The Dry Heart

by Natalia Ginzburg

  “We can’t go on living together,” he said.

  “No,” I replied.

  “It’s not your fault,” he said. “You’ve done everything a woman could do. You’ve been a perfect dear and given me a great deal. But perhaps you were right to say that I was too old to get used to having a wife and child. I’m still tied to my past. And I can’t go on.” He looked at me and waited for me to speak. Then, when I said nothing, he continued: “It’s not just what you think. I shan’t go and live with anyone else. I need to be alone. That’s the way I want to live from now on. I hate this perpetual lying to you. I have too much respect for you to tell you lies. It makes me feel oppressed and guilty. I want to be alone and at peace.”

  “You’re not going to live with Giovanna?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, “I swear to that.”

  “Not that I care,” I added. “What can it matter to me if we’re not together? Why don’t you want to live with her, though?”

  “I don’t, that’s all. She has a husband and son. We met too late. That’s the way it always happens. But I’m very much attached to her, and it disgusts me to live with another woman.”

  “It disgusts you?”

  “Yes.”

  “It disgusts you to live with me? I disgust you?”

  “No,” he said. “That’s not it. It disgusts me to tell so many lies.”

  “ ‘It disgusts me to live with another woman,’ that’s what you said, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t plague me. Don’t plague me that way, I beg of you. I don’t remember what I said. I only meant that I don’t think it’s fair for me to tie you down. You’re still young and you might find happiness with another man.”

  “But there’s the baby. You remember that, don’t you?”

  “I’ll come to see you often. You must stay here and I’ll take a room outside. I’ll come, never fear. We’ll always be friends.”

  “We shan’t be friends at all. We never have been. You’ve never been even a friend to me or a husband either. But I shouldn’t be happy with another man. If I were to make love with another man I’d always see your face. I shall never be able to get away from that. It’s not so simple as you think.”

  “I never said it was simple. You’ll have to be very brave. But you’re honest and courageous, too. That’s what attracted me to you. Because I’m neither one nor the other. Oh, I know myself very well.”

  “And Giovanna?” I asked. “What’s she like?”

  “Don’t plague me,” he said. “If you knew how difficult it is for me to speak of her to you. It’s something that’s been going on for years and years, and I don’t really know what it’s about. Eleven years it’s lasted and we’ve become very close to one another. We’ve felt very unhappy and suffered together and made each other suffer. She’s been unfaithful and lied to me, and we’ve said all sorts of cruel things to each other and given up the affair completely. Then we’ve come together again, and every time, even after so many years, it’s like something brand new. She suffered a lot when I married you. I was glad to know that she was suffering on my account. God knows I’d suffered often enough on hers. I thought it would go smoothly and then I could forget her. But when we two started living together it was terribly painful for me to be with you instead of with her. I wanted to have a child with you just as she had one with another man. I wanted to talk about ‘my child’ when she talked about hers and to have a private life of my own which should be just as mysterious to her as hers was to me. We’ve said good-bye so many times, only to start all over again. Now I just can’t live with you any longer. I’ll take a room somewhere and live by myself. Then I’ll come often to see the baby. Who knows, we may really be better friends than we are now. Perhaps it won’t be so hard for me to talk with you about a lot of things.”

  “Very well,” I said. “As you like.”

  “You’re a fine girl,” he murmured. He looked exhausted, and his voice was worn out from having talked for so long about himself. He didn’t want any supper and neither did I, so we had a cup of tea in the study.

  Then I had to put the baby to sleep by singing her the song of Le bon roi Dagobert. It took her a long time to fall off. Finally I laid her in her crib, covered her up, and stood there looking down at her for a while. Alberto came in to look at her, too, for a minute and then went away.

  I got undressed and looked in the mirror at my naked body, which now belonged to no man. I was free to do what I wanted. I could go for a trip with Francesca and the baby, for instance. I could make love with any man who happened to catch my fancy. I could read books and see new places and discover how other people lived. In fact, I ought to do all of these things. I had made a mess of my life, but there was still time to set it straight. If I made enough of an effort I could turn into quite a different woman. After I had gone to bed I lay for a long time staring into the darkness, and I felt the growth of a new cold-blooded resolution inside me.

  The next day I wrote to ask my mother if she would keep the baby at Maona for a while, as she had said for some time that she wanted to do. My father came to the city and took Gemma and the baby away with him. The baby struggled in Gemma’s arms and called for me. I went away from the window and stuck my fingers in my ears in order not to hear her cries. I had to have a rest and to get away from Le bon roi Dagobert. I went to see Francesca and found Augusto there. This wasn’t the first time I had come upon them together and I began to think they might be lovers. Francesca was painting with an expression of concentration on her face while Augusto sat reading and smoking his pipe at the table.

  “I’ve seen the cauliflower, do you know?” I announced.

  Francesca looked at me in a puzzled way; then she caught on and burst out laughing.

  “She doesn’t dress well, does she?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “She had on a mouton fur piece.”

  Augusto knit his brows because he didn’t understand.

  “Alberto and I are breaking up,” I added.

  “At last!” Francesca exclaimed. She took me into the bathroom and laid her hands on my shoulders. “See that you’re smart now and get every penny out of him you can,” she said. “Always be smart, remember. That ratty little man.”

  Augusto went out with me when I left. It was a clear, windy afternoon and heavy, white cloud scudded across the sky. He asked me if I felt like walking and I said I did. We walked haphazardly along the river and then up a weedy alley to a large square overlooking the city. We could hear distant train and factory whistles, and trams went by below us, ringing their bells and raising sparks on the overhead wire among the leaves of the trees. The wind ruffled my hair and whipped up Augusto’s scarf across his distracted and indifferent face. In the middle of the square there was a bronze statue of a woman holding a sheaf of wheat, and we sat down on the stone pedestal. I asked Augusto if he was in love with Francesca and he said no, but I didn’t believe it. It floated into my mind that when it was all over between them I might make love with Augusto, and for some reason this prospect left me very calm. Looking at his black moustache, his nose reddened from the cold, and his hard, lonely face, I hadn’t the slightest desire to make love with him. But there was plenty of time ahead and I might change my mind.

  “So you and Alberto have decided to part company,” he said.

  “No,” I said. “It’s his idea, really. Perhaps it’s all for the best.”

  He filled his pipe with tobacco from his pouch, which he was holding between his knees, and looked down at the ground, shaking his head.

  “There’s just one thing I’d like to ask you,” I said. “Do you ever see Giovanna?”

  “Every now and then,” he said. “Why?”

  “I wish you’d tell her to come and see me some day. Not for the reason you may think. I don’t want to make a scene or arouse her pity. I just want to speak to her,
that’s all. After that I think my mind would be at rest. I’ve thought about her so often and tried to imagine what we’d say to one another if we were to meet. It’s not healthy to be completely in the dark and let one’s imagination run riot. If I could really see her at last, perhaps I might be able to put the whole thing behind me.”

  “I don’t think Alberto would be very pleased,” he said.

  “I know that,” I admitted. “He wouldn’t like it at all. He hates even to speak of her to me. He hates to think that we both exist and that one day we might even meet. He has to shuttle quite independently between us and live a double life. But I’m sick of thinking of things that it hurts him to have me think about. And I’m sick of not hurting him, too. I’m sick of being alone and in the dark, analysing my own thoughts.”

  Augusto puffed at his pipe and looked into the distance. The air was unusually clear, the wind blew in warmer gusts, and the clouds hovered over the mountaintops. Augusto’s scarf blew fitfully now, and his serious, stolid face gave me a feeling of stability. We went back down the hill, and I looked back at the woman with the sheaf of wheat, raising her bronze breasts into the bright clear air. I would remember her, I said to myself, and think of this day if Augusto and I ever became lovers.

  “I was in love with Giovanna myself years ago,” he said. I didn’t answer right away. It was as if I had always known something of the sort. “That was when I got the revolver,” he added.

  “What revolver?”

  “Alberto and I each bought one. We were all for committing suicide. We decided to shoot ourselves, each one of us in his own room, at exactly the same minute. I stared all night long at that revolver lying on my table and couldn’t screw up my courage to go through with it. In the morning I went with my heart in my boots to Alberto’s. But lo and behold, he was just getting ready to come and find me! We looked at each other and burst out laughing! Ever since then we’ve kept our revolvers loaded in our desks. I look at mine every once in a while, but I haven’t any wish to shoot myself. All that was years ago. There are times when you’re fed up with everything, but then the days and years sweep you along with them and you acquire some understanding. You understand that there’s some meaning to even the stupidest things, and you don’t take them as hard as you did before.”

  I realized that he was speaking in this vein for my benefit and trying in his own way to console me. I was grateful, but there was nothing I could say.

  “Yes, it was a long time ago,” he repeated. “All night long I stared at that revolver. Giovanna was going with someone else then, an orchestra conductor, and I couldn’t stand the thought of her being crazy about him. I wanted her to leave her husband and the other man, too, and come and live with me. Alberto was in love with her, too, and we wandered around the city like madmen, stopping to drink in every bar. What fools we were! Well, we didn’t kill ourselves; we just went on raving together. Finally one day it dawned on me that the orchestra conductor had dropped out of the picture and Alberto was his successor. He didn’t have the nerve to tell me himself and wrapped the whole thing in mystery the way he does with you now. But I was past caring. I decided it wasn’t worth while losing my head over anybody, and I began to study and write a book about the Polish wars of secession. I thought Alberto wouldn’t last long with her either, and instead they’ve gone on with it until today. When I saw Giovanna again we became good friends, and I stayed friends with Alberto too. We reminisce quite often about that day when we had an urge to commit suicide. We’re the damnedest fools when we’re young!”

  When we got back to the centre of town I said good-bye to Augusto and went home. Gemma was away and I had to cook supper, so I put the meat and potatoes on the stove. I missed the baby and wished I could sing to her about Le bon roi Dagobert. I hummed the tune while I was setting the table. When Alberto came in I asked him when he intended to go away. He sat down at the table and propped the newspaper up in front of him without making any reply. Finally he said in a low squeaky voice:

  “Are you so anxious to get rid of me?”

  “No,” I said, “take your time.”

  But after supper he went into the study and began to pack his belongings in a zinc case. He dusted his books one by one as he put them in and took down the bust of Napoleon and his fleet of miniature ships. I watched him from the door. At a certain point he felt bored and sat down to read. I swept the kitchen and then went to bed.

  She came on a Sunday. Augusto phoned me in the morning to tell me she would come, and in the afternoon he took Alberto to his apartment to listen to some new Negro records. I combed my hair and powdered my face and sat down to wait. All of a sudden I heard the ring of the bell at the garden gate. I pressed the button and heard the click it made when it opened. My hands were covered with a cold sweat; I clenched my teeth and swallowed hard. Then Giovanna walked in and we sat down in the drawing room face to face.

  I saw that she was embarrassed, and this simplified everything. There was a blush on her cheeks, which gradually faded away, leaving her skin pale and of a cold, flourlike consistency. “So this is Giovanna,” I said to myself as we sized each other up. She was hatless and had on her mouton fur piece, which appeared old and worn now that I could see it from close by. She held her gloves in her hands and sat with her legs crossed in the armchair near the window. I had imagined her as a vulgar sort of woman with a great deal of makeup and a violent cut to her features and body. Of all the mental pictures I had made of her the definitive one was violent and garish. But in real life there was nothing vulgar about her. Only after several minutes did I see that she was actually beautiful. Her face was pale and cold and her full, unpainted lips were smiling silently. She had small, white teeth, blue eyes, and her long narrow head with the grey-streaked black hair pinned up on top of it was turned slightly to one side.

  “Where’s the baby?” she asked.

  “She’s not here,” I answered. “She’s with my mother in the country.”

  “Too bad,” she said. “I’d like to see her.”

  “I asked you to come here,” I said. “Perhaps you’re thinking it was an odd thing to do. . . . As a matter of fact, I haven’t anything in particular to say. I was curious to see you, that’s all. It was a pointless sort of curiosity, when you come down to it.” She listened quietly, with her legs crossed and her worn gloves between her long fingers. “I have no intention of hurling accusations in your face or of getting down on my knees and begging you for mercy. I don’t hate you, at least not so far as I know. There’s nothing to do about it, I realize that. Alberto’s going away. Then you’ll be able to meet more often without his telling me lies. He says he hates to lie, but I don’t know whether he really means it. We don’t get on well together, that’s the truth. Perhaps it’s not your fault. I’ve done all I could to make a go of it, but with no luck. It’s been a mess.”

  “It’s warm in here,” she said, taking off her fur. She had on a green knitted dress with a red G embroidered over the left breast. The dress wasn’t especially pretty, and she had large, heavy breasts, wide hips, and thin arms and legs. She looked around and remarked: “The house is just the same. I used to come here sometimes when Alberto’s mother was alive.”

  “You came to call on the old lady?”

  “Yes,” she said, laughing, “I came to play draughts with her. She was very fond of me. But she was a terrible tyrant. It’s a good thing she died, because she’d have made life miserable for you. You’d have had to play draughts all day long, and if you’d forgotten yourself and won a game she’d never have forgiven you!”

  “It’s been miserable enough without that,” I said.

  Then she asked me if I had a picture of the baby. I showed her one, and after she had laid it down she drew a picture out of her own handbag.

  “This is my son,” she said. And I looked at a boy with bright eyes and full lips, wearing a sailor suit. “He won’t study,”
she said. “Boys are hard to handle. It’s much better to have a girl. He won’t do his Latin. But the teachers are too hard on them.”

  I made tea and we drank it with some biscuits that she said were very good. The muscles of my face were taut and I felt very tired and ready for her to go. I wanted to ask her about the orchestra conductor and how she had met Alberto and fallen in love with him. But all I said was:

  “Do you love him very much?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Very much indeed.” She put her cup down on the table and both of us stood up.

  “It’s been eleven years now,” she said. “I couldn’t give him up.” All of a sudden tears came into her eyes. “No, I couldn’t possibly do it. I’ve thought of it often enough. I’ve been unfaithful and lied to him and said the cruellest things. We’ve sworn to put an end to it, then we’ve begun all over again, and I may say that now I know how much I love him. I can’t give him up. I’m sorry.” She pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. Then she blew her nose and rubbed her face, shaking her head at the same time. “I’ve been unhappy; I was on poor terms with my husband from the start. I’d have left him long ago if it weren’t for the boy. He’s not a bad man and I suppose he loves me in his own way. But we haven’t anything to say to each other and he thinks I’m silly and queer. For a long time I thought I really was as silly and queer as he said. I tried to live up to what he expected of me; I went out and gave little tea parties and chatted with all the ladies. Then I was bored to death and gave up trying. He was terribly angry at first and made dreadful scenes, but finally he got over it and we settled down to tolerating one another. That’s the way it’s been with me.” She put on her fur and gloves and tied a net scarf around her neck. “If I’d married Alberto,” she said, “I might have been a different woman. Stronger and braver and more energetic. And perhaps he would have been a different man. Don’t think I like him the way he is now. I know his weaknesses very well, and sometimes I find him positively hateful. But if we two had married it wouldn’t have been the same. We met too late. We’re stupid and don’t know what we really want when we’re young. Life runs away with us before we know what it’s all about.”