A Life

  They went through the front part of the café, a fine room with rather gaudy curtains in bright colours not yet faded by time, then through a little door hidden by a green curtain, entered another oblong room for billiards and cards.

  No one was there except Fumigi, sitting by a window and reading a newspaper so attentively that he did not notice the new arrivals. Only when Prarchi touched his shoulder did he turn slowly and look over first Prarchi and then Alfonso for a long while, with a smile that seemed doltish only because it was constant and without cause, while Fumigi’s usual smile was rather insipid and fixed. His face was thinner, more haggard, but his body, sitting, seemed not to have lost any of its straightness. He was chewing, and Alfonso thought that he had something in his mouth; he seemed at first sight to want to talk but soon forgot their presence and began reading again with compulsive eagerness.

  “Signor Fumigi!” said Prarchi out loud, shaking him. “Don’t you recognize this man?”

  Fumigi looked at Alfonso for a long time and, thinking he recognized him, gave a little cry of surprise; then he changed his mind and decided he didn’t.

  “How are you?”

  Obviously he was making no more effort at recognition; he had lost his memory but not his courtesy.

  “Very well thank you, and you?” asked Alfonso, touched.

  “Well … well …”

  Then he pointed to the newspaper and spat out some unintelligible words, wanting to describe what he had read. Although the two young men made no move, Fumigi realized they did not understand him. He repeated a phrase in a shout, then abbreviated it to enunciate it more carefully. Finally he renounced his idea and contented himself with hissing the syllables of a name. It was that of a politician who had been much in the news a few months before. He plunged back into his reading after an instant’s hesitation while he glanced at his two companions, with the questioning look of a dog for a master who has forbidden it to touch some meat.

  “Is he always like this?” asked Alfonso in a whisper.

  “You can talk out loud,” replied Prarchi, and made him move closer.

  Fumigi was declaiming as he read, pausing with pleasure at certain words with clearer sounds. Then he seemed to grow angry, shouted, mangled his sentences and repeated them.

  Alfonso got between the light and the newspaper. The poor man raised his head after an instant’s surprise at seeing a shadow projected on the newspaper. When the shadow vanished, he went calmly back to work again.

  Someone had entered the room, and even before hearing the voice Alfonso realized it was Macario. In his embarrassment he tried to put off this meeting and began looking at Fumigi with close attention, pretending not to notice Macario even when he heard him greeting Prarchi.

  They went up to Fumigi and so to him.

  “How are you?” asked Macario, clapping a hand on the sick man’s shoulder.

  He was so much at ease that he might not have seen Alfonso. When he did see him, no change came over him—he remained impassive—then he gave an indifferent nod, as if they had met a few days before. Alfonso had done well not to tell Prarchi that he would be seeing Macario for the first time since his return, or Prarchi would have been surprised by Macario’s behaviour.

  “Congratulations!” muttered Alfonso, holding out a hand which Macario shook with a bow that was polite but not friendly.

  Then they said no more.

  Prarchi had given some paper and a pencil to Fumigi who, though he had not asked for it, as soon as he got it, began writing with care as if he was painting.

  “Are you coming along?” Macario asked Prarchi. “There’s something I want to tell you.”

  “What are you doing?” Prarchi asked Alfonso, not asking him along on purpose because Macario had shown sufficiently clearly that he wanted to be alone with him.

  “I have to pay a visit nearby,” said Alfonso and went out after shaking Prarchi’s hand but not Macario’s, though the other was holding it out mechanically.

  He was annoyed. Now that he had put up with Macario’s bearing it seemed both disagreeable and unjust; either way it should have been different; colder still if Annetta had told him everything, friendly as usual otherwise. He had expected violent anger or glacial indifference, but never contempt. Macario was treating him almost as Annetta had at the beginning, as a little clerk at Maller & Co’s bank, and Alfonso had been ready for persecution but not contempt. He could resign himself to being thought a dangerous enemy, an evil creature to be feared, but not someone who could be ignored.

  Soon he had to laugh at himself, seeing the obvious contrast between his intentions and his feelings. Did he still care so much about Macario’s friendship to be as sorry as that for having lost it? He should have liked that calm coldness. Presumably Annetta had told her future husband a part of what had happened, just enough to find an excuse to keep Alfonso out of her home for ever, and Macario’s coldness had been merely gentlemanly affectation towards inferiors, increased by a reasonable antipathy towards a person who, though with negative results, had tried to win Annetta’s love and perhaps given him a few unpleasant minutes of jealousy. For other reasons too he would have preferred ill-treatment from Macario. He might have had scruples of conscience for the trick Annetta was playing on Macario with his help, and now his own fault was diminished by the fact that he was no longer betraying a friend but an enemy.

  His feelings remained the same in spite of all reasoning. He could not be grateful to Macario for cutting off his friendship so soon and, as he supposed, without a motive.

  That day he felt less happy than usual at the bank; the struggle to remain quietly at work revolted him. The desire to revenge himself on Macario made him have strange fantasies. He imagined his position if the idyll begun with Annetta had turned out differently. In that case Macario would surely have treated him as an equal, and for an instant that seemed incalculable happiness.

  XIX

  IT WAS a most agitated evening. On reaching home Alfonso did not immediately notice that something was seriously amiss with the Lanuccis; he was too preoccupied on his own account. Neither Lucia nor Gustavo was in the living-room, and Signora Lanucci was sitting there, on a chair away from the table and set in an odd position, lost in thought, her eyes red with tears. The only person in his usual place was old Lanucci, his legs wrapped up in blankets.

  Alfonso had to turn all his attention on them, as they did not say a word or answer his questions, and finally asked impatiently: “What on earth’s the matter with you all?” It cost a great effort to tear himself away from his own thoughts.

  Signora Lanucci did not seem to want to answer, but when she finally did, said much in a few words.

  “Oh! Not a lot! We’ve only had to put up with poverty so far, now we have dishonour too.” The old man protested and told her to keep quiet, but she shouted that it was something everyone would know sooner or later, and there was no point in hiding it from Alfonso. She blurted out crudely: “I’m to be a grandmother.”

  Alfonso pretended to be greatly surprised by this news, which no one had yet told him explicitly. He had had his suspicions because of some words dropped by Gustavo the night of his arrival; but then they had been denied, and he had not stopped to examine whether Gustavo was to be trusted more in blurting them out or in denying them.

  He was told of an incident which had just happened and made Lucia betray herself. Apparently she had realized her condition only that day, and in desperation rushed off to Gralli to tell him all and ask for his help. Gralli had rejected her, saying that he could not take on the responsibility and was sorry but had to leave her to her own devices. He offered her a monthly sum on condition of his being allowed free access to her in the Lanucci home. The wretched girl lost her head, rushed to her mother and told her all.

  “She’d be better dead! That would have been less of a grief, I assure you.”

  By her excited account Signora Lanucci had relieved her feelings and acquired sufficient calm to try a
nd save the family honour which had been compromised, in Alfonso’s eyes, by the facts.

  From her room Lucia heard these last words, which had been shouted, and began to sob out loud, invoking her mother and asking her forgiveness.

  “It’s too late for weeping, you should have thought of it before,” shouted Signora Lanucci pitilessly.

  Lucia, poor girl, could not distinguish how much pretence there was in her mother’s words, as Alfonso could—and she sobbed louder than ever without saying another word; perhaps she too thought herself worthy of death. Only for her did Alfonso feel any sympathy; Signora Lanucci’s cries dazed and bothered him.

  Old Lanucci imitated his wife.

  “If I were a fit man,” he cried, “I’d go to the seducer, take him by the scruff of the neck and force him to restore the honour he’s stolen from my daughter. But now I’d have to be carried to him on a chair.”

  “Gustavo went to Gralli!” said Signora Lanucci proudly, and when Alfonso said, unimpressed and somewhat irritated, that he should have been stopped in case a second disaster followed the first, she cried that they could not be made to accept the offence quietly and that it would be a good thing if Gustavo killed the betrayer; she would not regret his action even though it cost him twenty years in jail.

  But soon after, Gustavo reappeared safe and sound and more or less calm. He said he had been running round town in search of Gralli for two hours without being able to find him; he had just managed to discover where he’d be in half-an-hour; at a tavern not far away.

  “I’m off there!” and he made the words ring with threat. He then asked his mother details about the day’s events. At first, when he had rushed off to find Gralli at all costs, he was under the impression that his sister had been ill-treated when she went to him to ask him to marry her. He was relieved to hear that was not true, and asked if he could eat something before leaving. Turning to Alfonso he then said, “What d’you think of it all?”

  Alfonso recommended him not to be rough with Gralli; things might still just possibly be settled, and it would be a nuisance to have offended a future member of the family.

  Then Gustavo did get angry, apparently with Alfonso; red in the face he cried:

  “I’ll not be rough with him. I’ll just say: ‘Will you marry my sister or won’t you?’ If he replies ‘Yes’, I’ll hug him and call him brother; if ‘No’, I’ll take him by the throat and he can start thinking of his soul, as I’ll not leave him much time.”

  His grateful mother threw her arms round his neck and kissed him. But she told him that she forbade him to commit murder whatever happened, because Gralli was not worth going to jail for. The poor woman was afraid of risking too much if she let this heroic play-acting go too far. But Gustavo, encouraged by her caresses, did not reply, looking like a man who had made up his mind and was not prepared to listen to others. Alfonso offered to go with him to see Gralli. He refused, but quite gently. Alfonso was really one of the family, though not everyone knew it.

  Shortly after Gustavo left, Signora Lanucci was seized by impatience and went to the window, where she stayed for about an hour in spite of the intense cold. The old man went to bed declaring that he knew he would not sleep but needed the warmth of bed for his ills. Alfonso began reading. The old clock wheezed away every quarter of an hour; it was no longer striking because Gustavo had taken out the chime.

  “This delay seems a good sign, for if something awful had happened we’d know it by now,” said Signora Lanucci, drawing back from the window and looking at Alfonso in the hope of his agreeing. He told her that was how he understood the delay too.

  From the street the sound of a quarrel rose. Both rushed to the window. Slowly, with a series of long stops, five men were coming up the slope in heated discussion. At intervals, it became apparent, two of them would face up to each other and be kept apart by force. One was Gustavo’s height and the other Gralli’s, or so it seemed. They stopped just under the window, and only then did Alfonso and Signora Lanucci realize that neither Gustavo nor Gralli was in the group. They breathed again and glanced at each other with relief.

  Even so, the sight of this quarrel seemed to have cast a gloom over Signora Lanucci. She confessed she had lost all hope and felt sure already of the fate reserved for her daughter. She knew what sort of man Gralli was. She had not paid attention before, but now she remembered details of his behaviour which should have put her on her guard and made her suspect his sincerity.

  “When one’s good oneself, it’s so difficult to suspect evil in others.”

  She praised Alfonso; he was good and she felt it, knew he was revolted by evil. “It’s so nice to be with someone one can really trust.” Then, going over in her mind all the pains she had taken to bring up that only daughter of hers, she asked herself if there was any justice in this world when all her efforts had come to such an end. She remembered bitterly that the engagement to Gralli had been a grief in itself: “I’d hoped better for Lucia. Not riches or noble blood, but brains. Wasn’t there ever a chance of you yourself falling in love with Lucia?”

  It was the second time that she confessed this hope so frankly. This time too it came from deep emotion; the shame urging her to melodrama a short time before had vanished, and now she felt only grief at her daughter’s fate, not at the loss of family honour.

  He was embarrassed and quoted some words said to him in anger by Lucia which he considered to be a proof that she had never loved him.

  “She did love you!” said Signora Lanucci with conviction. “She never told me, but I realized it and was surprised you who think you know the human heart did not realize it too. Think of all the sorrows that would have been avoided!” So she thought it was by a mere misunderstanding he had not loved Lucia and was mourning her poor daughter being so ill-treated by fate. Then she came out with a blunder: “How wonderful, though, to tell Gralli if he does ask to marry Lucia as a result of Gustavo’s exhortations: ‘Go to hell; we’ve got someone better, and you don’t deserve her!’”

  Alfonso did not open his mouth. She was suggesting he should marry Lucia. It was appalling, but he tried to understand and excuse it. He understood how this poor mother could lull herself with the hope of saving her daughter from dishonour and at the same time avenge herself on the person who had wounded the girl’s deepest affection. He himself, when he felt at his most wretched, took refuge in unrealizable dreams. She was asking him to sacrifice himself, for she could not think he really wanted to marry Lucia; she had a high enough opinion of him to think him capable of such goodness. Why should he be offended? Since he had adopted his own new ideas, this was the first time that he’d encountered anyone suggesting that he actually put them into practice. True, rather than use them herself, Signora Lanucci wanted to impose them on others, but since she had spoken quite without artifice as if it was the most natural thing in the world, she must be convinced that had she been in his shoes, she would herself have acted as she was advising him to.

  In his desire to help in some way he offered to go in search of Gustavo and bring back news. Signora Lanucci thanked him, already cooler.

  On reaching the Via degli Artisti, a small street very dark at that hour, the tavern seemed shut; he knocked and was pleased at hearing someone coming to open up after a long hesitation. The place was oddly shaped; to create it one or two dividing walls must have been pulled down, traces of which were still to be seen in the middle of the terrace.

  There were only two people there, sitting at a round table in a corner. One was Gustavo, whom Alfonso recognized in spite of his having his back turned; he was clasping his head, apparently in deep meditation. The other was Gralli, who greeted Alfonso.

  Seeing them seated in such friendly fashion next to each other with empty glasses in front of them, Alfonso thought they must have come to an agreement and held out his hand to Gralli, who shook it at once and ordered the innkeeper to bring another glass. A glance at Gustavo, who was laughing and told him to drink as much as he
could because it was all paid for, showed that this youth sent from home on such a serious mission had allowed himself to get drunk.

  “We’re really good friends, we two!” shouted Gustavo and looked at Gralli affectionately. “I came intending to give him a hiding, but found him so nice that it would be a crime to hurt him. You talk to him and see. He’s really decent, and Lucia will be very happy with him.”

  He burst into a roar of laughter.

  He ordered more wine and Gralli asked for it to be brought, turning to Alfonso with a sly smile, “Have as much wine as you want.”

  “Enough wine,” intimated Alfonso, “drink water.”

  “Water is for washing,” replied Gustavo wittily and drained a whole glass. After a long silence he began laughing again and cried out that someone was tickling his brain. “I know no one can get in there, but someone seems to want to.” And he burst out laughing again.

  Alfonso said that his mother was waiting for him at the window and had sent him to the tavern to bring Gustavo home.

  “Mother’s waiting for me?” asked Gustavo laughing. “Well, I’ll go now because I’ve talked to Gralli long enough. And to think I wanted to hit ’im! Poor devil! With that dark little face of his.”

  It did seem impossible that this little man, almost lost behind the table, was the seducer whom old Signora Lanucci hoped to see dead.

  “I’m just going to tell Mother I’ve settled things; then I’ll be back. It’s only right the poor thing shouldn’t be worried.”

  He went off apparently intending to return at once, but was not seen again. Gralli roared with laughter.

  “He came here breathing fire and brimstone and within half-an-hour I’d got him into the state you saw him. For the last two hours we’ve been just as good friends as ever before.”

  “And how did you settle things?” asked Alfonso, put out at finding himself treated as an accomplice, but incapable of sharpness.