A Life

by Italo Svevo

  “Signor Nitti!” he said almost questioningly; he must have had a bad memory. Then he held out his hand in a friendly way.

  They went out together.

  “D’you often come here?” asked Macario, busy straightening his overcoat, a long grey garment with large bone buttons.

  Alfonso replied carelessly that he came every evening and tacitly decided to make the lie into the truth in future.

  “I’ve come for the last week, and it’s a pity this is the first time we’ve met,” said Macario kindly. He asked what he was studying.

  “Literature.” confessed Alfonso, hesitating.

  He was glad to be able to say this to Macario but hesitated because he knew and feared his malice. He explained that he was in the habit of doing an hour or two’s studying every day as a distraction after the day’s work.

  “And what are you reading?” asked Macario, who was looking at him with surprise.

  He found that Alfonso, apart from his bronzed face, seemed less rustic than in the months before. He spoke more easily, and, what was more, as Macario was sufficiently intelligent to understand, his decrying of regular work denoted a certain superiority.

  Knowing how much some people despised philosophers and philosophy, Alfonso abstained from naming his favourite authors and only mentioned a critic or two. But Macario must have realized that he was dealing with someone who could allow himself the luxury of his own opinions and was surprised to find him so cagey. Alfonso was enthusiastic about authors whom he did not mention to Macario.

  On his own side Alfonso very soon acquired some notion of Macario’s culture. He was pleased to find himself highly enough esteemed for Macario to make ill-concealed efforts to introduce subjects he knew about into the conversation. Macario spoke of contemporary realist writers. Alfonso had read some of their novels and a review or two and made up his mind about them with the calm of the disinterested student he then was. He admired some parts, criticized others. Macario was a resolute partisan, and his enthusiasm made Alfonso sift his own opinions. While Macario was looking at him with a rather derisive smile which meant “My flair makes my few studies worth your many”, Alfonso’s serious, attentive aspect, like a scholar at a lesson, hid his enjoyment of his own superiority. He avoided a discussion in which he had no hope of gaining a victory over Macario’s facility with words. But with such a speaker it was impossible to look indifferent, and almost involuntarily Alfonso began giving signs of assent which, to calm his own conscience, he addressed to Macario’s single phrases and not to his concepts. Some of these phrases were so fine that Alfonso suspected them to be stolen. He spoke of the creations of man which were quite up to the biblical ‘creation’ in results. The latter differed somewhat in method, but both had achieved the production of organisms which lived by themselves and bore no trace of having been created.

  Macario told him he came to the library for some calm reading of Balzac, whom the realists called their ‘father’. Balzac was not that at all, or at least Macario did not consider him as such. He classified Balzac as a writer of ordinary rhetoric, typical of the first half of the century.

  They reached Piazza della Legna, walking so slowly that they took half-an-hour. On the way Macario found time to admire a pretty seamstress and make a young lady blush by staring straight into her eyes. Alfonso, though, had been unable to do anything but listen.

  “Where d’you live?” asked Macario, taking his arm.

  “In that direction,” and he pointed vaguely towards the old town.

  “I’ll walk some of the way with you.”

  How could he not be flattered by such kindness, and how could he start to defend Balzac from the taint of rhetoric? In reply to the pleasant offer Alfonso resolutely sacrificed Balzac.

  “He’s often rhetorical, of course!”

  They did not enter the old town but returned to the Corso.

  “D’you know you ought to be very much at home now at my uncle’s? It’s quite a different place; Annetta is dedicating herself to literature. Would you like us to go and call on her? She’s been back from the country a week and receives friends almost every evening; she’s even more emancipated than she was in the past.”

  “Really!” queried Alfonso, showing surprise.

  He tried to find some answer to refuse the invitation.

  Macario behaved as if Alfonso had already accepted, and, followed by him, he crossed the Corso and entered Via Ponte Rosso. Alfonso was still undecided.

  “You’ll see! She’s at her prettiest! Half her day she spends at her desk. This new vocation doesn’t worry anyone, by the way; in a few months she won’t even mention it. I think what stirred her up is the fame being won by other women in Italy. Women! One begins, and the others follow like sheep. Men’s example doesn’t count at all. They imitate this, they imitate that, and never realize what they are imitating, because their tiny brains know so little about originality that they consider it equivalent to accuracy, accuracy in imitation. The really original woman is the one who first imitates a man.”

  Alfonso laughed.

  “What about Signorina Annetta?”

  “About Signorina Annetta as a writer I know nothing. She’s so cautious that until she’s imitated something very closely she’ll show no one a thing; so one must wait before giving a definite opinion, as it’s a matter of knowing whom she’s chosen to imitate. My opinion of Annetta you already know. Highly developed mathematical qualities …” and he made his usual gesture to accentuate the hint. “Anyway, now we’ll go and pay her our homage.”

  They entered Via dei Forni; Alfonso stopped him.

  “I’m not coming, I can’t come. I’m expected at home, and then in this state …”

  His face was flushed, and he spoke with far more warmth than was needed to refuse Macario’s invitation.

  “I can’t make you, of course. It’s a pity though! If someone is waiting for you, of course you’re right to refuse, but if it’s because of your clothes, you’re wrong. Firstly you’re quite decent. Then, now that Annetta is a literary girl, she likes bohemians. So come along, do!”

  But Alfonso resisted. He had already realized from what Macario had said that Annetta would treat him pleasantly, but he wanted to be begged to come. He had been unable to obtain any other satisfaction from the offence done to him and intended to obtain at least that.

  “You still remember Annetta’s coldness months ago.”

  But Alfonso protested and, like a child, asserted that he no longer remembered.

  Next evening they both met again in the library. Alfonso went there more willingly. He was amused by Macario’s conversation and flattered by his company.

  Macario’s wit always won over Alfonso’s knowledge, and Macario was convinced that he was doing the teaching. He was mistaken. If Alfonso learnt anything from him, it was by observing him as an object of study.

  He had understood now the quality of Macario’s wit. He noticed mistakes; he realized when Macario puffed up an idea to show it off more easily, and if he did sometimes show admiration it was because he admired the ease with which Macario made denials or assertions where superior minds would hesitate.

  Macario often fell into contradictions, but never on the same day. He was subject to moods. He would put on borrowed clothes and live in them as if they were his own, and he would never take them off. That was easy for him, thanks to his superficial culture, which was extensive enough for him to create the image of an easily civilized personality, and not deep enough to give him any firm convictions of the sort that are not renounced even in jest.

  That second evening he attacked the press. He said that those who wrote for the press always had to pretend and could never be sincere. In public the old was called new, the blameworthy praised and so on. All this was rather weak stuff so far, but then he got under way. What use was learning? Apart from those who dedicated themselves to original research on a certain subject, others were wrong to bother too much about it. They tired out their b
rains and drew no advantage, because someone who understands one part of something well has educated his brain just as much as another who has studied more parts. Thus printed paper damages the brain more than it advances it. That ‘thus’ did not follow quite directly, but Alfonso gave no sign of noticing this, and Macario was pleased at his own reasoning.

  “This is good!” exclaimed Macario one evening at the library, putting in front of Alfonso a little book he had just finished reading: Balzac’s Louis Lambert.

  Alfonso also read it in two or three days with no less admiration. Apart from a love-letter of such deep and sensual passion that it transcended love, he did not admire the book’s artistic merits as much as the original way a whole philosophic system was explained briefly but completely, with every part indicated, and all handed over by the author to his hero with a grandee’s generosity.

  Macario asked Alfonso how he had liked it, and Alfonso was about to give him his sincere opinion. But Macario quickly imposed his own ideas, as if fearing they would be stolen.

  “D’you know why it’s such a fine book? It’s the only one of Balzac’s that is really impersonal, and it became that by chance. Louis Lambert is mad, all those around him are mad, and this time the author, to conform, makes himself mad too. So it’s a little world presented intact, by itself, without the slightest influence from outside.” Alfonso was amazed by this criticism, as original as it was false. It must have been made according to a method which Alfonso avoided mentioning only because he feared being also put into that ‘little world presented intact’.

  His company must have pleased Macario, who often sought him out, even some evenings going to fetch him from the office.

  Alfonso soon guessed the reason for this sudden affection. He owed it to his docility and, he thought, also to his size. He was so small and insignificant that Macario felt fine beside him. The friendship pleased him none the less for this. Courtesies, however expensive, are pleasant. He did not esteem Macario the less. He found certain qualities in this young man who was so elegant, an unconscious artist, intelligent even when speaking of things he knew nothing about.

  Macario owned a little sailing-cutter and often invited Alfonso for morning trips in the bay. Alfonso’s life being so empty, those trips were a real joy. In the boat it was also easier for him to agree with Macario’s assertions, most of which he did not even hear. He was still trying hard to acquire the health necessary, he considered, for the life of hard work he intended to undertake, and sea air should help him find it.

  One morning a gusty wind was blowing, and, at the end of the mole where they were standing waiting for the boat to come and fetch them, Alfonso suggested to Macario putting off their sail that morning as it seemed dangerous. Macario began to jeer and would not hear of it.

  The cutter approached. Heeling under white sails swollen in the wind, it seemed about to turn over every instant but straightened up at the last second. Alfonso, on land, was seized by those nervous tremors which people get when they see others in danger of falling and, had it not been for his fear of Macario, would have happily let him leave alone.

  Ferdinando, a port-worker who had been a sailor, was in charge of the boat. He left his place at the helm to Macario, who sat down after taking off his jacket as if in preparation for great efforts.

  “Let her go now!” he called to Ferdinando.

  Ferdinando jumped on land and dragged the cutter by the bowsprit from one corner of the mole to the other; then he jumped back and with one foot on land and the other on the boat he gave it a push out to sea.

  Alfonso looked at him, frightened of seeing him fall into the water; the imminence of danger, small as it was, startled him.

  “How agile!” he said to Ferdinando.

  He felt himself to be in the man’s hands and had an unconscious desire to make friends. Ferdinando raised a head, youthful in spite of baldness and the grey in his beard, and thanked him. As this was not his real job, he very much wanted to seem good at it. But he misunderstood the purpose of Alfonso’s comment. He strained the sail towards himself and fixed it, putting all his weight into stretching it taut. Immediately the wind which seemed to blow up that very moment swelled it out and the boat heeled right over on the very side where Alfonso was sitting.

  He had intended making a great show of cool-headedness, but his intentions could not cope with his sudden terror. He was just able to avoid shouting out loud but leaped to his feet and flung himself on to the other side, hoping to straighten up the boat by his weight. Now that he felt further from the water he grew a little calmer and sat down, gripping the gunwale.

  Macario looked at him with a slight smile. He felt well and calm, and to emphasise the distance between himself and Alfonso more clearly he kept the cutter very close to the wind. Alfonso saw the smile and tried to look calm. He pointed out to Macario some white mountain tops on the horizon whose bases were not visible.

  As they passed the lighthouse, he was able to measure the speed with which they were cutting across the water—then started as the boat seemed about to crash against rocks.

  “Can you swim?” asked Macario, all serene. “If the worst comes to the worst we can swim back. But—” and he pretended to be very worried, “even if you feel you’re drowning, don’t seize me, because then we shall both be lost. Ferdinando and I will see to you. Won’t we, Nando?”

  The other gave a roar of laughter, and promised.

  Macario then began pensively discoursing on the effects of fear. Every ten words he raised and languidly waved an aristocratic hand, and all the hints in the hollowed hand Alfonso knew referred to him and to his fear.

  “More people die from fear than from courage. For example, if they fall into the water, those who seize whatever’s nearest to them are the ones who die” and he winked towards Alfonso’s hands nervously clutching the gunwale.

  They passed by green Sant’Andrea without Alfonso being able to master himself. He looked but did not enjoy.

  The town, when he saw it on the way back, had a gloomy look. He felt very unwell and tired out, as if he had come a long way some time ago and not had a good rest since. This must be seasickness, and he provoked Macario’s laughter by telling him so.

  “In this sea!”

  In fact the sea was lashed by an off-shore wind and had no waves. Wide patches were crinkly, others beaten by wind which seemed to have smoothed off the surface. In the dips there was a gay murmuring like that produced by innumerable washerwomen moving their washing about in running water.

  Alfonso was so pale that Macario took pity on him and ordered Ferdinando to shorten sail.

  They were inside the port but to reach the point of departure had to tack in front of it twice.

  Little calls of seagulls could be heard. To distract Alfonso, Macario wanted him to observe the flight of these birds, as calm and straight as if on a highroad, and their rapid falls like bits of lead. They looked lonely, each flying on its own account, with great white wings outstretched and a disproportionately small body covered with light feathers.

  “Made just for fishing and eating” philosophized Macario. “How little brain it takes to catch fish! Their bodies are small. Think what size their brain must be! Negligible! Those wings are the danger to fish, who end in a seagull’s beak because of them! What eyes and stomach, what an appetite, to satisfy which such a drop is nothing! But brain? What has brain to do with catching fish? You study, you spend hours at a desk nourishing your brain uselessly. Anyone who isn’t born with the necessary wings will never grow them afterwards. Anyone who can’t drop instinctively and at the right second like lead on prey will never learn, and there’ll be no point in his watching others who can, as he’ll never be able to imitate them. One dies in the precise state in which one is born, our hands mere organs made for catching instinctively or letting what one has fall through one’s fingers.”

  This speech impressed Alfonso. He felt miserable at having been seized with agitation about something so unimp
ortant.

  “And have I got wings?” he asked, sketching a smile.

  “Yes, to make poetic flights!” replied Macario, waving a hollowed hand, though the phrase contained no underlying hint requiring a gesture of that kind for it to be understood.

  IX

  ANNETTA HAD RETURNED to town about a month before her father, who had gone straight from the country to Rome on business. In that month a number of Maller’s telegrams passed through Alfonso’s hands, carelessly jotted, higgledy-piggledy. They were about business, and Alfonso was loth to take the trouble to read them. The last was shown to him by Starringer, the dispatch-clerk, through whose hands all correspondence passed and who had to read everything. Maller’s last telegram ended with the words: “Warn family of my arrival tomorrow, and arrange carriage to meet me at station.”

  Signor Maller must have been back twenty-four hours, and Alfonso had not yet seen him. He expected at any moment to meet him face to face and walked more timidly than usual along the passage.

  Miceni came to tell him that he had just come from Maller’s room where he had been to welcome him. Maller had greeted him with great courtesy and shaken his hand twice. Miceni was usually acidly democratic when speaking of his superiors, but that day, under the impression of those two handshakes, he was gentler; they seemed to have made him forget his quarrel with Sanneo. Not only did he praise Signor Maller for his courtesy but was pleased, as a loyal employee, at finding him so well.

  “D’you advise me to go and welcome him too?”

  “Nearly everyone has; do whatever you think best.”

  Alchieri had gone, but that was no precedent, for Sanneo had sent him to the manager’s office on business, and so he had welcomed Maller by chance. White could even less be used as an example for Alfonso because the managers’ offices were like his own, and he spent half his day in them.

  Ballina did not want to go. He was firm. “One doesn’t jeer at Jesus, but one does at his vicars. When Sanneo returned, I went to welcome him because I knew he liked that and was not clever enough to understand that I only did it as a diplomatic gesture. But Signor Maller already knows that he is master of us all, and I don’t allow myself any jokes with him.”