“Oh, Zeno!” the poor cripple said, recognizing me as he turned to thank me.
“Tullio!” I cried, surprised, holding out my hand. We had been schoolmates, but hadn’t seen each other for many years. I knew that, after finishing high school, he had gone into a bank, where he now held a good position.
I was nevertheless so distracted that I curtly asked him what had happened to shorten his right leg, making the crutch necessary.
With great good humor he told me that six months previously he had begun suffering from rheumatism so severe that it had finally affected his leg.
I quickly suggested many treatments. This is the ideal, effortless way to feign lively concern. He had tried them all. Then I interfered further: “In that case, why aren’t you in bed, at this hour? I don’t believe exposure to the night air can be good for you.”
He joked, still good-naturedly, replying that he didn’t believe the night air was good for me, either, and he was sure that those who haven’t suffered from rheumatism, as long as they remain alive, can still fall victim to it. The right not to go to bed until the small hours was granted even by the Austrian constitution. For that matter, contrary to general opinion, heat and cold had nothing to do with rheumatism. He had studied his illness, and indeed he did nothing else in this world but investigate its causes and its remedies. He had been given an extended leave from the bank, not so much for treatment as for more thorough study. Then he told me he was following a strange cure. Every day he ate an enormous quantity of lemons. That day he had consumed about thirty, but with practice he hoped to be able to tolerate even more. He confided to me that lemons, in his opinion, were good also for many other diseases. Since he had begun taking them, he felt less irritation from the excessive smoking of which he, too, was a victim.
I felt a shudder run through me at the vision of all that acid, but immediately afterwards I had a somewhat happier vision of life: I didn’t like lemons, but if they were to give me the liberty to do what I should do or wanted to do without suffering harm, freeing me from every other restraint, I would consume those countless lemons myself. Complete freedom consists of being able to do what you like, provided you also do something you like less. True slavery is being condemned to abstinence: Tantalus, not Hercules.
Then Tullio pretended to be equally eager for my news. I was quite determined not to tell him about my unhappy love, still I needed to unburden myself. I spoke with such exaggeration of my ailments (in this way I made a list of them, and I am sure they were slight) that in the end I had tears in my eyes, while Tullio was feeling better all the time, believing me worse off than himself.
He asked me if I was working. Everyone in the city said I did nothing, and I was afraid he would envy me, whereas at this moment I was in absolute need of commiseration. I lied! I told him I worked in my office, not much, but at least six hours daily, and then the extremely muddled questions inherited from my father and my mother kept me busy for another six hours.
“Twelve hours!” Tullio remarked, and with a contented smile he granted me what I sought: his commiseration. “You certainly aren’t to be envied!”
His conclusion was correct, and I was so moved by it that I had to fight to restrain the tears. I felt unhappier than ever, and in that morbid state of self-pity, obviously I was vulnerable to injury.
Tullio had resumed talking about his illness, which was also his chief hobby. He had studied the anatomy of the leg and the foot. Laughing, he told me that when one walks at a rapid pace, the time in which a step is taken does not exceed a half-second, and that in that half-second no fewer that fifty-four muscles are engaged. I reacted with a start, and my thoughts immediately rushed to my legs, to seek this monstrous machinery. I believe I found it. Naturally I didn’t identify the fifty-four moving parts, but rather an enormous complication went to pieces the moment I intruded my attention upon it.
I limped, leaving that café, and I went on limping for several days. For me, walking had become hard labor, also slightly painful. That jungle of cogs now seemed to lack oil, and in moving, they damaged one another reciprocally. A few days afterwards, I was assailed by a more serious illness, of which I will speak, that diminished the first. But even today, as I write about it, if someone watches me when I move, the fifty-four muscles become self-conscious and I risk falling.
This injury, too, is something I owe to Ada. Many animals become prey to hunters or to other animals when they are in love. I was then prey to illness, and I am sure that if I had learned of the monstrous machine at some other time, I wouldn’t have suffered the slightest harm from it.
A few scribbles on a slip of paper that I preserved remind me of another strange adventure in those days. Besides the annotation of a last cigarette, accompanied by my confidence that I could be cured of the fifty-four-muscle disease, there is an attempted poem… about a fly. If I didn’t know otherwise, I would believe that those verses had come from a proper young lady who was addressing in the familiar form the insects she sings about, but since I was the one who wrote them, I must believe, since I once followed that path, that a person can veer off in any direction.
Here is how those verses were born. Late one night I had come home and, rather than go to bed, I had entered my little study and turned on the gas. In the light a fly began to torment me. I managed to give it a tap—a light one, however, to avoid soiling my hand. I forgot about it, but then I saw it in the center of the table as it was coming to. It was motionless, erect, and it seemed taller than before, because one of its little legs was paralyzed and couldn’t bend. With its two hind legs it assiduously smoothed its wings. It tried to move, but turned over on its back. It righted itself and stubbornly resumed its assiduous task.
I then wrote those verses, amazed at having discovered that the little organism, filled with such pain, was inspired in its immense effort by two errors: first of all, by the stubborn smoothing of its wings, which were unharmed, the insect revealed that it didn’t know which organ was the source of its pain, and in the determination of that effort it revealed that its minuscule mind contained a fundamental belief that good health is the birthright of all and must surely return when it abandons us. These were errors that can easily be excused in an insect, which lives only a single season and hasn’t time to accumulate experience.
Now Sunday arrived. The fifth day since my last visit to the Malfenti household. I, who work so little, retained always a great respect for the holiday, which divides life into brief periods, making it more tolerable. That holiday concluded also a tiring week for me, and I was entitled to joy. I didn’t change my plans in the least, but they did not apply to that day, when I would see Ada again. I wouldn’t endanger those plans by uttering the slightest word, but I had to see her because there was also the possibility that the situation had already turned in my favor, and then it would be a great pity to go on suffering for no purpose.
Therefore, at midday, with such haste as my poor legs permitted, I rushed downtown and to the street I knew Signora Malfenti and her daughters would have to take on their way home from Mass. It was a day of festive sunshine and, walking along, I thought that perhaps in the city a new development awaited me: Ada’s love!
It was not so, but for another moment I had that illusion. Luck favored me incredibly. I came upon Ada face-to-face, Ada alone. My legs failed me, and so did my breath. What to do? My resolution should have made me step aside and allow her to pass with a measured greeting. But in my mind there was a bit of confusion because previously there had been other resolutions, among which I recalled one that involved me speaking to her clearly and learning my fate from her lips. I didn’t step aside, and when she greeted me as if we had parted only five minutes before, I walked along with her.
What she had said to me was: “Good morning, Signor Cosini! I’m in something of a hurry.”
And my reply was: “May I walk part of the way with you?”
She agreed, smiling. Should I have spoken then? She added that she wa
s going straight home, and thus I understood I had only five minutes at my disposal to speak, and I even wasted a bit of that time in calculating if it would suffice for the important things I had to say. But to leave them unsaid was better than not to say all. I was confused further by the fact that in our city, for a young lady, it was in itself fairly compromising to allow a young man to accompany her in the street. She had allowed me to do so. Could I be satisfied with that? Meanwhile I looked at her, trying to feel once again my intact love, recently clouded by anger and doubt. Would I regain my dreams, at least? She seemed to me at once little and big, in the harmony of her lines. The dreams returned, pell-mell, even as I was beside her, in all her reality. This was my way of desiring, and I returned to it with intense joy. All traces of anger or bitterness vanished from my spirit.
But behind us a hesitant call was heard: “Signorina! May I — ?”
I turned, outraged. Who dared interrupt the explanations that I hadn’t yet begun? A beardless young gentleman, dark-haired, pale, was looking at her with anxious eyes. In my turn I also looked at Ada, in the mad hope that she would call on me for assistance. A sign from her would have been enough to make me fall upon this individual and demand an explanation of his audacity. And if only he were to persist! My ailments would have been cured at once had I been allowed to give free rein to a brutal act of force.
But Ada didn’t make that sign. With a spontaneous smile that slightly altered the line of her cheeks and mouth and also the light in her eyes, she held out her hand. “Signor Guido!”
That given name hurt me. Only a short time before, she had addressed me by my surname.
I took a closer look at this Signor Guido. He was dressed with an affected elegance, and in his gloved right hand he held a walking stick with a very long ivory handle, which I would never have carried, not even if they were to pay me a sum for every kilometer. I didn’t reproach myself for having actually considered such a person a threat to Ada. There are some shady characters who dress elegantly and carry similar canes.
Ada’s smile plunged me again into the most ordinary social intercourse. Ada introduced us. And I smiled, too! Ada’s smile somehow suggested the wrinkling of clear water ruffled by a slight breeze. Mine also recalled a similar movement, but produced by a stone flung into the water.
His name was Guido Speier. My smile became more spontaneous because I was immediately offered the opportunity of saying something disagreeable to him: “You are German?”
He replied politely, admitting that because of his name, one might believe he was. But family documents proved they had been Italian for several centuries. He spoke Tuscan fluently, while Ada and I were condemned to our horrid dialect.
I looked at him to hear better what he was saying. He was a very handsome young man: his naturally parted lips allowed a glimpse of white, perfect teeth. His eyes were lively and expressive, and when he had bared his head, I had glimpsed his dark, slightly waving hair, which covered all the space Mother Nature had destined it for, while a good deal of my head had been invaded by my brow.
I would have hated him even if Ada hadn’t been present, but that hatred made me suffer, and I tried to attenuate it. I thought: He’s too young for Ada. And I also thought that the intimacy and courtesy in her attitude toward him were due to orders from her father. Perhaps the youth was important to Malfenti’s business, and I had observed that in such cases the whole family was obliged to collaborate.
I asked him: “You are settling in Trieste?”
He answered that he had been there for a month and he was establishing a commercial firm. I breathed easy again! Perhaps I had guessed right.
I limped, but my walk was fairly nonchalant, seeing that no one noticed. I looked at Ada and tried to forget all the rest, including the other man walking beside her. After all, I live in the present and I don’t think of the future when it isn’t darkening the present with obvious shadows. Ada walked between the two of us, and on her face she had a fixed expression of vague happiness that almost arrived at a smile. That happiness seemed new to me. For whom was that smile? Wasn’t it for me, whom she hadn’t seen in such a long time?
I listened carefully to what was being said. They were talking about spiritualism, and I promptly learned that Guido had introduced the Malfenti household to the Ouija board.
I was burning with the desire to make sure that the sweet smile playing over Ada’s lips was mine, and I plunged into the subject of their talk, making up a story about spirits. No poet could have improvised to set rhymes better. Before I knew where I was heading, I started out by declaring that I now believed in spirits, too, thanks to something that had happened to me the day before on this very street… no!… on the street we could glimpse, parallel to the one along which we were walking. Then I added that Ada, too, had known Professor Bertini, who had died recently in Florence, where he had moved on retiring. We learned of his death through a brief news item in a local paper, which I had forgotten about, and indeed, when I thought of Professor Bertini, I pictured him strolling in the Cascine, enjoying his well-earned rest. Well, just the day before, at a point I indicated in the street parallel to ours, I was approached by a gentleman who knew me and whom I was sure I knew. He had a strange, wriggling walk, like a certain kind of woman trying to smooth her progress…
“Of course! That would be Bertini!” Ada said, laughing.
Her laughter was mine, and, heartened, I continued: “I was sure I knew him, but I couldn’t recall who he was. We discussed politics. It was Bertini, because he talked so much nonsense, with that sheeplike voice of his…”
“His voice, too!” again Ada laughed, looking at me, eager, to hear the conclusion.
“Yes! It must have been Bertini,” I said, feigning fear, like the great actor the world has lost in me. “He shook my hand, taking his leave, and went off jauntily. I followed him for a few Steps, trying to collect myself. It was only when he was out of sight that I realized I had spoken with Bertini. With Bertini, who had been dead for a year!”
A little later she stopped at the front door of her house. Shaking his hand, she said to Guido that she was expecting him that evening. Then, saying good-bye also to me, she added that if I weren’t afraid of being bored I should join them that evening and help make the table dance.
I neither answered nor thanked her. I had to analyze that invitation before accepting. To me it had seemed to have the sound of forced good manners. Yes, perhaps for me the holiday would conclude with this meeting. But I wanted to appear polite, to leave every avenue open, also that of accepting the invitation. I inquired after Giovanni, with whom I had to talk. She replied that I would find him in his office, where he had gone to deal with some urgent matter of business.
Guido and I lingered for a short time, watching the elegant little form vanish into the darkness of the vestibule of her house. I don’t know what Guido thought at that moment. For my part, I felt very unhappy: Why hadn’t she issued that invitation first to me and then to Guido?
Together we retraced our steps, almost to the spot where we had found Ada. Polite and nonchalant (it was that same nonchalance that I most envied in others), Guido spoke further about that story I had improvised, which he took seriously. Actually, the only truth in the story was that in Trieste, also after Bertini’s death, there lived a person who talked nonsense, who walked as if he were on tiptoe, and had a strange voice. I had made his acquaintance around that time, and for a moment he had reminded me of Bertini. I wasn’t sorry that Guido should give himself a headache pondering that invention of mine. It was settled that I wouldn’t hate him, because, for the Malfentis, he was simply an important merchant; but I disliked him because of his affected elegance and his walking stick. I disliked him so much, in fact, that I couldn’t wait to be rid of him.
I heard him concluding: “It’s also possible that the person with whom you spoke was much younger than Bertini, strode like a guardsman, with a manly voice, and that the resemblance was limited to his tal
king nonsense. That would have been enough to focus your thoughts on Bertini. But to accept this, it would be necessary to believe also that you are a very absent-minded person.”
“Absentminded? Me? What an idea! I’m a businessman. What would become of me if I were absentminded?”
Then I decided I was wasting my time. I wanted to see Giovanni. Since I had seen the daughter, I could also see the father, who was much less important. I had to hurry if I wanted to find him still in his office.
Guido went on pondering how much of a miracle could be attributed to the absentmindedness of the one who works it or witnesses it. I wanted to take my leave and appear at least as nonchalant as he. Hence I interrupted him, leaving him there, with a haste quite close to rudeness: “For me, miracles either exist or they don’t. They mustn’t be complicated with a lot of stories. You believe or disbelieve, and in either case it’s all very simple.”
I didn’t want to demonstrate any dislike for him, and indeed I felt that my words were conceding something to him, as I am a convinced positivist and do not believe in miracles. But it was a concession made with great ill humor.
I went off, limping worse than ever, and I hoped Guido didn’t feel impelled to turn and watch me go.
I really had to talk with Giovanni. First of all, he would instruct me how to behave that evening. I had been invited by Ada, and from Giovanni’s behavior I could understand whether I should go along with that invitation or remember, instead, that it went counter to the expressed wishes of Signora Malfenti. Clarity was essential in my dealings with these people, and if this Sunday weren’t enough to give it to me, I would devote Monday to the same purpose. I kept contradicting my own resolutions, unaware. Indeed, it seemed to me I was acting on a decision reached after five days of meditation. That is how I categorized my activity during those days.