A Life

by Italo Svevo

  It was a long time before he could put his intention into action.

  He was introduced to Federico Maller. He had already seen him at other times and from a distance, in the street, and thought him a handsome and elegant young man. Fair, tall, slim, with a thin oval face and big, gentle, intensely blue eyes, his appearance was aristocratic and slightly effeminate. From close up, on the other hand, his eyes lost their gentleness because they were restless and set in dark, parchment-like skin; wrinkles seemed already forming on the youthful face, its feminine aspect now not unlike a virago’s. Thin hair was carefully arranged to seem thicker.

  Alfonso’s disillusion was increased by the brusque way Federico treated him. After being introduced Federico asked if he was happy working at his father’s and, expecting a eulogy of the Maller bank, was not too pleased at Alfonso’s stuttered reply. Alfonso, realizing he had already made a blunder, became speechless, and because of Federico that evening was very like his first evening at the Mallers.

  On his way out he met Annetta in the passage.

  “I’m very pleased with you,” she said, with a warm handshake. She wanted to reward him for his quiet bearing, which she thought must be due to her instructions. He tried to draw her to him, but she escaped with a cry of alarm and from a position of safety threatened him with a hand, saying: “You’re incorrigible!”

  He went off feeling upset at not having shown ease with Federico and strength of will with Annetta. She had her own reasons to be pleased with him, and those had prevented her noticing how awkward he had been that evening. As for the mistake with Federico he soothed himself by thinking it was not of much importance. Before meeting him he had often thought of those aristocratic features and imagined them intervening decisively in his favour. Now he realized that none of the Mallers would take a step towards him of their own accord; so he turned to considering Francesca’s plan more keenly.

  It was difficult to show more coldness than Annetta required of him during Federico’s stay in town. When they were alone, there was not time for Alfonso to screw himself up to a pretence of coldness, and a look or a sweet word immediately led him to advances which he would later regret.

  In compensation Alfonso had no reason to complain of Federico, who after that first evening treated him with aristocratic hauteur, but not brusquely. Shortly after his arrival Annetta asked Alfonso to make her brother think they had stopped work on the novel. It had been mentioned to Federico, and he had apparently shown no pleasure at their collaboration.

  One evening with a smile intended to be friendly he asked Alfonso: “And why isn’t that novel finished yet?”

  “It’s not my fault. One fine day Signorina Annetta took a dislike to the plot and dropped it all. Maybe she will start again one day.”

  Federico spoke against collaboration. A book could not be well-done by two, and even if it did turn out to be good, that would be a sign that each of the two collaborators could do better, separately.

  Alfonso did not feel up to sustaining a discussion.

  “It all depends on cases and temperaments, I think,” he said modestly.

  The two never became friendly. Alfonso felt particularly irritated by the way Federico never listened and only took an interest in what concerned his own small self or might show it in a better light. It occurred to him that even this aristocratic personage must be little used to society and its influence, to accepting its yoke, for the first result of constantly rubbing shoulders with equals, particularly if they are intelligent, is learning to put up with the boring ideas of others. This defect of Federico’s was alone enough to divide the two men, for Alfonso, due to his literary ambitions, expected to be listened to with attention at times. He suspected that Federico only behaved like that in his company, from contempt.

  Even after recognizing that there was no possibility of making friends with Federico, from time to time he made attempts, resulting only in disappointment. On the last evening spent by Alfonso with Annetta’s brother, in his joy at seeing him depart, he put himself out to be courteous and said sweetly as he shook hands: “Au revoir, Signor Federico!”

  Federico gave him a look of impertinent surprise, not at all flattered by any courtesy from one of his father’s clerks. Then he bowed politely back but only said, “Good night,” which was too little not to seem rude in reply to Alfonso’s friendly remark.

  Even after Federico’s departure Alfonso could not act as coldly towards Annetta as he intended. Left free again, alone with her, he felt so pleased at returning to their former relations that he was unable to renounce that happiness voluntarily. A warning hint by Francesca was not enough to fortify his resolution. She must have been much put out at seeing him unchanged, for one day when he could not guess the answer to a puzzle she said: “You’re less intelligent than I thought.”

  She smiled at him to soften her insolence; but her voice was trembling with anger or impatience, something violent, scarcely restrained, so that he realized her real meaning to be quite apart from the puzzle. A short time before she had surprised him very close to Annetta, scarlet in the face while Annetta’s was rosy and calm; at the time he remembered thinking that Francesca would object to his attitude. He blushed and felt ashamed.

  Francesca’s insistence on reminding him of her advice eventually made him fear her as if she had a right to reprove him. He avoided her, and from weakness, not on purpose, in front of her, did treat Annetta coldly as if to make Francesca believe he had finally taken her advice. But Francesca had considerable powers of observation, and the disdain did not leave her pale face.

  When, however, he did happen by chance to adopt her system, she was the first to notice, even before Annetta herself, and by her expression showed Alfonso her approval when he did not even know he deserved it.

  Alfonso, grinding his teeth with rage, had sworn revenge on Annetta for some offensive remark. One evening she had been colder to him than usual, concentrating only on Macario, who had been making some quite successful jokes, and she’d taken no notice of him at all, which was enough to arouse jealousy in his lover’s heart; he made some excuse to stay even after Macario left, though Annetta always insisted on his being very careful in front of Macario. As soon as he was alone with her, he tried to pull her to him, but she resisted firmly and said contemptuously: “All this constant kissing’s a bore.”

  It was a very offensive phrase. By it Annetta laid bare the ridiculous side of their relationship, which he had already felt, and was withdrawing from it, leaving all its weight on his shoulders. Thus he was faced with someone who could mock him, Annetta herself.

  It was then that he decided to follow Francesca’s advice, firstly for revenge. He wanted to cram those words down Annetta’s throat and show her that if there was anything ridiculous in their relationship, it was not his fault alone. Oh, he was convinced she needed him, needed their relationship, and in the very form she had wanted to deride. Obviously Francesca was of his opinion too. This gave him great confidence; without her approval, though convinced himself, he would never have had the confidence or resolution necessary to act.

  Then, once set on his line of action, he felt all right. His anger had soon vanished, but he kept up the bearing Francesca had dictated. Annetta, on noticing the effect produced by her words, had at once become sweet and was trying, he thought, to make him forget them. The first evening she had no surprises. He was as she had wanted him to be; and when he went off with a cold shake of her hand, she merely gave an ironical smile. She did not consider that the lesson she had given him would serve for long, and wanted him to think, or thought herself, that she was the first to hope she was wrong. He had been pleasant with some difficulty; it was not easy for him to recapture that tone of friendly courtesy with Annetta which he had long ago exchanged for one of passion, put on with an effort when it did not come spontaneously.

  Very soon he ran into greater difficulties. To pursue his act he needed to find some subject of conversation which would take him th
rough an evening in Annetta’s company without her feeling bored or his showing if—as he was resigned to being—he was bored himself. Till then he had relied on little snares laid for Annetta to fill up all the time; the nervous tension they produced excluded boredom. They had stopped work on the novel for a long time, and what they had told Federico only remained a lie because, on being alone together again, Annetta never omitted to lay out writing materials. Between them they always went on putting up a show of intending to continue the work.

  “Shall we get to work?” he asked Annetta.

  She approved, but as he wanted to begin writing at once she had to look for a pen. Their show of wanting to work needed paper and ink only, not pens. He flung himself with great zeal into the novel because he longed to distract himself by other ideas and not have to feign indifference. Once again they got a little done; further progress would have meant their re-reading the whole novel, some parts of which they had forgotten. It was so new for Alfonso to be alone with her, and close, without threatening to pounce, that Annetta mistook one of his movements for an attack, and having made to defend herself, blushed on finding it was a false alarm. He realized her embarrassment, and that time had to make a tremendous effort not to help her out of a humiliation which he felt as if it were his own. But he resisted, and all that evening Annetta remained embarrassed, less at ease than usual; Francesca, who sat down at her usual loom shortly afterwards, gave a slight smile of satisfaction meant to be seen by Alfonso.

  Instead of wasting time uselessly re-reading the novel, Alfonso suggested, and Annetta agreed, that they should correct it together, examine it word by word and then just bring it to a close. It was boring work, but less dangerous for the literary relationship between the two collaborators because neither had a very developed sense of language, and Alfonso, though he would have preferred it to be slightly more sober, easily adapted himself to Annetta’s taste; having already made other concessions to it he realized that a book with such a plot could only be dressed up in clothes of the same showy melodramatic taste.

  Annetta must have given a good deal of thought to Alfonso’s unusual bearing, for the next evening he found her calm and serene, still friendly, with a certain air of smiling superiority which rather suited her. Anyone seeing them together then would have said they had come to a tacit agreement to be good friends and nothing more, and even that Alfonso had become timid. Ah! Actually he was already in a torture of despair, regretting those evenings before the advice to be restrained. It was a bad sign that she bore him no grudge. He had not hoped to hear reproof, but nor had he thought that she could show such indifference so soon. The only thing that still made him doubt the sincerity of her coldness was the fact that she never gave him a word of praise for his finally behaving as she said she wished. Praise for his behaviour was due to him, and she showed a lack of her vaunted cold reasoning by not having given it. She never mentioned Alfonso’s new bearing but tried to show she had not noticed it; and it was this silence which induced Alfonso to persevere.

  One evening, a week later, she accompanied him as far as the living-room door and then hurriedly withdrew with a ceremonious little bow. He had behaved badly. Already cold and tired for lack of stimulus, he had not bothered to lavish on Annetta the many other attentions which he realized he should if he were not to alienate her completely. He had omitted to show himself in love. His part, as he had said from the very beginning—and it had only been from inertia that he had not made better use of it—his part should always be that of a sensible lover contented with a look or a handshake, yes always obviously in love.

  He felt very troubled until he saw her again. He feared her giving him, in some form or other, as a result of his daring, the dismissal of which he had once been afraid. Not having had it then for that reason he might possibly be given it now for this. He felt himself to be in a bad state, and in his mind blamed Francesca and her advice. He thought of going to Annetta and asking her forgiveness by telling her why he had assumed that bearing. He did not feel to blame for it and would convince her that he was not; he might even make her sweeter and more yielding by telling her that he had merely imitated the restraint of their own hero. It was an easy excuse and a way of gathering fruit from the coldness forced on himself for those last few days.

  He understood from Annetta’s reserved but friendly manner that the danger he feared was more distant than he thought, and her reserve made him pursue in spite of himself, from timidity, the attitude he had decided to drop. He spent a very pleasant evening. As always he only had to shed his uncertainty or fear for the sight of Annetta to be an immense happiness. The happiness of the evening staved off his agitation, always ready as he was to fling his arms round Annetta’s neck and return to that slavish position which had so many joys to offer. It took no effort to remember that Annetta always needed courting. He loved her, at least for that evening, as he had not loved her since the day when he had dared to kiss her for the first time on the lips. Such trepidations increase desire. He spoke better than usual and hazarded allusions to his love as if he had not already made his declaration at other times. He found he had leapt back again into a freshness of impression as to something entirely new, and Annetta listened and smiled. Never had she seemed so yielding. At other times she had let herself be embraced while now she accorded only words and looks, but before, when conceding these, she had always seemed to regret her own incapacity to resist, while now she gave promptly what was asked and more.

  Of course he was at once reconciled to Francesca’s advice and regained the energy he had after Annetta had taken offence. Holding an internal monologue, as always when agitated, he told himself happily that in his able hands Annetta was becoming soft wax which he could mould as he liked. At the thought he moved his fingers as if he had the wax in his hands.

  Annetta still had her air of superiority and that frankness of speech which at times sounded imperious. Actually this superiority no longer existed, and the difference in her bearing now showed visibly in front of people; he was always the one to whom she paid the most notice. Even in such discussions as they still had on the novel he was always victorious, though he cared little about it.

  He did not know whether from these changes he could nourish any great hopes of bringing their relationship back to the point it had reached before—this time with Annetta’s explicit consent. From one day to another he put off that step which he would have to take sooner or later and which would definitely yield immediate results—but a week later he was no longer thinking of taking it because he felt all right as he was. He had hoped to speak words of love, but to ask for them would have been silly and equivalent to a retreat.

  They spent whole hours side by side, never talking of love, yet both their voices and their ways were as sweet as if they had been. She would even interrupt sentences she had begun, because she cared little about finishing them, and he had little curiosity to hear them now that he realized she really had nothing to say to him. Eventually she found herself in the state of mind in which he had been so often himself. She loved or at least desired him.

  Often, very often since intervening as adviser, Francesca was present at their meetings, and this was the main reason for the two lovers remaining at an impasse.

  In his happiness he wanted to show his gratitude to her, to whom he thought this happiness was due. He forgot the way in which the advice had been given, and with the frankness of one carrying out a dutiful action, he said to Francesca as he shook her hand: “Thank you, thank you.”

  “What for?” asked Francesca disdainfully. Then when he withdrew in alarm, thinking that Francesca was annoyed because she took those thanks as an accusation of a complicity which she had not wanted to admit, she burst out: “If you will twitter away like sparrows, it’s not my fault!”

  Once again she was discontented with him and thought he had not understood her advice properly. This annoyed him because he did not feel like laying any traps for Annetta for the moment. He said to
himself that Francesca was mistaken in thinking that he would dare anything new to please her when he felt so content as he was. In a matter of such importance he wanted to hold his own opinion.

  His own opinion? Later on he would not dare assert that things took the turn they did by his own wish.

  The fact is that his coldness, calculated to provoke Annetta, had rebounded on himself. His senses had been agitated by promises never kept but repeated at each of their meetings. Before, in his attempts to steal a caress or a kiss, his mind had been kept in constant activity towards achieving this aim, and once this aim was reached, his senses were soothed to a satisfaction that, though relative, was what they had sought. Now on the other hand he lacked both activity and satisfaction, and in his inertia he analysed his own desires and made them more acute. These, of course, had become stronger for other reasons too. He believed now that Annetta felt the same desires as himself, and when he thought that only will and daring was needed for their two desires to meet, the idea of such happiness being so near made his head spin. His dreams were taking on more and more reality. He knew or thought he knew Annetta’s look or the sound of her voice when moved by love for him. One evening he tried to pull her to him with a rough gesture. She escaped from his embrace with a cry of alarm. Why her sudden alarm? Did she know what he wanted before he did himself?