Zeno's Conscience

  He laughed smugly, saying: “You are very strong! I should have guessed the table was being moved by the only other man in the party.”

  I had proved myself stronger than he, in fact, but soon I was made to feel weaker. Ada looked at me with an unfriendly eye and attacked me, her lovely cheeks inflamed: “I pity you. How could you permit yourself to play such a trick?”

  My breath failed me and I stammered: “I… I wanted to have a laugh. I didn’t believe any of us would take the table business seriously.”

  It was a bit late to turn on Guido, and indeed, if my ear had been sensitive, I would have heard that never again, in a battle with him, could victory be mine. The wrath Ada displayed toward me was truly decisive. How could I have failed to realize that she was already completely his? But I persisted in the thought that he didn’t deserve her because he was not the man she was seeking with her serious gaze. Hadn’t even Signora Malfenti sensed this?

  All the others united to protect me and thus worsened my position. Laughing, Signora Malfenti said: “It was only a joke, and quite a successful one.”

  Aunt Rosina’s heavy body was still shaking with laughter, and she said with admiration: “Magnificent!”

  I was sorry Guido was being so friendly. Of course, the only thing that mattered to him was making sure the bad news given him by the table hadn’t been delivered by a spirit. He said to me: “I bet that at first you didn’t move the table on purpose. You rocked it accidentally, then you decided to rock it deliberately. So the thing would be somehow important—that is, until the moment when you decided to sabotage your own inspiration.”

  Ada turned and looked at me with curiosity. She was about to display an excessive devotion to Guido, forgiving me because he had granted me his forgiveness. I forestalled her.

  “No, no!” I said firmly. “I was tired of waiting for those spirits, who refused to appear, and I put myself in their place to have some fun.”

  Ada turned her back on me, shrugging her shoulders in such a way that I had the sensation of having been slapped. Even the curls on her nape seemed to me to express contempt.

  As always, instead of looking and listening, I was concerned entirely with my own thoughts. I was oppressed by the fact that Ada was compromising herself horribly. I suffered keenly, as if faced by the revelation that my beloved was betraying me. Despite those demonstrations of affection for Guido, she could still be mine, but I felt that I would never be able to forgive her behavior. Is my mind too slow to be able to follow events that unfold without waiting until the impressions left in my brain by previous events have been erased? I had to proceed, nevertheless, along the path marked out by my decision. Downright blind stubbornness. Indeed, I wanted to make my resolution all the stronger, by recording it once again. I ‘went to Augusta, who was looking at me anxiously with a sincere, encouraging smile on her face, and I said, serious and heartfelt: “This is perhaps the last time I will come to your house because, this very evening, I will declare my love to Ada.”

  “You mustn’t do that,” she said to me, pleading. “Don’t you realize what’s happening here? I would be sorry if it were to make you suffer.”

  She continued to place herself between me and Ada. Meaning to irk her, I said: “I will speak with Ada because I must. What she answers then is a matter of complete indifference to me.”

  I limped again toward Guido. When I was at his side, looking at myself in a mirror, I lit a cigarette. In the mirror I saw I was very pale, and for me this is a reason to turn even paler. I struggled to feel better and to appear nonchalant. In this double effort, my thoughtless hand grasped Guido’s glass. Once I was holding it, I could think of nothing better to do than to drain it.

  Guido burst out laughing. “Now you’ll know all my thoughts, because I’ve just drunk from that glass myself.”

  I have never liked the taste of lemon. This time it must have seemed truly poisonous to me because, first of all, having drunk from his glass, I felt I had suffered an odious contact with Guido, and further, I was struck by the expression of wrathful impatience printed on Ada’s face. She immediately called the maid and ordered another glass of lemonade, and repeated this order even though Guido declared he was no longer thirsty.

  Then I was genuinely compassionate. She was compromising herself more and more. “Excuse me, Ada,” I said to her in a low voice, looking at her as if expecting some explanation. “I didn’t want to displease you.”

  Then I was filled with the fear that my eyes would become moist with tears. I wanted to spare myself ridicule. I shouted: “I got some lemon juice in my eye.”

  I covered my eyes with my handkerchief, thus I no longer needed to guard against my tears, and I had to be careful only not to sob.

  I will never forget the darkness behind that handkerchief. I concealed my tears there, but also a moment of madness. I thought I would tell her everything, she would understand me and love me, and I would never, never forgive her.

  I raised the handkerchief from my face, I let everyone see my teary eyes, and I made an effort to laugh and to provoke laughter: “I bet Signor Giovanni ships citric acid to the house for making lemonade.”

  At that moment Giovanni arrived, greeting me with his usual great cordiality. It afforded me some solace, which was short-lived, because he declared he had come home earlier than usual in his desire to hear Guido play. He broke off, asking me the reason for the tears that moistened my eyes. They told him my doubts about the quality of his lemonade, and he laughed.

  Hypocrite that I was, I joined Giovanni in begging Guido to play. I reminded myself: Hadn’t I come there that evening to hear Guido’s violin? And the strange thing is that I know I meant to conciliate Ada through my pleas to Guido. I looked at her, hoping to be finally linked with her for the first time that evening. How odd! Wasn’t I supposed to speak with her and not forgive her? Instead, I saw only her back and the scornful curls on her nape. She had rushed to remove the violin from its case.

  Guido asked to be left alone for another quarter of an hour. He seemed hesitant. Later in the long years of our acquaintance I learned that he always hesitated before doing even the simplest things he was urged to do. He did only what he enjoyed, and before granting a request, he proceeded to search the depths of his soul, to discover there what he really desired.

  Then, in that evening memorable for me, came the happiest quarter-hour. My whimsical chatter amused everyone, Ada included. It was certainly prompted by my excitation, but also by my supreme effort to defeat that menacing violin coming closer and closer… And that brief period of time that others, thanks to me, found so amusing, I recall as being devoted to a desperate struggle.

  Giovanni told us that in the tram bringing him home, he had witnessed a pathetic scene. A woman had jumped off before the car had come to a stop, and thus had fallen clumsily and been injured. With some exaggeration, Giovanni described his anxiety on seeing the woman preparing to make that leap, and in such a way that she was obviously going to fall and perhaps be crushed. It was quite sad to foresee it all and to have no time to rescue her.

  An idea came to me. I told how, for those dizzy spells that had caused me such suffering in the past, I had discovered a remedy. When I saw a gymnast performing his feats at too great a height, or when I witnessed the descent from a tram of a person too elderly or too awkward, I freed myself from all anxiety by wishing them harm. I actually came out and said in so many words that I wished they would fall and be shattered. This had an enormously calming effect on me and enabled me to observe the threat of an accident with total detachment. If my wish then didn’t come true, I could consider myself even more satisfied.

  Guido was enchanted by my idea, which seemed to him a psychological discovery. He analyzed it, as he did all trifles, and couldn’t wait to put the cure to the test. But he expressed a reservation: the ill-wishes should not increase the number of accidents. Ada joined in his laughter and even gave me a glance of admiration. Like a fool, I was hugely pleased
. But I discovered it was not true that I would never be able to forgive her: another great step forward.

  We laughed a lot together, like nice young people all fond of one another. At a certain moment I remained at one side of the living room, alone with Aunt Rosina. She was still talking about the little table. Fairly stout, she sat motionless on her chair and spoke to me without looking at me. I managed to let the others know I was bored, and they all watched me, laughing discreetly, beyond the aunt’s view.

  To increase their amusement, it occurred to me to say to her, without any preamble: “You know, Signora, I find you much better? You’re rejuvenated.”

  It would have been laughable if she had become angry. But, instead of feeling any anger, the Signora indicated her profound gratitude and told me that, indeed, she was much better now after a recent illness. I was so amazed by her reply that my face must have assumed a highly comical expression, so the hilarity I had hoped for was not wanting. A little later the puzzle was explained to me. I learned, in short, that this was not Aunt Rosina but Aunt Maria, a sister of Signora Malfenti’s. I had thus eliminated from that living room one source of uneasiness for me, but not the greatest.

  At a certain moment Guido asked for his violin. For that evening he would do without any piano accompaniment, and play the Chaconne. Ada handed him the violin with a grateful smile. He didn’t look at her, but looked at the violin, as if he wanted to be alone with it and with his inspiration. Then he stood in the center of the room, turning his back to a good part of the company, lightly tapped the strings with his bow, tuning them, and played a few arpeggios. He stopped abruptly, to say with a smile: “I have a nerve! Imagine: I haven’t touched the violin since the last time I played here!”

  What a charlatan! He turned his back also to Ada. I glanced at her anxiously to see if she was suffering. Apparently not! She had put her elbow on the little table, her chin in her hand, intent on listening.

  Then, siding against me, the great Bach himself intervened. Never again, neither before nor after, was I able to feel in that way the beauty of that music born from those four strings like a Michelangelo angel from a block of marble. Only my state of mind was new to me, and it led me to look up, ecstatic, as if at something totally new. Yet I struggled to keep that music distant from me. I never ceased thinking: “Careful! The violin is a siren and its player can produce tears even without possessing a hero’s heart!” I was assailed by that music, which gripped me. It seemed to speak of my illness and my sufferings with indulgence, alleviating them with smiles and caresses. But it was Guido who spoke! And I sought to elude the music, saying to myself: “To be able to do that, you need only possess a rhythmic organism, a steady hand and a gift for imitation: things that I don’t have. This is not inferiority: it is misfortune.”

  I was protesting, but Bach continued, as confident as fate. He sang on high, with passion, and descended to seek the basso ostinato that was surprising, though ear and heart had anticipated it: precisely in the right place! A moment later and the song would have faded, beyond the reach of resonance; a moment earlier, and it would have been superimposed on the song, stifling it. With Guido this didn’t happen: his arm never wavered, not even in taking on Bach. This was true inferiority.

  As I write today, I have all the evidence of that. I feel no joy for having seen things so clearly at that time. Then I was full of hatred, and that music, which I accepted as my own soul, could not allay it. Then the vulgar life of every day came and canceled it, without any resistance on my part. Of course! Vulgar life is capable of many such things. Thank God, geniuses are not aware of this!

  Guido wisely stopped playing. No one applauded except Giovanni, and for a few moments no one spoke. Then, unfortunately, I myself felt the need to speak. How did I dare, before people who knew my own violin? It seemed my violin was speaking, yearning for music and scorning the other instrument on which—undeniably—music had become life, light, and air.

  “Excellent!” I said, and it had all the tone of a grudging concession rather than applause. “But I don’t understand why, toward the end, you played those notes staccato when Bach marked them legato.”

  I knew the Chaconne note by note. There had been a time when I believed that if I wanted to make progress, I would have to face similar challenges, and for long months I spent my time practicing some compositions of Bach measure by measure.

  I felt that in the whole room there was nothing for me but contempt and derision. And yet I continued speaking, combating that hostility. “Bach,” I added, “is so unassuming in his means that he doesn’t contemplate a bow handled like that.”

  Ï was probably right, but it was also sure that I could never have handled a bow that way myself.

  Guido, immediately, was as wide of the mark as I had been. He asserted: “Perhaps Bach didn’t know that expressive possibility! It’s my gift to him!”

  He was climbing on the shoulders of Bach, but in that atmosphere no one protested, whereas I had been mocked because I had tried to climb only on Guido’s.

  Then something occurred, of slight importance, though for me it was decisive. From a distant room came little Anna’s repeated cries. As we subsequently learned, she had fallen and cut her lip. So it happened that for a few minutes I found myself alone with Ada, as all the others ran out. Before leaving the room, Guido placed his precious violin in Ada’s hands.

  “Would you like me to hold that violin?” I asked Ada, seeing her hesitate before following the others. Truly I hadn’t yet realized that the long-yearned-for opportunity had finally presented itself.

  She hesitated, but then a strange mistrust prevailed in her. She clasped the violin still tighter to herself.

  “No,” she answered, “I don’t have to go with them. I don’t believe Anna has hurt herself very badly. She screams at any trifle.”

  She sat down with the violin, and it seemed to me that this gesture invited me to speak. In any case, how could I return home without having spoken? What would I have done afterwards, during that long night? I saw myself turning this way and that in my bed, or combing the streets or the taverns in search of distraction. No! I would not leave that house without having arrived at clarification and serenity.

  I tried to be simple and brief. I had to be, anyway, as I was out of breath. I said to her: “I love you, Ada. Why don’t you let me speak to your father?”

  She looked at me, amazed and frightened. I feared she would start screaming like her baby sister in that other room. I knew that her tranquil gaze and her face, with its clean-cut lines, did not know love, but, so remote from love as she was now I had never seen her. She began speaking, and she said something that must have been meant as a preface. But I wanted clarity: a yes or a no! Perhaps I ‘was already offended by what could seem hesitation. To accelerate things and induce her to make up her mind, I opposed her right to gain time.

  “You must have realized. You couldn’t possibly have believed I was courting Augusta!”

  I wanted to emphasize my words, but, in my haste, I emphasized the wrong ones and, as it turned out, poor Augusta’s name was accompanied by a tone and a gesture of scorn.

  Thus I rescued Ada from her embarrassment. She noticed nothing but the insult to Augusta. “What makes you think you’re superior to Augusta? I don’t think for a moment Augusta would agree to become your wife!”

  Only then did she remember that she owed me an answer: “As for me … I’m amazed that you got such an idea into your head.”

  The harsh response was meant to avenge Augusta. In my great confusion I thought that the meaning of the sentence had only that purpose; if she had slapped me, I believe I would have paused to ponder the reason. Therefore I insisted once more: “Think about it, Ada. I’m not a bad man. I’m rich… I’m a bit odd, but it will be easy for me to improve.”

  “Think about it yourself, Zeno: Augusta is a fine girl and would really suit you. I can’t speak for her, but I believe …”

  It was very sweet to
hear Ada call me by my given name for the first time. Wasn’t this an invitation to speak even more clearly? Perhaps she was lost to me, or in any event she would not agree to marry me, but in the meantime she had to be saved from compromising herself further with Guido, about whom I should open her eyes. I was cautious and began by telling her that while I admired and respected Augusta, I absolutely did not want to marry her. I said this twice, to make myself clear: “I don’t want to marry her.” Thus I could hope to soothe Ada, who a moment before had believed I wanted to insult Augusta.

  “A good, dear, lovable girl… Augusta. But she’s not for me.”

  Then as I was about to rush matters, there was some noise in the hall; I could lose the floor at any moment.

  “Ada! That man isn’t right for you. He’s a fool! Didn’t you see how he suffered because of the table’s answers? Did you see his cane? He plays the violin well, but there are even monkeys who can do that. Every word he says shows what a jackass he is… “

  After listening to me with the expression of someone unable to grasp the sense of the words being spoken, she interrupted me. She sprang to her feet, still holding the bow and the violin, and hissed some offensive words in my face. I did my best to forget them, and I succeeded. I recall only that she began by asking me in a loud voice how I could speak in such a way of him and of her! My eyes were wide with surprise, because it seemed to me I had spoken only of him. I have forgotten the many scornful words she addressed to me, but not her beautiful, noble, and healthy face flushed with outrage, its lines made sharper as if chiseled by her indignation. This I never afterwards forgot, and when I think of my love and my youth, I see again the beautiful and noble and healthy face of Ada at the moment when she dismissed me definitively from her destiny.

  All of them returned together, surrounding Signora Malfenti, who was carrying Anna in her arms, still crying. Nobody paid any attention to me or to Ada, and, without saying goodbye to anyone, I left the living room; in the hall I collected my hat. Strange! Nobody came to detain me there. I detained myself, on my own, remembering that I should not fail to observe the rules of good manners; thus, before going away I had to take my leave politely of one and all. The truth, I have no doubt, is that I was prevented from quitting that house by my conviction that, all too soon, a night was falling, far worse for me than the five nights that had preceded it. I, who had finally gained clarity, now felt another need: for peace, peace with everyone. If I were able to eliminate all bitterness from my relations with Ada and ‘with all the others, it would be easier for me to sleep. Why did such bitterness have to exist? I couldn’t be angry even with Guido, who, though he had no merit, surely was in no way to blame for being preferred by Ada!