Zeno's Conscience

  I had the truth from Dr. Paoli, whom I encountered on the stairs. I was so overwhelmed that I almost fell down. Guido, since I had been living beside him, had become for me an individual of great importance. As long as he was alive, I saw him in a certain light, which was the light of a part of my days. With his dying, that light was transformed as if it had suddenly passed through a prism. And it was this that dazzled me. He had erred, but I immediately saw that, as he was dead, nothing of his error remained. According to me he was an imbecile, that clown who, in a cemetery paved with laudatory epitaphs, asked where they bury the sinners around there. The dead are never sinners. Guido now was pure! Death had purified him.

  The doctor was moved, having witnessed Ada’s grief. He told me something of the dreadful night she had gone through. Now they had succeeded in making her believe Guido had swallowed such a great quantity of poison that no succor would have been of help. It would be disastrous if she were to learn otherwise!

  “The fact is,” the doctor added, disheartened, “if I had arrived a few hours earlier, I would have saved him. I found the empty bottles of poison.”

  I examined them. A strong dose, but only slightly stronger than the last time. He showed me some bottles on which I read the printed word: Veronal. Not sodium veronal, then. No one else could now be certain, as I was, that Guido had not wanted to die. But I never told anyone.

  Paoli left me, saying that for the moment I should not try to see Ada. He had given her a strong sedative, and he had no doubt that it would soon take effect.

  In the passage, from that little room where Ada had twice received me, I heard her soft weeping. Isolated words I couldn’t understand, but steeped in sorrow. The word he was repeated several times, and I could imagine what she was saying. She was reconstructing her relations with the poor dead man. They must in no way have resembled those she had had with the living man. For me it was obvious that with her living husband she had made a mistake. He died for a crime committed by all of them together, because he had played the market with the assent of them all. When it came time to settle accounts, then they had abandoned him. And, alone, he had hastened to pay up. Only one of his relatives—I, who had nothing to do with any of it—had felt called upon to help him.

  In the bedroom on the nuptial double bed, poor Guido lay alone, covered by a sheet. Rigor, already advanced, expressed here not a force, but rather a great stupefaction at being dead without having wanted to be. On his dark and handsome face was imprinted a reproach. Certainly not addressed to me.

  I went home to Augusta, to urge her to go to her sister’s aid. I was deeply moved, and Augusta wept, embracing me.

  “You were a brother to him,” she murmured. “Now finally, I agree with you: we must sacrifice a part of our money to redeem his memory.”

  I took care to render all honor to my poor friend. First, I affixed to the door of the office a bulletin that announced our closing because of the owner’s death. I myself composed the death notice. But it was only on the following day, with Ada’s consent, that the funeral arrangements were made. I learned then that Ada had decided to follow the bier to the cemetery. She wanted to give him all the evidence of affection that she could. Poor thing! I knew the pain of remorse at a grave. I myself had suffered it so after my father’s death.

  I spent the afternoon shut up in the office with Nilini for company. Thus we arrived at a little balance sheet of Guido’s situation. Frightful! Not only was the firm’s capital wiped out, but Guido was also in debt for an equal amount, if the whole debt were to be paid.

  I should have started working, really working, for the sake of my poor deceased friend, but I was unable to do anything save dream. My first idea would have been to sacrifice my whole life in that office and to work for Ada and her children. But was I, then, sure of being able to do good?

  Nilini, as usual, chattered away as I stared into the far, far distance. He also felt called upon to revise radically his relations with Guido. Now he understood everything! Poor Guido, when he had wronged Nilini, had already been affected by the sickness that was to lead him to suicide. So all was now forgotten. And he preached on, declaring this was his nature. He was incapable of bearing anyone a grudge. He had always loved Guido, and he loved him still.

  In the end, Nilini’s fantasies merged with mine and overlapped. It was not in time-consuming commerce that we would find the remedy for such a catastrophe, but on the Bourse itself. And Nilini told me about a person, a friend of his, who at the last moment had been able to save himself by doubling his stakes.

  We talked together for many hours, but Nilini’s proposal to continue the gambling begun by Guido came at the end, shortly before noon, and I accepted it at once. I accepted it with joy, as if I were bringing my friend back to life. In the end I bought, in the name of poor Guido, a number of other stocks with exotic names: Rio Tinto, South French, and so on.

  Thus for me began fifty hours of the hardest work I have done in my whole life. First, and until evening, I remained striding up and down the office, waiting to hear if my instructions had indeed been followed. I was afraid that in the Bourse they had heard of Guido’s suicide and his name would no longer be considered valid for further commitments. Instead, for several days that death was not attributed to suicide.

  Then, when Nilini finally could inform me that all my orders had been executed, for me a real agitation began, aggravated by the fact that at the moment I received the documents, I was informed that on all of them I was already losing some fairly large fraction. I remember that agitation as true toil. In my memory I have the curious sensation that uninterruptedly, for fifty hours, I remained seated at the gambling table, nursing the cards. I don’t know anyone who has ever been able to tolerate similar exertion for fifty hours. Every shift in price I recorded, brooded over, and then (why not say it?) mentally urged shares forward, or held them back, as best suited me, or rather my poor friend. Even my nights were sleepless.

  Fearing that some member of the family might intervene and prevent the salvage operation I had undertaken, Ï mentioned to no one the midmonth payment. When it came due, I paid everything myself, because none of the others remembered their commitment, as all were gathered around the corpse, awaiting the interment. For that matter, in that settlement there was less to be paid than had been originally established, because luck had favored me quickly. Such was my sorrow at Guido’s death, that I seemed to alleviate it by compromising myself in every possible way, both with my signature and with the risk of my money. I had been accompanied to this point by the dream of goodness I had had a long time ago, at his side. I suffered so from this agitation that I never again played the stock market on my own account.

  But because of all my absorption with the market (this was my chief occupation) in the end I missed Guido’s funeral. Here is what happened. That very day, the shares in which we were involved made an upward leap. Nilini and I spent our time calculating how much of the loss we had recovered. Old Speier’s original investment now turned out to be only halved! A magnificent result, which filled me with pride. What happened was just what Nilini had predicted, in a very tentative tone, though now, of course, when he repeated his former words, that tone vanished and he portrayed himself as a confident prophet. According to me, he had predicted this and also its opposite. There was no way he could have erred, but I didn’t say so because it suited me for him to remain in the transaction, with his ambition. His urging could also influence prices.

  We left the office at three and began to run because we remembered that the funeral was to take place at two-forty-five.

  Reaching the Chiozza arcades, I saw the procession in the distance and I even seemed to recognize a friend’s carriage, sent to the funeral for Ada. With Nilini, I jumped into a hack, ordering the driver to follow the funeral. And in that vehicle Nilini and I continued our mental exertions to influence the market. So far were we from thinking of the late lamented that we complained of the coach’s slow pace. Who could s
ay what was happening meanwhile on the Bourse, without us to keep watch over it? Nilini, at a certain moment, looked me straight in the eye and asked me why I didn’t do something with the Bourse on my own.

  “For the moment,” I said, and I blushed, I don’t know why, “I am working only for my poor friend.”

  Then, after a slight hesitation, I added: “Afterwards I’ll think of myself.” I wanted to leave him the hope of being able to induce me to gamble, part of my effort to keep him wholly friendly to me. But, silently, I formulated the very words I didn’t dare say to him: “I will never place myself in your hands.”

  He started preaching. “Who knows if there will be another opportunity like this!” He was forgetting: he had taught me that on the Bourse there are opportunities every hour.

  When we arrived at the place where, as a rule, the vehicles stop, Nilini stuck his head out of the window and emitted a cry of surprise. The carriage was proceeding, following a funeral cortege toward the Greek Orthodox cemetery.

  “Was Signor Guido Greek?” he asked, surprised.

  In fact, the funeral was passing beyond the Catholic cemetery and advancing toward some other cemetery, Jewish, Greek, Protestant, or Serbian.

  “He might have been Protestant!” I said at first, but immediately recalled having attended his wedding in the Catholic church.

  “It must be a mistake!” I exclaimed, thinking first that they wanted to bury him in some remote spot.

  Nilini suddenly burst out laughing, uncontrollable laughter that flung him, his strength exhausted, against the back of the carriage, his ugly mouth wide open in his little face.

  “We’ve made a mistake!” he cried. When he managed to restrain the explosion of his hilarity, he showered reproaches on me. I should have seen where we were going, because I should have known the time and the people and the rest. It was somebody else’s funeral!

  Irritated, I hadn’t laughed with him, and now it was difficult for me to put up with his reproaches. Why didn’t he also pay more attention? I controlled my ill temper only because the Bourse mattered more to me than the funeral. We got out of the carriage to get our bearings, and headed for the gate of the Catholic cemetery. The carriage followed us. I realized that the survivors of the other deceased looked at us with surprise, unable to figure out why, having honored the poor man to this extreme place, we were now abandoning him just at the supreme moment.

  Nilini, impatient, walked ahead of me. He asked the gatekeeper, after a brief hesitation: “Has Dr. Guido Speier’s funeral already arrived?”

  The gatekeeper didn’t seem surprised by the question, which to me seemed comical. He answered that he didn’t know. He knew only that in the last half hour two funerals had passed the gates.

  Puzzled, we held council. Obviously there was no knowing whether the funeral was already inside or not. Then I decided for myself. It was not admissible for me to arrive when the service had already begun, disturbing it. So I wouldn’t enter the cemetery. But, on the other hand, I couldn’t risk encountering the funeral on its way out. Therefore I gave up the idea of attending the interment, and I would return to the city taking a long way around, by Serrala. I left the carriage to Nilini, who wanted at least to put in an appearance, out of deference to Ada, whom he knew.

  With a rapid step, to avoid any encounter, I climbed the country road leading to the village. At this point I wasn’t the least displeased to have mistaken funerals, not paying my last respects to poor Guido. I couldn’t linger over those religious practices. Another duty weighed on me: I had to save my friend’s honor and defend his patrimony, for the sake of his widow and children. When I could tell Ada that I had managed to recover three-quarters of the loss (and in my mind I returned to the whole calculation redone so many times: Guido had lost double the amount of his father’s capital, and after my intervention the loss was reduced to half of that. So it was exact. I had actually recovered three-quarters of the loss), she would surely forgive me for not having attended his funeral.

  That day the weather had turned fine again. A splendid spring sun was shining, and, in the still-soaked countryside, the air was clear and healthy. My lungs, taking the exercise I hadn’t allowed myself for several days, swelled. I was all health and strength. Health is evident only through comparison. I compared myself to poor Guido and I climbed, higher and higher, with my victory in the very struggle where he had fallen. All was health and strength around me. The country, too, with its young grass. The long and abundant watering, the other day’s catastrophe, now produced only beneficent effects, and the luminous sun was the warmth desired by the still-frozen earth. Surely, the more we moved away from the catastrophe, the more disagreeable that blue sky would be, unless it could darken in time. But this was the forecast of experience and I didn’t remember it; it grips me only now as I write. At that moment there was in my spirit only a hymn to my health and all of nature’s: undying health.

  My steps quickened. I was overjoyed to feel them so light. Coming down the Servola hill, my pace picked up until I was almost running. Having reached the flat Sant’Andrea promenade, it slowed again, but I retained the sensation of great ease. The air was carrying me along.

  I had perfectly forgotten that I was coming from the funeral of my closest friend. I had the stride, the respiration of a victor. But my joy in victory was a tribute to my poor friend in whose interest I had entered the fray.

  I went to the office to see the closing prices. They were a bit weak, but not enough to undermine my confidence. I would go back to my mental focus, and I had no doubt that I would arrive at my goal.

  I finally had to go to Ada’s house. Augusta came to the door. She asked me immediately: “How could you miss the funeral? You? The only man in our family.”

  I put down my umbrella and hat and, a bit puzzled, I told her I would like to speak at once with Ada as well, so I wouldn’t have to repeat myself. Meanwhile I could assure her that, as for missing the funeral, I had had my own good reasons. I was no longer all that sure of them, and suddenly my side started hurting, perhaps from fatigue. It must have been that remark of Augusta’s that made me doubt the possibility of justifying my absence, which must have caused a scandal; I could see before me all the participants at the sad function, distracted from their grief by wondering where I was.

  Ada didn’t come. I learned later that she hadn’t even been informed that I was waiting for her. I was received by Signora Malfenti, who began speaking to me with a frown more stern than any I had ever seen; I began apologizing, but I was quite far from the self-confidence with which I had flown from the cemetery into the city. I stammered. I told her also something less than true, in support of the truth, which was my courageous initiative on the Bourse for Guido’s benefit. What I said was that shortly before the time of the funeral I had had to send a dispatch to Paris to place an order, and I had felt compelled to remain in the office until I had received the reply. It was true that Nilini and I had had to cable Paris, but that was two days ago, and two days ago we had also received the reply. In other words, I understood that the truth wouldn’t suffice to excuse me, perhaps because I couldn’t tell all of it, relating the important operation that I had been carrying on for days, namely regulating, with my mental willpower, the international stock exchanges. But Signora Malfenti forgave me when she heard the sum to which Guido’s loss had now been reduced. She thanked me with tears in her eyes. I was again not simply the sole man in the family, but the best.

  She asked me to come that evening with Augusta to see Ada, to whom in the meanwhile she would tell everything. For the moment, Ada was in no condition to receive anyone. And I gladly went off with my wife. Even she, before leaving that house, didn’t feel it necessary to say good-bye to Ada, who alternated between weeping and a dejection that didn’t allow her even to notice the presence of anyone who spoke to her.

  I had a hope: “Then it wasn’t Ada who realized I was absent?”

  Augusta confessed that she would have liked to re
main silent, since Ada’s display of indignation at my absence had seemed excessive to her. Ada demanded explanations from her, and when Augusta had to say she knew nothing, not having yet seen me, Ada again gave way to despair, crying that Guido had been driven to that end, for the whole family hated him.

  It seemed to me Augusta should have defended me, reminding Ada how I alone had been prepared really to help Guido. If they had listened to me, Guido would have had no motive for committing or simulating suicide.

  But Augusta, on the contrary, had remained silent. She was so moved by Ada’s desperation that she feared enraging her, if she tried to argue. For that matter, she was confident that Signora Malfenti’s explanations would now convince Ada of her own injustice toward me. I must say that I felt that same confidence myself, and indeed I must confess that from that moment on, I anticipated the certain satisfaction of witnessing Ada’s surprise and her manifestations of gratitude. For with her, thanks to Basedow, everything was excessive.

  I returned to the office, where I learned that on the market there was another slight indication of a rise, very slight, but already sufficient to allow me to hope I would find, at tomorrow’s opening, the high level of that morning.

  After supper I had to go to Ada’s alone, because an indisposition of our little girl prevented Augusta from accompanying me. I was received by Signora Malfenti, who told me she had to attend to something in the kitchen, and therefore she would have to leave me alone with Ada. Then she confessed to me that Ada had asked to be left alone with me because she wanted to say something to me that shouldn’t be heard by others. Before leaving me in that sitting room where I had already been with Ada twice, Signora Malfenti said to me, smiling: “You know, she isn’t yet ready to forgive your absence from Guido’s funeral, but… almost!”