by Italo Svevo
About ten years before, Emilio Brentani, then quite a young man, had been at his feet. Balli had recognized in him an egoist less fortunate than himself and had taken a fancy to him. At first he only sought his company because he felt himself to be an object of admiration. As time went on, Brentani’s society became so familiar that he could no longer do without it. Their friendship bore witness to Balli’s influence at every point. It became, like all the rare friendships of the sculptor, more intimate than Emilio, from motives of prudence, might perhaps have desired. Their intellectual relations were confined to the representative arts, and here they were in complete agreement, because Balli’s absorbing idea reigned therein supreme, namely, the necessity of discovering afresh for ourselves the simplicity or naïveté of which the so-called classicists had robbed the arts. Agreement was easy: Balli taught and the other had nothing to do but learn. Never a word passed between them of Emilio’s complicated literary theories, because Balli loathed everything that he could not understand, and Emilio was influenced by him even to the point of walking, speaking, and gesticulating like him. Balli, who was a man in the true sense of the word, submitted to no outside influence, and in Brentani’s company had almost the sense of being with one of the many women who were entirely dominated by him.
“Yes,” he said, after listening carefully to every detail of Emilio’s story. “I don’t think you ought to run any danger. The nature of the affair is sufficiently indicated by the sunshade slipping from her hand at such a very convenient moment, and by her immediately giving you an appointment.”
“That is true,” Emilio agreed, though he did not add that up to this moment he had paid so little attention to those two details that, now that Balli mentioned them, they struck him as two quite new facts. “Do you think, then, that what Sorniani says about her is true?” When listening to Sorniani’s revelations he had certainly not taken those two facts into account.
“You must introduce me to her,” said Balli cautiously. “Then I shall be able to judge better.”
Brentani could not keep his secret even from his sister. Amalia had never been pretty. Tall, thin and colorless—Balli used to say that she had been born gray—the only quality of youth that remained to her was her slender, white, exquisitely shaped hands to which she devoted infinite care and attention.
It was the first time he had ever spoken to her about a woman, and Amalia listened in surprise and with a sudden change of countenance to words which, as he spoke them, he felt to be innocent and above reproach, but which on his lips became fraught with passionate desire. He had in reality told her nothing, but she was already murmuring Balli’s warning: “Do be careful not to do anything foolish.”
But then she wanted him to tell her everything, and Emilio thought he might safely confide in her the wonderful happiness he had felt that first evening, though he instinctively hid from her the proposal he had made to Angiolina and all the hopes he had based on it. It did not occur to him that what he had told her was really the most dangerous part. She sat listening to him at supper, continuing all the while to supply his every need silently and attentively, so that he never needed to interrupt his story to ask for this or that. It was with just such an expression that she had read the several hundred novels ranged on the shelves of the old cupboard which served as a library; but the fascination which Emilio’s story exercised on her was, as she herself recognized with surprise, something quite different. She was no longer merely a passive listener, it was not the fate of some outside person which fascinated her, but her own fate which suddenly assumed for her a new and vivid interest. Love had entered the house and was there beside her, restlessly at work. A single breath had sufficed to dissipate the stagnant atmosphere in which she had lived blindly up to that moment and she was astonished, when she came to examine her own feelings, that being made as she was she could have been content to live like that, without being conscious of any desire to suffer or enjoy.
Brother and sister were embarking together on the same adventure.
2
DARK THOUGH it was he recognized Angiolina the moment he turned into the Campo Marzio. To recognize her he only needed by now to see her shadow moving forward with that smooth, unaccentuated gait peculiar to her, as if she were being securely and tenderly borne along. He hastened to meet her and at the sight of her brilliant coloring, so strangely vivid, so flawless in its perfection, he felt his heart leap for joy within him. She had come, and as she leaned on his arm he felt that she had given him the whole of herself.
He led her down towards the sea, away from the main road where a few people still passed from time to time; once on the beach they were completely alone. He wanted to kiss her at once but did not dare, though she continued to smile at him encouragingly, without however uttering a word. The very idea that if only he had dared he might have touched her eyes or her mouth with his lips, moved him so deeply as to take his breath away.
“Oh, why are you so late? I thought you were never coming.” That was what he said, but he had already forgotten whatever resentment he had felt. Like certain animals when under the influence of love, he felt the need of uttering a complaint. And a moment later it seemed to him that his discontent was fully explained when he said gaily: “I can’t believe that I have really got you here beside me.” This reflection gave him a complete sensation of his own happiness. “And I thought that it was impossible to spend a more perfect evening than we spent together last week.” He felt so much happier now that he could even rejoice in his coming conquest as if it were already won.
They came all too soon to kissing, seeing that after the first impulse to clasp her suddenly in his arms he would have been content just to gaze at her and dream. But she was even less capable of understanding Emilio’s feelings than he was of understanding hers. He had ventured timidly to caress her hair, which seemed to him so much pure gold. But her skin was golden too, he said, she was all made of gold. To him it seemed that in doing so he had expressed everything in saying this, but Angiolina was far from thinking so. She remained thoughtful for a few moments, and then complained that one of her teeth was aching. “This one,” she said, opening her delicious mouth for him to see, and displaying her red gums and strong white teeth, which seemed like a casket of precious gems chosen and set there by the incomparable artificer—health. He did not laugh, but gravely kissed the mouth she held out to him.
Her vanity did not worry him since he profited by it so much; indeed, he was scarcely even aware of it. Like all who have never come into contact with the facts of life, he had believed himself stronger than the most exalted spirit, more indifferent than the most confirmed pessimist, and now he looked round him at the silent witnesses of this night’s great event.
The moon had not yet risen, but far out at sea an iridescent radiance hung upon the water as if the sun had but lately left it and everything were still reflecting its light. But on either side of the bay the distant blue headlands were already hidden in deepest shadow. Everything seemed enormous and without boundary; the only thing which moved in that vast solitude was the color of the sea. He felt that in the whole of nature at that moment he was the only active force, he alone was in love.
He spoke to her about what Sorniani had told him and ended by questioning her about her past. She at once put on a very serious face and talked in a dramatic tone about her adventure with Merighi. Abandoned by him? That was hardly the way to put it, seeing that it was she who had spoken the decisive word which had released the Merighis from their obligation towards her. It was true that they had worried the life out of her by making it plain that they looked on her as a burden on the family. Merighi’s mother, horrid, grumbling, jealous old cat that she was, had certainly not minced matters; she had let her have it plain: “You are a perfect plague,” she had said; “if it wasn’t for you my son could be looking about for someone with a fortune.” At that she had left their house of her own free will, and gone home to her mother (she pronounced the sweet wo
rd “mother” in a softer tone) and she was so unhappy that she fell ill very soon after. Her illness was a relief, for if you are in a high fever you forget all your worries.
Then she wanted to know who it was had told him all this. “Sorniani.”
At first she seemed unable to remember his name, but then she burst out laughing and exclaimed: “Why, that horrible, bilious-looking creature who is always about with Leardi!”
So she knew Leardi too, a youth who had only just come to the fore, but who was already living at a pace which had made him notorious among the young voluptuaries of the town. Merighi had introduced him to her many years ago when they were all three scarcely more than children; they had often played together. “I am very fond of him,” she wound up, with an engaging frankness which gave a color of sincerity to everything else she said. Even Brentani, who was already beginning to tremble at the mention of that formidable young Leardi with whom he could not dream of competing, had his suspicions laid to rest by her last words. Poor child! She was honest and disinterested.
Would it not have been better to teach her to be less honest and a trifle more calculating? He had no sooner asked himself this question than he conceived the splendid idea of educating the girl himself. In return for the love he hoped to receive from her he could only give her one thing, a knowledge of life and the art of making the most of it. His would also be an inestimable gift, for such beauty and such grace as hers, under the guidance of an experienced person like himself, were bound to be victorious in the struggle for existence. Thanks to him, then, she would win for herself the fortune he was unable to give her. He wanted to tell her on the spot some of the ideas which were passing through his head. He stopped kissing and flattering her, and as a preparation for her initiation into vice he assumed the severe aspect of a professor of virtue.
Adopting an ironic tone which it often amused him to assume towards himself, he began by pitying her for having fallen into the hands of someone like him, who had very little money, and at the same time very little courage or energy. For if he had had more courage, and his voice trembled with emotion as he made her his first serious declaration of love, he would have taken her in his arms, clasped her to his breast, and never let her go while life lasted. But he had not sufficient courage. It was bad enough to be poor if one was alone, but together it was horrible; it was the most wretched form of slavery. He dreaded it for himself and still more for her.
But here she broke in with: “I should not be afraid. I should be quite happy to live with the man I loved, no matter how poor he was.” He had the feeling that she was going to take hold of him by the neck and fling him into the condition he most dreaded.
“But I never could,” he said, after a moment’s pause which was meant to give the impression that he had hesitated before making his decision. “I know myself too well.” And after another pause he added in a grave, deep voice the one word “Never!” while she gazed seriously at him, her chin resting on the handle of her parasol.
Having thus put everything in its proper place, he observed by way of introducing the subject of the education he intended to give her, that it would have been better for her if she had been approached by any one of the five or six other young men who had agreed with him in admiring her that day, rather than by him: the richard Carlini, the featherheaded Bardi, who was amusing himself by throwing away the last dregs of his youth and of his immense fortune; or the financier Nelli, who was piling up more money every day.
Each and all of them, for one reason or another, were more worthwhile than he was.
For a moment she succeeded in adopting the right tone. She took offense. It was, however, only too obvious that her anger was feigned and exaggerated, and Emilio could not fail to be aware of it. But he did not blame her for playing a part. She began twisting herself about as if she were trying to escape from his embrace and get away, but she contrived that her efforts should not extend to her arms by which he was holding her. These she continued to leave lying passive in his grasp, till at last he gave up holding them tight and ended by stroking them and covering them with kisses.
He asked her to forgive him, he had expressed himself badly, he said, and then he went boldly on to repeat in other words exactly what he had said before. She did not make any comment on this fresh insult, but continued for some time to speak in an injured tone. “I don’t want you to think that it would have been all one to me whichever of those young men had accosted me. I should not have allowed them to speak to me.” She reminded him that at their first meeting they had vaguely remembered meeting each other in the road about a year ago. So that, as she explained, he was not just anyone. Emilio gravely replied that he had only meant to say he would have got what he deserved.
At that point he began to instruct her on some of the assets in which her education seemed to him to be lacking. He said she was not calculating enough, and he blamed her for it. A girl in her situation ought to look after her own interests better. What was honesty in this world? Why, self-interest! An honest woman was one who looked out for the highest bidder and took care not to fall in love unless she could make a good thing out of it. As he spoke, he felt himself to be a superior being, an immoralist, who sees things as they are and is content that they should be so. He suddenly felt that his thinking-machine, which had so long been inactive, had begun functioning again and was in perfect order. His bosom swelled with pride, he was a man once more.
She listened to him with profound attention and in some bewilderment. She evidently thought he intended her to believe that an honest woman and a rich woman were one and the same thing. “So this is what those grand ladies are like?” Then when she saw him looking somewhat surprised, she at once denied that that was what she meant to say; but if he had really been as acute an observer as he imagined himself to be, he would have seen that she no longer understood at all the line of argument which had caused her so much astonishment a short while before.
He repeated and developed his idea. An honest woman knows her own value, that is her secret. If you are not honest you must at least seem to be so. It was bad enough that Sorniani should allow himself to speak lightly of her, worse still that she should announce she was fond of Leardi—and here his jealousy got the better of him—that odious little Don Juan whom no nice woman would care to be seen with. It was better to do wrong than to look as if one were doing it.
She at once forgot the general ideas which he had been explaining so carefully, and began to defend herself vigorously against his accusations. Sorniani didn’t know anything against her, he had no business to talk about her, and as for Leardi, he was a perfectly nice young man, whom no girl would mind being seen with.
He had finished his lesson for that evening; so potent a medicine, he thought, had better be administered in small doses. Besides, he felt he had already made a sufficient sacrifice in snatching all those moments from love-making.
He had a certain literary prejudice against the name Angiolina. He called her Lina; but when this abbreviation did not please him he turned her name into French and called her Angèle; or, if he wanted to be more tender still, he changed it to Ange. He taught her how to say in French that she loved him. When she knew what the words meant she refused to repeat them, but at their next meeting she volunteered without his asking her “Je tem bocù.”
He was not really at all surprised to have made such rapid progress. It was exactly what he had hoped. She had found him so reasonable that she felt she could trust him completely, and for a long time he did not even give her the opportunity of refusing him anything.
They always met in the open air. They had made love in all the suburban roads of Trieste. After their first few meetings they deserted Sant’ Andrea because it was too frequented, and for a certain time after that they favored the Strada d’Opicina, which was a broad, lonely road, leading almost imperceptibly uphill, and bordered on each side by dense horse-chestnuts. They always halted by a low, jutting wall which came to mark the lim
it of their walk, because they had sat down on it to rest the first time they went that way. They remained folded in a long embrace, with the city at their feet, as silent and dead as the sea which, from that height, seemed one vast expanse of color, mysterious, undefined. Motionless there in the silence, city, sea, and hills seemed to be all of one piece, as if some artist had shaped and colored all that matter according to his own strange fancy, and dotted the intersecting lines with points of yellow light which were really the street lanterns.
The gradually increasing moonlight did nothing to change the color of the landscape. Certain objects whose outlines had become more distinct, could rather be said to be veiled in light than to be illuminated by it. A snowy brilliance overspread it, motionless, while color slumbered within a shade of secret immobility even on the sea, whose external movements one could just discern in the silver play of water on its surface; color was lost in sleep. The green of the hills and all the many colors of the houses were darkened, while the light which saturated the outer air seemed to be suspended in white incorruptible purity, inaccessibly removed from contact with the objects of our vision.
The moonlight seemed to have become incarnate in the girl’s face so near to his own, and to have stolen the youthful rose of her cheeks while leaving intact that golden glow which it seemed to Emilio that he could actually taste with his lips. Her face had become grave, almost austere, and as he kissed it he felt himself to be more than ever a seducer. He was kissing the pure virginal moonlight.