by Italo Svevo
That evening Annetta must have found Alfonso more agreeable than usual. After speaking of the many reasons which had prevented him working at the novel, he had gone on to tell her that he longed to dedicate himself to it, and then to assert that his favourite occupation was meditating about that delightful work. For the first time his flattery was not forced, for it was a moment when he would have turned forger to ensure Annetta’s friendship. He described his job at the bank, and, not daring to complain to Signor Maller’s daughter of banking work in general, he lamented that he was still not entrusted with the more intelligent and responsible work which he considered his due.
“Would you like me to talk to Papa?” asked Annetta, much touched. “Of course you have a right to more difficult work.”
He had not foreseen this offer, which somewhat put him out. He protested that he did not want to take advantage of Annetta’s friendship to obtain protection. Anyway, influence was not enough to break through the bank’s hierarchy—while the suggestion of it partly destroyed his illusions about these evenings with Annetta. She wanted to know what these illusions were.
“When I’m here,” replied Alfonso, “I just want to remember that I’m your friend, and a writer. For the moment I’m nothing else.”
Annetta thanked him.
“So you do like coming here, do you?”
She had switched to a much lighter tone, which Alfonso did not notice at once, so busy was he assuring her that he always enjoyed coming to her home.
Annetta had produced that phrase in good faith, thinking it very polite, but it produced many hours of agitation in Alfonso. Yes, polite it certainly was, but had she so soon forgotten seeing him cry that she could only produce that conventional phrase? It took him a long time to understand why the phrase seemed so offensive. Meanwhile he felt very discontented with himself, as if remorseful for some bad or silly action. He had wept before her, and she had thought it her duty to say a kind word! There was such a difference between the importance of the two facts that he was ashamed of having shed those tears. A woman with any gleam of affection for him would have wept with him.
It was a fine evening with air cold but serene and with a clear sky with few stars. He stood in the street for a long time, feeling he could not achieve calm inside a room. For the second time he felt an urge to break off his relations with Annetta, again because of unease at the coldness and indifference showing through her great appearance of friendship. These painful surprises jolted him from his inert living-by-habit rather than by aim or idea; then he analysed that aim, surprised at not having lived more in conformity with it nor seen it under another light, at being as far from reaching it as he had seemed near before.
Was his passion the kind that needed many a pang before being satisfied? Now, more even than at the start of his relations with Annetta, he had a clear feeling that his love for her was increased by the riches surrounding her, embellishing a pretty face as a setting does a diamond. He remembered that before realizing Annetta’s grace and charm, he had been excited by knowing that she was Maller’s daughter, and from that agitation and emotion had come the feeling he called love.
But what was the point of all this analysis? He had noticed a difference between his way of feeling and that of the people around him, and he thought this consisted in the fact that he took life too seriously. That was his misfortune! Was it worth racking his brains to find a way out of a tangle which should work out naturally by itself? If Annetta loved him, he certainly had a lot to gain; his life would be quite changed; yes, if she loved him, he had nothing to lose.
He wanted to be calm, but such were not thoughts to free him from either doubts or agitation. The indecisive situations to which he was prone tended to save him from analysing his own instincts. Knowing himself made him suffer.
The next day, on the Corso, he happened upon Macario going down to the sea. They had not seen each other for some weeks, for which Macario was kind enough to blame Alfonso.
“Are you so busy with the novel,” he asked, “that you’re not to be seen about any more?”
It was the first time Macario had even mentioned the novel to him, and his friendly jesting tone gave Alfonso a pleasant surprise. He was again the good friend who enjoyed instructing, and Alfonso on his side did his best to put on once more his former submissive attitude; but in vain. He was no longer able to hold back spontaneous comments completing or rectifying Macario’s ideas. Macario invited him for a sail, and Alfonso had to refuse because it was nearly time for him to be at the office. They walked some way along the mole together.
Macario greeted a lady who, though ponderous and hardly in her first youth, was still attractive.
“There’s a woman,” he said, “whose lover one can easily become, they say, and quite fun it would be too.” From this observation he went on to discourse about seduction in general. “To get a woman who wants to give herself may not seem difficult, but it can tax even an astute man’s resources. One must know when to move, because even a woman who wants it doesn’t want it all the time, and once one does know when, then one should pounce immediately, which is anything but easy, as that decision requires stronger nerves than a general does directing a battle. Even if the attack’s expected and bound to be victorious, it gets no easier. With women who are indecisive and need to have one conviction given them and another taken away, it’s so difficult that I’ve never gone in for them, in spite of my considerable experience. I’m convinced though that there too it’s more a question of action than of talk. Talk beforehand, a long time beforehand, but no speeches take a woman to the point of no return. With women one must act. A kiss for example, a kiss on a hand, a face, a neck, even a foot, whatever’s nearest. Good talkers never have luck with women.”
This speech seemed made specially for Alfonso, but on his way to the office he laughed. He imagined taking Macario’s advice seriously and acting with Annetta. He saw her white hand raised threateningly to slap. Perhaps Macario had hoped Alfonso would follow his advice! Alfonso suspected him capable of anything. All the better! The kind of trap that Macario had set became a warning.
Very soon he had occasion to think over Macario’s advice again. One evening Francesca left them alone. Annetta was writing calmly in her fine minute handwriting with its decisive strokes; her left arm was stretched out on the desk, against which her bosom was leaning; her hand was directly under Alfonso’s mouth. It was impossible not to think of the action advised by Macario, and Alfonso quivered as he realized that the skin on the end of his chin had already touched that hand and that it was not withdrawn even so. He remembered Macario declaring that a man became ridiculous in a woman’s eyes by risking less than she desired. The decision was not consciously taken before, with an almost involuntary movement, his lips were on that hand. He felt the contact of velvety skin and remembered it after; for the moment, he tried to put on the indifferent air of a child who hopes its own naughtiness will be blamed on others. The lightning he feared did not come! He saw Annetta’s face change colour and the pen pause on the paper. Perhaps she was undecided what attitude to take. Then the hand was withdrawn, slowly, with a natural movement as if she needed it to lean her head on. The silence lasted almost a minute, a century for Alfonso. Finally she spoke, and not of the kiss; she spoke with careless ease, looking at him more than once in a smiling friendly manner.
He was saved! More than saved, happy! The declaration was made! At least she would now realize herself to be no longer with a clerk or a writer. From now on he could hope that she would in some way guess when he suffered from a cold word or from jealousy. He tried to be modest, to consider Annetta’s silence due only to gentle forbearance, but it had already made him happy. He had made a gigantic step at the very start. That evening he had no doubts. He loved Annetta and wanted her for himself. That was his easy way to riches, but of that he did not think at all at the time. A smile from Annetta was happiness! Action had been demanded of him, and his action had been bold but not b
rutal; gentler, more respectful than any word.
For a number of evenings Francesca was present at their meetings, which did not displease Alfonso. Now he spoke with his eyes; the language of the eyes is like that of music; it makes nothing definite when no word has been said, but when it has, says more and says it better than do words themselves. His looks were not bold; he did not try to make out her curves by an indiscreet gaze amid her soft clothes, or by squeezing her hand or stroking it to get a thrill from the contact. That declaration, that outburst of solitary desire had fortified his love, made him breathe pure air. He had been unable, though, to produce any addition to that kiss in actual words.
One evening, when they were in the library, Francesca tiptoed off in the very middle of the sitting so as not to disturb them. Her absence lasted a quarter of an hour, and when she returned, she found them just where she had left them. Alfonso had quivered on her departure, thinking, still according to Macario, that he must now say something. He brooded over a few little phrases, but Annetta prevented him from saying them by speaking quite calmly about the novel. Apparently she expected nothing, and it was better not to do anything which she did not foresee. So he was silent; his position was already excellent, and for the moment he wanted nothing more. He did not speak of love, but everything he said to Annetta was coloured by his feelings. He did nothing but make declarations of love! When he spoke to Annetta, in a very different way than did Macario, he hinted at it in every word and smile or tone. When saying the simplest things he felt his voice infused with a sweetness of which he had not thought himself capable, its tone so clear and bold that it seemed possessive, making him quiver all over with the excitement of a realized dream.
He ran into Macario again, who with suspicious insistence talked to him once more about ways of getting a woman. Alfonso listened indifferently to the crudities suggested, because he now had a better idea what to do in his own case. He was quite content at a pause in his relations with Annetta and did not want it to stop before he knew what the next stage would be. Also he suffered less when away from her. Waiting for the evening was a bore, but he did not daydream so much, because a smile from Annetta had dissipated fantasies which she herself had created.
Alfonso deduced that, even if she did not love him, she must be flattered by his love and respect. He exaggerated his shyness because that explained the strange situation and made it possible to prolong it.
Amid this love-making, literary work languished, which flattered Alfonso because it seemed to have become secondary for Annetta too. One evening Alfonso happened to bring some of his work on the book, and Annetta forgot to ask if she could read it. As the book proceeded, however, every single thing was done according to Annetta’s suggestions, and every day Alfonso felt the plot becoming emptier and the novel sillier. He thought that as confidence between them increased, a day would come when he could tell her his opinion, but for the moment he did not even dare express the slightest doubt. He did not want to expose himself to the danger of seeing any dimming of the gleam in Annetta’s eyes when she looked at him. For him that novel was of very slight importance, and he could not bear to hear even a brusque word from his loved one because of it.
He was torn from this idyll not by any wish of his own or of Annetta’s—it had been created unknowingly by Macario and was now destroyed by Miceni and Fumigi.
Miceni made it most obvious that he envied Alfonso his familiarity in the Maller home. Of course he had not said so, and as usual Alfonso refused to admit it even when Miceni with his bizarre character made it clear. Miceni’s darts did not wound him even when the poor man began to speak of his love for Annetta and to pretend that it would have been reciprocated had he been more insistent. From some words of Macario’s Alfonso knew what to think of this. One day Miceni, as if feeling more intimate with Alfonso, told him why he had stopped paying court to Annetta: out of regard for Fumigi, whom he knew to be in love with her. Fumigi was an old friend of Miceni’s who had got him his job at Mallers—he had a right to consideration in return.
This assertion left Alfonso less cold than the other. He too had noticed that Fumigi was in love with Annetta, and it was a love which, it had to be recognized, might quite probably achieve its aim. By the cold light of reason he realized that Fumigi was not too old and was a suitable match for Annetta.
Noticing that it disturbed Alfonso to hear Fumigi spoken of, Miceni often did so, exorcizing his own jealousy at the expense of Alfonso.
It is more difficult to seem indifferent when one is not than impassioned when one is indifferent. Miceni usually began by speaking to him about business, a pretext to go to his room. When forced to name Annetta, Alfonso sifted every word before saying it, and with a carelessness which he felt to be obviously excessive and affected spoke of her as if he had seen her very few times in his life. He said she was beautiful and topped his show of indifference by mentioning that he desired her as any man does any pretty woman. But when they spoke of Fumigi, he could not get out a word that sounded indifferent. He was not bothered if Miceni thought that Annetta loved him, but it hurt him deeply that any man could think her lover to be anyone but himself. He said with visibly forced calm that he knew Fumigi and did not think he could be in love with Annetta. Then Miceni lost his calm too.
“Why d’you think I’d come and tell you, if it’s not true? Ask around. Everyone in town knows it apart from you.”
He was as heated in affirming as was Alfonso in denying it; but when Alfonso noticed himself to be straying too far from his role of indifference, he cut short the discussion, declaring that either could be true and he really did not care. He spoke energetically, but too volubly, and the look on his face and sound of his voice were anything but indifferent.
Pleased as if bringing good news, Miceni told him that Fumigi and Annetta were engaged. Alfonso began laughing, calmly and this time sincerely.
“I was at the Mallers yesterday and would have been told if it had been true.”
“It’s not official yet; but probably as we’re talking Fumigi is at Annetta’s home for the first time as a future husband.”
Miceni’s voice had gone shrill, as if offended by Alfonso’s tranquillity.
Alfonso did not deign to discuss the matter. The evening before Annetta had treated him even better than usual. She had told him about her childhood, her life in a college where she had been sent after her mother’s death. These were confidences, and, surprised and pleased, Alfonso saw another improvement of his position. For some time he had been admiring his own ability, and that evening, coming out of the Maller home, he murmured:
“That’s the real art. Effortless advance.”
He was not supposed to go to Annetta’s that evening, but agitated by Miceni’s words he walked for a long time up and down Via dei Forni. The house looked just as usual, its long row of uninhabited rooms with windows hermetically closed and all blinds drawn; only the window of the living-room was half-open.
Coming out of Via dei Forni towards the sea he ran into Fumigi. Having thought of him so much, Alfonso felt embarrassed at suddenly setting eyes on him, and the other seemed no less confused.
“Are you … leaving?” asked Fumigi, stuttering and making a sign towards the Mallers’ house, from which direction Alfonso was coming.
“No!”said Alfonso rather sharply. Fumigi might have been accusing him of some crime. “I’ve been out taking exercise for nearly an hour. If you’d like to keep me company …”
Fumigi, usually such a dandy, looked rather disordered; his tie was not in place, the collar of his black overcoat, which was brand new, was turned up.
“Shall we go to the new port?” he asked. He looked at the clock again and after a slight hesitation began to walk along beside Alfonso.
They were silent as they moved along under the pale rays of the setting sun. From the station square they turned towards the sea and stopped on the first mole, recently finished with white irregular paving stones.
“Spl
endid!” said Alfonso, glad to be able to talk and looking at the sun. Half its incandescent ball was still showing out of the sea. The calm white light that illuminated the houses on the shore did not seem to come from that red object. It made pink reflections on the horizon and reddened half a little white cloud, motionless over the city where dark was already falling in the inner streets.
Neither of the two really had eyes for the magnificent spectacle. Alfonso was observing Fumigi, who was so absorbed in his thoughts that he did not even bother to hide his preoccupation. He looked again at his watch and murmured a few words which Alfonso did not understand; then he thrust his hands into his pockets, trembling with impatience and looking at the water at his feet. He had even forgotten he was in company.
“Are you in a hurry?” Alfonso asked him.
“No!” replied Fumigi. “I’ve got to be at an appointment at half-past seven.”
So what Miceni had said was true, Alfonso thought, and the appointment which Fumigi was so keen to be on time for was with Maller. Fumigi was awaiting a decision and Alfonso still felt so sure of himself that he pitied this feverish impatience of a poor man whom he knew was about to suffer.
Fumigi’s bearing was so abnormal that pretending not to know its cause made pretending not to notice it impossible.
