“No!” she said to me. “Please don’t make fun of her.” Then she confessed, still laughing, that I had succeeded in imitating those very protuberances that gave Ada’s face such a surprising appearance. And I knew it, because in imitating Ada, it was as if I were embracing her. And when I was alone, I repeated that effort several times, with desire and repulsion.
In the afternoon I went to the office, hoping to find Guido there. I waited awhile, then decided to go to his house. I had to know if it was necessary to ask Olivi for some money. I had to do my duty, even though it annoyed me to see Ada, once again distorted by gratitude. Who knows what surprises that woman might still have in store for me!
On the front steps of Guido’s house I ran into Signora Malfenti, who was climbing them ponderously. She told me in full detail what had so far been decided about Guido’s plight. When they had separated the previous evening, they were more or less agreed in the conviction that that man, who had undergone such a disastrous misfortune, should be rescued. Only in the morning had Ada learned that I would contribute to covering Guido’s loss, and she had firmly refused to accept. Signora Malfenti excused her: “What can we do? She doesn’t want to bear the burden of remorse at having impoverished her favorite sister.”
On the landing, the Signora stopped to catch her breath and also to talk, and she said to me, laughing, that the matter would be concluded with no harm to anyone. Before lunch, she, Ada, and Guido had called on a lawyer for advice, an old family friend who was also little Anna’s trustee. The lawyer had said that there was no need to pay because by law they were not obligated. Guido had objected sharply, speaking of honor and duty, but once all of them, including Ada, had decided not to pay, no doubt he, too, would have to resign himself.
“But will his firm be declared bankrupt in the Bourse?” I asked, puzzled.
“Probably!” Signora Malfenti said, with a sigh, before tackling the last flight of steps.
Guido was accustomed to rest after lunch, and so we were received by Ada alone, in that little sitting room I knew so well. Seeing me, she was confused for a moment, but just for one moment, which I, however, grasped and clung to, clear and evident, as if her confusion had been spoken aloud. Then she recovered herself and held out her hand with a firm, virile gesture, meant to erase the feminine hesitation that had preceded it.
She said to me: “Augusta must have told you how grateful I am to you. I couldn’t now tell you what I feel, because I’m confused. I’m also ill. Yes, very ill! I should go back to the sanatorium in Bologna!”
A sob interrupted her: “Now I must ask you a favor. I beg you to tell Guido that you, too, are in no position to give him that money. Then it will be easier to persuade him to do what he must do.”
First she had sobbed, recalling her illness; then she sobbed again before continuing to talk about her husband: “He’s a boy, and he must be treated as such. If he knows that you will give him that money, he’ll be all the more obstinate about his idea of sacrificing the rest as well, pointlessly. Point-lessly, because now we know with absolute certainty that bankruptcy in the Bourse is not illegal. The lawyer told us so.”
She was communicating to me the opinion of a high authority without asking me for mine. Coming from an old habitué of the Bourse, my opinion, along with the lawyer’s, could have carried some weight, but I didn’t actually remember my opinion, if, indeed, I had one. I couldn’t renege on the commitment I had made to Guido: it was that commitment that had authorized me to shout all those insults into his ear, thus pocketing something like interest on the capital that now I could no longer refuse him.
“Ada,” I said, hesitantly. “I don’t believe I can contradict myself like this, on a moment’s notice. Wouldn’t it be better for you to convince Guido to do things the way you wish?”
Signora Malfenti, with the great fondness she always showed me, said she understood my special position perfectly, and, for that matter, when Guido saw at his disposal only a quarter of the amount he needed, he would be obliged in any case to bow to their wishes.
But Ada hadn’t wept all her tears. Crying, her face hidden in her handkerchief, she said: “You were wrong, very wrong, to make that truly extraordinary offer! Now it’s clear, the wrong you’ve done!”
She seemed to me to hesitate between a great gratitude and a great bitterness. Then she added that she didn’t want that offer of mine to be discussed any further, and she begged me not to provide that money, because she would prevent me from giving it, or would prevent Guido from accepting it.
I was so embarrassed that in the end I told a lie. I told her, in fact, that I had already procured that money, and I pointed to my breast pocket, where that very slim envelope was nestled. Ada looked at me this time with an expression of real admiration, which would have pleased me if I hadn’t been aware of not deserving it. In any case, it was that very lie of mine, for which I can offer no explanation except a strange tendency I have to portray myself to Ada as greater than I am, that kept me from waiting for Guido, and drove me from that house. It could also have happened that, at a certain point, contrary to appearances, I might have been asked to hand over the money I had said I had with me, and then what kind of figure would I cut? I pleaded urgent business in the office and I ran off.
Ada saw me to the door and assured me she would induce Guido to come to me himself, thank me for my kind offer, and refuse it. Her resolve in pronouncing this declaration surprised me; it seemed her determination affected also me in part. No! At that moment she didn’t love me. My act of kindness had been too great. It crushed the people on whom it fell, and it was no wonder that the beneficiaries protested. Going to the office, I tried to rid myself of the uneasiness that Ada’s attitude had caused me, remembering that I was offering this sacrifice to Guido and to no one else. What did Ada have to do with it? I promised myself I would say this to Ada herself at the first opportunity.
I went to the office precisely to escape any remorse for having lied once again. Nothing awaited me there. Since morning a fine rain had been falling, which had considerably cooled the air of that tentative spring. A few steps and I would have been at home, whereas to go to the office I had to cover a much longer route, and this was fairly tiresome. But I felt I had a commitment to maintain.
A little later I was joined there by Guido. He sent Luciano out of the office in order to remain alone with me. He had that overwhelmed expression that assisted him m his struggles with his wife; I knew it very well. He must have wept and shouted.
He asked me what I thought of the plans of his wife and our mother-in-law, which he knew had been communicated to me. I acted hesitant. I didn’t want to express my opinion, which could not agree with that of the two women, but I knew that if I were to adopt theirs, I would provoke further scenes on Guido’s part. Yet it would have pained me too much if my help were to seem hesitant, and besides, Ada and I had agreed that the decision should come from Guido and not from me. I told him it was necessary to calculate, observe, listen also to other people. I wasn’t such a businessman that I could give advice on an important subject like this. And, to gain time, I asked him if he wanted me to consult Olivi.
This was enough to make him shout. “That imbecile!” he cried. “Please leave him out of this!”
I surely wasn’t going to become overheated defending Olivi, but my calm wasn’t enough to soothe Guido. We were in the identical situation of the day before, but now it was he who was shouting and I who had to be silent. It’s a matter of disposition. I was filled with an embarrassment that paralyzed my limbs.
But he absolutely insisted on hearing my opinion. Thanks to an inspiration I believe divine, I spoke very well, so well that if my words had had any effect whatsoever, the catastrophe that followed would have been avoided. I told him that, to begin with, I would have separated the two questions, that of the payment on the fifteenth from that at the end of the month. After all, on the fifteenth the sum to be paid wasn’t so large, and therefore the women sh
ould be persuaded to accept that relatively light loss. Then we would gain the time necessary to arrange wisely for the other payment.
Guido interrupted me to ask: “Ada told me that you have the money all ready in your pocket. Do you have it here?”
I blushed. But I promptly found another lie at hand, which saved me: “Since they wouldn’t accept that money at your house, I deposited it in the bank just now. But we can withdraw it whenever we like, even first thing tomorrow morning.”
Then he reproached me for having changed my mind. Just the day before I had declared I didn’t want to wait for the second payment before clearing up everything! And here he had an outburst of violent wrath that finally flung him, drained, on the sofa! He was going to throw Nilini out of the window, and all those other brokers who had lured him into gambling. Oh! While he was gambling he had clearly glimpsed the possibility of ruin, but never that of being subjugated to women who didn’t understand a thing.
I went to shake his hand, and if he had allowed me, I would have embraced him. I wanted nothing more than to see him arrive at that decision. No more gambling, but day-to-day work!
This would be our future and his independence. Now it was a matter of getting through this brief, hard period, and then everything would be easy and simple.
Downcast but calmer, he left me a little later. He, too, in his weakness was pervaded with strong determination.
“I’m going back to Ada,” he murmured, with a bitter but confident smile.
I saw him to the door and I would have accompanied him home if he hadn’t had a carriage outside, waiting for him.
Nemesis was persecuting Guido. Half an hour after he left me, I thought it would have been prudent on my part to go to his house and lend him a hand. Not that I suspected there might be any danger threatening him, but by now I was totally on his side and I could help persuade Ada and Signora Malfenti to assist him. Failure in the Bourse was not something I liked, and while the loss divided among the four of us was not insignificant, it didn’t represent ruin for any of us.
Then I remembered that my greatest duty at this moment was not to help Guido, but to make sure that the next day he would find the sum I had promised him. I went at once to look for Olivi, and I prepared myself for another struggle. I had worked out a system to repay to my firm the gross amount over various years, depositing, however, over a few months’ time, all that remained of my mother’s estate. I was hoping that Olivi would not create difficulties, because until now I had never asked him for more than was my due from profits and interest, and I could also promise never to trouble him again with such demands. Obviously, I could also hope to recover at least a part of that sum from Guido.
That evening I wasn’t able to find Olivi. He had just left his office when I reached it. They assumed he had gone to the Bourse. I didn’t find him there, either, and then I went to his house, where I learned he was at a meeting of an economic association in which he occupied some honorary position. I could have gone to him there, but by now it was night, and a heavy rain was falling steadily, transforming the streets into so many little streams.
The downpour lasted all night, and its memory persisted for long years thereafter. The rain fell very calmly, actually perpendicular, always with the same abundance. From the heights surrounding the city, the mud descended and, mingling with the refuse of our city life, soon clogged up our few canals. After having waited in vain in a shed for the rain to stop, I decided to go home, since I could clearly see that the weather had settled on rain and it was useless to hope for any change. I had to wade through water even when I chose the highest part of the cobbles. I hurried home, cursing and soaked to the skin. I was also cursing because I had wasted so much useful time hunting for Olivi. My time may not be all that valuable, but I surely suffer horribly when I can see I have labored in vain. And as I hurried home, I was thinking: “We’ll leave everything till tomorrow when it will be clear and fair and dry. Tomorrow I’ll see Olivi and tomorrow I’ll go to Guido. Maybe I’ll get up early, but it will be clear and dry.” I was so convinced of the rightness of my decision that I told Augusta everyone had agreed to postpone all decisions to the next day. I changed, dried myself, and first, with my warm, comfortable slippers on my tortured feet, I had supper, then I went to bed and slept soundly until morning while, at the panes of my window, the rain pounded, in streams as thick as cables.
Thus I was late in learning of the night’s events. First we found out that the rain had provoked flooding in various parts of the city, and then that Guido was dead.
Much later I found out how such a thing could happen. At about eleven in the evening, when Signora Malfenti had gone off, Guido told his wife that he had swallowed an enormous quantity of veronal. He wanted to convince his wife that he was doomed. He embraced her, kissed her, asked her forgiveness for having caused her suffering. Then, even before his speech turned into a stammer, he assured her that she had been the only love of his life. At that moment she believed neither that assurance nor that he had swallowed all that poison in order to die. She didn’t even believe he had lost consciousness, but imagined he was shamming in order to get more money out of her.
Then, when almost an hour had gone by, seeing that he was sleeping more and more profoundly, she felt some terror and wrote a note to a doctor who lived not far from her house. In the note she said that her husband needed help at once because he had swallowed a great quantity of veronal.
Until then, there had been no emotion in that house that might have suggested to the maid, an old woman who had been with them only a short while, the gravity of her mission.
The rain did the rest. The maid found herself up to her calves in water, and she lost the note. She realized this only when she was in the doctor’s presence. She did tell him, however, that it was urgent and she persuaded him to come with her.
Dr. Mali was a man of about fifty, far from brilliant, but an experienced physician who had always performed his duty as best he could. He didn’t have a great clientele of his own, but he was kept very busy by a partnership with many other doctors, which paid him less than generously. He had just come home, and had finally managed to warm and dry himself at his fire. It’s easy to imagine his state of mind, as he now abandoned his warm little nook. When I began investigating more closely the causes of my poor friend’s death, I took care also to make the acquaintance of Dr. Mali. From him I learned only this: when he came outdoors and felt the rain soaking him despite his umbrella, he regretted he had studied medicine instead of agriculture, recalling that a peasant, when it rains, stays home.
Reaching Guido’s bedside, he found Ada completely calmed. Now that she had the doctor with her, she recalled more clearly how Guido had fooled her months before, simulating suicide. It was no longer she who had to assume responsibility, but rather the doctor, who should be informed of everything, including the motives that might suggest a simulation of suicide. And these motives the doctor learned, all of them, at the same time that he pricked up his ear to hear the waves that were sweeping through the street. Not having been warned that he was called to deal with a case of poisoning, he lacked all the necessary implements for the treatment. He deplored this, muttering some words that Ada didn’t understand. The worst of it was that, to initiate a gastric cleansing, he couldn’t send for the necessary pump, but would have to go and fetch it himself, retracing his steps twice. He touched Guido’s pulse and found it magnificent. He asked Ada if Guido by chance had always been a sound sleeper. Ada answered yes, but not to this degree. The doctor examined Guido’s eyes: they reacted promptly to the light! He went off, recommending that from time to time she give him a few teaspoons of very strong black coffee.
I learned also that, once in the street again, he muttered angrily: “It ought to be against the law, to fake suicide in weather like this!”
I, when I met him, didn’t dare reproach him for his negligence, but he sensed my feeling and defended himself: He told me he was amazed to learn, the
next morning, that Guido was dead, and had even thought the patient might have regained consciousness and taken more veronal. Then he added that those ignorant of the medical art couldn’t imagine how a doctor, in the course of his practice, became accustomed to defending his life against patients who jeopardized it, thinking only of their own.
After little more than an hour, Ada tired of thrusting a teaspoon between Guido’s teeth and seeing him sip less and less of it, letting the rest spill and dampen the pillow; she took fright again and asked the maid to go to Dr. Paoli. This time the maid was careful with the note. But it took her over an hour to reach the physician’s house. It’s natural, when it’s raining that hard, to feel the need now and then to stop under some portico. That sort of rain doesn’t just wet you: it lashes you.
Dr. Paoli wasn’t at home. He had been summoned a short time before by a patient, and had gone off saying he hoped to be back quickly. But then, apparently, he had preferred to wait at the patient’s house for the rain to stop. His housekeeper, a very kind elderly person, invited Ada’s maid to sit by the fire and gave her some refreshment. The doctor hadn’t left his patient’s address, and so the two women spent several hours together by the fire. The doctor returned only when the rain had stopped. Then, when he reached Ada’s with all the instruments he had used once before on Guido, dawn was breaking. At that bedside he had only one duty: to conceal from Ada the fact that Guido was already dead and, before Ada could realize it, send for Signora Malfenti, to assist the widow in her immediate grief.
This was why the news that reached us was delayed, and vague.
Getting out of bed, I felt for the first time an access of rage against poor Guido. He complicated every misfortune with his histrionics! I went off without Augusta, who couldn’t leave the baby on such short notice. Outside, I was stopped by a doubt! Couldn’t I wait until the banks opened and Olivi was in his office, so as to appear at Guido’s supplied with the money I had promised? This is how little I believed in the gravity of Guido’s condition, even though it had been announced to me!