WIFE AND MISTRESS

At various times in my life I have thought myself to be at last on the road to health and happiness, and this faith was never stronger than during my honeymoon and the few weeks immediately following our return home. I began by making a startling discovery: I loved Augusta as much as she loved me. At first I refused to believe it. I enjoyed the passing day, but expected the next to be altogether different. But one day followed another, and they were all radiant with love and kindness—Augusta’s naturally, but also, and this surprised me, my own. Every morning renewed her tender affection and my equally tender gratitude, which, if it was not love, was very like it. Who could have foreseen it, that day I went limping from Ada to Alberta to arrive at last at Augusta? I discovered that far from being a blind beast driven by another’s will, I was a very clever man. When she saw my astonishment, Augusta said:

“But why are you so surprised? Didn’t you know that marriage was like this? I knew it, though I know so much less than you.”

I don’t remember now whether it was before or after I became so fond of her that I formed the great hope that I might in the end grow like Augusta, who was the personification of health. During our engagement I had scarcely been conscious of this quality in her; I was far too busy studying first myself and then Ada and Guido. The oil-lamp in that drawing-room had never shed its rays on Augusta’s modest head of hair.

I have talked a lot about her blushes. When these faded, as naturally as the colours of the dawn fade before the full rays of the sun, Augusta walked boldly along the path so many of her sisters have trodden before her on this earth; those who are content to find all their happiness in law and order, or else to renounce it altogether. Although I knew her security to be ill-founded, since I was its foundation, I loved and adored it none the less. I felt obliged to treat it with the same respect I had previously shown to spiritualism. It might be true, and so might faith in human life.

One thing I found very startling: every word and every act of hers showed that she believed in eternal life. She never said it in so many words; but she was surprised once when I, who had hated superstitions before I learned to love her, felt the need of reminding her of the shortness of life. She knew that we must all die, but, now that we were married, this did not prevent us from remaining together for ever and ever. Did she not know then that when two people are united in this world it is for such a short, infinitely short time, that one can never understand how one has become so intimate, when there were endless ages during which we had not known each other and there would be endless ages again during which we shall never meet? I understood at last the meaning of perfect health in a human being, when I realised that for her the present was a tangible reality in which we could take shelter and be near together. I tried to be admitted to this sanctuary and to stay there, resolved not to laugh either at myself or her; for my scepticism would only be a symptom of disease, and I must at least beware of infecting someone who had given her life into my keeping. It was my desire to protect her which made me behave for a while like a normal human being.

She knew all about the things which drive a man to desperation, but they seemed to change their nature when she regarded them. Even if the world does go round, that is no reason for being seasick. On the contrary, the world goes round but everything else stays in its place. And these stationary things are of immense importance; a wedding-ring, jewels and clothes—the black dress or the green, or the walking costume which was hung in the wardrobe directly she got home; also her evening dress which must on no account be worn in the daytime, and only in the evening if I put on dress-clothes. Then there were the hours of meals which must be rigidly observed, and also bedtime. All these hours had a genuine existence and were always in their right place.

On Sunday she attended mass, and I sometimes went with her to see what effect the contemplation of pain and death had on her. For her it seemed not to exist, and the visit was a source of quiet refreshment to her for the whole week. She used to go on certain feast-days too, which she knew by heart. That was all; whereas if I had been religious I should have ensured my everlasting happiness by stopping in church all day long.

Even here below there were plenty of Powers that Be to reassure her. There were Austrian and Italian officials who made the streets and houses safe for people to live in, and I did my best to share her admiration for them. Then there were the doctors, who had gone through all their medical training in order to cure us if by some unhappy chance we fell ill. I made daily use of the latter authorities; she never did. And so I knew only too well how hideous my fate would be when I should at last be struck down by a mortal disease, while she, who was securely guarded both above and below, firmly believed that she would find salvation.

I am trying to arrive at the source of her well-being, but I know that I cannot succeed, for directly I start analysing it I seem to turn it into a disease. And now that I have begun writing about it I begin to wonder whether health like hers did not perhaps need some treatment or training to correct it. But during all the years I lived with her such a doubt never crossed my mind.

What importance I acquired in this little world of hers! I had to say what I thought about every proposal, whether it concerned food or clothes, people or books. I was obliged always to be doing something, and I must say that I was not bored by it. I was collaborating in the building up of a patriarchal family, and I myself was on the way to becoming the patriarch I had previously hated, and who now stood to me for an emblem of health. It is one thing to be a patriarch, and quite another to be called on to revere someone else who has assumed that position. I desired health for myself, and did not mind what happened to those who were not patriarchs. During our honeymoon in particular, I was prone to assume the dignified pose of an equestrian statue.

But even on our honeymoon I did not always find it easy to live up to the model I had put before myself. Augusta wanted to see everything just as if she had been on a voyage of instruction. It was not enough to have been to the Pitti Palace, one had to go through all those innumerable galleries, stopping at least a few minutes in front of each work of art. I refused to go beyond the first room, and saw nothing else; but it was sufficient fatigue inventing excuses for my laziness. I spent a whole morning in front of the portraits of the founders of the Medici family, and made the discovery that they were like Carnegie and Vanderbilt. How very strange! Yet they belonged to my own race. Augusta did not share my surprise. She knew what Yankees were, but she did not yet quite know what I was.

But even her strength broke down at last, and she was obliged to give up museums. I told her how once, when I was at the Louvre, I got in such a rage with all these works of art that I very nearly smashed the Venus of Milo in pieces. Augusta said:

“It is lucky one only has to visit museums on one’s honeymoon, and then never again!”

And it is true that life lacks the monotony of museums. There come days which seem worthy of being framed, but they are so full of conflicting sounds, of line and colour and living, burning light that they never become tedious.

Health impels people to action, and to take upon themselves a whole world of worries. Directly the museums are closed one must begin buying things. Though she had not lived in it, Augusta knew our house much better than I did; she knew that a certain room had no looking-glass; that another had no carpet, and that a statue would look so well in a third. She bought a complete drawing-room set, and from every town we visited we sent home at least one large packing-case. I could not help thinking it would have been much more convenient and less tiresome to buy everything in Trieste, for now we had to worry about having it sent off, insured and passed through the Customs.

“But don’t you know that all goods have to travel? Aren’t you a merchant yourself?” she inquired, laughing.

There was some truth in what she said.

“Goods have to travel in order to be sold and to make a profit,” I retorted. “Failing that one lets them stay where they are, and does the same oneself!”

But her enterprise was one of the things I liked best about her. It was deliciously ingenuous; for one could know nothing about the history of the world if one imagined one had made a good bargain simply by acquiring something; it is when you come to sell it that you prove the value of what you have acquired.

I thought I was on the road to perfect health. My pain was much better, and my general condition was one of continued cheerfulness. It was a duty I owed to Augusta, and which I had vowed to fulfil in those memorable days, and it remained the only oath I never broke except for a few brief moments when life laughed louder than I did. Our relationship was a happy one from the first. I was always smiling at what I thought was her ignorance, and she, who thought me so clever, at my mistakes, which she flattered herself she could have avoided. I remained outwardly cheerful even when my malady returned in full force. I continued to smile as if the pain I suffered only tickled me.

In the course of our long journey through Italy I suffered a good deal, in spite of my newly found health. We had started off without letters of introduction, and many of the strangers we found ourselves amongst seemed to me hostile. It was an absurd fear, but I could not get over it. I might have been attacked, insulted or, what was worse, maligned, and who would have defended me?

This fear became a positive panic, though fortunately no one, not even Augusta, found out about it. I was in the habit of buying almost every paper that was offered me in the street. One day when I was standing in front of a newsvendor’s bench, it occurred to me that he might easily take a dislike to me and have me arrested as a thief, because although I had only bought one paper from him I had a number under my arm still unopened, which I had bought from other newspaper boys. I hurried away, followed by Augusta to whom I gave no reason for my sudden haste. I made friends with a coachman and a guide, feeling that in their company I was at least sure not to be accused of childish thefts.

The coachman and I had certain obvious points in common. He was very fond of the Castelli wines, and said that his feet would often swell up suddenly. He went into hospital, and when he came out cured they strongly advised him to give up drinking wine. So he made what he called an iron resolution, because to guarantee its solidity he tied a knot in his metal watch-chain. But when I knew him his chain was hanging down on his stomach without any knot in it. I invited him to come and stay with me at Trieste. I described the taste of our native wine, which is so different from his, to make him feel his cure was bound to be successful. He would not hear of it, and refused with an expression of prophetic home-sickness on his face.

I made friends with the guide because I thought he seemed superior to most of his class. It is not difficult to know more history than I do, but even Augusta with her accuracy and her Baedeker, verified many of his statements. He was young too, so took us at a good pace down the streets lined with statues.

When I lost these two friends I left Rome. The coachman, who had had a great deal of money from me, evidently wanted to show me that wine went to his head sometimes, and threw us against a very solid old piece of Roman masonry. The guide one day took it into his head to maintain that the old Romans understood all about electricity and made great use of it. He declaimed some Latin verses in proof of his statement.

At that time I was attacked by a slight illness from which I was never to recover. It was a mere trifle; the fear of growing old, and above all the fear of death. I think it arose out of a kind of jealousy. I was only afraid of growing old because it brought me nearer to death. While I was alive I was sure Augusta would never betray me, but I pictured to myself that directly I was dead and buried, no sooner would she have provided for my tomb to be kept in good order and the necessary masses said, than she would look about for my successor, whom she would then enthrone in the same sane and regular world as that in which I now reigned supreme. Her splendid health would not perish just because I was dead. I had such tremendous faith in her health that it did not seem to me possible it should perish unless it were shattered into fragments by an express train.

I remember one evening at Venice we were going in a gondola along one of those canals whose profound silence is interrupted every now and then by the light and noise of a thoroughfare suddenly crossing above it. Augusta was on the look-out, as usual, and taking accurate note of everything: a fresh, green garden rising above a dirty mudbank which the retreating tide had laid bare; a campanile reflected in the turbid water; a long dark lane with lights and people at the end of it. All I could do in the darkness was to be uncomfortably conscious of myself. I reminded her how time was passing and that she would soon be taking the same honeymoon journey with someone else! I was so certain of it that I felt as if I were telling her a story which had already happened. And it seemed out of place that she should begin crying, in order to prove to me that the story was untrue. Perhaps she had misunderstood me, and thought I was accusing her of intending to murder me. Far from it! To make my meaning clearer I described the way I should probably die; my legs, in which the circulation was already poor, would become gangrened, and the gangrene would spread and spread till it reached a vital organ, indispensable to keeping my eyes open. I should have to shut them, and ... adieu patriarch! Another one would have to be produced.

She continued to sob and, amid the tremendous melancholy of that canal, her sobbing seemed to me to be very significant. Had she suddenly become aware of her own fearful strength and did it fill her with despair? In that case all humanity ought to have joined in her lamentation. But I discovered later that she had no conception of what health really is. Health cannot analyse itself even if it looks at itself in the glass. It is only we invalids who can know anything about ourselves.

It was on that occasion that she told me how she had loved me even before we met. She had loved me from the first moment that her father had mentioned my name and spoken of me in the following terms: “Zeno Cosini, a naïve youth who pricks up his ears when he hears of anything doing in business, and at once puts it down in a notebook which he promptly loses.” If I didn’t notice her confusion at our first meeting it must have been because I was feeling rather confused myself.

I remembered how when I first saw Augusta I had been quite put off by her plainness, seeing that I had fully expected to find there four lovely girls whose names began with A. I now discovered that she had loved me for a long time. But what did that prove? I could not alter my opinion. I was sure that if I died she would choose someone else. When she had become calmer she leaned closer to me and suddenly asked me, laughing:

“Where should I turn for my second husband? Don’t you see how ugly I am?”

Yes, I should probably be allowed a certain time in which to putrefy peacefully.

But the fear of growing old never left me, and always on account of my fear of handing over my wife to someone else. That fear was not diminished even when I was unfaithful to her, and was not increased by the thought of losing my mistress for the same reason. That was quite a different matter, totally unrelated to the first. When the fear of death assailed me I turned to Augusta for comfort, as children hold out the hand they have hurt to their mother to be kissed. She always found some fresh words of comfort. On our honeymoon she promised me thirty more years of youth; nor does she promise less to-day. I knew only too well that those weeks of happiness during our honeymoon had brought me sensibly nearer to the terrifying spectre of death. Augusta might say what she would, my account was soon settled: every week I drew nearer to that one week.

When I saw that I was falling a prey too often to the same distress of mind, I thought I must not wear her out by continually repeating the same things to her, so to let her know that I wanted comforting I would only murmur: “Poor Cosini!” She knew then exactly what was troubling me and hastened to envelope me in the warmth of her affection. So I always succeeded in being comforted by her even when the cause of my distress was quite different. One day, when I was feeling quite ill at the thought of having been unfaithful to her, I murmured by mistake: “Poor Cosini!” I was glad that I had, for it was infinitely sweet to be comforted by her even in a case like that.

On our return from the honeymoon I had the pleasant surprise of living in a warmer, more comfortable house than I had ever known before. Augusta introduced all the conveniences which they had in her own house, but a great many others as well, which she herself invented. The bathroom, which within living memory had always been at the end of a long passage, about half a mile from one’s bedroom, was now next door and contained a great supply of taps. Then she had turned a tiny room next to the dining-room into a coffee-room. The floor was covered with rugs, with several great leather arm-chairs, and here we spent half an hour every day after our meals. Contrary to my wishes it had every convenience for smoking. Even my little study, though I tried to keep it as it was, underwent several changes. I was afraid I should hate it if any changes were made in it, but I found, on the contrary, that only now had it become habitable. Augusta had arranged the light so that I could read sitting at the table, lounging in the arm-chair or lying on the sofa. There was a music-stand too for my violin, with a little lamp of its own which shone on the music without hurting one’s eyes. There too, against my will, I was surrounded by every convenience for smoking comfortably.

All these improvements necessitated a good deal of building and a certain amount of disorder which was disturbing to our peace. For Augusta, who was working for eternity, the brief inconvenience no doubt did not matter, but it was a very different thing for me. I strongly opposed the idea of putting up a private laundry in the garden, which would actually have involved building a little house. Augusta assured me that a home laundry was essential to the children’s health. But as there were no children yet, I didn’t see why I must be inconvenienced by them before they arrived. In any case she brought into the old house a feeling of the open air; her love was like the swallow’s, whose first thought is for its nest.

But I played the lover too, and used to bring her home flowers and jewellery. My life had been entirely changed by marriage. After a few feeble efforts I gave up trying to dispose of my time as I pleased, and kept to the most rigid time-table. In this respect my education made great strides. One day, soon after our return from the honeymoon, I innocently let myself be persuaded not to go home to lunch, and after eating something at a bar stayed out till the evening. When I got home I found Augusta had had no lunch herself, and was quite faint from hunger. She did not reproach me, but I could not make her see that she had done wrong herself. She declared, quietly but firmly, that if I didn’t let her know I wasn’t coming back she would always wait lunch for me, even till dinner. That was no joke! Another time a friend persuaded me to stay out till two in the morning. I found Augusta sitting up for me, with her teeth chattering because the stove had gone out. She caught a slight chill in consequence, which stamped that lesson on my mind.

One day I decided to make her a splendid present: I decided to work! She wanted me to, and I also thought that work would be good for my health. It is natural that someone who has no time to be ill actually is less ill. So I went to business, and if I did not persevere it was really not my fault. I went with the best intentions and in the most humble frame of mind. I never suggested taking over the management of the business; all I wanted was to be allowed to keep the register. That huge book, with its rows of neat entries like street after street of houses, filled me with respect, so that my hand trembled as I wrote in it.

Olivi’s son, a well-dressed youth who wore glasses and was learned in all the commercial sciences, took over my education, and I have nothing to complain of as to his thoroughness. He bored me a good deal with his science of economics and theory of supply and demand, which seemed to me much more obvious than he would admit. But he showed a certain respect for his employer, which I welcomed all the more as it was clear he could not have learnt it from his father. Respect for property was, no doubt, part of his science of economics. He never upbraided me for the frequent mistakes I made in the entries; but he was inclined to attribute them to ignorance, and gave me explanations which were superfluous.

Unfortunately, seeing business done gave me the desire to do some on my own account. Instead of the register it was always my own purse which I saw before me, and when I entered something to a client on the debit side I felt as if I were wielding the croupier’s shovel and collecting the money scattered over the table.

Young Olivi showed me the letters as they came in, and I read them very carefully with the idea that I should probably understand them better than anyone else. One day a quite ordinary offer aroused my passionate interest. Even before reading it I was conscious of a sensation very like the secret presentiment which sometimes comes to me at the gaming-table. That presentiment is difficult to describe. It consists in a certain expansion of the lungs, which makes one breathe the air with rapture, however smoky it may be. But there is something else; you know in a flash that everything will go well with you directly you double your pool. It takes some practice to appreciate this at once; one needs to have left the gaming-table with empty pockets, and the horrible sense of having missed one’s opportunity; then one never lets it slip again. And if you have once missed it there is no more hope for that day; for the cards avenge themselves on you. But it is much more excusable to miss it sitting at the gaming-table than sitting peacefully in front of the register. Something at once cried out in me: “Buy that dried fruit immediately!”

I discussed it modestly with Olivi, though of course I did not mention its being an inspiration. Olivi replied that he only took on that sort of thing at somebody else’s risk, in the hope of a small profit. He thus completely excluded the possibility of inspiration from my affairs, and reserved it entirely for a third party.

During the night my conviction only grew stronger: there could be no doubt about my having a presentiment. My breathing became so violent that it actually prevented my getting off to sleep. Augusta saw I was worried about something and insisted on knowing the reason. She at once shared my inspiration, and even went so far as to murmur sleepily:

“Aren’t you the master?”

Next morning, before I went out, she said to me thoughtfully: “It is no good upsetting Olivi. Would you like me to speak to father about it?”

I said no, for I knew that Giovanni did not set much store by inspirations either.

I arrived at the office fully determined to fight for my idea, if only to avenge myself for having slept so badly. The duel lasted till midday, after which the offer no longer held good. Olivi obstinately refused to consider it and silenced me with the usual remark:

“Perhaps you wish to curtail the authority with which your dear father entrusted me.”

I was furious, and went on turning over the leaves of my register, fully resolved never to interfere again in business. But the taste of the sultana remained in my mouth and I inquired daily at the Tergesteo what the price of it was. I thought of nothing else. It rose very, very slowly, as if it were gathering itself together for a spring. Then in a single day it went up with an enormous leap. The vintage had been very poor and they had just realised the fact. What a strange thing inspiration is! I had not foreseen the poor vintage, only the increase in price. The cards were avenging themselves. Meanwhile I had lost all interest in my register and all respect for my teachers, especially as Olivi did not seem to be quite so confident now that he had acted wisely. It was my turn to laugh, and chaffing Olivi became my principal occupation.

The same offer was made to us again, this time at almost double the price. To put me in a good humour Olivi asked my advice, whereupon I triumphantly replied that I would never dream of eating raisins at that price. Olivi was offended and muttered:

“I am only abiding by the system I have followed all my life.” And he went off to try and find a buyer. He found one for a much smaller quantity, and, still with the best intentions, came back and said to me hesitatingly:

“Shall I provide the stock for this small amount, do you think?”

I was still in a bad temper, and replied shortly:

“I should have done that before selling it, if I had been you.”

Olivi ended by losing all confidence in his own judgment, and left the sale uncovered. The raisins went on rising, and we lost as much as it was possible to lose on such a small sale.

Olivi got angry with me and declared that he had gambled only to please me. The old humbug forgot that I had told him to back the red, and that he had backed the black instead. Our quarrel was irreconcilable. Olivi appealed to my father-in-law saying that between us he and I would ruin the business, and that if my family preferred, he and his sons would retire and give me a free hand. My father-in-law at once declared in favour of Olivi. He said to me:

“This business of the dried fruit is very instructive. You two men will never be able to work together. Now which of you is going to retire? The one who might have done one good stroke of business if he had been left to himself, or the one who has been running the whole business alone for fifty years?”

He even persuaded Augusta to make me promise not to busy myself with my own affairs in future.

“Your kindness of heart and simplicity seem to disqualify you for business,” she said. “Stay at home with me.”

I retired to my tent, or rather I should say my study, in high dudgeon. I amused myself with reading and playing for a while, but then I felt the need of a more serious occupation and very nearly took up chemistry and law again. Finally, I don’t quite know why, I devoted myself to the study of religion. I felt as if I were resuming the study I had begun just at the time of my father’s death. Perhaps this time I was impelled by a strong desire to get into touch with Augusta and become perfectly healthy like her. Going to mass with her was not enough; I must get there in other ways, such as reading Renan and Strauss, the first with great enjoyment, the second as a punishment. I only mention it here to show how great was my desire to come nearer to Augusta. She had no idea of it when she saw me with a critical edition of the Gospels in my hand. She preferred indifference to scientific interest, and was therefore incapable of appreciating the greatest mark of affection I had yet shown her. She used to interrupt her toilette or her household duties in order to look into my room and greet me; but when she saw me bending over those texts she would make a face, and say:

“Are you still doing that stuff?”

Augusta’s religion did not take time to acquire or put into practice. You bowed your knee and returned to ordinary life again immediately! That was all. Religion for me was a very different thing. If I had only believed, nothing else in the world would have mattered to me.

I must confess that boredom sometimes visited my perfectly appointed study—or was it worry, that although I really felt the strength to work I kept on waiting for life to set me some task? Whilst waiting, I often went out and spent several hours at the Tergesteo or in some café. I lived in a perpetual state of sham activity which bored me extremely.

The visit of a college friend, who had been obliged to return in hot haste from a little village in Styria to be treated for a serious complaint, decided my fate, though it did not at first seem very significant. He came to call on me after spending a month in bed in Trieste, during which time his acute nephritis had become chronic and probably incurable. But he believed himself to be better and was looking forward to going almost at once, before the spring was over, to a milder climate where he hoped to be completely restored to health. Perhaps it was staying too long in our raw climate which finally proved fatal to him.

The visit of that man, who was at once so dangerously ill and so cheerful and bright, seems to have brought me ill luck. But I may be wrong; perhaps it only marked a stage in my life through which it was necessary for me to pass.

My friend Enrico Copler was surprised to find that I had heard nothing about him or his illness, though Giovanni must surely know of it. But since Giovanni had become ill himself he had had no time for anyone else, and he had not said a word to me about it, though whenever we had a sunny day he would come to my house and sleep for several hours in the open air.

I used to spend very lively afternoons with my two invalids. We talked about their various complaints, which is an invalid’s chief distraction and a rather pleasing subject to those who happen to be in good health. Their only difference was that Giovanni was obliged to be out in the open air, whereas the other was forbidden it. A little wind, however, soon removed this obstacle by obliging Giovanni to stay indoors with us in my warm, cosy little room.

Copler told us that his illness did not cause him any pain though it made him very weak. It was only now he was better that he realised how ill he had been. When he talked about the medicines he had been ordered to take, my interest was at once aroused. Amongst other things his doctor had suggested something which was supposed to produce sleep without any of the poisonous effects of sleeping-draughts. Was not this the very thing I needed myself?

When my poor friend heard that I needed medicine too he flattered himself for an instant that I might be suffering from his complaint, and advised me to have myself thoroughly examined and analysed.

Augusta laughed heartily and declared that I was only a malade imaginaire. Then something which looked like anger passed over Copler’s emaciated face. With a sudden virile impulse he shook off his physical disabilities and attacked me with great vehemence.

“Malade imaginaire? Well, I prefer to be a real one. In the first place a malade imaginaire is ridiculous and pitiable; and then nothing can cure him, whereas in the case of a real invalid like me there is always some drug which can be found to meet the case.”

He seemed to speak like a healthy man, and I must confess that his words caused me some pain.

My father-in-law supported him energetically, but his scorn could not wither the most imaginary of invalids; it was so evidently dictated by the envy of a sick man for a sound one. He said that if he were as well as I was he would soon be at his business again instead of worrying his neighbours with complaints about his health, especially now that he had succeeded in reducing his tummy. He did not know that this very reduction was regarded as an unfavourable symptom.

Copler’s attack had the effect of making me really look ill and care-worn. Augusta felt she must come to my assistance. She began stroking my hand as it lay on the table, and said that I worried no one with my malady, and she wasn’t even sure that I believed in it myself, for otherwise I shouldn’t have so much joie de vivre. This reduced Copler to the state of inferiority to which his health condemned him. He was quite alone in the world, and if he could compete with me as regards disease he could not produce any example of affection such as Augusta felt for me. He felt the need of a sick-nurse acutely, and was forced to confess to me later on how much he envied me on that account.

The discussion was resumed, though more calmly, during the next few days, while Giovanni was asleep in the garden. And Copler, after thinking it over, had come to the conclusion that the malade imaginaire was a real invalid, and perhaps more fundamentally and actually so than the other; for his nerves were in such a bad state that they registered disease when there was none, whereas their normal function was to give the alarm by a message of pain, so that one might at once hasten to defend the part that was in danger.

“Yes!” I said. “For example with one’s teeth, where you only feel pain when the nerve is uncovered, and you have to destroy it in order to cure it.”

We finally agreed that one sort of invalid was as good as the other. In the case of Copler’s nephritis, just what he had lacked and in fact still did, was that warning from the nerves, whereas mine, it seemed, were so sensitive that they already gave warning of a disease from which possibly I was going to die only twenty years later. They might in fact be called perfect nerves, their only disadvantage being that there were very few days when they left me in peace. Having succeeded in classing me among the invalids, Copler felt perfectly satisfied.

I don’t know why the poor man had such a mania for talking about women; when my wife was not there we talked of nothing else. He maintained that in a real illness, at least those which he knew anything about, sexual desire becomes weaker, which was the body’s way of defending itself; whereas in an imaginary malady due only (according to our diagnosis) to over-activity of the nerves, sex was pathologically strong. My experience seemed to corroborate his theory and we mutually pitied each other. I don’t know why I didn’t want to tell him that for a long time now I had not been conscious of any abnormality of the sort. I might at least have confessed that I believed myself to be convalescent, if not quite well, so as not to wound his feelings, and because it is difficult ever to say you are well, seeing how complicated an organism our body is.

“Do you really desire all the pretty women you see?” asked Copler again.

“Not quite all!” I murmured, anxious to show him that I was not so ill as all that. I certainly no longer desired Ada whom I saw every evening. As far as I was concerned she was forbidden fruit. The rustling of her skirts left me cold, and even if I had been allowed to lift them myself I should have felt the same. It was lucky I had not married her. I took this indifference for a genuine manifestation of health. Perhaps my desire had exhausted itself by its very violence. But I felt the same indifference towards Alberta, charming as she looked in her neat school dress. Was the fact that I possessed Augusta enough to quench my desire for the whole Malfenti family? That really would have been highly moral!

Perhaps I refrained from talking about my virtue because I was always betraying Augusta in imagination; even while I was talking to Copler I thought, with a quiver of desire, of all the women I was giving up for her. I thought of all the women who were walking along the streets, and whose secondary sexual organs, just because they were hidden, became so important, whereas they disappeared altogether in the woman you possessed, as if the very fact of possession had atrophied them. My desire for adventure was still strong; the kind of adventure which begins by admiring a shoe or a glove or a skirt; anything which hides and alters a woman’s shape. But this desire of mine was not really a guilty one. Copler did wrong in forcing me to analyse it, for to explain to somebody how he is made is only another way of authorising him to do as he likes. Copler, however, went further, though of course it was impossible for him to foresee where his words or his actions would lead me.

Copler’s words are so firmly fixed in my memory that when I go back over them they call up again all the feelings, things and people that were associated with them. I had accompanied my friend down the garden, for he was obliged to be indoors before sunset. From my villa, which is on a hill, we had a view over the harbour and the sea, a view which is spoilt now by subsequent building. We stood for a long time watching the sea, stirred by a faint breeze which broke the calm light of the sky into a myriad shades of rose. The soft green of the Istrian peninsular was reposeful to look on, as it spread in a vast bow into the sea, shadowy but solid. The moles and breakwaters, stretching in stiff, repeated lines, looked small and insignificant, and the water in the little bays between lay dark and still because no breeze stirred it, or perhaps because it was muddy. In all that vast panorama peace seemed to have no place beside the endless movement of the rosy waters, and dazzled with the light, we soon turned from the sea to where night was already falling on the little terrace in front of the house.

In a great arm-chair outside the porch, with a cap on his head and the collar of his fur coat turned up, my father-in-law lay sleeping, with a rug wrapped round his legs. We stood and watched him. His mouth was open, his lower jaw hung lifelessly down, his breathing was noisy and hurried. His head was continually dropping on his chest, and each time he would raise it again without waking up. When he did so there was a slight flutter of his eyelids as if he wanted to open his eyes in order to recover his balance, and the rhythm of his breathing changed each time his sleep was interrupted.

It was the first time I had fully realised the serious nature of my father-in-law’s illness, and I was profoundly moved.

Copler said to me in a low voice:

“He ought to be treated. He is probably suffering from nephritis too. He is not really asleep; I know that state quite well. Poor devil!”

He ended by recommending me his own doctor. Giovanni heard us and opened his eyes. He looked less ill at once and began teasing Copler:

“Are you wise to be standing about in the open air like that? I don’t think it can be good for you.”

He thought he had had a good sleep, and was quite unconscious that he had been short of breath with that great ocean of air in front of him. But his voice was hoarse and he had to stop talking and gasp for breath; his face was ashen and when he got out of his arm-chair he was cold as ice. He was obliged to go indoors. I can see him now walking across the terrace with his rug under his arm, panting as he waved us a laughing salute.

“There is a real invalid for you!” said Copler, who could not escape from his idée fixe. “He is dying and he doesn’t even know he is ill.”

I too thought that the genuine invalid did not seem to suffer much. My father-in-law and Copler have been lying these many years past in the cemetery of S. Anna, but one day not long ago, as I was walking past their graves, I could not help thinking that the fact that they had lain so long under their tombstones did not invalidate the thesis propounded long ago by one of them.

Before leaving his former abode Copler had wound up his affairs, so that like me he had nothing to do. But he could not keep quiet, and directly he was out of bed in the morning he began busying himself about other people’s affairs, partly because he had none of his own to busy himself with, and partly because other people’s seemed to him much more interesting. He would laugh at himself for this, but I was soon to discover what an agreeable flavour other people’s affairs may have. He was a philanthropist, and as he had decided to live on the interest of his capital he could not afford the luxury of being charitable entirely at his own expense. So he would organise subscription-lists and take toll of his friends and acquaintances. He entered it all in a perfectly businesslike way, and I regarded that book as his viaticum, and could not help thinking that if I had been in his place, with no family of my own and obviously destined not to live long, I should have swelled the funds with some of my capital. But he was the man of health imaginaire and would never touch anything but the interest, refusing to admit that he had only a short future before him.

One day he asked me for a few hundred kronen, to buy a piano for a poor girl who was already in receipt of a small monthly pension subscribed by me and a few other people at Copler’s request. I could not refuse, but rather ungraciously remarked that it would have been lucky for me if I had stayed at home that day. I am subject to attacks of avarice from time to time.

Copler took the money with a few words of thanks, but soon afterwards my comment took effect, and a very important one. He came to tell me that the piano had arrived, and that Carla Gerco and her mother begged I would go and see them, so that they might thank me. Copler was afraid of losing a client, and hoped to bind me to him by letting me taste the sweets of gratitude for favours received. I tried to relieve his anxiety by assuring him that I was convinced he dispensed his charity admirably, but he insisted so much that at last I consented to go.

“Is she pretty?” I asked, laughing.

“Very pretty indeed,” he replied, “but she is too hard a nut for us to crack.”

It was curious that he must class my good teeth with his bad ones like that. He dilated on the honesty of the unfortunate family we were going to visit, telling me that the father had died several years ago, and that though they were miserably poor they had always earned their living respectably.

It was an unpleasant sort of story. An icy wind was blowing and I envied Copler his fur coat. I had to hold my hat on, otherwise it would have blown away. But I was in a good humour, because I was going to receive the gratitude my beneficence had earned me. We went on foot through the Corsia Stadion and the Giardino Pubblico. I had never been in this part of the city before. We entered one of those houses which our forefathers used to build as a speculation forty years ago, at a little distance from the town which promptly surrounded them; it was modest, but better in appearance than those which are put up to-day for the same purpose. The staircase occupied a very small space and was therefore very steep.

We stopped on the first floor, which I reached a good while before my companion who climbed very slowly. I was surprised that two of the doors opening on the landing had Carla Gerco’s visiting-card nailed on them, while the third bore a visiting-card with another name on it. Copler explained that the Gercos had the kitchen and bedroom on the right side, and only one room on the left, which was Carla’s studio. They had sub-let the middle part of their flat, so that the rent cost them very little; but there was the inconvenience of always having to cross the landing to get from one part to the other. We knocked at the door on the left—the studio—where mother and daughter, who expected us, were waiting to receive us. Copler introduced us. The mother, a timid little woman with snow-white hair, who had on a rather threadbare black dress, made a little speech which she had evidently prepared beforehand; they felt honoured by my visit and thanked me for my generous gift. After that she did not open her mouth again.

Copler stood by like a schoolmaster at an official examination, listening to the recital of the lesson he has taken such pains to teach. He corrected the poor woman, saying that I had not only given the money for the piano, but that I contributed to the monthly allowance which he paid out to them. He was a lover of accuracy.

Signorina Carla got up from the chair she was sitting on beside the piano, gave me her hand and said simply the one word: “Thank you!”

Anyway that was shorter. I was feeling rather overcome by my philanthropic rôle. I was behaving quite like a real invalid in busying myself in other people’s affairs. What would that charming girl see in me? A person to be respected, no doubt, but hardly a man! She really was very charming. I think she wanted to look younger than she was, for her skirt was shorter than usual at that time, unless she was using up indoors one that she had worn before she had finished growing. Her head was that of a young woman and, judging by the care with which her hair was done, a young woman anxious to please. Her thick brown locks were arranged so as to cover her ears and part of her neck. I was so overwhelmed by my own dignity and so afraid of Copler’s inquisitorial gaze that I could not look at her properly. But now I know everything about her. Her speaking voice was musical, and with an affectation which had become second nature to her she was wont to pause on the syllables as if she wanted to caress the sounds she made. On account of this, and of her very broad pronunciation of certain vowels—unusually broad even in Trieste—there was something rather foreign in her way of talking. I discovered afterwards that some singing-masters, when they are teaching voice-production, alter the value of the vowels. It was certainly the direct opposite of Ada’s pronunciation. Every sound she uttered seemed a caress.

Carla kept smiling during the whole of our visit, perhaps under the impression that she had stamped a look of gratitude on her face. It was rather a forced smile, perfect as an expression of gratitude. When, several hours later, I began dreaming about Carla, it seemed to me that joy and sorrow conflicted in her face. But when I knew her better I found nothing of all this, and was forced to recognise once again that feminine beauty can simulate feelings which are wholly foreign to it, just as the canvas on which is painted a battle scene has nothing heroic about it.

Copler seemed as pleased about his introduction as if the two women had been the work of his own hands. He described them to me: they were always cheerful and industrious and contented with their lot. He made a little speech which might have come out of a lesson-book, and my mechanical nods of agreement seemed to prove that I had learnt my lessons and therefore knew all about poor, virtuous women who are left without any money.

Then he asked Carla to sing something. She refused at first, saying she had a cold. She wanted to put it off until another day. I thought she was probably afraid of our criticism and sympathised with her, but as I wanted to prolong the visit I joined Copler in begging her to sing. I added that I did not know if I should be able to come again as I was very busy. Copler, who knew that I had nothing on earth to do, gravely confirmed my statement. It was clear to me at once that he would rather I did not see Carla again.

She still tried to get out of it, but Copler insisted in such a way as positively to command her, and she obeyed. How easy it was to force her!

She sang La mia bandiera. I sat on my soft sofa listening to her, and wishing with all my heart to be able to admire her. How wonderful it would be to discover she was a genius! But I was unpleasantly surprised to find that when she sang her voice lost all its musical quality. The effort of singing changed it completely. Carla could not play either, and her wooden accompaniment made the poor music seem still more feeble. I reflected that I was listening to a student and must consider whether she had enough voice. More than enough! In that small room I was almost deafened by it. So as to be able to encourage her to go on, I decided that it was only because she had been badly taught.

When she stopped I joined in the wordy applause which Copler was pouring out. He said:

“Imagine the effect of a voice like that if it was accompanied by a good orchestra.”

There was certainly truth in that. Her voice needed a powerful orchestra. I was able to say sincerely that I hoped to have the privilege of hearing her sing again in a few months’ time, and that then I should be able to say more about the value of her method. I added, less sincerely, that a voice of that quality deserved to be trained by a first-class teacher. Then in order to eliminate anything that might have seemed unappreciative in my first remarks, I began philosophising on the necessity of finding a superlatively good method for a superlatively good voice. That superlative covered a multitude of sins. But when I was alone I wondered why I had found it so necessary to be sincere with Carla. Was I in love with her then, already? But I hadn’t even looked at her properly!

On the rather smelly staircase Copler said again: “Her voice is too big. It is only good for opera.” He could not know that I had already divined something quite different: her voice was suited to a small space where one could enjoy to the full its naïve quality, and dream of putting into it life and suffering—of making it into a work of art.

When we parted Copler said he would let me know when Carla’s singing-master was giving a public concert. He was as yet very little known in the town, but was certain to become very famous. Copler was quite positive about this though the master was already fairly old. Apparently fame was to come to him now because Copler had got to know him. Dying men’s illusions! Copler’s and the singing-master’s!

Curiously enough I felt I must tell Augusta all about my visit. You might think I did it as a precaution, seeing that Copler knew about it and I did not feel inclined to swear him to silence. But I was only too glad to talk about it. It was a great relief to me. Up to now I had nothing to reproach myself with, unless I had hidden it from Augusta. So that now I was completely innocent.

She asked me about the girl, and whether she was pretty or not. I found it difficult to answer: I said I thought the poor girl looked rather anæmic. Then I had a bright idea:

“Supposing you were to interest yourself in her a little?”

Augusta had so much to do in her new house and in looking after her family, who were continually calling on her now her father was ill, that she thought no more about it. But my idea was really a good one.

Copler heard from Augusta that I had told her about our visit, and that made him forget the qualities he had attributed to the malade imaginaire. He said to me before Augusta that he must soon pay another visit to Carla. He evidently trusted me completely.

Having nothing to do I at once felt a desire to see Carla again. I did not dare go, however, lest Copler should hear of it. I might easily have found an excuse. I might have gone to offer her more money, without Copler knowing, but I should have had to be sure first that she would see it was to her advantage not to give me away. And supposing that real invalid should turn out to be her lover? I knew nothing at all about real invalids and it might very well be a habit of theirs to make other people support their mistresses for them. In that case a single visit to Carla would be enough to compromise me. I could not endanger the peace of my own little family; or rather, it was in no danger at all unless my desire for Carla should increase.

It did in fact increase continually. I already knew her far better than when I had shaken hands with her and said good-bye. I particularly remembered the brown lock which hung down her snow-white neck and which I should have to push away with my nose before I could kiss her skin which was hidden by it. All that was needed to rouse my desire was to remind myself that on the first floor of a certain house in my little town a lovely girl was on show, and that it was only a short walk for me to go there and take her! Under such circumstances it became exceedingly difficult to fight against temptation, because one had to keep renewing one’s fight every hour of every day, in fact so long as that girl was still living on her first floor. Carla’s long vowels called to me, and perhaps it was their sound which had persuaded me that once I had overcome my own resistance I had no other to fear. But of course it was possible I was mistaken and that Copler knew more about it. This possibility helped to weaken my resistance, seeing that poor Augusta might still be saved from an infidelity on my part by Carla herself, whose duty as a woman it was to resist me.

Why did my desire for Carla make me feel such remorse, when it seemed to have come just in time to save me from the boredom which at that moment threatened me? It in no way damaged my relations with Augusta—rather the reverse. I not only spoke to her with my customary affection but lavished on her also expressions of tenderness which were springing up in my mind for that other woman. There had never before been such abundance of tenderness in my house, and Augusta seemed blissfully happy. I was always punctual in my observance of what I called the family time-table. I have such a tender conscience that I was always trying by my present behaviour to diminish the remorse I must feel in the future.

That I really did make some effort to resist is proved by the fact that I did not reach Carla in one bound, but by slow degrees. I began by going alone several days running to the Giardino Pubblico, sincerely intending to revel in the green which seems lovelier still by contrast with the grey streets and houses that surround it. Then, not being lucky enough, as I had hoped, to run into her by chance, I left the garden intending to take a turn beneath her windows. I did so with a degree of emotion that was like the exquisite delight of a youth who encounters love for the first time. It was so long now since I had been cut off, not from love but from the paths which lead to love.

I had hardly got outside the Giardino Pubblico before I found myself face to face with my mother-in-law. A curious suspicion arose in my mind. What was she doing there so early in the morning, such a long way from our part of the town? Could it be that she was being unfaithful to her sick husband? I at once discovered that I had suspected her unjustly; she had been to the doctor, hoping to be comforted by him after a bad night by Giovanni’s bedside. The doctor had tried to reassure her, but she was so upset that she left me almost immediately, without even remembering to be surprised at finding me in a place that was usually only visited by old men, nurses, and children.

But the sight of her was sufficient to revive all my feelings of attachment to my own family. I walked home with a firm step, keeping time to it with the words: “Never again! Never again!” Meeting Augusta’s mother at that moment, weighed down by grief, had brought all my duties home to me with renewed force. I had had a good lesson and it sufficed for the whole of that day.

Augusta was not in; she had gone to see her father and was spending the morning with him. She told me at lunch that they had been discussing whether they ought not to postpone Ada’s wedding, which was fixed for the following week. Giovanni however was feeling better. He apparently had eaten too much the night before at supper, and his consequent indigestion had made his complaint seem worse.

I told Augusta I had already had news of him from her mother whom I had met by chance in the Giardino Pubblico. She did not express any surprise at my going there, but I felt the need of some explanation. I told her that I had for some time past taken a fancy to the Giardino Pubblico. I liked sitting on a seat and reading my paper there. I added:

“That Olivi did me a bad turn when he gave me so much time to waste!”

Augusta, who felt rather guilty about it herself, became quite pensive, and looked penitently at me. But I was really feeling in the best of spirits. I had nothing whatever to reproach myself with, for I spent the whole afternoon in my study, and could really flatter myself that I was cured of any wayward desire. I was engaged in reading the Apocalypse.

Although it was now officially understood that I was allowed to go to the Giardino Pubblico every morning, my strength to resist temptation had become so great that when I went out the next day I actually turned in the opposite direction. I had to go and buy some music, as I wanted to try a new violin method which had just been recommended to me.

Before going out I heard that my father-in-law had passed a very good night and was going to drive to see us in the afternoon. I was as glad on Guido’s account as on my father-in-law’s, because now he would be able to get married. Everything was going well; I was out of danger and so was my father-in-law.

But it was that very music which led me back to Carla. Among the methods I was shown, was one which had got in by mistake, but was really a singing method. I read the title carefully: “Complete Treatise on the Art of Singing (Garcia School), by E. Garcia (son), with a report on the memorial presented to the Paris Academy of Science.”

I let the shopman attend to other clients while I began reading the pamphlet. I confess to having read it with the same excitement that a depraved youth might feel in reading a pornographic book. Yes. That was the way to approach Carla. It was just the book she needed and it would have been a sin on my part not to introduce her to it. I bought it and went home.

Garcia’s book was in two parts: theoretical and practical. I went on reading it with the intention of becoming so familiar with it that I should be able to give good advice to Carla when I next went to see her with Copler. Meanwhile I should have gained time, and could continue to enjoy my sleep in peace, and look forward at the same time to the adventure that lay before me.

But it was Augusta herself who precipitated matters. She interrupted my reading by coming to say good-morning to me, bent over me and touched my cheek with her lips. She asked me what I was reading and, hearing that it was a new method, assumed it was for the violin and did not stop to look at it more closely. After she had gone I exaggerated the danger I had been in, and thought that prudence demanded I should no longer keep the book in my study. I ought to convey it at once to the person it was destined for, and so I came to plunge straight into my adventure. I had found something better than an excuse for doing what I wanted to do.

I no longer had any hesitation. Directly I reached the landing I turned to the door on the left. But outside the door I stopped a moment and listened to the strains of La mia bandiera echoing triumphantly down the stairs. I felt as if Carla had gone on singing the same thing all the time I had been absent. I smiled to myself, feeling a great affection and longing for her childishness. Then I opened the door cautiously without knocking, and went into the room on tiptoe. I could not wait; I wanted to see her at once. In that small room her voice really sounded very unpleasant. She was singing with great enthusiasm, and with much more expression than on my first visit. She was leaning well back in her chair, so as to be able to empty her lungs more completely. I could only see her head, with the great plaits wound round it, and I withdrew terrified at the thought of having been so bold. Meanwhile she had reached the last note of her song, which she seemed as if she could not bear to let go, and I was able to return to the landing and close the door behind me, without her discovering that I was there. That last note had wavered up and down till at last it was absolutely in tune. This showed that Carla was capable of hitting the right note, and it now remained with Garcia to teach her to do so more quickly.

When I felt calmer I knocked again. She at once ran to open the door, and I shall never forget how sweet she looked against the door-post, with her great dark eyes fixed on me, unable at first to recognise me in the darkness.

But I had calmed down so much that all my old doubts took possession of me. I was about to be faithless to Augusta, but I thought that, as on the previous days I had managed to be satisfied with going no farther than the Giardino Pubblico, it ought to be easier still for me to stop at the threshold, give her the compromising book and go away completely satisfied. For a brief moment I was full of good resolutions. I even called to mind some curious advice which had been offered me in order to help me give up smoking, and which might come in useful on this occasion: sometimes it was quite enough if one lit a match and threw away both match and cigarette.

It would have been very easy for me to do this, for Carla herself, when she recognised me, blushed and seemed on the point of running away. She was ashamed, as I discovered later, of being seen in the poor shabby little dress she wore in the house.

When I saw she had recognised me I began making excuses:

“I have brought you this book, because I thought it would interest you. If you prefer, I will leave it here and go away at once.”

My words sounded brusque, or so it seemed to me, but their meaning was the reverse, for I had really left it to her to decide whether I should go away on the spot or stay behind and betray Augusta.

Her decision was quickly taken; she took hold of my hand to prevent my going, and pulled me into the room. Everything seemed to swim before me. I remember my excitement was due less to the exquisite contact of her hand than to that touch of familiarity which seemed at once to decide my fate and Augusta’s. I really believe that I went in rather reluctantly, and when I go over the story of my first infidelity I have distinctly the sense of having been seduced.

Carla’s face was really beautiful when she blushed like that. I was deliciously surprised to discover that even though she had not expected me she had hoped all the same that I would come. She said in the kindest voice:

“So you really felt you wanted to see again the poor girl who owes so much to you?”

If I had wanted to I could have taken her in my arms on the spot, but the idea never entered my head. So little did I think of such a thing that I did not even reply, because her words seemed to me rather compromising: I at once began talking about Garcia, and saying how useful she would find the book. I championed the book with such enthusiasm that I was led into saying more than I meant to. Garcia, I told her, would teach her how to produce notes that were as solid as metal and as light as air. She would learn from him that a tone ought only to represent a straight line or a flat surface, but the surface must be really flat.

My enthusiasm dried up at once when she interrupted in a tone of great disappointment:

“Then you don’t like my singing?”

I was amazed at her question. I had criticised her severely but was quite unaware that I had done so, and I denied it in perfect good faith. So effectually too, that though I was only talking all the time about singing, I felt as if I had got back again to the desire which had so irresistibly drawn me to that house. And I spoke so affectionately that I could not help betraying part of the truth:

“How can you believe such a thing? Do you think I should have come in that case? I stood out on the landing for quite a long time, because I enjoyed your singing so much. Your voice is exquisite and completely unspoilt. It is just because I think it so perfect that I have brought you something which will help it to become even more so.”

How powerful Augusta’s influence must have been for me to go on protesting so vehemently that it was not desire which had driven me there!

Carla listened to my flattering words, which it would have been beyond her power to analyse. She had not had much education, but I discovered to my great surprise that she had a good deal of common sense. She told me that she often wondered whether she had enough talent and enough voice to go on; she said she felt she was not making much progress. Often when she had been practising for a certain number of hours she allowed herself to sing La mia bandiera for a treat, hoping to detect some fresh quality in her voice. But it was always the same; no worse, perhaps even rather good—at least so the people said who had heard her (and she flashed a mildly interrogating glance at me, as if she wanted to be reassured as to the meaning of my words, which still rather bewildered her), but she was making no real progress. Her master said that there was no such thing as slow progress in art; one reached the goal by leaps and bounds, and one fine day she would wake up and find herself a great artist.

“But it is a long business,” she sighed, gazing into space, and perhaps seeing written there her long hours of boredom and weariness.

If being honest is saying what you really mean, the honestest thing I could have done would have been to advise the poor girl to give up singing and become my mistress. But I had not yet left the Giardino Pubblico so far behind me, and besides, if for no other reason, I was not so very sure of my judgment in the matter of singing. For the last few moments I had been completely preoccupied by one person—namely that tiresome Copler who used to spend every Sunday at my villa with my wife and me. That would have been a good moment to find some excuse for asking Carla not to say anything to him about my visit. But I did not do so because I could think of no way of disguising my request. It was a good thing that I did not, for a few days later my poor friend fell ill, and died shortly afterwards.

Meanwhile I told her she would find all she needed in Garcia, and she believed me for a moment, and thought the book was going to work wonders. But only for a moment. When she found herself confronted by so many words, she very soon began to doubt whether the magic would work. I read Garcia’s theories aloud in Italian, then I explained them in Italian or, if that were not sufficient, translated them into the dialect of Trieste; but she did not feel anything moving in her throat, and that was where she would have had to feel it if she was really to believe in the efficacy of the book. The worst of it was that it did not take long to convince me that in my hands the book was not worth much. When I had read those sentences over three times and still did not know what to make of them, I avenged myself by criticising the book freely. Surely Garcia was wasting his time and mine in trying to prove that since the human voice could produce a variety of sounds it could not therefore be considered as one instrument. In that case you might as well say that the violin was a conglomeration of instruments. Perhaps it was foolish of me to make any criticism openly before Carla, but if one wants to win a woman it is difficult not to take advantage of any occasion which offers for showing one’s superiority. She did in fact admire me for it, but literally pushed away the book which was our Galeotto, but which did not go with us to our sin. I could not consent to banishing it so soon, but put it off till my next visit. After Copler died we needed it no longer. He was the only link between Carla’s house and mine, and when he was dead I had nothing to restrain me but my own conscience.

Meanwhile we had become fairly intimate, more so than one might have expected from that half-hour’s conversation. I think a common ground of criticism is a sure step towards intimacy. Poor Carla took advantage of that intimacy to share her troubles with me. Since Copler had come to their aid they had lived modestly but without real privations. The thought of what would happen to them in the future was the poor girl’s chief anxiety. Copler, it is true, brought them their subsidy quite regularly, but he made it clear to them that they must not count on it. He could not hold himself responsible for the future; they must be prepared to provide for themselves. And then he did not give them the money for nothing; he made them feel that he was the master of the house and must be told of every detail of expenditure. Woe betide them if they allowed themselves to spend money on anything not first approved by him! Not long ago Carla’s mother had been poorly and Carla had not practised singing for several days, so as to be able to look after the house. When her singing-master told him about it Copler had made quite a scene, and flounced out of the house saying that they did not deserve that respectable people should be bothered to contribute to their keep. For several days they went in terror lest he should really mean to abandon them to their fate. When he came to see them again he made a fresh agreement with them, mapped out just how many hours Carla was to sit at the piano, and how many she was to devote to house-work. He threatened to burst in at any time of the day and take her by surprise.

“Of course,” said the girl, “he only does it for our good, but he gets in such a rage about nothing at all that I am certain one of these fine days, when he is in a passion, he will turn us out in the street. But now that you are interested in us too, there is no danger of that, is there?”

She pressed my hand again. When I did not reply at once she began to be afraid I was on Copler’s side and added:

“Copler is always telling us how kind you are.”

This last remark was intended as a compliment to me, and to Copler as well.

The unsympathetic picture she drew of Copler was new to me and actually aroused my sympathy. I wished I could have been like him, knowing as I did so well that the feeling which drove me to that house made me the exact opposite of him. It was true, of course, that it was other people’s money he brought them, but he gave up his time to them, a part of his own life. It was his fatherly feelings which made him so angry with them. But I could not help wondering whether, after all, it was not his own desire which made him take all that trouble. I at once said to Carla:

“Has Copler ever asked you for a kiss?”

“Never!” replied Carla, emphatically. “If he is satisfied with my behaviour he coldly expresses his approval, just touches my hand and goes away. At other times, when he is angry, he will not even shake hands with me, and he takes no notice even if I am frightened and cry. It would be a great relief to me if I could give him a kiss when he is like that.”

When she saw me laughing Carla explained herself better:

“I would gladly let an old man like that kiss me, after all that I owe to him.”

That is one of the advantages of being a genuine invalid; you appear older than you really are.

I made a feeble attempt to be like Copler. Smiling, so as not to frighten the poor girl, I said that when I took an interest in anyone I also tended to become tyrannical. On the whole, I thought that if you were studying any art it was your duty to do it seriously. At last I so identified myself with the part I was playing that I even ceased smiling. Copler was quite right to be strict with a girl who had no idea of the value of time; and she must remember how many people were denying themselves in order to help her. I was really very much in earnest.

The time came for me to be going home to lunch, especially as I did not want to keep Augusta waiting, that day in particular. I stretched out my hand to Carla, and it was only then that I saw how pale she was. I tried to comfort her:

“You may rest assured I shall always say all I can to Copler and the other people in your favour.”

She thanked me but still seemed depressed. I realised afterwards that when she saw me come in she at once almost guessed the truth, and thought I was in love with her and that therefore she was saved. But then—especially when she saw me getting ready to go—she thought that I too only cared about art and singing, and that therefore if she didn’t sing well and make progress I should desert her.

I saw she was terribly cast down. I felt very sorry for her, and as there was no time to be lost I reassured her by employing the method which she herself had suggested as being the most efficacious. I had already got as far as the door when I drew her to me, pushing away with my nose the great lock of hair in her neck, so that I could touch her skin with my lips and even with my teeth. It seemed quite a playful kiss and she ended by laughing too, but only when I had let her go. Up to then she had remained quite still in my arms, as if overcome with surprise.

She followed me out on to the landing, and as I began to go down she asked me laughingly:

“When will you come again?”

“To-morrow, or perhaps later,” I answered, already rather doubtful. Then I said decidedly: “I will certainly come to-morrow.” And anxious not to compromise myself too much I added: “We will go on reading Garcia together.”

Her expression never changed during that brief space of time. She accepted my first uncertain promise, gratefully accepted the second, and even agreed to my third proposal, all with the same smile on her face. Women always know what they want. There was no hesitation on the part of Ada who rejected me, of Augusta who accepted me, or of Carla who let me do as I liked.

Directly I got into the street I felt nearer to Augusta than to Carla. I breathed the fresh air with enjoyment and a wonderful sense of freedom. I had only been playing, and it was none the less a game because it finished on her neck under the lock of hair. Carla had accepted my kiss as a promise of affection and above all of assistance.

But at lunch that day I began really to suffer. My adventure stood between Augusta and me like a great dark shadow which it seemed impossible that she should not see too. I felt insignificant, guilty and ill; the pain in my side seemed like a sympathetic pain, an echo of the great wound in my conscience. While I was absent-mindedly toying with my food I sought relief in an iron resolution. ‘I won’t ever see her again,’ I said to myself, ‘and if I am obliged to see her for the sake of discretion, it will be for the last time.’ Not so very much was asked of me after all: only one single effort not to see Carla again.

Augusta laughingly asked me if I had been to see Olivi, that I appeared so preoccupied.

I began laughing too. It was a great relief to be able to talk. I could not say the words which would really have made me at peace with myself, for I should have had to confess and promise never to do it again, but in default of that it was a relief to be talking at all. My words flowed on; I was in the best of humours. Then I had a brilliant idea; I spoke of the little laundry she was so anxious to have and which I had refused up to now, and I gave her permission to build it at once. She was so touched by my spontaneous offer that she got up and came over to give me a kiss. That kiss obviously wiped out the other, and I felt better at once. This was how we came to have our laundry, and even to-day, when I pass the tiny building, I remember it was Augusta who wanted it and Carla who gave her consent.

We passed an enchanting afternoon, in quiet enjoyment of each other. My conscience only troubled me when I was alone. When Augusta was there to talk affectionately to me it was appeased at once. We went out together. We went to her mother’s and spent the whole evening with her.

As often before going to sleep, I lay for some time watching my wife who was already asleep and breathing quietly. Even when she was asleep everything about her was in beautiful order, the sheet neatly folded under her chin and her hair done in a short plait down her back. I said to myself: “I will never make her suffer. Never!” And I quietly fell asleep. Next day I would clear up my relations with Carla, and would find some means of reassuring the poor girl as to her future, without being obliged to kiss her.

I had a curious dream: I was not only kissing Carla’s neck, I was positively devouring it. But though I was inflicting terrible wounds on it in my mad lust, the wounds did not bleed and the delicate curve of her neck was still unaltered under its soft white skin. Carla, prostrate in my arms, did not seem to suffer from the bites. It was Augusta, coming in unexpectedly, who suffered. To calm her I said: “I won’t eat her all up: I will leave a little for you.”

I only felt the dream as a nightmare when I awoke from it in the middle of the night and was able to remember it distinctly; but while it lasted not even Augusta’s presence had been able to dispel the sense of satisfaction it gave me.

Directly I was wide awake I became fully conscious of the strength of my passion and the danger it presented to Augusta and me. Perhaps another life for which I was responsible was already stirring in the womb of the woman who lay beside me. How could I tell what demands Carla might make on me if she became my mistress? She seemed to be hungry for the affection which had been denied her till now, and how could I provide for two families? Augusta asked for a useful laundry. The other would ask for something else, not less costly. I could see Carla laughing and waving her hand to me from the landing after I had kissed her. She knew that I was bound to become her prey. I was frightened, and alone in the darkness I could not help uttering a groan.

My wife woke up with a start and asked me what was the matter, and I said the first thing that came into my head, after I had recovered from the shock of being questioned at the very moment when I felt as if I had shouted my confession aloud.

“I was thinking of old age coming on.”

She laughed and tried to comfort me, without being able quite to shake off her sleepiness. She repeated the same phrases that she always used when she saw me cast down by thoughts of time passing:

“Don’t think about it while we are still young.... Sleep is so lovely.”

I obeyed her command; I thought no more about it and went to sleep again. At night speech is like a bright ray in the darkness. It suddenly lights up reality before which the creations of one’s fancy fade away. Why was I so afraid of poor Carla when I had not even become her lover yet? It was clear that I had done my best to frighten myself about the whole situation. Even the baby which I had pictured in Augusta’s womb had given no sign of life, besides the building of the laundry.

I got up still full of the best resolutions. I hurried to my study and put some money into an envelope, intending to offer it to Carla at the same moment that I announced I was going to give her up. But I was also going to announce my readiness to send her more money any time she liked to write to an address I would give her. Just as I was on the point of going out Augusta asked me with a charming smile whether I would mind going with her to her father’s. Guido’s father had come from Buenos Aires to take part in the wedding and she must go and make his acquaintance. But it was not so much Guido’s father as me she was thinking about. She hoped to renew the sweetness of the day before. But things were no longer the same, I felt. I should be doing wrong to let any time pass before putting into practice my good resolution. Even as we walked down the street side by side, apparently secure in our mutual affection, that other woman already believed me to be in love with her. That was bad. I felt that walk to be an intolerable burden.

We found Giovanni distinctly better. But he could not put on his boots because of a tendency to swelling in his feet, which neither he nor I thought anything of at the time. He was in the drawing-room with Guido’s father, to whom he introduced me. Augusta soon left us to go and join her mother and sister.

Señor Francesco Speier seemed a man of much less education than his son. He was a man of about sixty, short and stumpy, with very few ideas in his head and not much vitality; which may have been because he was rather deaf after an illness. He mixed a few Spanish words with his Italian: “Every time, Señor, that I come to Trieste....”

The two old men talked business, and Giovanni listened attentively, because the business they were talking of was very important as regards Ada’s future. I listened to them absent-mindedly. I gathered that old Speier had decided to wind up his affairs in the Argentine and to hand over all his duros to Guido, to be used in founding a business in Trieste; then he proposed going back to Buenos Aires to live with his wife and daughter on the small estate he still intended to keep there. I could not understand why he told Giovanni all this before me, and I still do not understand.

At a certain point it seemed to me that they had both stopped talking and were looking at me as if they expected me to give them some advice, and in order to make myself agreeable I remarked:

“Your estate can’t be so very small if it produces enough for you to live on!”

Giovanni suddenly bellowed out:

“What on earth are you talking about?” The volume of his tone recalled better days, but if he hadn’t shouted so, Señor Francesco would probably have taken no notice of my observation. As it was, he grew pale and said:

“I hope very much that Guido will not fail to pay interest on my capital.”

Giovanni, still shouting at the top of his voice, tried to reassure him:

“Interest? I should think so indeed! And twice as much if need be. Isn’t he your son?”

But Señor Francesco still seemed a little uneasy and as if he were waiting for a reassuring word from me. I hastened to give it, and repeated it several times over, because the old man seemed to be harder of hearing than before.

Then they went on talking about business, but I was careful not to interfere again. Giovanni looked at me from time to time over the top of his glasses as if to keep me under observation, and there was something menacing about his heavy breathing. He went on talking for some time, and at a certain point broke off to say:

“Don’t you think so?”

I hastily agreed.

My agreement must have seemed all the more fervent on account of the fury which was gradually taking possession of me and colouring every movement I made. What on earth was I doing in this galère, while the time was fast slipping away for putting into practice my good resolutions? Why should they force me to neglect something which was obviously so important both for me and Augusta? I was just preparing for an excuse for going away when the ladies burst into the drawing-room, accompanied by Guido. The latter, soon after his father’s arrival, had given his bride a most magnificent ring. No one took any notice of me at all, not even little Anna.

Ada had the precious stone on her finger and stood resting her arm on her fiancé’s shoulder, while she showed it to her father. All the ladies were in ecstasies over it, but I could not get up any enthusiasm for rings. I did not even wear my wedding-ring, because I thought it interfered with my circulation. Without saying good-bye to anyone I slipped through the drawing-room door, and was on the point of going through the front door when Augusta, who had noticed my escape, caught me up. Her appearance quite startled me. Her lips were as pale as they had been on her wedding-day just before we went to the church. I said I had an important engagement; I had remembered just in time that a few days before, for no particular reason, I had bought a pair of very weak glasses for long sight, which I had never tried since I had put them in my waistcoat pocket where I felt them now. So I told her I had an appointment with an oculist whom I wanted to examine my eyes, as they had given me some trouble lately. She replied that I could go directly I had said good-bye properly to Guido’s father. I shrugged my shoulders impatiently, but stayed to please her.