from the house? But only for a few days, you know. I shall say nothing about it to anyone, not even my husband, and I should be grateful if you would use a like discretion.”

I promised that too; I even promised that if any of them asked me why I did not come so often I would invent some excuse or other. For the moment I believed what she had said, and pictured Ada being surprised and distressed by my unexpected absence. A flattering picture!

I went on sitting there in the hope that I might have some fresh inspiration, while the lady meandered on about the cost of provisions, which had lately gone up so terribly in price.

Instead of a fresh inspiration their Aunt Rosina arrived. She was a sister of Giovanni, older than him and much less intelligent. But she had certain moral traits in common with him which were sufficient to make one recognise her as his sister. She had the same sense of her own importance and of what was owing to her; but the effect was rather comic, since she had no means of imposing herself. She also had the same bad habit of raising her voice on the slightest provocation. She held that she had so many rights in her brother’s house that for a long time, as I afterwards learned, she regarded his wife as an interloper. She was an old maid and lived with one servant whom she always spoke of as her greatest enemy. When she died she asked my wife to keep an eye on the house till this servant had left it. Everyone in Giovanni’s house stood in awe of her and put up with her tyrannies as best they could.

I still did not take my leave. Aunt Rosina liked Ada the best of all her nieces. I felt a desire to win her good will, and sought for an amiable remark to address to her. I vaguely remembered that the last time I had seen her (or caught a glimpse of her, for I had not then felt the need of looking closely at her) her nieces had remarked, directly she left, that she was not looking very well. I remembered one of them saying: “It’s the temper she flies into with her servant that gives her that bilious complexion.”

I had found what I wanted. Looking affectionately into the old woman’s face, I said:

“You are looking much better, Madam.”

I ought never to have said it. She stared at me in astonishment and remarked stiffly:

“I am always quite well. Why should I look better?”

She wanted to know when I had seen her last. I could not remember the date exactly, but I reminded her we had spent a whole afternoon together, sitting with her nieces in the drawing-room, but not in the half where we were sitting now, in the other half. I wanted to show her how much interest I took in her, but she demanded so many explanations that it became terribly tedious. I grew ashamed of my deception and began to feel uncomfortable.

Signora Malfenti smilingly intervened:

“But you don’t mean to suggest that Aunt Rosina has got fatter?”

The devil! So that was what had made the old lady angry. She was almost as big as her brother, but was still hoping to get thin.

“Fatter? Of course not. I only meant that the Signora was looking much better in the face.”

I tried to preserve an affectionate demeanour, and was obliged forcibly to restrain myself from being rude to her. Aunt Rosina did not appear to be satisfied even then. She had not been ill for a long time and could not understand why she had struck me as looking unwell. Signora Malfenti humoured her:

“On the contrary, it is characteristic of her that she always looks the same,” she said turning to me. “Don’t you agree?”

I did agree; it was quite obvious. But I took leave at once. I held out my hand very cordially to Aunt Rosina, hoping to put her in a good humour, but when she took it she looked the other way.

I had hardly crossed the threshold when my state of mind altered completely. What a relief! I was no longer obliged to speculate on Signora Malfenti’s intentions, nor make an effort to please Aunt Rosina. I firmly believe that but for the intervention of Aunt Rosina that old schemer Signora Malfenti would have achieved her end, and that I should have left the house perfectly satisfied with my treatment. I descended the steps by leaps and bounds. Aunt Rosina had provided a kind of commentary on Signora Malfenti, who proposed to me that I should keep away from her house for several days. Too kind of you, my dear lady! I would oblige her beyond her expectations; she should never see me again! They had all of them tortured me, she, the aunt and Ada. By what right? Because I wanted to get married? But I had quite given up that idea. Liberty was too sweet!

I roved about the streets for a long while, a prey to the violence of my feelings. Then I felt the need of an even greater liberty. I must find a way of sealing my resolution never to set foot in the house again. I rejected the idea of writing a letter of farewell. My scorn would be more effectual if I did not communicate my intentions of breaking with them for ever. I would simply forget to call on Giovanni and his family.

I hit on what seemed to me a discreet and pleasant, if slightly ironical way of confirming my purpose. I hastened to a florist and selected a magnificent bouquet of flowers, which I addressed to Signora Malfenti, accompanied by my visiting-card on which nothing was written except the date, which I should never forget and which probably Ada and her mother would never forget either. May the fifth, the anniversary of Napoleon’s death.

I arranged for it to be sent at once. It was extremely important that it should arrive that same day.

And what next? I had done absolutely everything, there was nothing more to do. Ada was shut up away from me, with all the rest of her family, and I should be obliged to go on doing nothing, waiting for one of them to come and find me and give me an occasion to do or say something different.

I went straight to my study and shut myself in to reflect. If I had given way to my torturing impatience I should have returned at once to the house, even at the risk of arriving there before my bouquet of flowers. It was easy to invent an excuse. I might even have forgotten my umbrella!

But I did not want to do anything of the sort. In sending the bouquet I was making a magnificent gesture which I must not go back on. It was for me to stand firm; the next move was for them.

The solitude of my study from which I had hoped to get relief only served to throw light on the cause of my despair, which was so acute as to drive me to tears. I was in love with Ada! I could not be sure yet whether that was the right word, so I went on with my analysis. I not only wanted to possess her, I wanted her for my wife. I wanted her, with her cold face and angular body, and her serious nature which could not and never would appreciate my humour. I should not try to make her; I would give it all up for her, and she would inspire me to live an intelligent and industrious life. I wanted the whole of her, I expected everything from her. I came to the conclusion that it was the right word after all; I loved Ada.

I felt as if I had arrived at something very important which would guide me on my way. No more hesitations! I no longer even cared whether she loved me. I must try and win her, and since Giovanni disposed of her, there was no longer any point in my speaking to her about it. I must get it all settled and leap at once into felicity, or else forget it all and be cured. Why must I endure this suspense? If I learned, and I could only learn it from Giovanni, that Ada was definitely lost to me, at least I should no longer have to contend with time, which would then flow peacefully on without my having to urge it forward. Something settled is always calm because it is dissociated from time.

I at once went in search of Giovanni. I had to make two journeys; one to his office, which is in the street we still call New House Street, because it was called so by our ancestors. It is close to the shore and overshadowed by tall old houses. Towards sunset there is very little traffic in it and I could get along at a good pace. All I thought of as I hurried along was to frame as briefly as possible the phrase I had to address to him. It would be enough to tell him briefly of my determination to marry his daughter Ada. It was not my business to explain, or to win him over. As a business man he would know what to answer as soon as I had stated my case. The only thing I debated was whether I had better, on an occasion like this, talk in dialect or in the literary language.

But Giovanni had already left his office and gone on to the Tergesteo. I made my way there, but more slowly, for I knew that I should have to wait some time before I could speak to him alone. When I reached Via Cavana I had to slacken my pace still more, because of the crowd in the narrow street. And it was while I was fighting my way through the crowd that I suddenly saw, as in a vision, the certainty that I had been seeking for so many hours. The Malfentis wanted me to marry Augusta, and they did not want me to marry Ada, for the simple reason that Augusta was in love with me and Ada was not. She could not be, for otherwise they would not have intervened to separate us. They told me I was compromising Augusta, but in fact it was she who was compromising herself by loving me. I saw it all quite clearly in a flash, as if one of the family had told me. And I guessed that Ada had agreed to my being forbidden the house. She did not love me and never would, at least so long as she thought her sister did. So in the crowded Via Cavana I had arrived more quickly at the truth than in the solitude of my study.

To-day, when I look back on those five memorable days which led up to my marriage I am shocked to think I was not at all moved to find that poor Augusta was in love with me. Now that I was banished from the house I knew that I was madly in love with Ada. Why did it give me no satisfaction to realise that Signora Malfenti had banished me in vain since I was still present in the house, and in the closest vicinity to Ada, namely in Augusta’s heart? I felt it as a fresh insult that Signora Malfenti should have exhorted me not to compromise Augusta, meaning that I was to marry her. I felt all the contempt for the plain sister which I could not admit that the pretty sister, whom I loved, felt for me.

I quickened my steps, but I turned aside from the Tergesteo and made my way home. I no longer had any need to speak to Giovanni. I knew exactly what I must do; I knew it with a despairing certainty which perhaps would give me peace at last by releasing me from the too slow march of time. Besides, it would be dangerous to talk to anyone so tactless as Giovanni. Signora Malfenti had spoken so obscurely that it had taken me till Via Cavana to grasp her meaning. Her husband was capable of behaving very differently. He might easily say straight out: “Why do you want to marry Ada? Just think it over. Hadn’t you better marry Augusta instead?” I remembered an axiom of his by which he might easily be guided in this case. “One must always explain the matter clearly to one’s adversary, for only so can one be sure of understanding it better than he.” And then? An open rupture would be sure to follow. Well then, time could move at whatever pace it pleased; I should no longer have any reason to interfere with it; I should have come to a full-stop!

I remembered another of Giovanni’s axioms, and clung to it because it gave me occasion to hope. I managed to cling to it for five days, during which my passion was transformed into a disease. Giovanni used to say one must never be in a hurry to liquidate a business if there was nothing to be gained by it; sooner or later every business will liquidate itself, as is proved by the fact that in the course of the world’s long history so few questions have been left unsettled. So long as one leaves it unliquidated, there is always a chance of it turning out to one’s advantage.

I did not choose to recall other axioms of Giovanni which took the opposite point of view; I preferred to cling to this one. I had to cling to something. I made an iron resolution not to budge from my position till something fresh had intervened to turn things in my favour. And it was perhaps because the consequences of this were so fatal to me, that I refrained for a long time from forming any fresh resolution.

I had hardly taken my resolution before a note arrived from Signora Malfenti. I recognised her handwriting on the envelope, and before opening it I flattered myself that my iron resolution had been quite enough to make her repent of having ill-treated me, and to run after me instead. When I found it contained nothing but the letters p.r. (pour remercier), which meant that she was thanking me for the flowers I had sent her, I flung myself on my bed in desperation and drove my teeth into the pillow-case, as if to chain myself to it and prevent myself from running away to break my resolution on the spot. What ironic calm those initials aroused in me! Much greater than that expressed by the date on my visiting-card, which was intended to convey a resolution and also a reproof. “Remember” Charles I had said before they cut off his head, and he must have noted the date of that memorable day! I too had exhorted my enemy to remember and to fear!

Those five days and nights were horrible, and I watched the dawn and sunset which marked their beginning and their end and brought nearer the hour when I should be free to fight again for my love.

I went on preparing myself for the conflict. I knew now what my mistress wanted me to be like. I well remember the resolutions I made then, partly because I have made very similar ones more recently, and also because I have kept the sheet of paper on which I noted them down. I resolved to become more serious. That meant that I must not tell any more of those comic stories, which showed me in an unfavourable light and made my dear Ada despise me, though they endeared me to the plain Augusta. I also resolved to go to my office at eight every morning (it was a long time since it had seen me), not in order to argue with Olivi about my rights, but in order to work with him and qualify, all in good time, to manage my affairs myself. This change was to be effected later on, at a calmer moment, just as I was going later on to give up smoking; i.e. when I had recovered my freedom, for there was no reason to make the horrible moment still more horrible. Ada must have a perfect husband. Amongst other things I resolved to devote myself to serious reading, to fence for half an hour daily, and to ride twice a week. Twenty-four hours a day were none too long.

During my brief exile I was continually beset by the most violent jealousy. It was a heroic purpose to determine to cure all one’s faults and prepare for the conquest of Ada after so few weeks. But meanwhile? While I was subjecting myself to the most rigid discipline was it likely that all the other males in the town would lie low and refrain from trying to carry off my lady? There was sure to be one amongst them who would not stand in need of so much discipline in order to be favourably received. I knew or thought I knew that when Ada found someone she felt would suit her she would consent at once, without waiting to fall in love. Every time I met a well-dressed, healthy-looking man who appeared to be at peace with himself and the world, I hated him because I thought he would do for Ada. The chief thing I remember about those days is the jealousy which settled like a black cloud on my life.

It would be unjust to laugh at my hideous fear lest Ada should be stolen away from me, now that one knows what really did happen. When I live again through those hideous days I must needs wonder at my prophetic soul.

I walked several times beneath her windows at night. In the rooms above they were apparently enjoying themselves as of old when I was there. At midnight or a little sooner, the lights went out in the drawing-room. I hurried away, fearing lest one of the guests might catch sight of me as they left the house.

Not an hour during those days but I was tortured with impatience. Why did no one ask after me? Why did Giovanni make no move? Surely he must have wondered not to see me either at his house or at the Tergesteo? Had he agreed too then that I was to be banished? Often in the middle of my walk, at night or during the day, I would rush home to make sure that no one had called to inquire about me. I felt I could not go to bed till I had made sure, and I would wake poor Maria up to ask her. I would often stay at home for hours on end so as to be more easily accessible. But nobody called to inquire, and I should certainly still be a bachelor if I had not decided to make a move myself.

One evening I went to my club to gamble. It was many years since I had done so, because of a promise I had made my father. I felt my promise ought not to hold any longer, because my father could not have foreseen my present painful circumstances and my urgent need to procure myself some diversion. First I won a considerable sum of money, which however gave me no pleasure, because it seemed like a compensation for my misfortune in love. Then I lost, and was no better pleased, because I thought I was as unlucky at the gaming-table as I was in my love-affairs. I soon took a dislike to gambling; it was unworthy of me and of Ada. So pure had I become through my love for her.

My dreams of love had been rudely shattered by the harsh realities of those last few days. And now in my sleep I dreamed quite differently too; of victory instead of love. Once Ada visited me in my dreams. She was dressed like a bride and went with me to the altar, but even after that I did not embrace her. I was her husband and had the right to ask her how she could have allowed me to be treated like that. I did not try to exercise any other rights.

In my desk I have come upon some rough copies of letters to Ada, Giovanni and Signora Malfenti. They belong to that time. I wrote to Signora Malfenti simply to say that I wanted to take leave of her before setting out on a long journey. I cannot however remember that I ever thought of doing so. I could not think of leaving the city while I was still uncertain whether someone might not come and look for me. How terrible if they had come and not found me. I never sent any of those letters. I think I must have written them only so as to put my thoughts down on paper.

For some years past I had looked on myself as ill, but only in a way which made others suffer more than me. It was now that I began to suffer from a really painful illness, a mixture of unpleasant bodily sensations which caused me extreme misery.

It began in this way. One night at about one o’clock, unable to sleep, I got up and walked through the mild night air till I reached a café in a suburb where I had never been before and where it was unlikely I should meet anybody I knew. I was glad of that, because I wanted to continue an imaginary discussion I had begun with Signora Malfenti in bed, and which I did not want anyone to interfere with. Signora Malfenti had begun to make fresh charges against me. She said I was playing cat and mouse with her daughters; the fact of course being that if I had attempted anything of the sort it would have been with Ada alone. I broke out into a cold sweat at the mere thought of their saying such a thing about me at the Malfentis, perhaps at this very moment. The absent are always wrong, and they might have taken advantage of my absence to plot against me. When I got into the bright light of the café I found it easier to defend myself. It is true that I should have liked to touch Ada’s foot with mine, and I did once think I had succeeded in doing so with her approval. But then I discovered that it was only the wooden leg of the table I was pressing, and of course it could not protest.