The reason why Signorina Francesca was leaving the Maller home must certainly be the same one which had made her bearing change so. There must have been a real quarrel with Annetta, after which the weaker side had to leave the field.
Perhaps when Macario found that Alfonso already knew so much, he would also tell him the rest. That evening Alfonso met him walking with an elderly man who was gesticulating as he described something which must have been most interesting, for Macario was listening attentively. Between the two Alfonso thought he noticed the same relationship as between himself and Macario.
He did not usually stop Macario in the street, for he often saw him with others or striding along absorbed in his own thoughts, but as he had something to tell him which would be of interest, he had no scruples. He went up to him.
“I’d like a word with you!”
Before hearing this Macario was about to pass him by with a polite greeting. When he heard it, he turned to dismiss his companion, then asked Alfonso whether the matter would take long.
“Only a second!” replied Alfonso, already regretting he had stopped him.
The other man agreed to wait.
Now he must be concise, exposing himself to the risk of Macario answering with a shrug in reproof for stopping him about a futile matter. This did not happen, quite the opposite in fact. Macario stood listening attentively, making gestures of surprise. To increase the matter’s importance Alfonso also made mention of Signora Carolina’s observations about Signorina Francesca’s sadness. Macario, supposing that this had all been told to get his advice, said Alfonso must ask Signora Carolina to help Signorina Francesca as much as she could. Then he returned to the other man who was still waiting for him, and Alfonso found that he had told all and learnt nothing.
A few days later he was called by Maller. His chief had never been so pleasant; he spoke simply and without his glance moving from one side of his desk to the other as it did when he tried not to look his interlocutor in the face. He requested that since Signorina Francesca could not write herself because she was unwell, would he, Alfonso, please write to Signora Carolina with the Signorina’s excuses and cancel the request she had made a few days before. Alfonso promptly declared that he would write straight away.
Maller smiled, bowed in thanks and, taking him at his word, said that he wanted Signora Carolina to be told at once of Signorina Francesca’s change of arrangements in order to avoid the bother of useless preparations. There must however have been another reason for his wanting things done in such haste, for he even lowered himself to repeating his request all over again, as if a single word from him was not enough to give Alfonso wings.
“Can I be sure then that you’ll write today for certain?”
“Of course!” assured Alfonso in surprise.
In fact he wrote off at once to his mother to tell her that Signorina Francesca had given up the idea of retiring to the country. So concentrated was he on carrying out Maller’s order as soon as possible that his letter became so curt he had to follow it up immediately afterwards by another, sending her his own news and those assurances of unchanging affection which Signora Carolina expected to find in every letter from him.
He had taken his letter to Starringer for immediate posting, and in the passage on his way back to his room he met Maller leaving. In his eagerness to show zeal and eliminate any preoccupation Maller might have about the order being carried out, he said smiling: “I’ve already sent that letter.”
“Thanks!” said Maller, who stood there in surprise for a second as if he no longer remembered what it was about. His tone of voice was also colder than the one he had used half-an-hour ago.
This was enough to throw Alfonso into agitation. He had been wrong to stop his chief with such familiarity in front of the ushers and still more wrong to speak to him about a service he had done him as if asking for thanks in return.
In his room he found only Alchieri, ready to leave. Agitation made Alfonso talkative. He could not bear his worry alone; a soothing word from an outsider could calm him. He told Alchieri about the letter from his mother and his interview with Signor Maller. Alchieri listened distractedly because he was worried about his own affairs. He was waiting impatiently for the result of a request of his for a pay-rise which he had sent to the managing director that day; he had threatened to leave his job and hinted that he had another one in view, though actually he would be a ruined man if taken at his word.
“Was I very wrong to stop Signor Maller in the corridor?”
At this question from Alfonso, Alchieri, who had been able to give his attention only to a part of what was told him, replied: “She’s his mistress, I’ll bet!”
This supposition seemed so likely to be correct that Alfonso was surprised at not having thought of it himself before. Alchieri’s own malice had suggested it, but in the light of circumstances known to Alfonso it was probably true. What else could have happened to change so much the relations between Annetta and Francesca, and the latter’s bearing? However natural it was that Maller had been charged with speaking to him, his way of setting about it seemed unusual, his employees being accustomed only to receiving short and concise orders in official tones. Alfonso had been told that Maller was a womaniser, but Alchieri’s supposition had never come into his head because Maller’s home, even if he had known of his habits, had seemed enveloped in an aura which let no human passions penetrate except vanity and pride. It had been difficult for Alfonso to imagine love in those cold showrooms, most of which were unused, still less in Maller’s bedroom where, so Santo had told him, there stood his young wife’s bed in which she had died, still left intact. But the suspicion of Alchieri, a man who had never set foot in that house, was enough to melt that aura, and Alfonso’s imagination populated it with criminal loves all the murkier for the surrounding luxury.
Francesca’s seduction did seem criminal, made easy as it was by her inferior position. He felt something akin to jealousy in imagining that fair hair and white flesh thrown into the arms of that cold man Maller, an affair which would ruin her life but which would cost him nothing at all and have no more value to him than a pastime.
He did not understand what part Annetta played in this affair. Probably she had tried to get Francesca away and not succeeded.
For the first time he dreamt of becoming Annetta’s lover. It seemed less impossible now that he saw her amid love-intrigues which no one bothered to hide from her. The dream became easier. He did not go so far as to dream of being loved though, because he could not imagine an expression of affection or desire on her calm marmoreal face. His was the dream of a vicious boy, in which she abandoned herself to him coldly, for pleasure, to revenge herself on a third person, or even from her ambition. His dreams always began by embroidering on reality and then detached themselves from it completely—he easily imagined himself being of such value in Annetta’s eyes that her ambition made her love him.
He could not think of any way of visiting Annetta alone. The invitation she had given him had not seemed definite enough, and, having all week sought Macario in vain to accompany him, he did not go on the first Wednesday. Those dreams of his about Annetta probably made him even more timid in case he let something of them slip out.
But he wanted to see Annetta again, more intensely now than the first time, when it had been just a matter of getting himself liked by his boss’s daughter. Now he loved her! For this must be love, this desire for one person and for no one else. He drew conclusions from his agitated senses, being unable to do so from feelings he lacked. In the few days when he had tried unsuccessfully to smother his desires and give them another direction, he had felt himself become a man, an adult.
He desired a woman, that particular woman, and for him, for his senses, no other women existed. He remembered some observations he had made on Annetta’s appearance and was now amazed he had not realized at once that the originality and beauty of her face were made up precisely of what he had qualified as defects. He
r eyes not dark enough! Her hair not curly enough! Annetta had a face of Venus, and that head of hers with its calm blue eyes and almost modestly smooth hair was a head full of intelligence. A kiss would have been all the more delicious on lips which seemed incapable of responding!
When on the following Wednesday he ran into Macario, who reproved him strongly on Annetta’s behalf for having failed to come the week before, Alfonso quivered with joy. He was sought after, called.
Then Annetta too reproved him, gently. She said that Macario had told her not to alarm him.
“Or I’d shout at you! Why should you be timid with me? Do I frighten you?”
These blandishments, however, touched him less than the ones she had sent by her messenger. With her before his eyes he forgot his dreams. She was all intent on forming her literary group, and her natural coldness, which would take on in memory the air of some minor quality, was now very apparent and coloured everything else. When she spoke of literature she was not female. She was a male struggling for life, morally a being of muscle.
That afternoon her drawing-room seemed very snug, as outside the bora wind had broken out violently and swept away every vestige of summer in a few hours.
Alfonso and Macario found Spalati there, having arrived a short time before; Fumigi and Doctor Prarchi came immediately afterwards.
Doctor Prarchi turned the conversation away from literature by describing the suicide of a cashier whom they had known. This was someone who had lived very modestly and done nothing worse than frequent people richer than himself. That had been enough to ruin him in spite of his moderation. Prarchi ended his description with some word of genuine compassion. He had also seen the suicide’s body.
Annetta shrugged her shoulders with contempt. “Serves him right!” She had not liked the fellow much: perhaps she was afraid her father would come across someone similar.
Alfonso found himself too involved in a discussion with Fumigi to be able to turn his attention to the general conversation. The little man had plumped down beside him and was questioning him on his studies. These must have been much talked about because the mathematician was admiring and flattering him. He wanted to know how Alfonso had arranged his timetable to dedicate one or more hours daily to those studies. He said he had never been able to achieve such regularity himself and was worried because only systematic study brought profit, not study in fits and starts.
All Alfonso’s attention was on Annetta. But he felt no desire in her presence, which worried him. He tried to provoke them, studied her face to see if he could find there any sign of the passion which was lacking in himself. The moment was badly chosen, just after that crude remark of hers about that cashier’s suicide.
He felt a need, or thought he did, to define the respect which prevented him noticing the affectation of her behaviour. When Macario had described her for the first time, he had felt like laughing at this little woman who had suddenly felt a vocation, even though this vocation was an advantage to himself. All this show, these pretensions to forming a literary society around her, were ridiculous too, and if he did not laugh at them, it was not because of any change in his feelings about them. He easily noticed the false or absurd side of others’ actions, but often found he could not laugh at them because the shyness which he was apt to feel with people in other ways inferior made him doubt himself, his own feelings or judgements. And this time it was no different. He was impressed by Annetta’s lack of doubts, her self-confidence, her carelessness about the impression she made on others, the air she had, in fact, of a superior creature who feels she cannot be diminished by any inferiority even in the very thing in which she wishes to excel and where inferiority is usually most bitter.
Prarchi spoke of a realist novel he was writing.
“I’ll remain a doctor,” he said, “even as a novelist. In my novel I intend to make a thorough study of progressive paralysis. Doctors begin studying it when it’s at its last stages; but I’ll be just leaving it then, as I’ll begin at its formation. The character of a paralytic, the organism of a paralytic, the ideas of a paralytic, what causes distress to people around them and … the novel’s done!”
“Yes,” exclaimed Annetta, “the novel is, but what about its success?”
Alfonso, who had some experience in this field, felt a vague intuition from Prarchi’s description that he had written nothing at all of the novel described and had actually got the first idea for it at that very moment.
Prarchi was sturdy without being fat. He was not good-looking, with a large almost bald head, and a small, too fair moustache on his broad face.
Alfonso should have found Fumigi more sympathetic, particularly because the latter addressed him most of that evening. That was only because Fumigi disliked speaking out loud and was rather quiet, his thin little body leaning over the back of his chair, listening attentively and putting in a rare word in a low voice to his neighbour. The hair on his head was grey, his moustache and beard still black.
Alfonso tried hard to get his own word into the general discussion, without succeeding. So far Annetta had only Macario’s recommendation on which to base her acceptance of him as a literary man. He had been unable to give any proof of it.
Just when he was on the point of saying goodbye, Francesca appeared. She was pale but calm. She shook Alfonso’s hand effusively and asked him for news of his home. With a smile, which seemed sad to Alfonso, she alluded to the letter she had written to Signora Carolina. So she knew about Maller’s mediation.
Annetta spoke to her with the formal lei and Alfonso tried to remember whether he had not heard her treated with greater familiarity before.
On the stairs, at a question from Prarchi about what reason could have made Signorina Francesca want to leave the Maller home, Macario replied “Women!” with great contempt.
XI
FROM THEN ON Alfonso visited Annetta regularly every Wednesday. Macario had warned him that one Wednesday or another he might find Annetta with her opinions and tastes quite changed and literature abandoned, which would also mean the end of these meetings. Alfonso would go each time to Annetta’s house, fearing to find that Macario’s predictions had come true.
He set great store by these meetings, both for the pleasure of seeing Annetta and for the satisfaction of his own vanity. It was known in the office that he frequented the managing director’s house, and he was treated with greater respect by his superiors. Cellani’s behaviour was modified too. He could not become kinder, but he became more familiar.
Annetta did not seem at all close to fulfilling Macario’s prophecy and was more and more immersed in her new studies. Every week she had a story to tell of some artistic thought, some book she had read which, with a beginner’s exaggeration, she declared to be the most important of its kind or criticized capriciously, all in her usual competent tone, often with sharp or funny comments whose only defects were that they did not always suit the subject.
One evening came an unusual guest, Cellani. It was probably the first time he had ever appeared in that company, for Annetta had to introduce Spalati to him. He did not seem ill at ease, as far as Alfonso could judge. He listened with great attention but did not say a word. Once his opinion was asked during a discussion, and he refused to give it, smiling and asserting that he had none. He seemed to be on very friendly terms with Annetta. That evening she devoted herself to him with an attention that showed affectionate respect.
Prarchi appeared less often at these evenings, because he was very busy. Fumigi was rarely absent, but the most assiduous was Spalati. As Macario had said, Spalati was above all else a handsome man, a Herculean figure beside whom Alfonso, tall and quite well-proportioned as he was, seemed of no account. Alfonso did not like him. He criticized Spalati for pedantry but hated him out of jealousy. For this he had some reason. Spalati was the furthest advanced in Annetta’s confidence. For nearly a year he had been giving her lessons in Italian literature and had reached the intimacy of a teacher without boring her w
ith too much hard work. He let her talk, listened, approved or modified, content to be treated as an equal. Alfonso, feeling inferior with his difficulty in speaking out loud, would undergo violent fits of jealousy, storms in tea cups. Outwardly he showed nothing because of his habitual reserve in expressing his feelings, a reserve which became greater as the feelings grew.
One evening he went off early, saying he was unwell. He wanted to show his ill-humour and was exasperated that no one realized it, all believing in his illness. He wandered round the streets, discontented with the others and with himself. Being in the habit of talking to himself when agitated, he soon realized how ridiculous his ill-humour was. Even in the most abstract daydreams a word clearly pronounced can recall one to reality. He had reached the point of desiring, of loving, of being jealous of Annetta; she on the other hand scarcely knew the sound of his voice. Whom could he blame? What had offended him more than anything else was her farewell handshake, given so coldly, with eyes turned to Spalati, who went on talking! Would he have preferred her to brood on what had caused the sudden illness which he had used as an excuse? Nothing could be guessed about an illness, after all, when nothing had been said beforehand to explain it. Spalati, if that had happened to him, would have received nothing but good wishes for his health.
Looking into himself he thought how petty and tiresome he was with his disproportionate desires. He had actually dreamt of Annetta loving him!
He wanted to drop the whole game. It was the only way still open to him. He would pay no more of these visits. They were a waste, first of the time he spent at the Mallers, then of the time afterwards, because of the agitation into which those visits threw him. They were embittering. He had begun a struggle in which he was bound to succumb, he who was incapable of talking to please but only talked to make himself understood; he was bound to succumb also because of his own position in life, which was unlikely to attract such an ambitious woman as this. With some excuse or other, in making which he would try not to sound too incredible, he would avoid ever setting foot in the Maller home again. It was those visits which had made him deviate from his determination to work continuously: without his realizing it the ambition born in him shortly before was changing into vanity, a desire to be thought more than he was.