by Italo Svevo
It was easy enough to come to an understanding with Balli. Emilio met him next morning walking behind the cart which took dogs away to be killed, and quite overcome by pity for the poor beasts. He was no doubt genuinely affected, but he admitted that he indulged in the emotion because it increased his artistic sensibility. He did not pay much attention to Emilio’s words, for his ears were deafened by the howling of the dogs, the most melancholy sound in creation, especially when provoked by the sudden and unexpected pain of something drawn tightly round the neck: “The fear of death is in them already,” said Balli, “and an immense and powerless indignation as well.”
Brentani remembered with bitterness that the same surprise, the same immense and powerless indignation had been audible in Amalia’s lamentation. The presence of the dog-killer, however, made his task easier, for Balli listened to him absent-mindedly and said he had no objection to coming to see him that very day.
He felt, however, slightly more doubtful at mid-day when he went to call for Emilio at the office. He was already convinced that Amalia had confessed her passion to her brother and that the latter had at first thought it better to keep him away from the house; and now it seemed that Emilio wanted him to go back because Amalia could not understand why he no longer came there. “I suppose they want me to go for propriety’s sake!” thought Balli, with his customary facility in explaining everything.
They were well on their way when another doubt arose in Stefano’s mind. “I hope the Signorina doesn’t bear me any ill will.”
Emilio reassured him, for he had already had Amalia’s promise. “You will be received just as usual.”
Balli said no more. He was thinking that he would take care, for his part, not to behave the same as usual, for he did not want to encourage her and be pestered by her falling in love with him a second time.
Amalia had been prepared for everything but this. She had made up her mind to treat him politely but coldly, and now it was he who was giving this tone to their relationship. She had nothing to do but accept his lead and follow it passively, and she was not even able to betray any resentment. He treated her like a young lady whose acquaintance he had recently made, ceremoniously and with respectful indifference. There were no more of those jolly talks in which Balli let himself go completely, leaving not a rag on the most respectable reputation among his acquaintance, and behaving generally with an espièglerie that only his most devoted friends could be trusted to appreciate. A stray sarcasm uttered at such a moment would have spoilt his oratory and probably reduced him to silence. But today he did not say a word about himself, he only talked in his most conventional manner about things which Amalia did not even take the trouble to listen to, so stupefied was she by his coldness. He said that he had been very bored at The Valkyrie, where half the public were trying to make the other half believe that they were enjoying themselves; then he talked about another nuisance, the carnival, which still had to drag out one more long month of agony. There was nothing to do but yawn at such boring methods of killing time. Oh, but he was a bore too when he was in that mood. Where had all that delicious gaiety fled which Amalia had loved so much because she thought it had existed for her delight?
Emilio felt how his sister must be suffering and tried to rouse some sign of interest in her on the part of Stefano. He said how pale Amalia was looking, and threatened to send for Dr. Carini if her looks did not improve. He mentioned Dr. Carini, who was a friend of Balli’s, in the hope of inducing the latter also to show some interest in Amalia’s health. But Stefano persisted with a childish obstinacy in refusing to take any part in the discussion, and Amalia replied to her brother’s affectionate words with a curt and snubbing phrase. She wanted to be rude to someone, and she was not allowed to be rude to Balli. Soon after the meal she retired to her room and left them alone.
When they were in the street together Emilio returned to his unfortunate remark, trying to explain it away and to remove every shadow of blame from Amalia. He said he had spoken too lightly. He must have been mistaken as to Amalia’s feelings; he gave his solemn oath that she had never said a word to him on the subject. Balli pretended to believe him. He said it was unnecessary to raise the question again; he, for his part, had forgotten it long ago. As usual he was quite satisfied with himself. His behavior had been perfectly calculated to set Amalia’s mind at rest and to save his friend from any sort of worry. Emilio saw that he was only throwing breath away, and said no more.
The brother and sister went to the theater together that evening, and Emilio hoped that the treat, from being so unaccustomed, would be all the more beneficial to Amalia.
But no! Her eyes lit up scarcely once during the whole entertainment. She hardly even noticed who was present in the audience. Her imagination was so fixed on the injustice which had been done her that she could not even take the faintest interest in all the many women more fortunate and more elegant than herself whom she used so much to enjoy looking at and talking about afterwards. Formerly she had never missed an opportunity of hearing the latest fashions described; now she did not so much as look at them.
A certain Signora Birlini, a rich lady who had been a friend of Amalia’s mother, was in a seat not far off, and waved a greeting to her. Formerly Amalia had been proud of the attentions of rich women like her. But now it was only with an effort that she could bring herself to reply to the greeting, and she took no further notice of the large, blonde, amiable lady, who was evidently pleased to see Amalia in the theater.
But Amalia was not really there at all. Although she could not grasp its details she let that strange music lull her thoughts; its powerful rhythms reared themselves about her, huge and menacing. Emilio snatched her for a moment from her reverie to ask how she liked a motif which was continually recurring in the orchestra. “I don’t understand it,” she replied. In reality she had not heard it. Her pain, absorbed into the music, took on a fresh color and a greater significance, though at the same time it became simpler and purified of all that had defiled it. She was little and weak, and she had been beaten; how could she have hoped to survive? She had never before been so resigned, so free from all anger. She felt she wanted to go on crying quietly and make no sound. Here in the theater, of course, the solace of tears was denied her. But she had been wrong to say she did not understand the music. That magnificent stream of sound signified the whole of human destiny; she saw it pouring down an incline, its path shaped by the unequal conformation of the ground. Now it would flow in a single cascade, now it would be divided into a thousand smaller ones, all colored by an ever-changing light, and by the reflections which objects cast upon it. There was the harmony of sound and color which held the epic fate of Sieglinde, but also, insignificant though it was, her own, the end of a part of life, the withering of a single twig. Her fate was no more to be wept over than that of the others; it deserved the same tears—no more; and the ridicule which had so cruelly oppressed her found no place in that picture which yet was so complete.
Her companion was familiar with the music, he knew how all those sounds were produced and how they were put together, but he did not succeed in getting so near to them as Amalia. He thought that his own passion and pain would immediately have clothed itself in the imagination of the composer. But no. For him, those who moved upon the scene were gods and heroes who transported him far away from the world of his sufferings. During the intervals he sought in vain among his memories for some experience which would have merited such a transformation; he could not find it. Had he perhaps found a cure in art?
When he left the theater after the opera was over he was so full of this hope that he did not notice his sister was more cast down than usual. Filling his lungs with the cold night air, he said that the evening had done him a great deal of good. But as he went on chattering in his usual way about the strange calm which had pervaded him, a great sadness filled his heart. Art had only given him an interval of peace, and it would not be able to give it to him again, for now certain
fragments of the music which had remained in his mind were already adapting themselves too perfectly to his own sensations, his self-pity, for example, and the sympathy which he felt for Angiolina or Amalia.
In his present state of excitement he would have liked to calm himself by urging Amalia to confide in him still further. He should have realized that their mutual explanations had been useless. She continued to suffer in silence, not even admitting that she had ever made any confession to him at all. Their suffering, which had been so similar in its origin, had not brought them nearer to each other.
One day he came upon her unexpectedly on the Corso, while she was taking a mid-day walk there alone. She was wearing a dress which she could not have worn for a considerable time, for Emilio had never seen it before. It was made of some rather thick material trimmed with bright blue, and looked very out of place on her poor thin little body.
She became confused on seeing him, and was ready to return home with him at once. Who knows what sad thoughts had driven her out there in search of distraction? He could readily understand it when he remembered how often his own desires had chased him out of the house. But whatever mad hope could have led her to put on that dress? He firmly believed that she had put it on, hoping to please Balli. What an amazing idea to spring up in Amalia’s mind! In any case, whether she had had it or not, it was for the first and last time, for after the walk she returned immediately to the dress she always wore, which was gray like herself, and like her destiny.
10
HIS PAIN and his remorse had both become much milder. The elements of which his life was made up remained the same, but they had become attenuated, as if seen through a dark lens which robbed them of light and violence. A great calm, an endless ennui lay like lead upon him. He could see clearly now what a strange exaggeration his feelings had undergone, and he thought he was being quite sincere when he said to Balli, who had been observing him with some anxiety: “I am cured.”
He thought it was true because he could not claim to remember exactly the state of mind he had been in before knowing Angiolina. The difference was so small after all! He had yawned less and he had not experienced the painful embarrassment which now seized him whenever he found himself alone with Amalia.
It was a gloomy season too. For weeks they had not seen a ray of sunshine, and as, when he thought of Angiolina, he always associated her sweet face and the warmth of color in her fair hair with the blue sky and the sunlight, it seemed to him that all these things had disappeared together out of his life. Nonetheless he had come to the conclusion that his leaving Angiolina had been a very good thing for him. “It is better to be free,” he said with conviction.
He made an effort to profit by his newly acquired liberty. He felt that his mind had become inactive, and the idea pained him, for he remembered how years ago art had given color to his life, lifting him out of the inertia into which he had fallen after the death of his father. It was then that he had written his novel, the story of a young artist whose intellect and health are ruined by a woman. He had portrayed himself in the hero, his own innocence and gentleness of nature. His heroine he had pictured after the fashion of the time as a mixture of woman and tiger. She had the movements, the eyes, the sanguinary character of the wild beast. He had never known a woman and that was how he imagined her, an animal whom it was hard to conceive ever being born or prospering in this world. But with what confidence he had described her! He had suffered and enjoyed with her and sometimes even felt that he harbored in himself that monstrous hybrid of tiger and woman.
He took up his pen again and wrote in one evening the first chapter of a new novel. He discovered a new law of art to which he wished to conform, and he wrote the truth. He described his first meeting with Angiolina and his own feelings, but followed this almost immediately by his violent, angry feelings of the last few days; he described the appearance of Angiolina, which in his book he at once perceived to be spoilt by her base, perverse soul, and finally the magnificent landscape in which their idyll had at first been set. Worn out at last he stopped working, very pleased to have written a whole chapter in one evening.
The next evening he began working again, with two or three ideas in his head which were to be developed by him in the following pages. But first of all he reread what he had already written. “Incredible,” he murmured. The man was not in the least like him, the woman, it is true, retained something of the woman-tiger heroine of the first novel, but none of her life or reality. He found that the truth he had wanted to relate was less credible than the dreams which years ago he had taken for true. He felt that his mind had become dreadfully sluggish, and the discovery caused him acute anguish. He laid down his pen and put all he had written away in his desk, saying to himself that he would begin it all over again, perhaps on the following day. The idea was enough to quiet his mind; but he never resumed his writing. He wanted to spare himself all possible pain, and he did not feel strong enough to study his own incapacity and to overcome it. He could no longer think with a pen in his hand. When he wanted to write he felt his brain growing rusty, and he remained in a state of ecstasy in front of the white paper, while the ink dried on his pen.
He wanted to see Angiolina again. He could not make up his mind to go in search of her; he only said to himself that there could be no danger now in his seeing her again. If indeed he had wished to adhere exactly to what he had said when he left her, he ought to have gone to her at once. Surely he felt calm enough now to stretch out the hand of friendship to her?
He told Balli of his intention, and in the following terms: “I only want to see if I can behave like an intelligent person when I meet her again.”
Balli had laughed too often at Emilio’s love not to believe that he was perfectly cured now. Besides, for some days past he had himself felt the keenest desire to see Angiolina again. He had imagined sculpturing a figure just like hers and dressed in the same way. He told Emilio this, who promised to get her to sit for Balli directly he saw her. There could be no doubt whatever that he was cured. He was not even jealous of Balli any longer.
It soon appeared that Balli’s thoughts were quite as much set on Angiolina as Emilio’s own. He had been obliged to destroy a model on which he had spent months of work. He was going through a period of exhaustion too, and he was unable to discover any other idea in himself but the one he had given birth to that first evening when Emilio had introduced him to Angiolina.
One evening, when the two friends were about to separate, he asked: “Haven’t you seen her again yet?” He did not want to be the one to reunite them, but he did want to know whether perhaps Emilio had become reconciled to Angiolina without telling him. That would have been treason!
Emilio’s calm had still further increased. Now that everyone allowed him to do exactly what he wanted, he did not really want anything, anything at all. The reason why he wanted to try and see Angiolina again was that he might try to acquire a certain warmth of thought and speech which was lacking within himself, and which he must supply from outside, and he hoped to live the novel he found himself unable to write.
It was only laziness which prevented him going to look for her. He would have preferred that someone else should have undertaken the task of bringing them together again, and he half thought of inviting Balli to do so. Indeed it would all have been easier and simpler if Balli had got her for himself as a model and had then handed her over to him as a mistress. He thought of suggesting it. He only hesitated because he did not want Balli to play an important part in deciding his fate.
Important? Yes, there was no doubt that Angiolina still remained a very important person for him, at least in comparison with everything else. Everything else was so insignificant. She dominated it all. He thought of her continually as an old man thinks of his youth. How young he had been that night when he wanted to kill her in order to calm himself! If he had written then instead of pacing about the streets like an angry lion, and afterwards tossing wearily in his bed, he wo
uld surely have discovered a new artistic road which later he had sought in vain. But it was all over forever. Angiolina still lived, but she could never give him back his youth.
One evening, close to the Giardino Pubblico, he saw her walking along in front of him. He recognized her at once by her familiar step. She was holding up her skirt to protect it from the mud, and by the light of a dim street lamp he saw the shine of Angiolina’s black shoes. He was troubled at once. He remembered how at the height of his passion he had thought that the possession of this woman would have cured him. Now he only thought: “She would give me life!”
“Good evening, Signorina,” he said with what calm he could muster, so overwhelming did his desire become directly he saw her rosy childish face, and her wide-open eyes, so clear cut that they seemed to have been set that moment in her face.
She stopped and took the hand he held out to her, replying brightly and readily to his greeting: “How are you? It is such a long time since we met.”
He said something in reply, but his attention was distracted by the force of his desire. Perhaps he had done wrong to display such serenity, worse still not to have thought what his behavior ought to be in order to arrive at once at what he wanted, at the truth—physical possession. He walked beside her holding her hand, but after they had exchanged the first few words of people who are glad to meet each other again, he felt some hesitation as to how he should address her, and said nothing. The elegiac tone which he had used quite sincerely on other occasions would be out of place here, and if he allowed himself to appear too indifferent he would never reach his goal.
“Have you forgiven me, Signor Emilio?” she said at last, stopping in front of him and holding out her other hand for him to take. Her intention was of the best and the gesture was surprisingly original for Angiolina.
He managed to say: “Do you know there is one thing I can never forgive you; that you made no effort at all to see me. Did you care so little about me?” He spoke sincerely, and he realized that it was useless for him to try and play a part. Perhaps sincerity would answer his purpose better than any pretense.