Guido’s company was downright terrible. He inquired with great curiosity about the story of my love for Augusta. Did he suspect I was deceiving him? I declared shamelessly that I had fallen in love with Augusta at once, on my first visit to the Malfenti house. My pain made me talkative, as if I wanted to shout it down. But I talked too much, and if Guido had paid more attention he would have realized I wasn’t all that much in love with Augusta. I spoke of the most interesting feature of Augusta’s body, namely that skewed eye that made one believe, mistakenly, that all the rest was similarly out of place. Then I tried to explain why I hadn’t declared myself earlier. Perhaps Guido was surprised, having seen me arrive at that house only at the last minute and then become engaged.
I shouted: “The Malfenti young ladies are accustomed to great luxury, and I couldn’t know if I was in a position to take on such a responsibility.”
I was sorry that I had thus also included Ada, but there was nothing to be done now: it was so difficult to separate Augusta from Ada! I went on, lowering my voice the better to control myself: “So I had to make some calculations. I found that my money wasn’t enough. Then I tried to figure out if there wasn’t some way of expanding my business…”
I added that to make those calculations I had required a great deal of time, and so I had refrained from visiting the Malfentis for five days. Finally my tongue, given free rein, had arrived at a bit of sincerity. I was on the brink of tears and, pressing my hip, I murmured: “Five days is a long time!”
Guido said he was glad to discover I was such a prudent person.
I remarked curtly: “A prudent person is no more likable than a scatterbrain!”
Guido laughed. “It’s odd that a prudent man should feel called upon to defend scatterbrains!”
Then, without any transition, he informed me briefly that he was about to ask for Ada’s hand. Had he dragged me to the café to make this confession or, annoyed at having had to sit and listen to me go on about myself for so long, was he getting his revenge?
I am almost sure I managed to display the greatest surprise and the greatest pleasure. But a moment later I found a way of stinging him severely: “Now I understand why Ada liked that Bach piece so much, with all its distortions! It was well played, but Higher Authorities forbid profaning certain works.”
It was a nasty blow, and Guido flushed with pain. His answer was subdued because he was now without his enthusiastic little audience. “For heaven’s sake!” he began, to gain time. “Every now and then, when you play, you succumb to a whim. In that room very few were familiar with Bach, and I introduced him in a somewhat modernized form.”
He seemed satisfied with his invention, but I was equally satisfied because it seemed to me an apology and a capitulation. This was enough to appease me, and in any case, nothing on earth could have made me quarrel with Ada’s future husband. I declared that I had rarely heard an amateur play so well.
This didn’t content him: he remarked that he could be considered an amateur only because he hadn’t decided to appear as a professional.
Was that all he wanted? I agreed with him. It was obvious he couldn’t be considered an amateur.
So we were friends again.
Then, point-blank, he started speaking ill of women. I was speechless! Now that I am better acquainted with him, I know he bursts into abundant discourse on any subject if he thinks he can be sure of pleasing his interlocutor. A little earlier, I had mentioned the luxury of the Malfenti young ladies, and he began there, only to continue talking about all womankind’s other bad qualities. My weariness prevented me from interrupting him, and I confined myself to repeated gestures of assent that were themselves all too tiring for me. Otherwise, to be sure, I would have protested. I knew that I had every right to speak ill of women, who for me were represented by Ada, Augusta, and my future mother-in-law; but he could have no cause to nourish any resentment of the sex represented for him only by Ada, who loved him.
He was quite learned, and despite my fatigue I sat and heard him out with admiration. Long afterwards I discovered that he had borrowed the brilliant theories of the young suicide Weininger.* At that moment I suffered the burden of the Bach all over again. I even suspected he had some therapeutic aim. If not, then why would he want to convince me that a woman cannot possess genius or goodness? It seemed to me this treatment failed because it was administered by Guido. But I retained those theories and I amplified them by reading Weininger. They never heal you, but they come in handy when you are chasing women.
Having finished his ice, Guido felt he needed a breath of fresh air and he persuaded me to take a stroll with him towards the outskirts of the city.
I remember that for some days in the city we had been yearning for a bit of rain, hoping it would bring some relief from the premature heat. I hadn’t even noticed the heat. That evening the sky had begun to be covered with fine, white clouds, the kind that lead simple people to hope for abundant rain, but a huge moon was advancing in the sky, intensely blue
* Otto Weininger (1880—1903), Austrian writer and philosopher, author of a book entitled Sex and Character.
where it was still clear, one of those moons with swollen cheeks that the same simple people also believe capable of devouring clouds. It was obvious, in fact, that where the moon passed, it dispelled and cleared.
I wanted to interrupt Guido’s chatter, which kept me nodding constantly, a torture; and I described to him the moon’s kiss, discovered by the poet Zamboni. How sweet that kiss was, in the heart of our nights, compared with the injustice that Guido was committing, at my side! As I spoke, stirring from the sluggishness I had fallen into with all this assenting, my pain seemed to diminish. It was the reward for my rebellion and I persisted in it.
Guido was obliged to leave women alone for a moment and look up. But not for long! Having discovered, thanks to my indications, the pale image of the woman in the moon, he returned to his subject with a joke, at which he—but only he—laughed loudly in the deserted street: “She sees plenty of things, that woman does! Too bad that, being a woman, she can’t remember them.“
It was part of his (or Weininger’s) theory that no woman can be a genius because women are unable to remember.
We reached the foot of the Via Belvedere. Guido said a little climb would do us good. Once again I fell in with his wishes. Up there, in one of those acts best suited to very young boys, he stretched out on the low wall that separated the street from the one below. He thought he was being brave, risking a fall of about ten meters. At first I felt the usual horror, seeing him exposed to such danger, but then I recalled the method I had invented that evening, in a burst of improvisation, to free myself from such suffering, and I began to wish fervently that he would fall.
In that position he continued preaching against women. Now he said that, like children, they required toys, but costly ones. I remembered that Ada said she liked jewels very much. Was he actually talking about her? I had then a frightful idea!
Why didn’t I cause Guido to fall those ten meters? Wouldn’t it have been fair to exterminate the man who was robbing me of Ada without loving her? At that moment I felt that when I had killed him, I could rush to Ada and receive my recompense at once. In the strange, moon-filled night, it seemed to me she must have heard how Guido was defaming her.
I have to confess that, honestly, at that moment I was ready to kill Guido! I was standing beside him, as he lay full length on the low wall, and I coldly studied in what way I should grip him, to be sure I was doing the thing properly. Then I discovered that I didn’t even have to grip him. He was lying with his arms folded beneath his head: a good shove would have sufficed to throw him irreparably off balance.
I had another idea, so important, I thought, that I could compare it to the huge moon that proceeded through the sky, clearing it: I had agreed to the betrothal with Augusta to make sure I could sleep soundly that night. How could I sleep if I were to kill Guido? This idea saved me and him. I chose to
abandon at once my position standing over Guido, which was luring me toward that act. I bent my knees, sinking down until my head almost touched the ground.
“Oh, the pain! The pain!” I cried.
Frightened, Guido sprang to his feet, asking for an explanation. I went on groaning, more softly, without answering. I knew why I was groaning: because I had wanted to kill, and perhaps also because I had been incapable of doing so. The pain and the groan excused everything. It seemed to me I was shouting that I hadn’t wanted to kill, and it also seemed I was shouting that it wasn’t my fault if I hadn’t been able to do it. It was all the fault of my illness and my pain. But I remember well how, at that very moment, my pain completely vanished and my groan remained nothing but histrionics, to which I tried in vain to give some content, recalling the pain and reconstructing it so as to feel it and suffer from it. But the effort was futile because it returned only when it chose.
As usual, Guido proceeded by hypothesis. Among other things, he asked me if this were not the same pain caused by that fall at the café. This seemed a good idea to me, and I agreed. Fondly he drew me to my feet. Then, with every consideration, still supporting me, he helped me down the little hill. When we reached the bottom, I declared I felt somewhat better and I believed that with his support I could move a bit faster. So it was possible to go to bed at last! Thus I was granted my first great satisfaction that day. Guido was working for me, almost carrying me. Finally it was I who imposed my will on him.
We found a pharmacy still open, and he thought to send me to bed accompanied by a sedative. He fabricated a whole theory about real pain and the exaggerated sense of it: a pain that multiplied through the exacerbation that it had itself produced. With that little bottle my collection of medicines began, and it was only right that Guido had been the one to choose it.
To provide a firmer basis for his theory, he postulated that I had suffered my pain for many days. I was sorry not to be able to content him. I declared that at the Malfentis’, that evening, I had felt no pain. At the moment when I arrived at the fulfillment of my cherished dream, obviously I couldn’t have been suffering.
And to be sincere I wanted actually to be what I claimed I was, and I said several times to myself: “I love Augusta, I do not love Ada. I love Augusta, and this evening I achieved the fulfillment of my cherished dream.”
So we advanced in lunar night. I suppose that my weight tired Guido, because he finally fell silent. He offered, however, to see me all the way to my bed. I declined, and when I was allowed to close my door behind me, I heaved a sigh of relief. No doubt Guido heaved the same sigh.
I took the steps of my house four at a time, and ten minutes later I was in bed. I fell asleep quickly, and in the brief period preceding sleep, I remembered neither Ada nor Augusta, but only Guido, so sweet and good and patient. True, I had not forgotten that a little earlier I had wanted to kill him, but that had no importance because things that no one knows, things that leave no trace, do not exist.
The following day I went, a little hesitant, to my bride’s house. I was not sure that the commitments made the night before had the value I thought I must attribute to them. I discovered that they did, in everyone’s mind. Augusta also considered herself engaged, even more confidently than I.
It was a toilsome betrothal. I have the feeling of having broken it off several times and then reconstructed it with great effort, and I am surprised that nobody else was aware of this. Never did I have the certitude that I was actually heading for marriage, but nevertheless I apparently behaved like a sufficiently loving fiancé. In fact, I kissed and clasped to my bosom the sister of Ada whenever I had the opportunity. Augusta submitted to my aggressions as she believed a bride should, and I acted relatively well, simply because Signora Malfenti never left us alone for more than a few brief moments. My bride was much less ugly than I had thought, and I discovered her most beautiful feature only when I began kissing her: it was her blush! Where I kissed her a flame appeared in my honor, and I kissed more with the curiosity of the experimental scientist than with the fervor of the lover.
But desire was not wanting, and it made that burdensome time a bit easier. Thank God, Augusta and her mother prevented me from burning that flame in one single blaze as I often would have wished. How would we have continued to live afterwards? This way at least my desire continued to give me, on the front steps of that house, the same eagerness I had felt when I used to climb them to win Ada. The odd steps promised me that on this day I would be able to display to Augusta the nature of the betrothal she had wanted. I dreamed of a violent action that would give me back all the feeling of my freedom. I wanted nothing else, and it is quite strange that when Augusta learned what I wanted, she interpreted it as a sign of love-fever.
In my memory that period divides into two phases. In the first, Signora Malfenti often had Alberta keep an eye on us, or else she sent little Anna, with a schoolmistress, into the living room where we sat. Ada was never then associated with us in any way, and I told myself I should be pleased at this—whereas, on the contrary, I remember vaguely having once thought it would be a great source of satisfaction for me if I could kiss Augusta in the presence of Ada. Heaven knows what violence I would have subjected my fiancée to.
The second phase began when Guido became officially engaged to Ada, and Signora Malfenti, practical woman that she was, united the two couples in the same living room so that they could keep a reciprocal eye on each other.
In the first phase, I know Augusta declared herself perfectly satisfied with me. When I didn’t assail her, I became extraordinarily loquacious. Loquacity was a necessity of mine. I created the occasion for it by persisting in the thought that since I was to marry Augusta, I should also take her education in hand. I lectured her about being sweet, affectionate, and above all faithful. I don’t precisely recall the form I gave these sermons of mine, some of which she has repeated to me, as she has never forgotten them. She would listen to me, intent and docile. Once, in the enthusiasm of my teaching, I declared that if she were to discover an infidelity on my part, she would then be entitled to repay me in the same coin. Outraged, she protested that not even with my permission would she ever be capable of betraying me, and that after any infidelity of mine, she would have only the freedom to weep.
I believe that these sermons, which I preached for no purpose except to be saying something, had a beneficent influence on my marriage. The sincere thing about them was their effect on Augusta’s spirit. Her fidelity was never put to the test because she never knew anything of my infidelities, but her affection and her sweetness remained unchanged over the long years we spent together, just as I had induced her to promise me.
When Guido made his proposal, the second phase of my betrothal began, with a resolution I could express in these terms: “Now! I am quite cured of my love for Ada!” Until then I had believed that Augusta’s blushing had sufficed to heal me, but obviously no healing is complete! The recollection of those blushes led me to believe that they would now occur also between Guido and Ada. This, far more than any earlier blushing, would dispel any desire of mine.
The desire to violate Augusta belongs to the first phase. In the second I was much less aroused. Signora Malfenti had surely not been mistaken in organizing our surveillance at such slight cost to herself.
I remember that once, in jest, I started kissing Augusta. Instead of joking with me, Guido, in return, began kissing Ada. This seemed to me indelicate on his part, because he was not kissing chastely as I had done, out of respect for the other pair: he was kissing Ada on the mouth, actually sucking her lips. I am sure that, by then, I had already become fairly accustomed to regarding Ada as a sister, but I was not prepared to see her used so. I suspect a real brother would hardly like to see his sister manipulated like that.
Hence, in Guido’s presence, I never kissed Augusta again. Guido, on the contrary, in my presence, tried once more to draw Ada to him, but it was she who defended herself, and he didn’t
repeat the attempt.
Very hazily I recall the many, many evenings we spent together. The scene was repeated to infinity, until it became imprinted on my mind: the four of us seated around the elegant little Venetian table, on which a large kerosene lamp was burning, covered by a green cloth shade that cast everything in shadow, except the embroidery work on which the two girls were engaged, Ada working on a silk handkerchief held loosely in her hand, Augusta at a little circular frame. I can see Guido perorating, and often I must have been the only one to encourage him. I remember also Ada’s head, the gently curled black hair emphasized by the strange effect of the greenish yellow light.
We argued about that light, and about the true color of that hair. Guido, who could also paint, explained to us how a color should be analyzed. This lesson of his was something else I never afterwards forgot, and even today, when I want to understand the color of a landscape more clearly, I half-close my eyes until many lines disappear and only the lights can be seen, darkening also into the one true color. When I devote myself to such an analysis, however, on my retina, immediately after the real images, in a kind of personal physical reaction, the yellow-green glow reappears, and the dark hair on which for the first time I trained my eye.
I cannot forget one evening, distinguished from all the other evenings by an expression of jealousy from Augusta and immediately thereafter by a deplorable indiscretion on my part. Playing a joke on us, Guido and Ada had gone to sit far off, at the other end of the living room, by the Louis XIV table. So I quickly developed an ache in my neck, which I had to twist in order to talk with them. Augusta said to me: “Leave them alone! Over there they’re really making love.”
And I, with great sluggishness of mind, whispered to her that she shouldn’t believe this, for Guido didn’t like women. In this way, it seemed to me, I was apologizing for having interfered in the talk of the lovers. But, instead, it was a wicked indiscretion, reporting to Augusta the talk about women that Guido indulged in when he was with me, but never in the presence of any other member of our brides’ family. The recollection of my words poisoned my mind for several days, while I may say that the recollection of having wanted to kill Guido hadn’t troubled me for so much as an hour. But killing, even treacherously, is more virile than harming a friend by betraying a confidence.