by Italo Svevo
There were some bad people, he said, who persecuted the Zarri family. Had not Angiolina told him about them? It was wrong of her. Well then, there were people who were always on the lookout to find out things against the Zarri family. One had to be always on one’s guard against them. Did not Signor Brentani know Tic? If he had known him he would not have come to the house so often.
Here the sermon degenerated into a warning to Emilio not to expose himself, young as he was, to such dangers. When the old man raised his eyes again to look at him, Emilio guessed the truth. In those strange blue eyes under their silver brows shone the light of madness.
This time the madman seemed to be able to endure Emilio’s gaze. It was true that Tic lived up there at Opicina, but even from there he rained down blows on the legs and backs of his enemies. He added darkly: “He even beats the little girl here.” The family had another enemy called Toe. He lived right in the middle of the town. He did not beat them but he did worse still. He robbed the family of all their jobs, he stole all their money and all their substance.
The old man had now worked himself into a fury and began to shout. Angiolina came rushing in, guessing at once what was the matter. “Go along with you,” she said very crossly to her father, and pushed him out of the room.
Old Zarri stood hesitating in the doorway, and said, pointing to Emilio: “He didn’t know anything about Tic or Toe.”
“I will tell him,” Angiolina said, and burst out laughing. Then she called through the door: “Mother, come and take father away,” and shut the door.
Emilio, terrified by the insane eyes which had been watching him for so long, asked: “Is he ill?”
“Oh,” said Angiolina scornfully, “he is an old waster, who never will do any work. There is Tic on one side and Toe on the other, and so he refuses ever to leave the house, and puts all the work on us women.” She suddenly burst into uncontrollable laughter and told him how, to please the old man, the whole family pretended to feel the blows which fell on the house from Tic. Several years before, when the old man’s mania was just beginning, they were in a fifth-floor flat at Lazzareto Vecchio, Tic was at Campo Marzio and Toe on the Corso. They changed house hoping that the old man would venture out again into the street, when lo and behold! Tic moved up to Opicina and Toe to Via Stadion.
She said to him as he began to kiss her: “This time you have been lucky to escape. You wouldn’t have got off so easily if he had not remembered his enemies just at that moment.”
So they were becoming more and more intimate. He had now discovered all the secrets of the house. Even she felt that there was nothing left for Emilio to find out about her which might disgust him, and she used one day this charming expression: “I tell you everything, as if you were a brother.” She felt she had him completely in her power, and though she was not tyrannical by nature and only wanted to make use of her power in order to enjoy herself and have as good a time as possible, she no longer treated him with any consideration. She would come late to appointments although she always found him with his eyes staring out of his head in the wildest state of excitement. She became more rough in her treatment of him. When she was tired of his caresses she would push him away with such violence that he said laughingly he was afraid she would whip him sooner or later.
He could not be quite certain, but he fancied that Angiolina and Paracci, the old landlady of the hired room, had known each other before. The old woman used to look at Angiolina with a motherly eye, and admired her fair hair and beautiful eyes. Angiolina denied that she had ever known her before now, but betrayed a most exact knowledge of the house even in its remotest corners. One evening when she had come late as usual, old Paracci heard them quarreling and intervened firmly on the side of Angiolina. “I can’t think how anyone can have the face to scold an angel like her.” Angiolina never refused homage, from whatever direction it came, and said, smiling complacently, “You heard what she said. It ought to teach you a lesson.” He had indeed heard, and was horrified by his mistress’s vulgarity.
As he had now made up his mind that there was no hope of raising her to his own level, he sometimes felt an irresistible desire to descend to hers or even below her. One evening she repulsed him, saying that she had been to confession that day and didn’t want to sin. His desire on this occasion was not so much to possess her as to prove that he could be, for once at least, baser than she was. He assaulted her with violence, fighting till the last breath. When he lay at last in a state of exhaustion, and was beginning to repent of his brutality, he was comforted to receive a glance of admiration from Angiolina. For that whole evening she was completely his, the female adoring the male who had mastered her. He decided to act in a similar way on many future occasions, but was not capable of it. It was not so easy to find a second excuse for treating Angiolina with brutality and violence.
11
IT SEEMED to be decreed by fate that Balli should always intervene to make Emilio’s situation more painful in regard to Angiolina. It had been agreed between them for a long time that Emilio’s mistress was to sit for the sculptor. The only thing needed to get the work started was that Emilio should remember to speak to Angiolina about it.
As he readily understood the reason for such repeated forgetfulness Stefano made up his mind to say no more about it. He felt that he was unable at the moment to get on with any other figure except the one he had imagined with Angiolina as his model, and just to pass the time, and because it amused him to play about with the idea, he began to build the frame of a human figure and to cover it with clay. He wrapped it all up in wet rags and thought to himself: “A death shroud.” Every day he uncovered his nude and looked at it, imagining it clothed, then covered it up again in its rags, and carefully wetted them.
The two friends spoke no more about the subject. But Balli, hoping to attain his end without having to make a formal request, said to Emilio one evening: “I can’t work. I should be in despair about it, if I hadn’t still got that figure in my mind.”
“I quite forgot to speak to Angiolina again,” said Emilio, without, however, taking the trouble to feign the surprise of someone who has really forgotten. “I tell you what. When you meet her, speak to her about it yourself: you will see that she is only too ready to oblige.”
There was so much bitterness in this last phrase that Balli took pity on him and said no more for the moment. He knew himself that he had not intervened very happily between the lovers and he did not want to have any more to do with their affairs. He could not intrude himself upon them as he had done a few months earlier in the hope of curing his friend, and it was evident that Emilio’s recovery must be a matter of time. The beautiful statue he had dreamed of so long, the only one which at the moment he felt any desire to do, was being destroyed by Emilio’s incurable sensuality.
He tried to realize his plan with another model, but after a few sittings he gave it up in disgust. In reality the sudden abandonment of long-cherished ideas was nothing new in his career. But on this occasion, whether rightly or wrongly, he laid all the blame on Emilio. There was no doubt whatever in his own mind that if he could have had the model he dreamed of he would have been able to throw himself whole-heartedly into his work, if only to destroy it all a few weeks later.
He refrained from saying any of this to his friend and it was the last scruple he had regarding him. It was useless to explain to Emilio how important Angiolina had become to him; it would only have made the poor fellow’s disease much worse. Who could have explained to Emilio that the artist’s imagination had fixed on that object just because he had detected in the extraordinary purity of line, though quite independent of it, an indefinable expression of vulgarity and coarseness which Raphael would no doubt have suppressed but which he, on the contrary, wanted to copy and to accentuate?
As they walked together in the street he said not a word about the desire of his heart, but Emilio gained nothing by the consideration shown him by his friend, for the desire which Balli was
afraid to express was magnified by him into something greater than it really was, and he suffered torments of jealousy. Balli now desired Angiolina as much as he did himself. How could he defend himself from such an enemy?
He could not defend himself! He had already confessed his jealousy, but he did not want to speak of it again; it would have been too stupid to betray jealousy of Balli after having tolerated the umbrella-maker as a rival. His shame left him defenseless. One day Stefano went to fetch him at the office, as he often did, to walk home with him. They were walking along the sea-front when they saw Angiolina coming towards them, all lit up by the mid-day sun which was playing in her fair curls. She had screwed up her face a little in the effort to keep her eyes open in the strong sunlight. Balli found himself suddenly face to face with his masterpiece and, disregarding its outline, saw it for the first time in all its details. She advanced towards them with that firm step of hers which did not in the least diminish the grace of her upright figure. Youth incarnate, clothed, would have walked like that in the sunlight.
“Look here!” Stefano exclaimed, suddenly making up his mind. “Don’t let your idiotic jealousy prevent me from creating a masterpiece.” Angiolina returned their greeting with the serious air she had assumed for some time past. But all her gravity was concentrated in the greeting, and even that manifestation of seriousness must have been taught her recently.
Balli stood still and waited for a sign of assent from his friend. “Very well,” said Emilio mechanically after a moment’s hesitation, hoping that Stefano would see how painful it was for him to give his consent. But Balli saw nothing but his model, and that she was escaping him; the words were hardly out of Emilio’s mouth before he was after her.
So Balli and Angiolina had met again at last. By the time Emilio rejoined them he found them in complete agreement. Balli had lost no time and Angiolina, scarlet with pleasure, had at once asked him when she was to come. Tomorrow at nine o’clock. She agreed, saying that fortunately she did not have to go to the Deluigis next day. “I will be punctual,” she said as they parted. It was her custom to say a great deal, the first words that came to her lips, and it never occurred to her that her promise to be punctual might give offense to Emilio as drawing a distinction between the appointments she made with Balli and those she made with him.
Directly he had done the deed, Balli’s thoughts returned to his friend. He was at once conscious of having wronged him and affectionately asked Emilio’s pardon: “I really couldn’t help it though I knew you would not like it. I assure you I won’t take advantage of the fact that you pretend not to mind. I know it gives you pain. You’re wrong, you know, quite wrong, but I am not altogether right, all the same.”
Emilio replied with a forced smile: “Then I have nothing to say.”
Balli thought that Emilio was treating him more severely than he deserved.
“The only thing that remains for me then, if I want you to forgive me, is to tell Angiolina not to come? Very well, I will, if you want me to.”
It was impossible to accept the proposal because the poor woman—Emilio knew her as well as if it were he who had been her creator—was always specially drawn towards anyone who repulsed her, and he did not want to give her fresh reasons for loving Balli. “No,” he said, in a more friendly voice. “Leave things as they are now. I trust you, and only you,” he added, smiling.
Stefano warmly assured him that he deserved his confidence. He promised, he even swore that the very first time he found himself forgetting art even for a single moment during his sittings with Angiolina, he would turn her out. Emilio was weak enough to accept the promise, even to make Balli repeat it.
Next day Balli came to Emilio to report on the first sitting. He had worked like one possessed, and he had found nothing to complain of in Angiolina, who had held out as long as possible in her not very comfortable pose. She did not quite understand yet how to take up a pose, but Balli did not despair of teaching her. He was more than ever in love with his own idea. For nine or ten sittings he would not so much as have time to exchange a word with Angiolina. “If I come to a point at which I have to stop for a while I promise you I will only talk about you. I bet you she will end by loving you with all her heart.”
“In any case, and that won’t be a bad thing, you will bore her so much by talking about me that she will begin to take a dislike to you!”
He was not able to meet Angiolina during those two days, so he made an appointment with her for Sunday afternoon in Balli’s studio. He found him hard at work.
The studio was really only a large warehouse. Balli did not want it to be elegant, so he had left it in its former rough condition, with every sign of the purpose for which it had been used. The stone pavement was as irregular as when the bales of merchandise had been dumped there; but in the winter a large carpet was put down in the middle to preserve the sculptor’s feet from contact with the floor. The walls were roughly white-washed and little clay figures or plaster casts stood about on brackets, evidently put there at random, not in order to be admired, for they were piled up rather than arranged in groups. There was, however, a certain amount of comfort. The temperature was kept warm by a pyramid-shaped stove. A number of chairs and easy-chairs in every variety of size and shape, many of them very elegant, robbed the studio of its warehouse-like character. Balli said all his chairs were a different shape because he always needed one to sit on which matched the dream he was indulging in at the moment. But he said he still felt the need sometimes of shapes which he had not yet been able to find. Angiolina was perched on a stand, propped up with luxurious white cushions; Balli was standing on a chair beside another revolving stand at work upon his figure, which was only just sketched in.
When he saw Emilio he jumped down and greeted him warmly. Angiolina abandoned her pose too, and sat down among the white cushions; she seemed to be lying in a nest. She gave Emilio the kindest of welcomes. It was so long since they had met. She thought him looking a little pale. Wasn’t he well? Brentani did not feel any particular gratitude to her for such a fond demonstration. She probably wanted to show him how grateful she was for being left alone so long with Balli.
Stefano was standing in front of his own work. “Do you like it?” Emilio looked at it. A semi-human figure with its shoulders covered was kneeling on a rough and shapeless mass; in line and attitude the shoulders resembled Angiolina’s. Up to that point there was something tragic in the figure. It seemed as if it were buried in the clay and were striving to free itself. The head too, of which the temples had been hollowed and the brow smoothed by the sculptor’s thumb, looked like a skull carefully covered with earth so that it should utter no sound. “You see how the thing is coming out,” said the sculptor, throwing a glance which was almost a caress over the whole work. “The idea is not all there yet; it lacks form.” But the idea was only visible to him, something delicate and intangible. A prayer was to rise from that clay, the prayer of someone who believes for one moment and perhaps never will believe again. Balli explained too the form his idea was to take. The base was to remain rough and the figure was to go on becoming finer and finer right up to the hair, which was to be arranged with all the sophistication of the most up-to-date coiffeur. The hair was intended to contradict the prayer expressed by the face.
Angiolina took up her pose again, and Balli returned to his work. For half an hour she posed very conscientiously, imagining to herself that she was praying, just as the sculptor had told her, so as to have a prayerful expression on her face. Stefano was not satisfied with the expression and made a gesture of disgust, unseen except by Emilio. That nun didn’t know how to pray. She had no idea of looking devout; she might throw her eyes up, but only to utter an impertinence. She was flirting with God the Father.
Angiolina’s heavy breathing began to betray her weariness. Balli did not even notice, for he had reached an important point in his work; he made her bend her poor head, pitilessly, over her right shoulder. “Are you very tired?” Em
ilio asked her, and as Balli could not see him he stroked her chin and gave it a support. She moved her lips to kiss his hand, but did not change her position. “I can hold out a little longer.” How admirable she was, to sacrifice herself like that for a work of art! If he had been the artist he should have regarded her sacrifice as a proof of her love.
Soon afterwards Balli allowed her a short rest. He certainly did not need any himself and filled up the time by doing something to the base of his statue. In his long linen coat he took on almost a sacerdotal air. From her place beside Emilio, Angiolina gazed at the sculptor with ill-concealed admiration. He was a splendid man to look at, agile and strong, with shapely beard, slightly tinged with gray, but with golden lights in it still. He leaped lightly from his stand and back again without ever shaking the statue, and seemed the perfect embodiment of the intelligent worker, with an elegant shirt-cuff sticking out below the rough sleeve of his coat. Even Emilio could not help admiring him in spite of what he suffered just on that account.
Balli soon returned again to work. The sculptor punched the head a little more, without seeming to mind that he thereby made it lose the small amount of shape it had already. He put on a little clay in one place and removed it in another. It was to be supposed that he was copying, since he kept looking at the model, but the clay did not seem to Emilio to reproduce one single feature of Angiolina’s face. When Stefano had finished working he told him so, and the sculptor taught him how he ought to look at it. For the moment there was no likeness except when you looked at the head from only one point of view. Angiolina could not recognize herself, and was vexed that Balli imagined he had portrayed her face in that shapeless mass of clay; but Emilio saw the obvious likeness. The face seemed to be asleep, immobilized by its clinging envelope of clay; the eyes, as yet unsculptured, seemed to be shut, but one felt that the vital breath was about to animate the lifeless clay.
