WIFE AND MISTRESS (continued 2)

When I went back into the drawing-room they all greeted me politely. As I was sure that I should have no difficulty now in getting away I felt in quite a good temper. Guido’s father, who did not feel at home among so many new relations, said to me:

“Shall I see you again before I go back to Buenos Aires?”

“Yes, Señor,” I said. “Every time you come here you will probably find me here too.”

They all laughed, and I went away in triumph, with quite a cheerful parting wave from Augusta. Now that I was properly dismissed, after submitting to all the usual formalities, I was able to go off with an easy conscience. But I had another reason for being freed from the doubts which had beset me up to that moment; if I was hurrying away from my father-in-law’s house it was because I wanted to get as far away from it as possible, (even as far as Carla’s house). It was not the first time, I said to myself, that they had suspected me there of basely conspiring to injure Guido. It was in perfect innocence and absence of mind that I had made that remark about the estate in the Argentine, and Giovanni had immediately interpreted my words as being said on purpose to prejudice Guido’s father against him. It would have been quite easy to explain to Guido, if explanation was necessary; but there was only one way of dealing with Giovanni and the rest who believed me guilty of machinations like that: I must avenge myself. Of course I did not actually go off intending to betray Augusta. But I felt justified in doing exactly as I liked now, in the light of day. Not that paying Carla a visit was as yet bad in itself, but if I had happened to run into my mother-in-law again, and if she had asked me what I was doing there I should have answered without any hesitation:

“Well, if you want to know, I am going to see Carla.” This was actually the only occasion on which I went to see Carla without thinking of Augusta, so furious had my father-in-law’s attitude made me!

When I reached the landing I could not hear any sound of Carla’s voice. For a moment I was terrified; could she have gone out? I knocked and went in without waiting for anyone to say “Come in.” Carla was there all right, but her mother was there too. They were both sewing as perhaps people often do, but as I had never seen two people sewing before. They were both working at the same big sheet, each at an opposite corner. Here had I been in such a hurry to get to Carla, and now I found her mother there as well. That was not what I had bargained for. Under the circumstances neither good nor bad resolutions could take effect. Everything must still remain in suspense.

Carla sprang up at once, looking delighted, while the old woman slowly took off her glasses and put them in their case. I meanwhile discovered a cause for indignation quite other than the real one, which was that I was prevented from at once making the situation clear. Was not this the very time which Copler had set aside for practise? I bowed politely to the old lady, though even that act of courtesy was quite an effort to me. I said how-do-you-do to Carla too, but almost without looking at her. I said:

“I came to see whether we mightn’t find something else useful in that book,” and I pointed to Garcia’s manual, which was lying on the table exactly where we had left it. I sat down just where I had sat the other day and at once opened the book. Carla began by trying to smile at me, but as I gave no answering smile she sat down beside me and looked over, with an air of obedient attention. She hesitated a little; she did not quite understand. I looked at her and saw an expression of rather contemptuous obstinacy overspread her face. That was probably how she looked, I thought, when Copler took her to task. Only she was not sure yet whether my scolding was going to be the same as Copler’s for, as she told me afterwards, she remembered that I had kissed her the day before, and thought that my anger was probably never anything so very terrible. So she was ready at any moment to exchange her rebellious look for a friendly smile. I may as well say here, as I shall have no time for it later, that her conviction that she had tied me for ever to her chariot wheels by allowing me to steal a kiss, displeased me extremely; a woman who can think that is very dangerous. But at the moment I felt very like Copler, full of reproaches and indignation. I began reading aloud the very part we had read the day before, and which I myself had disposed of. I read pedantically, without making any comment, and pausing on what seemed to me the most important words.

Carla interrupted me, a slight tremor in her voice:

“I think we have read that before!”

So I was obliged to contribute some remarks of my own. It does one good sometimes to hear one’s own words. Mine not only sounded kinder than I meant them to, they put me into a sociable mood again:

“You see, Signorina,” I said, accompanying my words with a smile which might if one chose be interrupted as that of a lover, “I should like to go over what we have read before going any further. We may have judged it a little too hastily yesterday; one of my friends has just told me that if one wishes to understand everything that Garcia says one must study the whole book carefully.”

I suddenly felt as if I must show the old lady a little consideration too, for she had probably, in the whole course of her not very happy life, never found herself in a similar situation. The smile I gave her was more of an effort than the one I had given Carla:

“It is not very amusing,” I said, “but even anyone who is not studying music may get something out of it.”

I went on reading obstinately. Carla was certainly feeling happier, and something approaching a smile played about her full lips. The old woman, on the other hand, looked like a poor caged beast, and obviously only went on sitting there because she was too timid to invent an excuse for going away. For my part, I was determined on no account to betray my desire to put her out of the room. Such a step would have been much too compromising.

Carla showed more courage; she asked me with great courtesy to stop reading for a moment, and turning to her mother, told her that she need not stop and that they would finish sewing the sheet in the afternoon.

The Signora came up to me and timidly held out her hand. I shook it warmly, almost affectionately, and said:

“I can understand you don’t find the book very entertaining.”

It sounded as if I was sorry she was leaving us. She went away after having laid on a chair the sheet which up to then she had been holding in her lap. Carla followed her out on to the landing for a moment, to say something to her, while I was consumed with impatience to have her to myself at last. She came back, shutting the door behind her, and took her old place beside me, with that same rather fixed look in her mouth which reminded me of an obstinate child. She said:

“I always practise every day at this time. And of course just to-day this work must come along, and had to be done in a hurry.”

“But can’t you see that I don’t care a fig for your singing?” I cried, seizing her in a violent embrace. I kissed her first on the mouth and immediately afterwards on the spot where I had kissed her the day before.

Then a strange thing happened. She burst out crying bitterly and tried to escape from my arms. She told me between her sobs that she had suffered too much seeing me come in like that. She was crying out of self-pity, which one always feels when one sees another person pitying one. It is less the pain which makes one’s tears flow than the cause of that pain. One weeps when one arraigns the world of injustice. And it was surely unjust to force that lovely girl to work when one might have been kissing her instead.

It did not all go quite so smoothly as I had expected. I was obliged to explain myself, and to get on quicker I did not allow myself time to invent, but told the exact truth. I told her how impatient I had been to see her and to kiss her. I had intended to come and see her early in the morning; I had lain awake all night thinking about it. Naturally I did not tell her what I had intended to do when I got to her, but that was a matter of small importance. What was true was that I had felt the same agonising impatience to see her, whether it was to tell her I must give her up for ever or to take her in my arms. Then I told her what had happened that morning, and how I had been obliged to go out with my wife and see my father-in-law, and how I had been forced to sit there hopelessly while they discussed things which had nothing whatever to do with me. And then when I finally managed to escape by dint of tremendous efforts and come all that long way at full speed, what do I find but an enormous sheet filling the whole room!

Carla burst out laughing, for she saw that I was not the least like Copler. When she laughed it was as if a rainbow had come out on her beautiful face, and I kissed her again. She did not return my caresses, but accepted them submissively, an attitude I adore, because I love the weaker sex just in proportion as they are weak. She mentioned for the first time that Copler had said how devoted I was to my wife. The shadow of a serious purpose passed over her face as she said:

“So we must just be good friends and nothing more.”

I did not put much faith in this very wise proposition, seeing that the mouth which uttered it made no effort to escape from my kisses.

Carla went on talking for quite a long time. She evidently wanted to arouse my compassion. I remember everything she said, but I did not believe it till she had gone from my life for ever. All the time she was with me I feared her, as a woman who would sooner or later take advantage of her ascendancy over me to ruin me and my family. I never believed her when she said she only wanted to feel that she and her mother would lack for nothing. I know now that she never intended to get more from me than would suffice for their bare needs, and whenever I think of her I blush for shame at having understood her so little and loved her so ill. She, poor child, never got anything out of me. I would have given her anything, because I never try to get out of paying my debts. But I was always waiting for her to ask me.

She told me of the desperate straits she found herself in after her father’s death. For months on end she and her mother had been obliged to work day and night on some embroidery a shop had commissioned them to do. She had naïvely believed that a divine providence would send them help, and she would sometimes stand at the window watching for it to arrive. Copler came instead. Now she was contented with her position, but she and her mother passed uneasy nights sometimes, thinking how precarious the help was that they were receiving. Supposing she should discover one day that she had no voice and no talent? Copler would certainly abandon her. He talked of giving her a public performance in a few months’ time. Supposing it should prove a complete fiasco?

Still with the idea of arousing my compassion, she told me that her family’s financial misfortune had also shattered her dreams of love; her fiancé had deserted her.

I was still far from feeling pity for her. I said:

“Did your fiancé kiss you a great deal? Did he kiss you like I do?”

She laughed because I prevented her talking. I saw my predecessor pointing me the way.

It was long past the hour when I ought to have been home for luncheon. And I wanted to go. It was enough for that day. I was very far from feeling the remorse which had kept me awake during the night, and the unrest which had driven me to Carla had entirely disappeared. But I was not calm. Perhaps it is my fate never to be so. I felt no misgivings, because now Carla had promised me as many kisses as I wanted, under the name of friendship; and that could not injure Augusta in any way. Then I thought I had discovered the cause of the discontent which as usual sent dim pains winding through my body. Carla was seeing me in a false light. Carla might despise me for being so eager for her kisses when I was in love with Augusta! Carla who admitted liking me so much because she had such need of me!

I determined to win her esteem, and said something which I shall always remember as a cowardly crime, a treason committed of my own free will, without any need and with nothing to be gained by it.

I was almost at the door when I said to Carla, with the unperturbed air of someone who feels there is something he ought just to say:

“Copler told you of my love for my wife. It is true I admire her very much.”

Then I told her in every detail the story of my marriage; how I had fallen in love with Augusta’s elder sister, who would have nothing to do with me because she was in love with someone else; how I had tried then to marry one of the other sisters, who also refused me, and how I had at last to resign myself to marrying her.

Carla believed it all at once. Later on I heard that Copler, who knew something about the story, had given her some rather inaccurate details, which I now corrected or confirmed.

“Is your wife very pretty?” she asked, thoughtfully.

“That is a matter of taste,” I answered.

Some restraining principle was still at work in me. I had said I admired my wife, but I had not yet said that I did not love her. I had not said that I thought her pretty, but neither had I said that I might not think her so. At the moment it seemed to me that I was being very truthful; now I know that in those few words I betrayed all women and all love, both mine and theirs.

To tell the truth I was still not quite at my ease; something else was lacking. I remembered my envelope of good intentions, and offered it to Carla. She opened it and gave it back to me, saying that a few days ago Copler had brought the month’s money and that she had no need of money for the moment. This only increased my anxiety, for it was an old idea of mine that a really dangerous woman will not accept a small sum of money. She saw that something was troubling me, and with a charming naïveté which I appreciate now for the first time, she asked me for a few kronen to buy some plates they had had the misfortune to break in the kitchen.

Then something happened which left an indelible trace on my memory. Just as I was going I kissed her again, and this time she returned my kisses with the utmost fervour. The poison had worked. She said naïvely:

“I love you because you are so good that you are not even spoilt by being rich.”

Then she added with a slight touch of malice:

“I know now that you must not be kept waiting, but that otherwise you are not at all dangerous.”

On the landing she said:

“Can I send the singing-master and Copler to the devil?”

As I ran quickly downstairs I replied:

“We will see about that.”

So there was still something in our relationship which remained unsettled; everything else had been put on a perfectly firm basis.

I found this so upsetting that when I got out into the street I began going in the opposite direction to my own house. I almost felt as if I must go back again at once and explain something else to Carla: namely my love for Augusta. I easily could, because I had never said that I did not love her. Only, in telling that perfectly true story, I had forgotten to tell the end, which was that I now really loved Augusta. Carla concluded that I really did not love her, and that was why she had returned my kiss so passionately, sealing it by a declaration of love. I felt now that but for that episode it would have been easier for me to have borne Augusta’s trustful gaze. And to think that so short a while ago I had been glad to hear that Carla knew of my love for my wife, and that by her own wish the adventure I had gone in search of was offered me in the form of friendship flavoured with kisses!

I sat down on a seat in the Giardino Pubblico, and absent-mindedly traced the date with my stick on the gravel. Then I laughed bitterly; I knew that that date would by no means mark the end of my betrayals. In fact only the beginning. Where could I find strength not to go back to the woman I desired so much, and who was waiting for me? Besides, I had already incurred a debt, a debt of honour. I had taken her kisses, and all that I had been allowed to give in return was the cost of some crockery! I was actually bound to Carla now by an unpaid debt.

We had a gloomy luncheon. Augusta did not ask why I was so late, and I did not tell her. I was afraid of betraying myself; all the more because during my short walk from the Gardens to my house I had toyed with the idea of telling her everything, so that the story of my treason was probably written on my honest face, for all to read. That would have been the only way of saving myself. If I had told her all I should have put myself under her protection and supervision. It would have been so decisive a step that I should have been able in good faith to put down the date of that day as one on which I had made a great step towards a clean and healthy life.

We talked of various indifferent things. I tried to be gay, but I could not even pretend to be affectionate. She was utterly taken aback; she was certainly waiting for an explanation which never came.

Then she left me, to go on with her great work of putting the winter clothes away in special wardrobes. I often caught sight of her during the afternoon at the end of the long passage, intent on her work, with the servant to help her.

I was restless, and wandered about between my bedroom and the bathroom. I should have liked to call to Augusta and tell her I loved her, which would have been quite enough for her, poor innocent! Instead of which I went on thinking and smoking.

I passed naturally through various phases. There was even a moment in which my virtuous mood was interrupted by acute impatience for the next day to come so that I might hasten to Carla again. Perhaps even this desire had some good resolution behind it. The great difficulty was to make up my mind to do my duty entirely by myself. It was unthinkable really that I should get my wife to collaborate with me by confessing everything to her. There remained only Carla on whose lips I might seal my oath with one last kiss. But who was Carla? Not even her vengeance was the greatest danger I ran with her! The very next day she would probably become my mistress; who could tell what the consequences might be? All I knew about her was what I had heard from that idiot Copler, and a more cautious person, Olivi for instance, would never have dreamt of undertaking any business transaction on information supplied by him.

All Augusta’s work in my house, wholesome and admirable as it was, had been wasted. The drastic cure of matrimony, undertaken by me in my eager quest for health, had failed. I was worse off than ever, and wedded to my own and other people’s misfortunes.

Later on, when I had really become Carla’s lover, my thoughts would go back to that melancholy afternoon, and I could not understand why I had not been capable of the manly resolution which would have prevented my plunging deeper in.

I had deplored my own infidelity so much beforehand that you would have thought I might easily have avoided it. It is easy to laugh at anyone for being wise after the event, but it is almost as useless to be wise before it. During those hours of torment I wrote the date of the day in my dictionary against the letter C (Carla) with the comment: “Last betrayal.” But my first actual infidelity, which led to all the subsequent ones, only took place on the following day.

Late in the afternoon, having nothing better to do, I took a bath. I felt as if my whole body were soiled and I must wash the dirt away. When I was in my bath I thought: “If I am to get quite clean I should need to dissolve in this water.” I dressed again, but was so utterly without will-power that I did not even dry myself properly. It was getting dusk, and I stood by the window watching the new green leaves on the trees in my garden. I began to shiver, and thought with a certain satisfaction that perhaps I had got fever. It was not death I desired, but an illness which would serve as an excuse for doing what I wanted or which would prevent my doing it.

After having hesitated for so long Augusta at last came to look for me. When I saw her so gentle and so completely without ill-feeling my shivering fit grew worse and my teeth began to chatter. Much alarmed, she forced me to go to bed at once. My teeth were still chattering from cold, but I knew now that I had not got any fever and refused to let her send for the doctor. I begged her to put out the light and to sit beside me without talking. I don’t know how long we remained like that; I gradually got warm again and recovered a certain degree of confidence. But my mind was in such a state of confusion that when she again spoke of sending for the doctor I told her that I knew what had made me unwell and would tell her about it later on. I had returned to my first resolution to confess everything to her. There was no other way in which I could relieve my mind of its burden.

We stayed like this for some time in silence. At last I noticed that Augusta had got up from her arm-chair and was coming towards me. I was frightened: perhaps she had guessed everything. She took my hand and stroked it, then she laid her own hand lightly on my head to feel if it was very hot, and said at last:

“You must have known it would come! Why did it take you so dreadfully by surprise?”

These strange words puzzled me, especially as they were accompanied by a smothered sob. It was clearly not my adventure she was alluding to. For how could I have foreseen that, or that it would effect me as it had? I asked, rather abruptly:

“What do you mean? What ought I to have known would come?”

She murmured in some confusion:

“That Guido’s father would come for Ada’s wedding.”

At last I understood; she thought that my suffering was caused by Ada’s coming marriage. I honestly felt that she was wronging me; I was not guilty of such a crime as that. I felt as pure and innocent as a new-born babe, and freed at once from every pang of conscience, I sprang out of bed:

“You mean to say that you think I am ill on account of Ada’s marriage?” I cried. “You must be mad! Ever since I married you I have never given her a thought. I had even forgotten that the Señor had arrived to-day!”

I hugged and kissed her with the utmost devotion, and with such obvious sincerity that she was ashamed of her suspicions.

Every cloud vanished from her face too and we went to supper feeling quite famished. At the table where we had sat together so miserably a few hours ago we behaved now like two friends out on a holiday.

She reminded me that I had promised to tell her what had upset me. I invented a disease which was to enable me to do whatever I wanted without feeling guilty. I told her that whilst I was sitting with the two old gentlemen that morning I had begun to feel profoundly depressed. Then I had gone to fetch the spectacles which the oculist had ordered me. Perhaps that emblem of old age had added to my depression. I had been walking about the streets for hours and hours. I touched on some of the fancies which had made me suffer so much before, and there was even a shadow of a confession in some of the things I said. I don’t remember what connexion it was supposed to have with my imaginary disease, but I reminded her how our blood kept on turning and turning, how it held us upright and made us capable of thought and action, and therefore of sin and remorse. She could not understand that I was referring to Carla, but I felt as if I had told her.

After supper I put on my spectacles and pretended to read the paper for quite a long while, but I found the glasses made everything go misty. I felt slightly excited as if I had been drinking. I said I could not understand what I was reading. I continued to play the invalid.

I hardly slept at all that night. I longed passionately to hold Carla in my arms. I desired her and her only, the girl with thick, untidy locks and a voice that was so musical when it was allowed to choose its own note. She had become more desirable still because of all I had suffered on her account. All night long an iron resolution kept me company. I would be absolutely frank with Carla before possessing her; I would tell her the whole truth of my relations with Augusta. I could not help laughing to myself, it seemed so odd to set out to win one lady with a declaration of love for another on your lips! Perhaps Carla would resume her former attitude of passivity! But what difference would that make? At the moment nothing she could do would diminish the value of her submission, and of that I felt absolutely sure.

Next morning while I was dressing, I murmured to myself the words I was going to say to her. Before she gave herself to me Carla had got to know that Augusta’s character and good health (I would explain to her at length what I meant by health—that also was to be part of her education) had succeeded in winning not only my respect but my love.

I was so busy preparing my long and elaborate speech, while drinking my coffee, that Augusta received no other token of affection than a light kiss before I went out. What matter since I was hers! I was going to Carla to kindle my passion for her.

I was so relieved to find Carla alone and expecting me that directly I got into her room I drew her to me and embraced her passionately. I was horrified by the rigour with which she repulsed me. She was almost violent! She would not let me touch her, and I stood open-mouthed in the middle of the room, a prey to bitter disappointment.

But Carla quickly recovered herself and whispered:

“Don’t you see that you have left the door open and someone is going downstairs?”

I assumed the bearing of a formal visitor till the intruder had passed. Then we shut the door. She grew pale when she saw me turn the key in the lock. Now everything was clear between us. A little while after, when I had her fast in my arms, she murmured faintly:

“Do you want it? Do you really want it?”

It was enough. She wanted it too. I instantly replied:

“What else should I want?”

I had forgotten that there was something I wanted to explain to her.

A little later I should have liked to begin telling her about my relations with Augusta, as I had omitted to do it at first. But for the moment it was not easy. If I had begun talking to Carla about something else at a moment like that it would have seemed as if I underrated the importance of her offering. The densest of men realise that you cannot do a thing like that, although we all know there is no comparison between the importance of the offering before it is made and immediately after. It would be a terrible insult to say to a woman immediately after you had lain with her for the first time: “First of all I must explain what I said to you yesterday.” What has yesterday to do with it? Whatever happened yesterday ought to appear unworthy of mention, and if anyone who calls himself a gentleman does not feel this, so much the worse for him, and he had better take care that no one else discovers it.

Clearly I was one of those insensitive gentlemen, for I was guilty of a mistake which no one could have made who was really whole-hearted. I said:

“What made you give yourself to me? What had I done to deserve it?”

Was I expressing my gratitude or trying to rebuke her? Probably I was only trying to lead the way to some explanation on my part.

She was rather surprised and looked up at me to try and read my thoughts.

“I thought it was you who had taken me,” she said, smiling affectionately at me to show that she did not mean it as a reproach.

I remembered that women always insist on the fiction that they have been raped. But she soon saw she had made a mistake, for you may take things, but people must give themselves. She whispered:

“I was waiting for you. You were the knight who was to come and set me free. Of course it is a pity you are married, but as you don’t love your wife I need not feel that my happiness is destroying anyone else’s.”

The pain in my side came on so violently that I had to let go my embrace. Then I had not over-estimated the importance of my idle words! It really was that lie of mine which had induced Carla to give herself to me! If I were suddenly to begin talking now of my love for Augusta, Carla would have every right to accuse me of having set a trap for her. It was out of the question to correct or explain anything at the moment. Later on I should have the chance of telling her all about it quietly. Waiting for that moment to come made a fresh link between Carla and me.

As I lay there beside her, my love for Augusta revived in all its force. I only had one wish now: to hurry home to my wife, just in order to see her working like a busy bee, putting all our clothes away in camphor and naphthaline.

But I remained at my post, and now had to face a new difficulty; something which worried me a good deal at first, for I detected in it the menacing prophecy of a sphinx. Carla told me how, directly I had gone the day before, her singing-master had come and she had quickly shown him the door.

I could not conceal a movement of annoyance. It was as good as telling Copler straight away about our affair!

“Whatever will Copler say?” I exclaimed.

She burst out laughing and hid herself in my arms, this time really on her own initiative.

“But didn’t we say that we were going to show him the door as well?”

She was a darling, but she could not seduce me again. I assumed the rôle of a pedagogue, which suited me quite well under the circumstances, for it gave me the opportunity of venting the irritation I felt in the bottom of my heart against the woman who would not allow me to say what I wanted about my wife. Everyone must work in this world I said, for she ought to know by this time that the world is a bad place, where strength is the only thing that counts. Supposing I were to die? What would become of her? I had hinted at the possibility of abandoning her in such a way that she could not take offence; and she was in fact even touched by it. Then with the obvious intention of depressing her I told her it was enough for me to express the smallest wish—my wife at once fulfilled it.

“Very well,” she said, resignedly, “we will send for him to come back.” Then she tried to explain to me why she disliked him so much. Day after day she had to put up with that horrible old man, who made her repeat the same exercises over and over again, though they were absolutely useless. The only days she ever enjoyed were when the singing-master was ill. She had hoped he would die, but she never had any luck.

She became quite violent in her despair. She kept on repeating that she never had any luck; she was hopelessly unlucky, always. When she thought how she had loved me at first sight because my way of doing things, my way of speaking, the look in my eyes seemed to promise her a life less full of hardships, less dreary, less dependent on charity given grudgingly, she felt as if she must cry.

It was not long before I made acquaintance with her sobs, and they bored me. She sobbed violently, passionately, and the whole of her frail body seemed shaken to its foundations. I felt as if a sudden assault had been made on my purse and on my life itself. I said:

“Do you imagine my wife has nothing to do but sit still? Why at this very moment while we are here together her lungs are being choked with camphor and naphthaline.”

Carla exclaimed between her sobs:

“How lucky she is! All that furniture, all those clothes to look after!”

I thought with irritation that she wanted me to go off at once and buy her all those things, just so that she might have a sympathetic occupation. I am glad to say I did not show how angry I felt; instead, I obeyed the call of duty which told me to caress the poor girl who had just given herself to me! I did caress her. I stroked her hair gently, and soon her sobs died down and her tears flowed abundantly and without restraint, like rain after violent thunder and lightning.

“You are my first lover,” she said again. “I hope you will go on loving me.”

The statement that I was her first lover, which seemed to prepare the way for a second, did not move me greatly. It came rather late in any case, for we had given up discussing the question a good half-hour ago. It seemed to contain a new threat. A woman thinks she can demand anything of her first lover. I murmured softly in her ear:

“You are my first mistress too—since I married.”

The softness in my voice was intended to veil the fact that we were quits.

I left her soon after, for I would not on any account be late for luncheon. Before going I again took from my pocket what I called my “envelope of good resolutions” because it had originated in an excellent resolution. I thought I should feel freer if only I were allowed to pay. Carla again quietly refused the money, which made me extremely angry; but the only sign I gave of my wrath was that I uttered the sweetest nothings at the top of my voice. I shouted to prevent myself striking her, but I disguised my feelings well. I said that in possessing her my dearest hopes had been realized, and that now I wanted to feel her more wholly mine by being allowed to support her entirely; but that she must take care not to make me angry, for I should suffer too much. Because I was in a hurry to get away I summed up my idea in a few words; shouted like that I must say it sounded very brusque.

“Are you my mistress or not? If you are it is my business to support you.”

She was so startled that she made no more effort at resistance, but took the envelope, watching me anxiously all the while, in the hope of discovering which she ought to take seriously: my angry voice or the tender words which granted her all she desired. She was a little reassured when I touched her forehead with my lips before going away. On the stairs I began to be afraid lest, now that she had the money and the assurance that I would provide for her in future, she might show Copler the door too, supposing he should happen to call that afternoon. I thought for a moment of running upstairs again to beg her not to compromise me by doing anything of the kind. But I had no time to go back, I had to hurry away at once.

I am afraid the doctor who reads this manuscript will think at once that Carla would be an interesting subject for psycho-analysis. He will think that she offered herself to me a little too soon after discussing the singing-master. I thought too at first that she expected a little too much of me in return for her love. It was a great many months before I got to know the poor girl better. She probably let me seduce her so as to escape from Copler’s tedious guardianship, and it must have been a painful surprise for her to discover it was all in vain, and that she was still expected to do what she least wanted to, namely sing. Even while she still was lying in my arms she was told that she had got to go on singing. This aroused in her a degree of pain and anger such as could not easily find expression in words. For entirely different reasons we both said the strangest things. When she got to love me she became quite natural again, though for a while her calculations had banished her simplicity.

As I was going away I thought: ‘If only she knew how much I love my wife she would behave quite differently.’ And indeed, when she knew it she did behave quite differently.

When I got into the open air I took great draughts of freedom and did not suffer at all from the thought of having compromised her. There was still time before to-morrow came, and I thought I might find some way out of the difficulties which hung over me. As I hurried home I was even bold enough to begin attacking our social system, as if that were responsible for my shortcomings. I thought it ought to be so arranged as to allow one to have intercourse occasionally with other women without having to fear the consequences. Even with women one could never love. I felt no trace of remorse. Therefore I don’t think that remorse springs from regret for having done something wrong, but rather from a recognition of one’s own sinful nature. The higher part of one’s body bends down to observe and judge the lower, and finds it monstrous. The sense of horror it experiences at the sight is what we call remorse. In classical tragedy the victim did not return to life, and yet all remorse vanished: which meant that the deformity was cured and that it was idle to lament any longer. How could I have any room for remorse now that I was hastening with so much joy and tender affection to rejoin the wife of my bosom? I had not felt so innocent for a long time.

I was in high spirits during luncheon, and found it quite natural to behave affectionately to Augusta. There was nothing which jarred between us all day long. I did not overdo it; I behaved just as I should towards the woman whom I could honestly and securely call my own. There were times when I behaved with excessive devotion; but only when a conflict was going on in my mind between the two women, and the extravagant signs of affection I gave Augusta made it easier for me to conceal from her that the shadow of another woman lay darkly between us for the moment. Therefore I am bound to say that Augusta preferred me just when I was in fact less wholly hers.

I myself was rather surprised at being so calm, and attributed it to the fact that I had succeeded in making Carla accept the envelope of good resolutions. Not that I imagined I had settled my account with her in full. But I felt as if I had begun to pay an indulgence.

Unfortunately money remained my chief preoccupation during the whole of my affair with Carla. At every opportunity I would put some aside in a remote corner of my library, so as to be ready for any demands on the part of the mistress I so much feared. When at last Carla gave me up as well as the money, I used it to pay for something quite different.

We were to spend the evening at my father-in-law’s, at a dinner to which only members of the family were invited, and which was to take the place of the traditional wedding breakfast. The wedding was to be two days later; Guido wanted to take advantage of the improvement in Giovanni’s health in order to get married, for he did not think it would last.

I went with Augusta early in the afternoon to call on my mother-in-law. On the way I reminded her that she had, only the day before, suspected me of still suffering on account of the wedding. She was ashamed of her suspicion, and I talked a good deal about my innocence. Why, only to-day I had come home quite forgetting that the ceremonies preparatory to the wedding were to be this very evening.

Although only the family were invited the Malfentis wanted the dinner to be a very formal affair. Augusta had been asked to help in getting the room ready and laying the table. Alberta would have nothing to do with it. Not long ago she had won a prize in a competition for a one-act play, and was now busily engaged in reforming the National Theatre. Augusta and I were given the table to lay, with the help of a parlour-maid and one of Giovanni’s office boys, who seemed to have as much talent for arranging things in a private house as in an office.

It was my job to fetch the flowers and help to arrange them on the table.

“You see,” I said, jokingly, to Augusta, “how I am contributing to their happiness. If they were to ask me to make ready the marriage-bed for them I should be just as glad to do it!”

Then we went to look for the bride and bridegroom who had just returned from a formal call. They were sitting in the most retired corner of the drawing-room, and had probably been kissing. The bride still had on her outdoor dress and looked extremely pretty, with a flush on her cheeks from the warm room.

They seemed to want to hide the fact that they had been kissing by pretending that they had been talking about science. It was very stupid of them, in fact rather ill-mannered. Who did they think would care whether they kissed each other or not, that they must stop doing it directly we came in? It did not, however, diminish my good humour. Guido said that Ada would not believe that certain wasps were able to paralyse other insects, even much bigger than themselves, by injecting something into them which kept them alive and fresh, though paralysed, so that their offspring could use them for food. I seemed to remember too that some such monstrous fact did exist in nature, but I did not want to have to concede anything to Guido at that moment.

“Do you take me for a wasp, that you ask me about it?” I said laughing.

We left them alone to occupy themselves with more congenial matters. I was beginning to find the afternoon rather long, and should have liked to go home and sit in my study till dinnertime.

In the hall we met Dr. Paoli who had just come from my father-in-law’s bedroom. He was a young doctor who had already succeeded in building up a good practice. He was very fair, with the pink and white complexion of a boy. But he had a powerful physique and his remarkable eyes gave a rather imposing air of gravity to his whole person. His spectacles made them seem bigger than they really were, and when he looked at things he seemed to hold them with his eye as if he were caressing them. Now that I know both him and Dr. S. (the psycho-analytic man) so well, I feel as if the latter gazed at things with a conscious purpose, whereas Paoli gazes at them out of sheer, inexhaustible curiosity. Paoli observes his patient in every detail, and not only him but also his wife and the chair he is sitting on. God knows which of the two does more harm to his patients! During my father-in-law’s illness I used often to go and see Paoli, to try and induce him not to let the family know how imminent the catastrophe was which threatened them, and I remember that one day he gave me a much more searching look than I cared for, and said, smiling:

“How you adore your wife!”

He was a good observer, for as a matter of fact at the moment I was adoring my wife, because she suffered so much during her father’s illness, and because I was betraying her daily.

Paoli told us that Giovanni was even better than the day before. He said that there was no longer any cause for anxiety, as the time of year was favourable to his recovery, and he thought the bride and bridegroom might safely start on their honeymoon.

“Of course,” he added, cautiously, “I mean barring unforeseen complications.” His qualifying clause was justified; unforeseen complications actually did take place.

Just as he was saying good-bye he remembered that we knew someone called Copler, on whom he had been called to give an opinion only that day. He found him suffering from paralysis of the intestines, which had started with frightful toothache. He took a very serious view of it, but qualified it as usual by saying: “If he lives through the night there is still hope for him.”

Augusta’s eyes at once filled with tears of pity, and she begged me to go off at once and visit our poor friend. After a moment’s hesitation I willingly enough agreed to do so, for I was suddenly filled with the thought of Carla. How hard I had been on the poor girl! Now that Copler was removed, there she was alone on her landing with no fear of her compromising me, because she would be cut off from all means of communication with the world I moved in. It was important that I should go and see her at once, to cancel the impression she must have received from my harshness that morning.

But I took the precaution of going first to Copler’s. I must at least be able to tell Augusta I had seen him.

I already knew the humble, but clean and comfortable apartment where Copler lived in Corsia Stadion. An old pensioner had let him three of his five rooms. He opened the door to me himself. He was a heavy man with red eyes, who snorted as he paced uneasily up and down the short dark passage. He told me that the doctor who was in charge of the case had only just gone, and that he had said Copler was dying. The old man talked in a low voice, as if he were afraid of disturbing the peace of the dying, and panted heavily as he talked. I lowered my voice too. People do that in token of respect, but perhaps the dying would rather be accompanied on their last journey by loud, clear voices which would remind them of life.

The old man told me that a nurse was looking after the invalid. He made me stand reverentially outside the door for some time. Copler, with the death-rattle in his throat, was measuring out his last hours of breath. His noisy breathing consisted of two sounds; one hesitating, as if produced by the air he breathed in; one hurried, when he expelled the air from his lungs. Was he in a hurry to die? A pause always followed these two sounds, and I thought that when that pause grew longer the new life would have begun.

The old man wanted me to go in, but I refused. I had been looked at reproachfully by too many dying people already.

I did not wait for the pause to grow longer, but hurried off to Carla. I knocked at the door of her studio, which was locked; but there was no answer. In my impatience I kicked the door, and then someone opened the front door of the flat, behind me. It was the voice of Carla’s mother which said:

“But who is it?”

The old woman leaned out timidly, and when she had recognised me by the dim light which came from her kitchen, I saw that her face, in its frame of snow-white hair, became red all over. Carla was not in, and her mother offered to go and fetch the key of the studio, so that she could receive me in the only room, she said, which was worthy of me. But I told her not to trouble, and went into the kitchen and sat down on a wooden chair. A meagre coal fire was burning on the hearth, under a saucepan. I told her not to interrupt cooking the supper on my account. She reassured me. She said she was cooking beans and that one could never cook them too much. To see such poor food, in a house of which I was the sole support, moved me and calmed the irritation I felt at not finding my mistress waiting for me.

The old woman remained standing, though I kept asking her to sit down. I told her at once that I had come to bring her daughter some bad news: Copler was dying.

The old woman let her arms drop to her side, and she immediately sank into a chair.

“My God!” she murmured. “What will become of us?” Then she remembered that it was worse for Copler than for her, and added compassionately:

“Poor gentleman! He was so good too!”

The tears were already streaming down her cheeks. She was clearly unconscious of the fact that unless the poor man had died he would have been turned out of her house that very day. This tended to reassure me. How discreet everyone was!

I tried to calm her by saying that I would go on doing for them exactly what Copler had done up to then. She pretended that she was not so much crying for herself as at the thought of their benefactor’s death; she knew there were so many kind friends willing to help them.

She wanted to know what he was dying of. I told her how his last illness had begun, and recalled the discussion I had had with him a little time before about the utility of pain. Here were the nerves of his teeth becoming uneasy and calling for help, because about three feet away from them his bowels had ceased to function. I was so indifferent to the fate of the friend whose death-rattle I had heard only a short while before, that I went on playing with his ideas. If he had been there to hear I should have said that it was very easy to understand by analogy how the nerves of a malade imaginaire might suffer from an illness which had broken out a few kilometres away.

The old woman and I did not find much to say to each other, and I finally agreed to go and wait for Carla in her studio. I took up Garcia and tried to read a few pages. But I was not very interested in singing.

The mother soon joined me. She could not understand why Carla had not come back. She told me that she had gone out to buy some plates which they badly needed.

My patience was almost exhausted. I said crossly:

“Why did you break the plates? Couldn’t you have been more careful?”

Anyway I succeeded in getting rid of the old woman, who went off muttering:

“Only two.... I broke them myself.”

This amused me for a moment, because I knew they had all been broken, and not by the old woman at all, but by Carla. Afterwards I discovered that Carla was not very nice to her mother, and that the poor old woman was terrified of saying anything about her to her protectors. Apparently she had once, in all innocence, told Copler how Carla hated her singing lessons. Copler scolded Carla, who was furious with her mother about it.

When at last my exquisite mistress came I surprised her by the violence of my passion. She murmured with delight:

“Fancy my having doubted your love. I have been haunted all day by the idea of committing suicide, because I had given myself to someone who was so unkind to me directly afterwards.”

I explained that I often got terrible pains in the head quite suddenly; and on subsequent occasions when, if I had not made a great effort, I should have hurried away to Augusta on the spot, I had only to talk of those pains in the head and I succeeded in controlling myself. I was making progress! Meanwhile Carla and I mourned Copler together; we actually mingled our tears over him!

But Carla was by no means indifferent to the sad end of her benefactor. She became quite pale when she talked about him.

“I can’t help it,” she said. “I am made like that. It will be ever so long before I shall dare to be left alone. I was frightened enough of him when he was alive.”

And for the first time she timidly proposed my spending the whole night with her. It was the last thing I wanted to do; I could not bear the thought of spending another half-hour in that room. But I was anxious not to let the poor girl read my thoughts, of which I was thoroughly ashamed, and began making objections on the ground of her mother being there. She curled her lip disdainfully and said:

“We could bring the bed in here; mother would never spy on me.”

I told her about the wedding banquet to which I had to go, but I also felt I must tell her that I should never be able to spend the night with her. Thanks to the resolution I had just made always to be kind to Carla, I managed to keep out of my voice any touch of harshness, but I felt that any other concession, either actual or promised, would have seemed like a fresh betrayal of Augusta, which I could not bring myself to commit.

It suddenly became clear to me what it was that bound me most closely to Carla; my resolution always to be kind to her and the lies I told about my relations with Augusta, which in course of time I must gradually modify till I had done away with them altogether. I began that very evening, but as cautiously as possible, for what I had obtained in consequence of my lie was still too fresh in my mind. I told her that I had a strong sense of duty to my wife, who was a most admirable woman and certainly deserved to be loved better. I could not bear her to know that I had been unfaithful to her.

Carla kissed me and said:

“That is how I like you best; I knew you were good and kind the first moment I saw you. I will never try to do anything which would hurt the poor thing.”

I didn’t at all like Augusta being called a “poor thing”—but I was grateful to poor Carla for demanding so little. It was a good thing that she did not hate my wife. I wanted to show my gratitude to her, and cast round in my mind for some token of affection. At last I hit on it. I made her a present of a “private laundry” in that I allowed her not to send for the singing-master again.

This was the signal for an outburst of tenderness on Carla’s part which I found rather trying but bore with fortitude. Then she told me that she had never wanted to give up singing. She sang all day long, but in her own way. She wanted me to hear her sing something on the spot. But I would not hear of it, and took my leave rather unceremoniously. Probably it made her contemplate suicide that night too, but I never gave her time to tell me about it.

I went back to Copler first, for I had to take Augusta the latest news of the invalid, to make her believe that I had been spending all those hours by his bedside. Copler had been dead about two hours; he died almost immediately after I left. I went into his room accompanied by the old pensioner who had spent the whole time pacing up and down the little passage. The corpse, already dressed, was lying on the bare mattress of the bed. A crucifix was placed between his hands. The pensioner told me in a low voice that all the proper formalities had been performed and that a nephew of the dead man was coming to watch by the corpse.

I was now free to leave him, knowing that all my poor friend needed had been done for him, but I stayed watching him for a few minutes. I should have liked to screw one genuine tear of compassion from my eyes for the poor man who had waged so valiant a fight against disease, before he would consent to make peace. “It is very sad!” I said. He had been brutally killed by an illness for which so many drugs exist. It seemed such a mockery. But I could not shed a tear. Copler’s emaciated face had never seemed so strong as it did now in the rigidity of death. It looked as if it had been hewn out of coloured marble, and no one could have guessed that it was on the brink of decay. That face seemed still to have an expression of life; perhaps it disapproved of me, the malade imaginaire, or of Carla who would not learn singing. I shuddered for a moment, thinking I heard again the death-rattle of the dead man. But I resumed the dispassionate study of his face when I realised that what I took to be a death-rattle was only the pensioner’s heavy breathing, which emotion made more laboured.

The pensioner accompanied me to the door, and begged me to say a good word for him if I knew of anyone wanting apartments:

“You see I have done all I could even in a situation like this; I have done my duty and a great deal more too.”

He raised his voice for the first time, and there was a note of resentment in it, no doubt against poor Copler for having left his room without giving due notice. I went off as fast as I could, promising to do all that he asked.

When I reached my father-in-law’s house I found that they had sat down to dinner. They asked for news at once, and so as not to damp the spirits of the company I said that Copler was still alive and that there was therefore room for hope.

I thought the party seemed very dull. Perhaps I got this impression from seeing my father-in-law condemned to a plate of soup and a glass of milk, while all around were feeding on the choicest dainties. He had plenty of time at his disposal and employed it in watching the others eat. When he saw Señor Francesco eating hors-d’œuvres he muttered:

“To think that he is two years older than me!”

And when Señor Francesco reached his third glass of white wine he growled:

“That is the third! May it turn to gall in his stomach!”

This pious hope would not have troubled me if I myself had not been eating and drinking at the same table, and had not realised that every mouthful of wine I drank would have a like blessing bestowed on it. So I began eating and drinking secretly. I took advantage of a moment when my father-in-law’s great nose was hidden in his glass of milk, or when he was answering some remark which had been addressed to him, to swallow huge mouthfuls of food and gulp down whole glasses of wine. Alberta, simply in order to be funny, warned Augusta that I was drinking too much. My wife threatened me laughingly with her finger. She meant no harm, but it had the unfortunate result of making my efforts to eat secretly useless too. Giovanni, who had almost forgotten my existence, flung me, over his glasses, a veritable look of hate. He said:

“I have never abused food or drink. Anyone who eats or drinks to excess is no man but a ...” And he went on repeating the last word which was not exactly complimentary.

The wine I had drunk made that offensive word, at which everybody laughed heartily, rankle in my breast, and I felt a quite unreasoning desire to avenge myself. I attacked my father-in-law at his weakest point—his illness. I shouted that the contemptible person was not one who ate or drank to excess, but one who submitted tamely to the doctor’s orders. If I had been in his place I should have acted very differently. At my own daughter’s marriage, my affection for her, if nothing else, would have made me refuse to have my eating and drinking interfered with.

Giovanni wrathfully observed:

“I should like to see you in my shoes!”

“Isn’t it enough to see me in my own? Do I give up smoking by any chance?”

It was the first time I had succeeded in boasting of this weakness of mine, and I at once lit a cigarette in illustration of my words. They all laughed, and told Señor Francesco how my life was full of last cigarettes. This one was not going to be the last, and I felt strong and combative. But the others soon withdrew their support when I proceeded to pour some wine into Giovanni’s big drinking-water glass. They were afraid he would drink it, and shouted at him to stop him, till at last Signora Malfenti managed to get hold of the glass and take it away.

“So you want to kill me, do you?” asked Giovanni mildly, looking curiously at me. “The wine has not done you much good.” He had made not the slightest effort to drink what I had poured out for him.

I felt thoroughly depressed and in the wrong. I could almost have flung myself at my father-in-law’s feet to implore his forgiveness, but I knew that would probably also have been inspired by wine, and crushed the impulse. It was a pity, for in asking for forgiveness I could have confessed my fault, and the dinner would have lasted long enough to give me a chance of repairing that first unfortunate joke. There is a time for everything in this world. Not all drunkards fall immediately under the influence of wine. When I have drunk too much I go on analysing my fellow-creatures just as I do when sober, and probably with the same result. I now continued my self-analysis in order to discover how I could have hit on the horrible thought of doing harm to my father-in-law. I discovered that I was tired, absolutely dead tired. If they had known what a day I had been through they would have made some excuse for me. I had twice seduced and violently abandoned one woman, and twice returned to my wife only to deny her twice. It was fortunate for me that some train of thought suddenly brought to my mind the corpse over which I had vainly tried to shed tears. If this had not banished my thoughts about the two women I should have ended by speaking of Carla. Have I not always had a great desire for confession, even when wine has not made me more expansive still?

So I spoke about Copler instead, for I wanted them all to know that I had lost a great friend that day. They would be more ready to excuse my behaviour.

I cried out that Copler was dead, stone dead, and that I had not told them before so as not to cast a gloom over the party. And now at last, strange to say, I felt the tears rising and had to turn my eyes away so as to hide them.

They all laughed, because they did not believe me; so with an obstinacy which too much wine tends to produce I proceeded to describe his death:

“He looked like a figure of Michelangelo, as if he had been hewn out of a block of marble.”

There was a general silence, interrupted by Guido, who exclaimed:

“So you no longer care whether you depress us or not?” His reproof was deserved. I had again failed to keep a resolution. Perhaps I might still save the situation!

I began laughing immoderately and cried out:

“I’ve caught you! He is still alive, and getting better.”

They all stared at me in the utmost amazement.

“He is better,” I said gravely; “he recognized me and even smiled at me.”

They all believed me, but were extremely indignant. Giovanni announced that if he had not been afraid of straining himself, he would have flung a plate at my head. It was of course unpardonable of me to harrow the party by inventing such a piece of information. If it had been true there would have been no harm in it. Wouldn’t it be better for me to tell them the truth even now? Copler was dead, and directly I was left alone I should find plenty of tears to shed for him; I felt they would flow abundantly now. I tried to find words, but Signora Malfenti, with her air of grande dame, interrupted me:

“Let us leave that unfortunate Copler in peace,” she said. “To-morrow will be time enough for us to think about him.”

I instantly obeyed, even to the point of dismissing the dead man from my thoughts as well. “Farewell,” I said to him. “Wait for me! I will come back to you later on.”

The time had come for the toast. The doctor had given Giovanni permission to drink a glass of champagne for the occasion. He gravely watched them pouring out the wine, and refused to touch it with his lips till the glass was quite full. When he had proposed their health in plain and simple terms, he drained it to the dregs. With a malicious glance at me he said that the last drop had been dedicated to my health. I crossed my fingers under the table to avert his wish, which I knew boded me no good.

I have no very clear memory of the remainder of that evening. I know that at Augusta’s instigation they said lots of nice things about me, and quoted me as a model husband. I was quite restored to favour; even my father-in-law became more conciliatory. He said, however, that he hoped Ada’s husband would prove as good a one as me, and at the same time a better business man; and above all someone who ... and he hunted about for the right word. He could not find it, nor did anyone press for it. Not even Señor Francesco, who as he had only seen me for the first time that morning, could not be expected to know much about me. I was not at all offended. The consciousness that one has great wrongs to repair subdues one’s pride a good deal. I was ready to accept insults readily, so long as they were accompanied by an affection which I knew I did not deserve. My mind, confused as it was by wine and fatigue, played cheerfully with the idea of the perfect husband which had been conjured up, and saw no reason why that husband became less perfect by having committed adultery. One had just got to be good, and again good: nothing else mattered. I kissed my hand to Augusta who returned my greeting with a grateful smile.

Seeing I was drunk, it occurred to some of the guests that it might be amusing to call on me for a toast. I accepted, because at that moment it seemed to me that it would set my feet firmly on the right path if I were to make my good resolutions in public. Not that I had any doubts of myself, for at that moment I really felt I did correspond to their description of me, but I should be better still, I thought, if I were to state my good resolutions in front of so many people who would act, as it were, as my witnesses.

And this was how I came only to talk about Augusta and myself in my toast. For the second time that day I told the story of my marriage. In telling it to Carla I had misrepresented it, because I had not said anything about loving my wife; now I misrepresented it in the other direction, by saying nothing at all about the two people who played such an important part in the story—Ada and Alberta. I told of my hesitations and scruples, which I now bitterly regretted because they had robbed me of months of happiness. Then, out of gallantry, I attributed like hesitations to Augusta, which she laughingly denied.

I had some difficulty in finding the thread again. I related how we had at last come to the honeymoon, and how I had made love to her in all the museums of Italy. I was so up to my neck in lies that I even threw in that mendacious detail, though it served no purpose whatever. And yet they say, “In vino veritas.”

Augusta broke in a second time to put things right, and said that she had been obliged to avoid museums, because of the danger the masterpieces were in at my hands. She did not see that she thereby threw doubt on the whole story, and not only one detail of it! If there had been an acute observer present he would at once have drawn his conclusions as to the kind of love I proposed making in such surroundings.

I resumed my long, rambling speech, telling about our arrival home, and how we had both set to work making improvements in the house, putting in this and putting in that—amongst other things a laundry.

Augusta, still laughing, broke in again:

“This party is not being given in honour of us, you know, but for Ada and Guido! Try and talk about them!”

This sally was received with clamorous applause. I laughed too, seeing how I had been instrumental in bringing about that state of noisy mirth which is de rigueur on such occasions. But I could not think of anything else to say. I felt as if I had been talking for hours. I swallowed down several more glasses of wine, one after the other.

“To Ada!” I stood up in my place for a moment, to see whether she was crossing her fingers under the table.

“To Guido!” and emptying my glass I added:

“With all my heart!” forgetting that I had omitted this little coda with the first glass.

“To your first child!” I should have gone on drinking glass after glass to each of their children in turn, if they had not ended by stopping me. I was quite ready to drink all the wine there was left on the table to those poor innocents.

Then everything became still more dim. I only remember clearly that my chief concern was not to appear drunk. I sat upright and said very little. I mistrusted myself; I felt obliged to analyse every word before I uttered it. I was afraid to take part in the general conversation because it gave me no time to clear up my thoughts. I thought I would start a topic myself, and said to my father-in-law:

“Have you heard that Extérieur have gone down two points?” I was talking of something I knew nothing whatever about; in fact I was only repeating what I had heard on the Bourse; all I wanted was to show that I was not drunk, by talking about business, which one generally forgets all about under those conditions. But it was clearly a more serious matter for my father-in-law, who called me a bird of ill-omen. I had no luck with him that day.

Then I turned to my next-door neighbour, Alberta. We began talking about love. She was interested in it only in theory, and for the moment I was not very interested in it in practice either. So it was nice to talk about it. She asked me to tell her my ideas about it, and I immediately discovered one which seemed to me to grow out of that day’s experience. A woman, I said, varied in value much more than any share on the Bourse. Alberta misunderstood me, and thought I meant what is of course a common-place, that a woman of a certain age has quite a different value from a younger woman. I tried to explain myself more clearly; a woman might be worth a great deal at a certain hour in the morning, nothing at all at midday, and twice as much in the afternoon, whereas perhaps in the evening her value might be actually negative. I explained what I meant by a negative value; a woman might be said to have it when a man began calculating what he would be willing to pay if she would go a very, very long way off.

The poor playwright could not see that there was any truth at all in my discovery; whereas I, who had fresh in my mind the fluctuations in value that Carla and Augusta had undergone this very day, was sure of it. But when I wanted to make my meaning still clearer, the wine I had drunk tripped me up and I made a terrible faux pas.

“Imagine,” I said, “that your value is x; if you let me press your foot with mine, your value would be at least twice as great.”

I at once suited the action to the words.

She blushed scarlet and at once removed her foot, saying, in an attempt to be witty:

“But this is practice, not theory. I shall appeal to Augusta.”

I must confess that I also found that pressure anything but theoretical, but I protested with the most innocent air in the world:

“It is pure theory, and nothing else, and it shows you have a low mind if you look at it in any other way.”

Fancies which spring from wine are as real as actual events. For a long time Alberta and I were unable to forget that I had touched a part of her body with the definite intention of experiencing pleasure from the contact. The act had become significant by being talked about, and the words by being put into practice.... So long as she remained unmarried she always greeted me with a smile and a blush; afterwards, with an angry blush without the smile. Women are made like that. Each day, as it comes, provides them with a new interpretation of the one that went before. Their life can never be at all monotonous. As regards myself, the interpretation of my action always remained the same: the theft of a small thing possessing great charm. It was Alberta’s fault that for a certain length of time I tried to make her remember that act of mine; whereas later on I would have paid a good deal to have it quite forgotten.

I remember that before I left the house something much more serious happened. I remained alone for a moment with Ada. Giovanni had gone to bed early, and the guests were taking leave of Señor Francesco, whom Guido was to accompany to his hotel. I stood gazing at Ada. She was dressed all in white lace, with bare neck and arms. For a long time I remained silent, though I wanted to say something to her, but everything that rose to my lips seemed inadequate when I came to analyse it. I remember I wondered whether it would be permissible for me to say to her:

“I am so delighted you are going to get married, and that you are marrying Guido, who is such a great friend of mine. Now at last all is over between us.” It was a lie of course, for everyone knew that all had been over between us now for some months, but I thought it would sound very flattering, and a woman who is dressed as beautifully as that deserves to have compliments paid her, if she can appreciate them. But after reflecting on it for some time, I decided to say nothing. In the sea of wine in which I was floating I found at last a plank which saved me. I thought it would be wrong of me to jeopardise Augusta’s affection only in order to please Ada, who did not love me. But in the agitation of the moment, even after I had made the effort of suppressing those words, I gave Ada such a look that she rose and left the room after turning round in alarm to see what I might be doing, and ready perhaps to run away if necessary.

One remembers a look one has cast at another person, as well as, or even better than one’s own words. A look is even more important than a word, because if you hunt the whole dictionary through you will never be able to undress a woman with a word. I know now that the look I gave Ada contradicted the words I had pictured myself saying to her, and thereby simplified them. Through her eyes I had tried to pierce her clothes and her skin. And it had quite clearly meant: “So will you come to bed at once?”

Wine is a great danger not because it brings the truth to light; but on the contrary, because it reveals what is past and forgotten and plays no part in one’s present conscious will. All the fantastic ideas one toyed with in the more or less recent past, and has long since forgotten, come crowding to the surface; it traces afresh what one had erased, and reads whatever is still perceptible in our hearts. If one has made a mistake in endorsing a cheque, it is easy enough to correct it; but in the heart those erasures are impossible. Our whole life-history is written there, and wine proclaims it abroad, regardless of the emendations of time.

Augusta and I took a carriage home. I thought it my duty to kiss and embrace my wife in the dark, because I had often done so on similar occasions, and was afraid that if I did not she might think things had changed between us. Nothing whatever had changed between us: that also was proclaimed by the wine! She had married Zeno Cosini, and he was sitting by her, just the same as ever. What did it matter if I had had other women that day? Their number had been augmented by the wine I had drunk, and included now Ada or Alberta, I could not remember which.

I remember that just as I was falling asleep I saw Copler’s marble face on his death-bed. He seemed to ask for justice, that is to say for the tears I had promised him. But he did not get them even then, for sleep took hold of me and completely annihilated me. I had only time to say to the phantom: “Wait just a little while, I shall be with you very soon!” I never was with him again in any form, for I did not even go to his funeral. We had so much to do at home, and I outside as well, that there was no time to think of him. We talked about him sometimes, but only as a joke, remembering how many times my wine had killed him off and resurrected him again. He became in fact quite a proverb in the family, and when the papers, as often happens, announced the death of someone and later corrected the announcement, we still say: “Like poor Copler!”

Next morning I got up with a slight headache. The pain in my side worried me rather too, probably because while the effect of the wine lasted I had not felt it at all, and had already lost the habit of it. But I was not really depressed. Augusta cheered me by saying that it would have been dreadful if I had not come to the wedding dinner, because before I arrived it had seemed like a funeral. So I need not reproach myself for having behaved badly. But there was one thing I felt later would never be forgiven me: the look I had given Ada!

When we met in the afternoon Ada gave me her hand with an air of anxiety which increased my own. Perhaps the fact that she had fled from me the day before weighed on her conscience. It was certainly very rude of her, but it was also extremely rude of me to have looked at her like that. I remembered exactly how I had moved my eyes, and quite understood it would be a thing one could not forget if one had happened to experience it. I must make up for it now by the most correct brotherly behaviour.

They say that if you are suffering from having drunk too much the best cure is to drink still more. So I went that morning to Carla to recover my spirits. I went to her with the definite desire to live more intensely, which is what drives one back to drink, but on the way there I felt that I should like quite a different kind of intensity from the day before. I made several resolutions as I went along, all of them rather vague but very honourable. I knew that I could not abandon her at once, but I would approach that highly moral act by slow degrees. Meanwhile I would continue to talk to her about my wife. I had another envelope of money ready in my waistcoat in case of emergency.

I reached Carla’s house. A quarter of an hour later she made me a reproach which lingered in my ears for a long while afterwards: “How roughly you make love.” I don’t remember having been particularly rough just then. I had begun talking to her about my wife, and the praises I gave Augusta had sounded to Carla’s ears like reproaches to herself.

Then it was Carla’s turn to wound me. To pass the time I told her how uncomfortable I had been at the banquet, especially on account of a toast I had proposed, which was in terribly bad taste. Carla remarked:

“If you loved your wife, you wouldn’t propose toasts in bad taste at her father’s table.”

And she gave me a kiss, as if to reward me for loving my wife so little.

But the desire for a greater intensity of life, which had already driven me to Carla, soon made me feel that I wanted to return to Augusta, the only person to whom I could talk about my love for herself. I had already had too much of the wine I had taken for a cure, and now I wanted quite a different kind of wine. But my relations with Carla were destined to become tenderer that very day, and finally to be crowned by the sympathy which as I discovered later the poor girl deserved. She had often suggested singing me a little song on which she wanted my criticism. But I was tired of her singing; even its simplicity no longer had any charms for me. I told her that since she refused to practise it was not worth while her singing any more.

I had insulted her badly and she felt it very keenly. She was sitting beside me, and kept her eyes fixed on her hands which were clasped on her knees, so that I should not see that she was crying. She repeated her reproach:

“How unkind you must be to someone you don’t love if you are so unkind to me.”

In spite of everything I am really very good-natured. So I allowed myself to be moved by Carla’s tears, and begged her once more to deafen me with her great voice in that little room. It was her turn to show reluctance now, and I was obliged to threaten to go away if she did not sing. I must confess that I thought for the moment I was going to recover my freedom, but hearing my threat my humble slave went at once with downcast eyes to the piano. She sat quite still for a moment to recover herself, and passed her hand over her brow as if to chase away a cloud. She succeeded in doing so with a quickness which surprised me; and when she uncovered her face again it bore no trace of her former grief.

A great surprise awaited me. Carla recited her song; she did not shout it, she spoke it. She told me afterwards that it was her master who made her shout like that; now that he had been dismissed the shouting had gone too. This is how the little Triestine song began:

It was a kind of spoken confession. Carla’s eyes sparkled with wickedness, and expressed even more than the words. There was no fear of the drum of one’s ear being broken, and I went quite close to her, surprised and delighted at the change. I sat down beside her, and she recited the canzonetta as if she were addressing it directly to me, half closing her eyes and telling me in the sweetest, purest tone of voice that her sixteen years cried out for love and liberty.

I had for the first time an opportunity of studying Carla’s face. It was a pure oval, only broken by the deep and beautiful curve of her eyebrows and the faint line of the cheek-bones, and made purer still by its snowy whiteness, now that her face was turned towards me and the light, instead of being half in shadow. Her skin seemed almost transparent, yet scarcely a trace of the delicate veins appeared in it, and something in its soft lines called up all my instincts of love and protection.

I was ready to offer it all to her now unconditionally, even at the very moment when I most wanted to go back to Augusta; for Carla seemed only to ask for a fatherly love which I could give her without any infidelity. What a satisfaction for me! I could stay there with Carla, giving all that the oval of her face demanded, and at the same time I could feel myself near Augusta!

My love for Carla became more tender, more refined. Henceforward I need not run away if I felt aspirations towards honesty and purity: I had only to turn the conversation into another channel.

Was it my discovery of her oval face which gave me this new sensation of happiness, or her musical talent? Her talent was undeniable. The strange dialect folk-song ends with a verse in which the woman declares that she is old and abandoned, and seeks no other liberty now than to die. Carla put an extraordinary amount of temperament into her rendering of the poor verses. In her it was youth disguised as age which continued to proclaim its rights from a new point of view. When at the end she found me full of admiration she too for the first time seemed to feel a genuine liking as well as love for me. She knew that her little song had pleased me more than the style which her singing-master had taught her.

“It is a pity,” she added sadly, “that unless one sings in cafés chantants it is impossible to make enough to live.”

It was easy for me to convince her that this was not true. There were plenty of great artists in the world who recited instead of singing.

She made me tell her their names. She was enraptured when she discovered how important her art might become.

“I know,” she naïvely said, “that this way of singing is much more difficult than the other in which you only have to shout at the top of your voice.”

I smiled and did not discuss the matter further. Her art was certainly difficult too, and she realised it because it was the only art she had any knowledge of. That little song had cost her a great deal of study. She had said it over and over again, correcting the intonation of each word and each note. Now she was studying another, but would not know it for several weeks yet, and till then she did not want me to hear it.

There followed enchanting moments in that room, which up to then had only been the scene of violent love-making. A new career was opening before Carla, a career which would perhaps take her off my hands. It was very much what Copler had dreamt of for her! I suggested finding a master for her. At first the word frightened her, but she consented at once when I told her that she would be perfectly free to dismiss him if she did not like him and found him of no use.

I got on very well with Augusta too that day. My mind was as easy as if I had just returned from a walk instead of from Carla’s house; I felt, no doubt, just as poor Copler did on the days when he left the house without having had any reason for being angry. I had the delicious sensation of having reached an oasis. It would have been terribly bad for my health if my long affair with Carla had been one perpetual excitement. From that day things went on more quietly, as if as a result of the æsthetic beauty we enjoyed together; with only an occasional interruption which sufficed to arouse afresh my love for Carla and also for Augusta. Every visit I paid to Carla meant of course that I was unfaithful to Augusta, but all was soon forgotten in a health-giving bath of good resolutions. And there was nothing brutal or sadistic now in my good resolutions, as when I had felt a passionate need to tell Carla I would never see her again. I had become gentle and protective; my thoughts turned again to her career. Giving up a woman each day in order to run after her the next would have been an altogether too exhausting process for my poor heart to bear. As it was, Carla remained in my power, and I was able to influence her now in one direction, now in another.

It was some time before my good resolutions were strong enough to induce me to scour the city in search of a teacher who would do for Carla. I toyed with the good resolution while continuing to do nothing about it. Then one fine day Augusta told me she was going to become a mother; whereupon my resolution grew to gigantic proportions and Carla had her teacher.