Zeno's Conscience

  Copier was right to be stern with a young person who couldn’t understand the value of time: she should also remember how many people were making sacrifices to help her. I was truly serious and stern.

  And so the time came for me to go to lunch and, especially on that day, I didn’t want to keep Augusta waiting. I held out my hand to Carla and then I noticed how pale she was. I wanted to console her: “You can rest assured that I will always do my best to plead your cause with Copier and with everyone else.”

  She thanked me, but she still seemed downcast. Later I learned that, seeing me arrive, she had immediately guessed something close to the truth and had thought I was in love with her and she was therefore saved. But then —just as I was preparing to leave—she thought I was in love only with art and singing, and so, if she didn’t sing well and didn’t improve, I would abandon her.

  She seemed very downcast indeed. I was overcome with compassion, and since there was no time to waste, I reassured her in the way she herself had described as the most effective. I was already at the door when I drew her to me, carefully shifted with my nose the thick braid from her neck, which I then reached with my lips and even grazed with my teeth. It looked like a joke, and in the end she laughed, too; but only when I left her. Until that moment she had remained inert and dazed in my arms.

  She followed me onto the landing, and as I started down the stairs, she asked me, laughing: “When will you come back?”

  “Tomorrow, or perhaps later!” I replied, already unsure. Then, with greater decision, I said: “Definitely, I’ll come tomorrow.” But, not desiring to compromise myself too far, I added: “We’ll continue our reading of Garcia.”

  She didn’t change expression in that brief moment: she nodded assent to the first, hesitant promise, assented gratefully to the second, and assented also to my third proposal, smiling the whole time. Women always know what they want. There was no hesitation on the part of Ada, who rejected me, or of Augusta, who accepted me, or of Carla, who let me have my way.

  On the street, I found myself immediately closer to Augusta than to Carla. I breathed the fresh, open air and I was filled with the sensation of my freedom. I had done nothing that went beyond a joke, and so it would remain, because it had ended on that neck and beneath that braid. Finally Carla had accepted that kiss as a promise of affection and, especially, of assistance.

  That day at table, however, I began really to suffer. Between me and Augusta lay my adventure, like a great, grim shadow, which to me seemed impossible for her not to see. I felt small, guilty, and sick, and I felt the pain in my side as a sympathetic pain reverberating from the great wound in my conscience. As I absently pretended to eat, I sought solace in an iron resolution: “I will never see her again,” I thought, “and if, out of concern, I have to see her, it will be the last time.” After all, not much was demanded of me: just one effort, not to see Carla ever again.

  Augusta, laughing, asked me: “You look so worried. Have you been to see Olivi?”

  I laughed, too. It was a great relief, being able to talk. The words were not such as to confer total peace, for to say such words I would have had to confess and then promise; but since I could not do that, it was a great relief even to say something else. I spoke copiously, full of goodness and cheer. Then I found something even better: I talked about the little laundry that she so desired and that I had refused her until then, and I promptly gave her permission to build it. She was so moved by my unsolicited permission that she got up and came to give me a kiss. It was a kiss that obviously erased that other one; and I promptly felt better.

  So it was that we acquired the laundry, and even today, when I pass the little building, I remember how Augusta wanted it and Carla made it possible.

  An enchanting afternoon ensued, filled with our affection. In solitude, my conscience was far more irritating. Augusta’s words and affection came and soothed it. We went out together. Then I accompanied her to her mother’s and I also spent the whole evening with her.

  Before going to sleep, as often happened with me, I looked for a long while at my wife, already sleeping, concentrated in her light respiration. Even asleep, she was in perfect order, the covers drawn to her chin, and her less-than-abundant hair collected in a short braid knotted at her nape. I thought: I don’t want to cause her pain. Never! I fell asleep serenely. The next day I would clarify my relations with Carla and I would find the way to reassure the poor girl about her future, without being obliged to give her kisses in consequence.

  I had an eerie dream. Not only was I kissing Carla’s neck: I was also eating it. But the neck was made in such a way that the wounds I inflicted on it with angry lust did not bleed, and with its slightly curved shape, the neck still remained covered by white, intact skin. Carla, sinking in my arms, seemed not to suffer from my bites. The one who suffered, on the contrary, was Augusta, who suddenly arrived running. To reassure her, I said: “I won’t eat it all; I’ll leave a piece for you, too.”

  The dream seemed a nightmare only later, when I woke up and my befuddled mind could remember it—but not before then, because while it lasted, not even Augusta’s presence had taken away the sense of satisfaction it brought me.

  Once awake, I was fully aware of the force of my desire and of the danger it represented for Augusta and also for me. Perhaps in the womb of the woman sleeping at my side, another life, for which I would be responsible, was beginning. Who knows what Carla would want if she ‘were my mistress? To me she seemed desirous of that pleasure that so far had been denied her, and how would I be able to provide for two families? Augusta wanted the useful laundry, the other woman would want something different but no less costly. I saw Carla again as she waved to me from the landing, laughing, after having been kissed. She already knew I would be her prey. I was frightened and now, alone and in the darkness, I couldn’t suppress a moan.

  My wife, immediately awake, asked me what was wrong and I answered with brief words, saying the first thing that came into my mind when I could recover from my fright, finding myself questioned at a moment when I felt I had shouted a confession.

  “I’m thinking of my approaching old age!”

  She laughed and tried to console me without, at the same time, truncating the sleep to which she was clinging. She addressed me with the same words she always repeated when she saw me frightened by the passage of time: “Don’t think about it, not now, while we are young… Sleep is so good!”

  The exhortation helped: I gave it no more thought, and I fell asleep again. A word in the night is like a shaft of sunshine. It illuminates a stretch of reality and, confronted by it, the constructions of the imagination fade. Why did I have so much to fear from poor Carla, when I was not yet her lover? It was obvious I had done everything to frighten myself with my own situation. Finally, the bébé that I had evoked in Augusta’s womb had so far given no sign of life beyond the construction of the laundry.

  I got up, still accompanied by the best intentions. I rushed to my study and prepared an envelope containing a bit of money I wanted to give Carla at the very moment when I announced I was abandoning her. However, I would declare myself ready to send her more money by mail at any time she asked for it, writing to me at an address I would give her. Just as I was about to go out, Augusta, with a sweet smile, invited me to accompany her to her father’s house. Guido’s father had arrived from Buenos Aires to be present at the wedding, and we should go and make his acquaintance. She surely was less concerned about Guido’s father than about me. She wanted to renew the sweetness of the previous day. But it was no longer the same thing: to me it seemed wrong to allow time to pass between my good resolve and its execution. Meanwhile, as we were walking along the street side by side and, to all appearances, secure in our affection, the other woman considered herself already the object of my love. That was wrong. I felt this walk as an actual constraint.

  We found Giovanni really better. Only he couldn’t put on his boots because of a certain swelling of the
feet; he attached no importance to it, so neither did I. He was in the living room with Guido’s father, to whom he introduced me. Augusta promptly left us to go to her mother and sister.

  Signor Francesco Speier seemed to me a much less educated man than his son. He was small, crude, about sixty, with few ideas and little vitality, perhaps also because, as a consequence of an illness, his hearing was severely impaired. He dropped an occasional Spanish word into his speech.

  “Cada vez I come to Trieste …”

  The two old men were talking about business, and Giovanni listened carefully because this business was very important to Ada’s future. I listened absently. I heard that old Speier had decided to wind up his business in Argentina and to give Guido all his duros, to use in setting up a firm in Trieste; then Francesco would return to Buenos Aires, to live with his wife and daughter on a little farm he had inherited. I didn’t understand why, in my presence, he was telling Giovanni all this, and I don’t know why even today.

  At a certain point it seemed to me both men stopped talking, looking at me as if they expected some advice; and, to be polite, I remarked, “The farm can’t be all that small, if it brings in a living.”

  Giovanni immediately shouted: “What are you talking about?”

  The explosion of his voice recalled his better days, but surely if he hadn’t shouted so, Signor Francesco wouldn’t have noticed my remark. But instead he paled and said: “I hope Guido will not fail to pay me the interest on my capital.”

  Giovanni, shouting again, tried to ressure him: “I should say so! Double the interest if you need it. Isn’t he your son?”

  Signor Francesco still didn’t seem quite reassured, and he was expecting from me some word of reassurance. I provided it at once, and more, because now the old man could hear less.

  Then the discussion between the two businessmen continued, but I was careful to take no further part in it. Giovanni looked at me from time to time over his eyeglasses, to observe me, and his heavy respiration seemed a threat. He spoke at last, and asked me at a certain point: “Don’t you agree?”

  I nodded eagerly.

  My agreement must have seemed all the more eager, for my every action was now made more expressive by the anger mounting within me. What was I doing in this place, allowing the passage of time that was needed for carrying out my good resolution? I was obliged to neglect a task so valuable for me and for Augusta! I was preparing an excuse to leave, but at that moment the living room was invaded by the women, and by Guido accompanying them. Shortly after his father’s arrival, he had given his bride a magnificent ring. Nobody looked at me or greeted me, not even little Anna. Ada already wore the splendid jewel on her finger, and resting her arm on her fiance’s shoulder, she showed the ring to her father. The women also looked at it, ecstatic.

  Rings also held no interest for me. Why, I didn’t even wear my own wedding band, because it impeded the circulation of the blood! Without saying good-bye, I left the living room, went to the front door, and was about to go off. But Augusta noticed my flight and overtook me in time. I was amazed by her distraught look. Her lips were as pale as they had been on the day of our wedding, just before we entered the church.

  I told her I had some pressing business. Then, recalling in time that a few days before, on a whim, I had bought some very weak glasses, for the nearsighted, and I had not yet tried them out, having slipped them into my vest pocket, where I could now feel them, I told her I had an appointment with an oculist to have my eyes examined, since for some while my sight had seemed weaker to me. She answered that I could go at once, but she begged me first to bid a proper good-bye to Guide’s father. I shrugged with impatience, but still I did as she wished.

  I went back into the living room and everyone politely said good-bye to me. As for myself, sure that now they would send me off, I even had a moment of good humor. Guido’s father, somewhat bewildered by all this family, asked me: “Will we meet again before I leave for Buenos Aires?”

  “Oh!” I said, “cada vez that you come to this house, you will probably find me here!”

  They all laughed and I went off triumphantly, with a fairly happy good-bye also from Augusta. I left in such good order, after having performed all the required formalities, that I could proceed with confidence. But there was another reason why I was freed of the doubts that until then had held me back: I was running away from my father-in-law’s house to be somewhere as far from it as possible, namely Carla’s house. In the Malfenti household, and not for the first time, they suspected me of ignobly conspiring against Guido’s interests. Innocently, quite absently, I had spoken of that farm in Argentina, and Giovanni had immediately interpreted my words as if they had been deliberately intended to cause Guido trouble with his father. It would have been easy for me to explain myself to Guido if necessary; for Giovanni and the others, who believed me capable of such machinations, vengeance was sufficient explanation. Not that I had decided to hurry to be unfaithful to Augusta. But, in full daylight, I was doing what I desired. A visit to Carla still implied nothing wrong. On the contrary. If I were once again to encounter my mother-in-law in that neighborhood, and if she were to ask me what I was doing there, I would immediately reply: “Why, naturally, I’m going to Carla’s.” So that was the only time I went to Carla without a thought of Augusta. My father-in-law’s attitude had so offended me!

  On the landing I didn’t hear the sound of Carla’s voice. I had a moment of terror: What if she had gone out? I knocked and entered immediately, before anyone had invited me. Carla was there, but so was her mother. They were sewing together, in a pairing that could have been habitual, though I had never seen it before. Each quite separate from the other, they were working on the same large sheet, hemming it. Thus I had rushed to find Carla, and had found her with her mother. That was quite a different thing. Neither good resolutions nor bad could be carried out. Everything remained suspended.

  Flushing deeply, Carla stood up as the old woman slowly removed her eyeglasses and put them in a case. I then thought I was entitled to be indignant for a reason other than that of seeing myself prevented from clarifying my feelings promptly. Weren’t these the hours that Copier had assigned to study? I greeted the old woman politely, but even this act of politeness was hard for me to bear. I greeted Carla, too, almost without looking at her.

  I said to her: “I came to see if this book”—and I nodded to the Garcia, still lying on the table where we had left it—“could provide us with some other useful ideas.”

  I sat in the place I had occupied the day before, and I immediately opened the book. Carla tried at first to smile at me, but seeing that I didn’t respond to her courtesy, she sat down beside me with a certain solicitous obedience, to read. She was hesitant; she didn’t understand. I looked at her and saw on her face an expression spreading that could denote scorn and stubbornness. I imagined this was the way she usually received Copier’s reproaches. Only she was not yet sure that my reproaches were exactly those Copier addressed to her because—as she told me later—she remembered that the previous day I had kissed her, and so she believed herself forever protected against my wrath. Therefore she was still ready to convert that scorn into a friendly smile. I must say here, because later I won’t have the time, that her confidence, the notion that she had definitively tamed me with that one kiss she had granted me, displeased me enormously; a woman who thinks like that is very dangerous.

  But at that moment my mood was exactly the same as Copier’s, charged with reproof and ill-feeling. I began reading aloud the very part that we had already read the day before, which I myself had demolished, pedantically and without other comment, emphasizing some words that seemed the most significant.

  With a slightly tremulous voice, Carla interrupted me: “I believe we’ve already read this!”

  So I was finally obliged to say words of my own. One’s own words can also provide a bit of health. Mine were not only milder than my thoughts and my behavior, but they actua
lly restored me to the life of society.

  “You see, Signorina,” and I immediately accompanied the coy title with a smile that could also have been a lover’s, “I would like to review this material before continuing. Perhaps yesterday we judged it a bit hastily, and a friend of mine just now warned me that to understand everything Garcia says, he must be studied thoroughly.”

  I felt finally also the need to show some consideration for the poor old lady, who certainly in the course of her life, however unfortunate she had been, had never found herself in a similar situation. I addressed to her a smile that cost me more than the one I had bestowed on Carla.

  “It’s not very amusing,” I said to her, “but even someone not interested in singing can profit by listening to it.”

  I continued stubbornly reading. Carla surely felt better, and something that resembled a smile played on her fleshy lips.

  The old woman, on the contrary, still seemed a poor captured animal, and she stayed in that room only because her shyness prevented her from finding an excuse to leave. And as for me, nothing in the world could have made me betray my desire to throw her out. It would have been a grave and compromising action.

  Carla was more determined: with great respect she begged me to interrupt that reading for a moment and, turning to her mother, told her that she could go and that they would continue their work on that sheet in the afternoon.

  The Signora came over to me, undecided whether or not to give me her hand. I clasped it with real fondness and said: “I realize this reading is not at all amusing.”

  It seemed as if I wanted to regret her leaving us. The Signora went out after placing on a chair the sheet that until then she had held on her lap. Then Carla followed her for a moment onto the landing to say something, while I yearned to have her beside me finally. She came back in, closed the door behind her, and returning to her chair, she again had a rigidity around the mouth that recalled the face of a stubborn child.