A Life

by Italo Svevo

  “Well, I can’t marry her!” said Gralli very calmly. “But I’ve no idea of leaving her; I’ll help her as long as I can. The family are bound to give way and let her come and live with me. My boss has a woman like that; he doesn’t want to tie himself up for life either. Marriage is too serious a matter. So why do it?”

  The wine must have gone to his head too, although the effect was not as obvious as in Gustavo.

  “But you seduced her, didn’t you?” observed Alfonso, very timidly.

  “Seduced her! Never! I’m not that kind! They kept on leaving us alone together! I’d never thought of anything else and she thought of it the whole time.”

  “But why don’t you want to marry her?” asked Alfonso, already despairing of being able to conquer such logic and hoping to bring the matter on to another plane.

  “For lack of this!” replied Gralli, raising his right hand and rubbing his thumb and forefinger as if counting money.

  “You can’t lack it altogether!” replied Alfonso. It occurred to him that by sacrificing a small sum of money for Lucia’s happiness he would show Signora Lanucci that he was not wholly indifferent to Lucia’s fate.

  At his first offer of a thousand lire, Gralli looked at him in surprise, but refused.

  “I can’t see what it’s to do with you!”

  Alfonso flushed scarlet because he realized what Gralli’s first suspicion must be, and explained that he had been a close friend of the family for years and wanted to do his best to save it from disaster. So, though dealing with an inferior, he became embarrassed and found no other way out of this embarrassment than to double and triple his offer, as if not wanting to leave Gralli time to reflect.

  Gralli soon changed his tune, hesitated, was about to give way. Alfonso noticed it. Then Gralli refused again.

  “I’m not marrying her, I can’t marry her. I’ve a mother to think of and can’t take on such an expense.”

  With repugnance Alfonso went back to reasoning. He had not yet understood the real reason for Gralli’s hesitation and thought he could convince him in the end. He said that it would take very little extra to keep Lucia, because food for two was nearly the same as for three and the dowry he was offering would cover most of their expenses.

  But this was a working-man who knew his sums. As Alfonso had said that the expense of keeping Lucia was insignificant Gralli now demonstrated that the interest from the sum offered was not enough to cover more than a fifth of this expense.

  “So you want to live on interest now, do you?” exclaimed Alfonso indignantly.

  Gralli was making an act of reparation dependent on selfish calculation, and that stirred him.

  “No, I’m not thinking of myself, but of whoever wants to live on me,” replied Gralli brutally. He stopped the argument. “If Lucia had a dowry of seven thousand lire I’d marry her.”

  Alfonso tried to reduce this demand, having already decided to give way if the other resisted, and Gralli was immovable.

  “You’ll get your seven thousand lire,” said Alfonso, getting to his feet.

  Gralli went as far as the Lanuccis’ door with him.

  “Your word’s enough, just your word before a notary.” Having so ably looked after his own interests he now wanted to cut a good figure as well. He said that Alfonso’s money would be far from enough for Lucia’s needs, but he was also thinking both of his affection for her and of his feelings as a father, aroused, so he assured Alfonso, the moment he knew he was to become a father.

  “Yes,” he added seriously. “I’m convinced it’s much better for the child to be born legitimate.”

  These amiable remarks from Gralli were so incompatible with his bearing till then that Alfonso thought the other was quoting verbatim from someone else. But he was pleased that Gralli was making an effort to seem disinterestedly in love, since this took away his worry about Gralli suspecting an impure motive for his own interest in the Lanuccis.

  Gralli seemed to guess what his benefactor was expecting of him. He said, looking moved:

  “You love Lucia’s parents as if you were their own son.”

  He could not have expressed himself more delicately. They agreed that next day Gralli would go to old Lanucci and ask for his daughter’s hand.

  Signora Lanucci ran to meet him on the stairs.

  “So everythings settled, is it?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Gustavo! He was in such a state, though, that I doubted if he was telling the truth! Dear son, I wronged him!”

  She blew kisses in the air and leaped up the stairs like a little girl. She left him alone without saying good night, and while on his way to bed Alfonso heard her waking her husband to give him the good news. Then he heard her again in Lucia’s room and the sound of celebratory kisses. The girl was sobbing from joy.

  Finally everyone in the house was asleep except himself. He had done well not to throw his charity into Signora Lanucci’s face, for it would have lessened her joy. She would know it sooner or later. He did not want to be an anonymous benefactor nor seem to be seeking gratitude either. He went to sleep, happy at that expected gratitude. It was some days before he realized what a great sacrifice he had made and how much he had worsened his situation by that huge decrease of his capital.

  The next day, after wandering a long time round the streets, he reached home very late and missed Gralli, who must have been there some hours. He did not learn what had been talked of because no one bothered to tell him, but it was obvious from their attitude that they had no idea it was he who had saved Lucia.

  Soon after his arrival the girl left the house, giving him only a restrained bow. Signora Lanucci said it had all been a misunderstanding, their ideas about Lucia. This remark which excluded him from their confidence was said coldly on purpose because Signora Lanucci was clever enough to realize he would not believe her; its only purpose must therefore be to hurt him. When alone with Gustavo he found to his great surprise that the brother also believed Lucia’s salvation to be due to his own action. He boasted of it.

  “A reasonable word at the right time, eh!”

  Alfonso left him with that opinion for the moment.

  Not even the next day did anyone breathe a word about Alfonso’s generosity, and he felt no need to mention it. He did not want to admit it, but he was being silent because he enjoyed increasing his own generosity; every curt word from the Lanuccis gave him a little stab of satisfaction because on realizing how unjustly they had treated him their gratitude would be all the greater. He felt like laughing when Lucia, who hated him because she had offered him her love twice, turned her back on him to show her contempt, which was, however, no greater than old Signora Lanucci’s now that she had given up all hope of his marrying Lucia. He smiled as he confessed to himself that he liked the idea of their gratitude so much that he was even acting a part in order to increase it. His actions, he still kept on finding, contradicted his theories. That intense desire to be thanked and admired was quite unlike genuine renunciation. He was still vain.

  The next day at supper old Lanucci waited gravely for Alfonso to be seated; then he told them dryly that for reasons which he had been told but had forgotten, Gralli would not be coming that day. After which he turned to Alfonso and went on:

  “I did not know he had been promised seven thousand lire of dowry. He asked me about it, and I said I knew nothing. Is it true you want to give him that?”

  “Yes,” replied Alfonso. “It’s no use to me.”

  There was a chorus of thanks, not all equally lively. Signora Lanucci could not have enjoyed passing suddenly from hatred to gratitude. She held her hand out to Alfonso and, trying to make up in the firm brevity of her thanks what they lacked in intensity, said:

  “My thanks to you!” She smiled at her daughter whose eyes were full of tears and said to her: “Why are you crying? Silly girl! At least it means you’ll have some money!”

  Lucia thanked him amid sobs. The thought of Gralli returning to h
er from love alone had flattered her, and the pain of learning the contrary was greater than her gratitude. She cried and cried then withdrew to her room, after saying good night to Alfonso with thanks which sounded fervent because of repetition.

  “What I don’t understand,” said Alfonso, talking to avoid the embarrassment he found those thanks gave him: “What I don’t understand is the connection all this has with Gralli’s absence.”

  Lanucci said that he thought Gralli had said something to excuse himself but he could not remember what.

  That evening, as he left the office, Alfonso easily guessed the excuse Gralli had given Lanucci and been silent about. On the Corso he was stopped by Gralli, who must have been waiting for him on purpose but did not want to seem so. He was very friendly, but obviously his thoughts were elsewhere, and he was looking for a way of saying something difficult.

  “How are you?”

  Apart from what was so close to Gralli’s heart they had nothing to talk about. After giving the question a dry answer and waiting unsuccessfully for the other to begin explaining why he was waiting for him, Alfonso, impatient and irritated at having to walk the Corso in his company, asked what he wanted; Gralli had no chance to prepare his little speech as he’d have liked: he asked him to follow him out of the crowds, and they went towards a fountain. The sirocco had made the weather milder, and warm air had brought many people out of doors.

  “I spoke to old Lanucci today, and he told me he knew nothing about the promised dowry …” he was talking slowly to give the other time to get used to his distrust, but in those few words he had already expressed everything.

  “Why should old Lanucci know about it? I’ve promised it and that’s enough!” cried Alfonso, quite capable in his fury of letting Gralli believe he had wanted the Lanuccis to know nothing of his gift.

  “I never had any doubts!” cried Gralli.

  That must be true because Alfonso knew that Gralli had acted on the promise alone. He told Alfonso in a tone of sincerity that his mother had insisted he must not marry unless he had the dowry in hand first.

  Alfonso began laughing contemptuously, pretending not to believe what he had already realized was true.

  “So you think me a liar, do you? Well, I utterly refuse to hand you the money because I distrust you with better reason than you could have to distrust me.”

  Gralli looked desperate.

  “If that’s how things are, what shall we do? Mother sticks to what she says and declares she won’t hear of it before seeng the money! She won’t even accept your promise before a notary.”

  This, which seemed an insurmountable obstacle to Gralli, could have been used by Alfonso as an excuse to get out of his pledge. He had no wish to do so, and as he suggested a possible arrangement he felt his chest swell at his own generosity. He proposed that they should go before a notary together the next day and deposit the money with a declaration that it was to be handed over to Gralli only on the actual day of his marriage to Lucia.

  Gralli gratefully accepted this suggestion, which he approved, and he thought his mother would approve too. Urged by Alfonso, who warned him that they were worried about his absence, he went straight to the Lanuccis. Alfonso recommended him to say nothing of what had happened because it would not help him with Lucia. Now that he knew there was no danger of the beneficiaries remaining in ignorance of his sacrifice he felt he could act as if he had wanted to hide it.

  Gralli the egotist, as Alfonso called him, was more frank than he was himself.

  “I don’t care what Lucia thinks,” he said simply, “the others, if they’re not stupid, must realize I could do nothing else. Without this dowry I just couldn’t marry her.” Anyway, he was going to the Lanuccis with no fears, because the moment they saw him enter, their faces would clear, whatever they had against him.

  “They’re so fond of me,” he said slyly.

  But, they could not have been very pleasant to him that evening, for when Alfonso arrived, he found Gralli already gone and the whole family in bed, a sign of great ill-humour. Alfonso felt a pang of disappointment that not even on the very day when the Lanuccis heard of his generosity had they felt grateful enough to wait up for him.

  Lucia did, but in her own room, so she did not realize he was home. Just as he was leaving the living-room on his way to bed the girl appeared at her door.

  “May I?” she asked with a shyness unusual for her, and with a hint of a smile. “I’ve come to thank you. Mother knows I’ve come; I must thank you in her name too in fact.”

  She broke off and burst into tears. They seemed the continuation of tears suppressed a short while ago, for they came pouring out.

  Touched and embarrassed, he asked her to calm herself. He felt an unpleasant sensation, almost a remorse at suffocating this poor family under a weight of gratitude. He told her that he had done nothing but his duty. She went on sobbing, holding the handkerchief to her mouth and standing on the threshold without leaning against the door.

  “There’s nothing to thank me for or cry about. You’ll be happy now, that’s all.”

  At this Lucia at once began talking.

  “Happy? Never!” Then, interrupted from time to time by tears, she told how that same evening she had asked Gralli to renounce the dowry, and he had refused. “Now I don’t love him any more,” and she began crying again. She was a child really, and Alfonso felt more revolted than ever at the thought of Gralli’s betrayal. “I’ve never really loved him. They told me I had to marry him, and I realized it too, but I’d never imagined he’d be so horrid.”

  Alfonso tried to convince her that Gralli was better than she thought and that he wanted the money only so as to enjoy it with her. He could find no other arguments. And he realized he was making no real effort to turn away a new and gentle affection for himself born in the girl’s heart and see it went to Gralli.

  She tried to kiss his hand, and he did not let her, but drew her to him and kissed her on the forehead, while the girl trembled in his arms. Slowly, with dignity, talking to her and telling her not to cry he led her back into the living-room and finally to the door of her room.

  Thinking over his own behaviour with Gralli, whose admiration he had not hesitated to arouse, and with Lucia, whose gratitude he had managed to increase, Alfonso repeated to himself the question:

  “Is this how a philosopher should behave?”

  Once again he had to smile at himself for being so pleased at old Lanucci’s gratitude. The latter would bow before him as to a superior being, listen with reverent attention whenever he spoke.

  “Never have I seen such a thing in all my life!” he exclaimed when he was present at the handing over of the money to the notary.

  “You’re very kind!” Gustavo said to him. “How much money have you got left now?”

  On hearing Alfonso’s reply he refused to believe it was true. And Alfonso was weak enough to spend a long time persuading him.

  XX

  THE YEARLY balance sheet had been made up for a fortnight, and still no one at the bank knew anything about the bonuses annually distributed among employees on that occasion.

  “D’you think they mean to abolish them?” asked Ballina, worried. The sum he hoped for was already earmarked to pay debts and, as he said, it would mean bankruptcy for him if nothing was forthcoming. His remarks now became more biting than ever. “If it’s his fault, that old redskin ought to be strung up.” ‘Old redskin’ meant Maller.

  Alchieri acted the buffoon, though also worried at the long delay in getting money on which he was relying; he jeered at Ballina and urged him on. He arranged with Santo to call each clerk except Ballina one by one and make them all pretend that they had received a hundred or two or three hundred francs a head. Ballina went wild, saying he was going to complain to Maller, and listing his services to the bank, the hours in which he had worked overtime. To Alfonso, who had agreed to pretend he had received three hundred francs, he said: “Of course you’re favoured, we all know th
at, you go to Signorina Maller and give her lessons! It’s a scandal, this bank is!”

  Hurriedly Alfonso revealed the joke, red in the face and thoroughly regretting he had provoked Ballina.

  One Sunday Santo came to call Bravicci in Maller’s name. Bravicci warned Ballina before going, but the latter went on calmly writing.

  “My dear fellow, you can pull my leg once but not twice!” When Bravicci returned and showed him two notes of a hundred francs each, Ballina had doubts, and when he too was called he went off to Maller with a spring in his step. “If you’re deceiving me, it’ll be all the worst for you.” He was almost content when he came out. “It’s enough, I can’t complain. I’m fated never to be quite free of debt.”

  Starringer and Alchieri were the most pleased; both received more than they had hoped.

  Miceni came in for mutual congratulations and to tell what his luck was. He was not discontented; he had been praised but told that not so much responsibility was expected of him as he was in the counting house, and so he was not to expect a lot from his superiors.

  “I’m still looking out for another job, and one of these days I hope to cut and run.”

  The only one not yet called was Alfonso; Santo, who was acting as messenger that day, eventually came up to him instead of shouting his name out and whispered a few words which Alfonso did not quite catch but supposed to be the call to see Maller.

  From the moment when Bravicci was called Alfonso had been in a great state of agitation. Now after all this time he was about to speak to Maller again; he was disturbed by the idea that Maller might have to exercise self-control to treat him in calm office tones. Alfonso had now persuaded himself that he could hope for an increase of pay and a big bonus; a few days before he had actually been in fear of overpayment as a possible bribe for silence. Now he needed money he would try and enjoy what was given him, remembering that he had done work enough to deserve any bonus.

  Already discontented, he was about to enter Maller’s room when Santo stopped him with an ironic smile.