The water drove against the shapeless mass, spewing foam as though enraged, and surged round it, creating a fast-swirling eddy. The Chiese furiously persisted in its determination to sweep its prey on. It had its way. The strange object cleared the rock and continued on its course, violently tossed about by the river.
Then began a terrific battle between myself, who wanted to know the mystery of that light-coloured object, and the river that wanted to withhold it from me. I know every inch of the paths along the riverbank. There is just one place where the rockface rises almost vertically for some one hundred metres, forcing you to climb up and then down. The rest of the way to Sabbio, it’s flat. But that climb and especially that descent, at night, along a narrow ledge with the ravine on one side, were not without danger.
The rain of the past few days had caused the land to fall away from the path at one point, and you had to leap across a precipice. I leapt without thinking, not knowing where I would land, and found myself safe and sound on the other side, but the lamp had blown out. I continued along the goat-path in the dark, stumbling over scrub, hedged round by thorny bushes, sliding down the slope, slipping on the round pebbles that went rolling to the bottom. At last I got to the riverbank again. But where was the grey mass? Had it gone racing on ahead, unimpeded, or had the obstacles with which the Chiese abounds checked its progress? I waited for a moment without blinking, my eyes getting so dry they smarted. Eventually it came flashing past in an instant.
And I, too, was off again, racing along that part of the riverbank where the slender willows and broad-leafed water-lilies start. The meadow above there is green, dotted with flowers, and as well as poplars there are pines, elms, and a few little oak trees. I had often sat down there on a tree-stump, studying the ants, admiring the golden-yellow, ruby-red and emerald-green insects, reading a good book or daydreaming on frivolous matters amid the emptiness of life. A little further on, where the path skirts a field of stunted corn-cobs, I had lain back one morning to watch for a whole hour three young women collecting walnuts. Shaken down from a tree by a boy, the nuts fell into the river and the three laughing women had their skirts hitched up round their hips with their fat legs showing to above the knee.
The grey mass had run aground on a bank of gravel close to the riverside. I took off my socks and shoes and waded into the water. I could not stand on my feet. The river kept bringing me down with insuperable violence. I was aware of the littleness of man before the will of insensate forces. At that moment the Chiese must have summoned to its aid all the forces in its depths; a surge of water covered the gravel-bank, engulfing the horrible grey object, which was then carried inexorably on. I felt defeated.
I returned to my room in Garbe, exhausted, soaking wet and drenched in sweat. My eyes were swollen, my head was burning, my pulse was racing. I could not sleep. As soon as it was light I staggered out of bed and went to Sabbio, taking the postal track along the left bank of the Chiese. At times my limbs were freezing cold, at times I had to wipe my brow.
At Sabbio, where I often went for breakfast, the hidalgo and his publican wife greeted me with great kindness, asking me a dozen times whether I was ill. ‘It’s nothing,’ I replied. ‘The fresh air, the walk and breakfast will set me to rights.’ I didn’t eat a thing. I stared as if in a trance at the big shed draped with cobwebs, the hens that came pecking at the crumbs of polenta to carry them back to their chicks, at the church of Our Lady, standing high on the hill just close by, looking as though it was stuck on top of the roof of the inn.
While I sat there, lost in a dream, Pierino, one of the landlady’s sons, a fine sturdy boy of seven, came in, and started shouting, ‘Mama, have you seen him?’
‘Who?’
‘The man they found in the river this morning.’
‘Is he handsome?’
‘No, he’s very ugly. Ask Nina.’
Nina had come in with her brother, but she had immediately crept into a corner of the shed with her hands joined, murmuring something under her breath. At intervals I heard the word ‘requiem’, subdued and mournful.
‘Is he young or old?’ asked their mother.
Nina did not reply. Pierino answered, ‘He’s old, with a very long white beard. He has staring eyes.’
‘Where is he? I want to see him,’ I cried, springing to my feet.
The landlady eyed me, and murmuring, ‘My God, the things that please some people!’ she told Pierino to go with me.
In no time we had reached the church, the one down at the bottom of the village. The drowned man’s body was laid out in a damp room next to the sacristy. The room was packed with villagers.
One said, ‘Who’s going to identify him? It’s obvious from his clothes that he’s not from here.’
Another added, ‘I say he’s German.’
‘No, he’s from Milan.’
‘Didn’t they find anything on him?’ asked a young fellow.
‘Nothing: no papers, no money.’
‘He must have drowned himself, out of misery.’
‘I say he fell into the river.’
‘I say he was thrown in.’
‘Those eyes look demonic.’
‘With his mouth open like that, he looks as though he would eat us alive.’
A child cowered behind her father, trembling, and said, ‘I’m scared, let’s go.’
The father, meanwhile, after taking a close look at the drowned man’s coat and fingering the material, gave his verdict: ‘Good cloth. It must have cost him a bit.’
I pushed my way through the crowd. The old man from the Ponte dei Re was staring into my face with sinister, menacing eyes. I detected the utmost censure in that fixed gaze. A sepulchral murmur rang in my ears: ‘You left me to die, damn you. You could have saved me. You left me to die, damn you. You guessed what I was about to do, and you left me to die, damn you.’
The ceiling weighed down on my head, the crowd pressed round me. I felt as though I were in hell, surrounded by devils, being judged by a grey corpse’s cavernous voice and implacable eyes.
A villager came in, a fellow I had seen in Idro. At the sight of the drowned man, he exclaimed, ‘Poor old man! He loved her so dearly! He could only survive two days after his Terese died.’
I went to bed with a raging fever. An emotional morning, the exhaustion of the night before, and my feelings of remorse had their effect: I suffered terrible hallucinations. My eyes were very sore. The kindly mayor came to see me twice a day, and spent long hours at my bedside, administering medicine to me himself, and when he thought I looked a little calmed, quietly recounting a few anecdotes, which failed to make me laugh.
Gradually the fever abated, but even with quinine it didn’t go away. The doctors say that it is one of those recurrent fevers brought on again by dampness or exhaustion. I quietly endure it. But I can in no way tolerate this accursed blotch in my eyes. No sooner had I recovered from my delirium than it was there before me, and I see it still, as I have described to you, a persistent abomination …
Even now, there’s a vague, colourless shape wobbling in front of me, fouling the white page. The sun has already set, and my writing desk is in shadow; it’s light enough to dash down these words on paper, but not to re-read them. I wanted to finish this before putting on the light, and the blotch takes advantage of the semi-darkness to torment my mind.
The blotch is getting bigger, and – this is something new – it’s taking on the shape of a man. It’s sprouting arms, and legs, it’s growing a head. It’s that old man, that terrible old man!
I’m leaving tonight. I shall give you this manuscript myself, tomorrow. I’ll either be cured, or I’ll tear my eyes out.
BUDDHA’S COLLAR
Gioacchino certainly had something on his mind that was bothering him. He sat down, planting his elbows on the table and resting his thin cheeks on his bony hands, and lowered his eyelids as though about to ponder at length on some serious misfortune. But after a minute he leapt to his feet, went to
the small tarnished mirror on the chest of drawers, and stared with a troubled gaze at his glum reflection. Seeing that he looked sallower than usual (he had not slept a wink all night), he felt a shudder run through him from head to foot. Then he took his pulse, thinking he had a temperature.
The window was wide open, but although not yet seven in the morning it was terribly hot. The mercilessly bright, July sun that blazed down on the little street only a metre or so wide had turned the paving into a strip of fiery white, so that when the young man went and stood at the window, he felt blinded. Gradually adapting to the light, he settled his gaze on the crooked bridge at the end of the street, and on the lovely greenness of Venice’s canals that is so restful to the eyes. And Gioacchino was, indeed, momentarily calmed by the sight of that beautiful, shimmering emerald.
Down in the street, Zaccaria was sitting under the shade of a patched red awning. In his shop, a pair of red shoes was displayed beside a shiny, copper bowl that was all embossed, like the huge, gleaming plates in Zamaria’s pancake stall. Next to a pair of mended trousers and a rusty spear were a sword with a gilded hilt, the legacy of a member of Austria’s Aulic Council, and a snuff-box with a few merry little cupids painted on it a century ago by a French miniaturist.
Gioacchino called down from the fourth floor, ‘Zaccaria!’
Zaccaria looked up, raising the two points of his grey beard.
The young man asked hoarsely, ‘Did anyone come?’
The other shrugged his shoulders and looked down again.
Back in the dimness of his room, Gioacchino had started to examine some sort of heavy, white-metal collar, four fingers wide, on which were engraved in Gothic characters the three letters FAQ, and he rubbed away at it with a cloth. A thought occurred to him that cheered him: the collar might be made of silver.
He hurriedly got dressed. His detachable collar and cuffs were freshly starched and laundered, though his shirt was rather grubby; but his black jacket looked new and apparently tailor-made for our Gioacchino’s gangly frame. The only thing that spoiled the effect was the way his boots, which came to just below the knee, showed under his light trousers. These boots, inherited from an uncle, were decidedly too big for his thin legs, and must have been extremely uncomfortable in the summer heat.
Anyway, Gioacchino went out, with the collar in his hand, and a hundred yards from his house entered a very small, low-ceilinged shop with a few brass clocks in the window, some huge, silver pocket-watches, five or six neck-chains, and a few pairs of dubious gold ear-rings. Stepping into the shop, he could not see anything at all – it was pitch black. But gradually his eyes began to distinguish things. In one corner, where a bit of weak light came in, was an old man with glasses on his nose who was examining through a magnifying-glass the workings of a broken clock.
‘Oh, Signor Gioacchino! It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you! Have you something for me to buy?’
‘No. I want to ask you a favour.’
‘Willingly. As long as it’s not money. Even if seven of my teeth were pulled out – the way that King of England tried to extract money from a Jew – I wouldn’t part with a single lire for the eighth. Not that I have seven teeth in my head, anyway. And besides, you’ve plenty of teeth and money to lend everybody, Signor Gioacchino. Now, how can I be of service to you?’
‘Take a look at this.’
The old man glanced at the metal object and said at once, ‘It’s silver, pure, solid silver.’
‘What would it be worth?’
‘Do you want to sell it?’
‘No, I said I didn’t.’
‘Well, let’s weigh it. That would be about thirty lire – less rather than more. Did you find this collar?’
‘Yes.’
‘I didn’t think it belonged to any dog of yours. I have the impression,’ he said, with a sardonic glance at the young fellow’s outsized boots, ‘that you don’t much care for dogs. Neither did your late uncle.’
As the jeweller-cum-clockseller mumbled these words, shaking with laughter, a young ragamuffin went past, crying out in a high-pitched voice, ‘Adriatico! Adriatico! All the latest news stories …’
Gioacchino hastily thanked the old man and ran after the boy to buy a newspaper, then he carried it up to his room, taking the steps three at a time up the extremely narrow staircase. He scoured the bottom of page three, and found, printed in large letters, the notice that had already appeared in all the previous day’s papers: ‘Whoever has lost a dog-collar with three initials on it, the first of which is F, is invited to come and collect it as soon as possible at the shop called the Golden Shield, at number 512 in Calle della Forca. Upon identification of the other two letters, the collar will be handed over without any reward demanded.’
There were two or three typographical errors, but all in all the text was clear.
Eight o’clock sounded. The young man went rushing out again, pushed hard against the door two or three times to make sure it was properly closed. As he passed by the Golden Shield he said to Zaccaria, who was still sitting under the red awning, ‘So we’re agreed: if anyone comes asking for the collar, send them to the cashier at the Commercial Assurance Bank. All right?’
‘I know, I know. You told me the same thing a hundred times yesterday.’
‘Well, I rely on you then.’
And from his position in the shade of that little street from which the sun had now left, Zaccaria stared after Gioacchino as he crossed the bridge almost running. ‘It’s strange how all of a sudden he’s become obsessed with returning the thing to its owner,’ he murmured under his breath. ‘I’d never have believed it!’
Meanwhile, Gioacchino was thinking, ‘It’s silver. The owner will come running to collect it.’
It is important to know that Gioacchino was not at all miserly. But the antiques dealer at the Golden Shield was right: this obsession of his was decidedly eccentric. The young man, as we shall see, spent everything he earned. His room could not be described as dirty, although Zaccaria’s grumbly wife dusted the chest of drawers, mirror, four chairs, sagging armchair and wormeaten table only once every two weeks. The furniture was Gioacchino’s personal property; he paid five lire a month for the unfurnished room and one lire a month for the services of Zaccaria’s good lady, which was a great deal more than she deserved. Then there was his food, clothing and entertainment: that came to three lire a day, not a cent more nor less. Gioacchino had inherited from his saintly uncle one hundred thousand lire, or thereabouts, and his handling of these funds as cashier of the Assurance Bank had, at the last statement of account, brought him a net income of ten thousand lire, which was to double the following year. But this was not what he himself earned, it was what his money earned – an important distinction. Gioacchino had, among other virtues, that of modesty: he did not rate his own work very highly. And after much intensive calculation, his thirteen-hour day, from eight in the morning until six in the evening, and from eight in the evening until eleven at night, had seemed to him to be worth only three lire a day. So his income was equal to his outgoings. However, he occasionally suspected himself of being a reckless fellow at heart, and then he would cut down a little on his expenses, so that from his own actual earnings he had saved about one hundred lire, plus a few cents, with which he could afford to be wildly extravagant once in a while. It is no bad thing for a provident young man to build up a reserve of cash, like this, that he can draw on in the last resort, to pay for some whim or other.
The time for such an extravagance – a real and unforeseen extravagance – had arrived. Gioacchino’s ideas about women were very sentimental. Those who expected to be paid he did not find attractive, but on the other hand those who did not expect to be paid did not seem to find Gioacchino very attractive. The problem with unattached young girls was the over-enthusiasm, and often the troublesomeness, of their brothers or fathers. As for married women, Gioacchino’s moral principles – and to a small extent his fear of their cantankerous husbands �
�� banished them from his thoughts. And so our young hero, who was as thin as a rake, with his pale, sallow face, small, dark eyes, thick, purple lips, sparse, goatee beard, sunken cheeks and almost bald head, lived a fretfully chaste life.
At six thirty one evening, as he was coming out of his Bank into the Merceria di San Salvatore, a splendid-looking young woman went by. She was tall and slender, with raven hair, and big, black eyes that gave him gooseflesh, and the warm, brown glow of her complexion (she wore a slightly plunging neckline) seemed to reflect an inward ardour. Gioacchino felt his heart miss a beat, and having gone two paces, he looked back. At exactly the same moment, the beautiful young woman also turned round, flashing her big, black eyes.
When she had gone some distance, an irresolute, trembling Gioacchino plucked up the courage to follow her. If he lost sight of her at the bend in one of the little streets, or going over a bridge, he quickened his step, running to catch up. Then when she came into view again, he would stop dead, and if she lingered in front of a shop for a moment, looking in the window, he would go and hide furtively in a dark passageway. He tried to walk nonchalantly, whistling and gazing into the air. He alternated between fear and boldness: three or four times he felt the urge to accost the girl: he would take a couple of steps towards her, and lose heart. And so they went through San Bartolomeo, over the Ponte dell’Olio, then along Salizzada di San Giovanni Grisostomo, and finally came to Campo dei Santi Apostoli, where his enchantress met an old woman dressed in black, wearing a little hat with pink flowers.
Senso (And Other Stories) Page 18