Numbers in the Dark

by Italo Calvino

  Every desire traces its curve within us, a line that climbs, wavers, sometimes dissolves. The line the absent woman evoked in me might, a second before it began to decline, intersect with the line of my curiosity in the present woman, and transmit its upward thrust to this still all undiscovered trajectory. The plan was worth a try: I redoubled my attentiveness in Irma’s regard, until I persuaded her to come to my room at night.

  She came in. She let her cloak slip off. She was wearing a light white muslin blouse that the wind (it being spring the window was open) ruffled. That was when I realized that a different and unexpected mechanism was taking charge of my sensations and thoughts. It was Irma who was taking up the whole field of my attention, Irma as a unique and unrepeatable person, skin and voice and eyes, while the resemblances to Dirce that occasionally surfaced in my mind were no more than a disturbance, so much so that I was eager to be rid of them.

  Hence my meeting with Irma became a battle with the shade of Dirce who kept on sneaking in between us, and every time I felt I was about to capture the indefinable essence of Irma, every time I felt I had established an intimacy between us that excluded every other presence or thought, back came Dirce, or the past experience that Dirce embodied for me, to stamp her impression on what I was experiencing that very moment and prevent me from feeling it as new. At this point Dirce, her memory, the mark she had made on me, brought me nothing but annoyance, constraint, boredom.

  Dawn was coming in through the shutter slats in blades of pearl-grey light, when I realized beyond any doubt that my night with Irma was not the one now about to end, but another night like this one, a night still to come when I would seek the memory of Irma in another woman, and suffer first when I found her again and when I lost her again, and then when I couldn’t free myself from her.

  3

  I rediscovered Tullia twenty years on. Chance, which in the past had brought us together only to separate us just when we realized we liked each other, now finally allowed us to pick up the thread of our relationship at the point where it had broken off. ‘You haven’t changed at all,’ we both told each other. Were we lying? Not entirely: ‘I haven’t changed,’ was what both she and I wished to have the other understand.

  This time the relationship developed as both expected. At first it was Tullia’s mature beauty which engaged all my attention, and only later did I tell myself not to forget the young Tullia, seeking to recover the continuity between the two. Hence, playing a game that came to us spontaneously when we talked, we would pretend that our separation had lasted twenty-four hours and not twenty years, and that our memories were of things that had happened only the day before. It was lovely, but it wasn’t true. If I thought of myself as I was then with her as she was then, I was confronted with two strangers; they aroused warmth, affection, plenty of it, tenderness too, but what I was able to imagine in their regard had nothing to do with what Tullia and I were now.

  Of course we still regretted how all too brief our first encounter had been. Was it the natural regret for lost youth? But my present satisfaction I felt gave me no cause for regret; and Tullia too, now I was getting to know her, was a woman too taken up with the present to abandon herself to nostalgia. Regret for what we hadn’t been able to have then? Maybe a little, but not entirely: because (again with this exclusive enthusiasm for what the present was giving us) I felt (perhaps wrongly) that if our desire had been satisfied at once it might have removed something from our happiness today. If anything the regret had to do with what those two poor youngsters, those ‘others’, had lost, and was added to the sum of all the losses the world suffers in every instant never to retrieve. From the height of our sudden richness, we deigned to cast a compassionate eye on those excluded: hardly a disinterested feeling, since it allowed us to savour our privilege the better.

  Two opposing conclusions can be drawn from my relationship with Tullia. One might say that having found each other again cancelled out the separation of twenty years before, erased the loss we suffered; and one might say on the contrary that it rendered that loss decisive, desperate. Those two (Tullia and I as we were then) had lost each other for ever, never to meet again, and in vain would they have called on the Tullia and I of today for help, since we (the selfishness of happy lovers is boundless) had entirely forgotten them.

  4

  Of other women I remember a gesture, a repeated expression, an inflexion, that were intimately bound up with the essence of the person and distinguished them like a signature. Not so with Sofia. Or rather, I remember a great deal about Sofia, too much perhaps: eyelids, calves, a belt, a perfume, many preferences and obsessions, the songs she knew, an obscure confession, some dreams; all things my memory still keeps in its store and links with her but which are doomed to be lost because I can’t find the thread that binds them together and I don’t know which of them contains the real Sofia. Between each detail lies a gap; and taken one by one, they might just as well be attributed to someone else as to her. As for our lovemaking (we met in secret for months), I remember that it was different every time, and although this should be a positive quality for someone like myself who fears the blunting effect of habit, it now turns out to be a fault, since I can’t remember what prompted me to go to her rather than anyone else each time I went. In short, I don’t remember anything at all.

  Perhaps all I wanted to understand about her at the beginning was whether I liked her or not: that was why the first time I saw her I bombarded her with questions, some of them indiscreet. Instead of fending these off, which she could well have done, in reply to every question she overwhelmed me with all kinds of clarifications, revelations and allusions, at once fragmentary and digressive, while I, in my struggle to keep up with her and hold on to what she was telling me, got more and more lost. Result: it was as if she hadn’t answered me at all.

  To establish communication in a different language I risked a caress. In response Sofia’s movements were entirely aimed at containing and putting off my assault, if not exactly rejecting it, with the result that the moment one part of her body slipped away from my hand, my fingers would slither on to another, her evasion thus leading me to carry out an exploration of her skin at once fragmentary yet extensive. In short, the information gathered through touch was no less abundant than that recorded by hearing, albeit equally incoherent.

  Nothing remained but to complete our acquaintance on every level and as soon as possible. But was it one unique woman this person who undressed before me, removing both the visible and invisible clothes the ways of the world impose on us, or was it many women in one? And which of these was it that attracted me, which that put me off? There was never an occasion when I didn’t discover something I wasn’t expecting in Sofia, and less and less would I have been able to answer that first question I had asked myself: did I or didn’t I like her?

  Today, going over it in my memory, another doubt occurs: is it that when a woman hides nothing of herself I am incapable of understanding her; or is it that Sofia in revealing herself so abundantly was deploying a sophisticated strategy for not letting me capture her? And I tell myself: of all of them, she was the one who got away, as if I had never had her. But did I really have her? And then I ask myself: and who did I really have? And then again: have who? what? what does it mean?

  5

  I met Fulvia at the right moment: as chance would have it I was the first man in her young life. Unfortunately this lucky encounter was destined to be brief; circumstances obliged me to leave town; my ship was already in harbour; the next morning it was due to set sail.

  We were both aware that we would not see each other again, and equally aware that this was part of the established and ineluctable order of things; hence the sadness we felt, though to differing degrees, was governed, once again to differing degrees, by reason. Fulvia already sensed the emptiness she would feel when our new and barely begun familiarity was broken off, but also the freedom this would open up for her and the many opportunities it would provid
e; I on the other hand had a habit of placing the events of my life in a pattern where the present receives light and shade from the future, a future whose trajectory in this case I could already imagine right up to its decline; what I foresaw for Fulvia was the full flowering of an amorous vocation which I had helped to awaken.

  Hence in those last dallyings before our farewell I couldn’t help seeing myself as merely the first of the long series of lovers Fulvia was doubtless going to have, and to reassess what had happened between us in the light of her future experiences. I realized that every last detail of a passion that Fulvia had surrendered herself to with total abandon would be remembered and judged by the woman she would become in just a few years’ time. As things stood now, Fulvia accepted everything about me without judging: but the day was not far off when she would be able to compare me with other men; every memory of me would be subjected to parallels, distinctions, judgements. I had before me an as yet inexperienced girl for whom I represented all that could be known, but all the same I felt I was being watched by the Fulvia of tomorrow, demanding and disenchanted.

  My first reaction was one of fear of comparison. Fulvia’s future men, I thought, would be capable of making her fall totally in love with them, as she had not been with me. Sooner or later Fulvia would deem me unworthy of the fortune that had befallen me; it would be disappointment and sarcasm that kept alive her memory of me: I envied my nameless successors, I sensed that they were already lying in wait, ready to snatch Fulvia away, I hated them, and already I hated her too because Fate had already destined her for them …

  To escape this pain, I reversed the train of my thoughts, passing from self-detraction to self-praise. It wasn’t hard: by temperament I am rather inclined to forming a high opinion of myself than a low. Fulvia had had an invaluable stroke of luck meeting me first; but taking me as a model would expose her to cruel disappointments. Other men she would meet would seem crude, feeble, dull and dumb, after myself. In her innocence she no doubt imagined my good qualities to be fairly common attributes amongst my sex; I must warn her that seeking from others what she had found in me could only lead to disillusionment. I shivered in horror at the thought that after such a happy beginning Fulvia might fall into unworthy hands, who would harm her, maim her, debase her. I hated all of them; and I ended up hating her too because destiny was to snatch her from me condemning her to a degraded future.

  One way or another, the passion that had me in its grip was, I suspect, the one I have always heard described as ‘jealousy’, a mental disturbance from which I had imagined circumstances had rendered me immune. Having established that I was jealous, all I could do was behave like a jealous man. I lost my temper with Fulvia, telling her I couldn’t stand her being so calm just before we were about to part; I accused her of hardly being able to wait to betray me; I was unkind to her, cruel. But she (no doubt out of inexperience) seemed to find this change in my mood natural and wasn’t unduly upset. Very sensibly she advised me not to waste the little time we had left together on pointless recriminations.

  Then I knelt at her feet, I begged her to pardon me, not to inveigh too bitterly against me when she had found a companion worthy of her; I hoped for no greater indulgence than to be forgotten. She treated me as though I were mad; she wouldn’t let me speak of what had happened between us in anything but the most flattering terms; otherwise, she said, it spoiled the effect.

  This served to reassure me as to my image, but then I found myself commiserating with Fulvia over her future destiny: other men were worthless; I should warn her that the fullness she’d known with me wouldn’t happen again with anyone else. She answered that she too felt sorry for me, because our happiness came from our being together, once apart we would both lose it; but to preserve it for some time longer we should both immerse ourselves in it totally without imagining we could define it from without.

  The conclusion I came to from without, waving my handkerchief to her from the ship as the anchor was raised, was this: the experience that had entirely occupied Fulvia all the time she was with me was not the discovery of myself and not even the discovery of love or of men, but of herself; even in my absence this discovery, once begun, would never cease; I had only been an instrument.

  Henry Ford

  SPOKESMAN: Mr Ford, I have been entrusted with the task of putting a number … The committee of which I am a member has the pleasure of informing you … Obliged as we are to erect a monument to that celebrity of our century who … The choice of your name, unanimously … For having exercised the greatest influence on the history of mankind … on the very image of man … Having considered your achievements and thought … Who if not Henry Ford has changed the world, made it completely different from what it was before him? Who more than Henry Ford has given form to our way of life? So, we would like the monument to have your approval … We would like you to tell us how you would prefer to be portrayed, against what background …

  HENRY FORD: As you see me now … Amongst birds … I had five hundred aviaries like this … I called them bird hotels; the biggest was the housemartin house, with seventy-six apartments; winter and summer if they came to me birds would always find food, shelter and water to drink. I had baskets hung from the trees on wires and filled with bird seed all winter long, and drinking bowls with electric elements so that the water wouldn’t freeze. I had artificial nests of various kinds put up in the trees: the wrens prefer swinging nests that sway in the wind; that way there’s no danger the sparrows will set up there, since they only like very stable nests. In summer I had the cherries left on the trees and the strawberries on their bushes so that the birds would find their natural food. Every species of bird in the USA passed by my house. And I imported birds from other countries: buntings, chaffinches, robin redbreasts, starlings, bullfinches, jays, linnets … about five hundred species in all.

  SPOKESMAN: But, Mr Ford, I wanted to talk …

  HENRY FORD: (suddenly rigid, extremely alert, furious) Why do you imagine birds are just something graceful to enjoy for their feathers and warblings? Birds are necessary for strictly economic reasons! They destroy damaging insects! Did you know that the only time I mobilized the Ford organization to solicit intervention from the United States government was for the protection of migratory birds. An excellent law had been drawn up for establishing reserves, but it risked getting bogged down in Congress where they could never find the time to pass it. Of course: birds don’t vote! So I asked every one of Ford’s six thousand agents, spread all over the USA, to send a telegram to their representatives in Congress. That was when Washington began to take the problem seriously … The law was approved. You must understand that I never wanted to use the Ford Motor Company for political ends: each of us has a right to his own opinions and the company mustn’t interfere with them. On that occasion the end justified the means, I think, and it was the only exception.

  SPOKESMAN: But Mr Ford, enlighten me please: you are the man who changed the image of our planet through industrial organization, motorization … What have little birdies got to do with that?

  HENRY FORD: What? You’re another one who thinks that the big factories have wiped out trees, flowers, birds, greenery? Quite the contrary! It’s only when we learn how to exploit cars and industry as effectively as possible that we will have the time to enjoy nature! My position is very simple: the more time and energy we waste, the less is left to enjoy life. I don’t consider the cars that bear my name as mere cars: I hope they will serve to demonstrate the effectiveness of my philosophy …

  SPOKESMAN: You mean that you invented and manufactured and sold automobiles so that people could get away from the factories of Detroit and go and hear the birds singing in the woods?

  HENRY FORD: One of the people I most admired was a man who dedicated his life to watching and describing birds, John Burroughs. He was a sworn enemy of the automobile and all technical progress! But I managed to make him change his mind … The happiest memories of my life go back to the
weeks spent together on a vacation I organized with Burroughs himself, and my other mentors and closest friends, the great Edison, and Firestone, the tyre man … We travelled in a caravan of cars, across the Adirondack Mountains, and the Alleghenys, sleeping under canvas, gazing at the sunsets, the dawns over waterfalls …

  SPOKESMAN: But don’t you think that an image like this … in relation to what people know about you … Fordism … is, how can I put it?, misleading … doesn’t it shirk everything essential?

  HENRY FORD: No, no, this is what is essential. American history is a history of journeys between boundless horizons, a history of means of transportation: the horse, the wagons of the pioneers, the railroads … But only the automobile has given Americans America. Only with the automobile have they become masters of the length and breadth of the country, each individual master of his own means of transport, master of his time, in the midst of this immensity of space …

  SPOKESMAN: I must confess that the idea we had for your monument … was a little different … a backdrop of factories … of assembly lines … Henry Ford, the creator of the modern factory, of mass production … The first automobile for the common man: the famous Model T …

  HENRY FORD: If it’s an epigraph you’re after, sculpt out the text of the announcement I used to launch the Model T on the market, in 1908. Not that I ever needed any advertising for my cars, mind! I always maintained that advertising was pointless, a good product doesn’t need it, it is its own advertisement! But that leaflet expressed the ideas I wanted to get across. It’s in advertising as education that I believe! Read it, read it.