“To Taranto?”
“No, not to Taranto. Silvia’s mother died years ago. To my mother at Cargiore.”
“Cargiore?” asked Dora, stretching out on the divan. “Where is Cargiore?”
“In Piedmont. Oh, a small village with just a few houses, near Turin.”
“Because you’re Piedmontese, aren’t you?” asked Signora Barmis, wrapping herself in cigarette smoke. “I can tell by your accent. And how did you ever meet Silvia?”
“Well,” said Giustino, “they sent me down to Taranto after the Notarial Archives competition.”
“Oh, poor dear!”
“A year and a half of exile, believe me. Luckily Silvia’s father was my boss.”
“At the Archives?”
“Chief Archivist, yes indeed. Oh, it was a good job because of him. He took a liking to me immediately.”
“And you, you rascal, you fell in love with his literary daughter?”
“Yes, out of necessity,” smiled Giustino.
“Why ‘necessity’?” Dora asked, startled.
“I say out of necessity because … going there every day … A poor young man there alone … She couldn’t know what was going on. I had always lived with my mamma, poor little old woman. I was used to her taking care of me. The Honorable Datti promised that he would soon have me called to Rome, to the archives of the Council of State. Yes, Datti! But could my mother have gone there with me? I had to take a wife. By necessity. But I didn’t fall in love with Silvia because she was a literary celebrity, you know? I wasn’t even thinking about literature then. Yes, I knew that Silvia had published two books. But that didn’t mean anything to me… . I’m going on too much!”
“No, no, tell me, tell me,” Dora encouraged. “This is such fun.”
“But there’s not much to tell,” Giustino said. “When I went to her house for the first time I expected to find … I don’t know, a flighty young woman. But just the opposite! Simple, shy … but you’ve already seen her.”
“What a dear! Yes, what a dear!” Dora exclaimed.
“Her father, my father-in-law, was a good soul, also.”
“Oh, did her father die too?”
“Yes, indeed, suddenly, barely a month after our wedding. Poor man, he was such a fanatic! But it’s understandable: she was his only child. He was so proud of her. He gave all his employees at the office her books and the newspaper articles about them. That was the first time I’d read them, too, and so . ..”
“An official duty, eh?” Signora Barmis asked with a laugh.
“Just imagine,” Giustino replied. “However, her father’s enthusiasm really bothered Silvia, and she wouldn’t let him talk about her books around her. Very quiet, not ostentatious, even in the way she dressed, you know? She took care of the house, did everything. After we were married, she even made me laugh… .”
“When you wanted to cry?”
“No, I’m saying she made me laugh because she confessed what she called her secret vice: writing. She said I had to respect it, but in exchange I would never know when she wrote or how she managed to write between household duties.”
“Dear girl! And you?”
“I promised. But then, a few months after the wedding–honestly!–a check for three hundred marks arrived from Germany for the translation rights. Silvia hadn’t expected it either, imagine! She was so happy that those books of hers had a value that she didn’t even suspect. Ignorant, inexperienced, she had agreed to the request for the translation of Stormy Petrel (her second volume of short stories) without expecting anything.”
“And what did you do then?”
“Well, you can imagine what an eye-opener that was! Other requests came from journals, from newspapers. Silvia admitted she had many other short stories in a drawer, and the outline for a novel … House of Dwarves… . Free? What do you mean, free? Why? Isn’t it work? And shouldn’t work earn money? Writers don’t know how to assert themselves when it comes to this part. It takes someone who knows about these things and takes care of them. Look, as soon as I understood there was something to be gotten out of them, I went about it in a proper, orderly way. I wrote a friend of mine who owns a bookstore in Turin to get information about the book trade and corresponded with several editors of journals and newspapers who had praised Silvia’s books. I even wrote to Raceni, I remember.”
“I remember that, too!” Dora exclaimed, smiling.
“Raceni is so kind!” Giustino continued. “And then I studied the law concerning literary property, of course! And also the Bern treaty on authors’ rights … Ah, literature is a battlefield, my dear lady, where one fights bald-faced exploitation by the press and editors. In the early days they even exploited me! I negotiated blindly, you know… . But then, seeing how things worked … Silvia was alarmed by the conditions I made, but when she saw my demands were accepted and when I showed her the money, she was pleased… . Oh, naturally! But, you know, I can say I earned the money, because she never knew how to get anything out of her work.”
“What a prize you are, Boggiolo!” Dora said, bending over for a closer look at him.
“I’m not saying that,” Giustino replied, “but I know how to make a deal. I work at it. I really am grateful to my friends, to Raceni, for example, who has been so kind to my wife from the beginning. To you, too.”
“But no! Me? What have I done?” Dora protested vigorously.
“You, too, dear lady, you too,” Giustino repeated. “Along with Raceni, so kind. And Senator Borghi?”
“Ah, he has been the godfather of Silvia Roncella’s fame!” said Dora.
“Yes, Signora, yes, Signora … exactly,” confirmed Boggiolo. “And I owe my coming to Rome to him also, did you know that? We didn’t need the problems of a pregnancy right now… .”
“You see?” exclaimed Dora. “And she’ll suffer tremendously when she has to be separated from her baby!”
“But!” said Boggiolo, “having to work …”
“It’s very sad!” sighed Signora Barmis. “A child! … It must be terrible to see yourself, feel yourself a mother! I would die of joy and fright! Dear, dear, dear, don’t let me think about it.”
She leaped to her feet, as though spring-propelled, and went to find the light switch next to the door. Then she turned and said in a different voice: “Or do we want to stay like this? Don’t you like it? Dämmerung … The sorrow of the dying day makes me sad, but it’s also a good thing. Good and bad, for me. Often I become a worse person, thinking in this dim light. It breaks my heart and makes me envious of other people’s homes, of every home different from this one.”
“But it’s so beautiful here,” Giustino said, looking around.
“I mean, so alone …” Dora explained, “so sad … I hate you all–you men, understand? Because it would be so much easier for you to be good, and you aren’t, and you brag about it. Oh, how many men I’ve heard laugh about their treachery, Boggiolo. And while listening to them I’ve laughed, too. But afterward, thinking it over alone, at this time of day, how often I’ve so wanted … to kill! Oh, well, let’s have the light. It’ll be better!”
She turned the switch and greeted the light with a deep sigh. She had actually grown pale and tears veiled her heavily made-up eyes.
“You can be sure I’m not talking about you,” she added with a sad smile as she came back to sit down. “You’re a good man, I can see. Do you want to be my good friend?”
“Very much!” Giustino was quick to respond, a bit unsettled.
“Give me your hand,” Dora continued. “Really good? For a long time I’ve looked for someone who would be a brother to me… .”
And she squeezed his hand.
“Yes, Signora …”
“One I can talk freely to …”
And she gave a harder squeeze.
“Yes, Signora …”
“Ah, if you only knew how painful it is to feel all alone, alone in my soul, understand? Because my body … Oh, they only look at my
body, how I’m made…. My hips, breast, mouth … But they don’t look into my eyes because they are ashamed. And I want them to look into my eyes, my eyes… .”
She continued squeezing his hand.
“Yes, Signora,” Giustino repeated, looking her in the eyes, confused and blushing.
“Because my soul is in my eyes, my soul that looks for another soul to confide in and say it’s not true that we don’t believe in goodness, that we are not honest when we laugh at everything, when we become cynical in order to appear experienced, Boggiolo! Boggiolo!”
“What should I do?” Giustino Boggiolo asked, bewildered, upset, in a pitiful state clutched by that frail and yet so strong and nervous hand.
Dora Barmis fell into a fit of laughter.
“No, I’m serious!” Giustino said with conviction, trying to recover his balance. “If I can do anything for you, just ask me, Signora! You want a friend? I am here, I mean it.”
“Thank you, thank you,” Dora replied, drawing herself up. “Excuse me for laughing. I believe you. You are too … Oh, God … Do you know that the muscles for laughing don’t obey the will but certain unconscious emotions? I’m not used to goodness like yours. I’ve taken some hard knocks; and in my dealings with unscrupulous men, I too … unfortunately … I don’t want to hurt you! Your goodness might be destroyed. Others would be malicious in any case. And yes, I, too, talking about it with others, you know? I’m capable of laughing about being so honest with you today… . That’s enough! Let’s stop kidding ourselves. Do you know who asked me about your wife? The Marchesa Lampugnani. You’ve been invited and you haven’t gone yet.”
“Yes, Signora. Tomorrow evening, without fail,” said Giustino Boggiolo. “Silvia hasn’t been able. In fact, that’s why I came here. Will you be there at the Marchesa’s tomorrow evening?”
“Yes, yes,” answered Dora. “Marchesa Lampugnani is so kind and so interested in your wife. She really wants to see her. You keep her too secluded.”
“I?” exclaimed Giustino. “Not I, Signora. In fact, I would like … But Silvia is still a little … I don’t know how to put it.”
“Don’t ruin her!” shouted Dora. “Leave her like she is, for heaven’s sake! Don’t force her.”
“No, that’s just it,” said Giustino. “Just so we’ll know what to do. Just imagine… . Do many go to the Marchesa’s?”
“Oh, the usual people,” Signora Barmis replied. “Maybe Gueli will also be there tomorrow evening, Signora Frezzi permitting, of course.”
“Signora Frezzi? Who is she?” asked Giustino.
“A terrible woman, darling,” responded Signora Barmis. “She keeps Maurizio Gueli totally under her control.”
“Oh, Gueli doesn’t have a wife?”
“He has Signora Frezzi, which is the same thing, or rather, worse. Poor Gueli! There is quite a story behind it all. But never mind. Does your wife like music?”
“I think so,” answered Giustino, uneasily. “I really don’t know. She’s heard so little … there, at Taranto. Why, do they play much music at the Marchesa’s?”
“Yes, sometimes. The cellist Begler comes and improvises a quartet with Milani, Cordova, and Furlini.”
“Ah, yes,” sighed Giustino. “A little knowledge of music … the difficult kind … is really necessary today… . Wagner …”
“There are no Wagner quartets!” exclaimed Dora. “Tchaikovsky, Dvoák … and then, you know, Glazunov, Mahler, Raff.”
“Ah, yes,” Giustino sighed again. “So many things one should know.”
“Not really! It’s quite enough to know how to pronounce their names, dear Boggiolo!” said Dora, laughing. “Don’t worry about it. If I didn’t have to protect my professional reputation, I would write a book called The Fair or The Bazaar of Knowledge. Suggest it to your wife, Boggiolo. I’m serious! I could give her all the dates and descriptions and documents. A list of those difficult names … then a little art history. Any little digest will do … some Hellenism, or rather, pre-Hellenism, Mycenaean art, and so forth. A little Nietzsche, a little Bergson, a few lectures, and get accustomed to taking tea, dear Boggiolo. You don’t take it and that is a mistake. Taking tea for the first time makes one begin to understand many things! Do you want to try?”
“But I’ve already taken tea,” said Giustino.
“And you still didn’t understand?”
“I prefer coffee.”
“Darling! Anyway, don’t say that! Tea, tea, you must get used to tea, Boggiolo! You will come in white tie and tails tomorrow evening to the Marchesa’s. Men in tails, women … no, some even come without décolleté. ”
“That’s what I wanted to ask you,” said Giustino. “Because Silvia …”
“Naturally!” interrupted Dora, laughing loudly. “She needn’t come décolleté in her condition; that goes without saying. Is that clear?”
When Giustino Boggiolo left Dora Barmis’s house shortly after, his head was whirling like a windmill.
For a while now, when around the different literary personalities, he had observed and studied how they managed to make a certain impression: their pose of greatness. But it all seemed totally without substance. The fickleness of fame worried him. It looked to him like one of those suspended silvery plumes on a thistle that the slightest breeze carries off. Fashion could, from one moment to another, send Silvia’s name to the seven heavens or throw it to earth, lost in a dark corner.
He suspected that Dora Barmis had been making fun of him, but that didn’t keep him from admiring the woman’s exuberant spirit. Ah, how much easier his job would be if Silvia had a little of that spirit, those ways, that self-control. He had lacked it himself up to now! He realized that, and he recognized Signora Barmis almost had a right to mock him. That didn’t matter. It had been a lesson, after all. He had to accept instruction and direction, even at the cost of suffering some small humiliations in the beginning. He had his eye on his goal.
And as though gathering the fruit of those first instructions, he returned home that evening with three new books for his wife to read:
1. a brief illustrated compendium of art history;
2. a French book about Nietzsche;
3. an Italian book about Richard Wagner.
3 MISTRESS RONCELLA: TWO ACCOUCHEMENTS
1
The young maid from Abruzzi, who always laughed when she saw that bersagliere hat on Signor Ippolito’s head, entered the study to announce the arrival of a foreign gentleman who wished to speak with Signor Giustino.
“At the office!”
“If the signora could receive him, he says.”
“Horse feathers, you know the signora is …” He described with his hands how she was, then added: “Let him come in. He can talk to me.”
The maid went out as she had entered, laughing. Signor Ippolito mumbled to himself, rubbing his hands together: “I’ll take care of him myself.”
A moment later there entered a very blond gentleman with a pink face like a plump child and cheerful, expressive blue eyes.
Ippolito Onorio Roncella made an elaborate pretense of removing his hat.
“Please, sit down. Here, here, in the armchair. May I keep my hat on? I might catch cold.”
Ippolito took the card that the gentleman, with a mixture of uncertainty and bewilderment, handed him and read: C. NATHAN CROWELL.
“English?”
“No, sir, American,” answered Crowell, almost carving the syllables as he pronounced them. “Correspondent for the American journal The Nation, New York. Signor Bòggiolo …”
“Excuse me, it’s Boggiolo.”
“Ah! Boggiolo, thank you. Signor–Boggiolo–granted–interview–about – new–great–work–great–Italian–writer–Silvia–Roncella,” Crowell stammered in Italian.
“For this morning?” asked Signor Ippolito, hands outstretched. (Oh, how irritating that foreigner’s telegraphic style and difficult pronunciation were!)
Mr. Crowell stood up and took a small note
book from his pocket, showing him a page with the penciled note: Mr. Boggiolo, Thursday, 23 (morning).
“Very good. I don’t understand, but go ahead,” Signor Ippolito said. “Have a seat. My nipote, as you see, is not here.”
“Ni-pote?”
“Yes, sir. Giustino Boggiolo, my ni-po-te … Nipote, understand? That would be … nepos in Latin; neveu in French. I don’t know what it is in English … do you understand Italian?”
“Sì, poco,“ Mr. Crowell replied, more bewildered and uncertain than ever.
“That’s good,” continued Signor Ippolito. “But in the meantime, nipote, eh? Actually I don’t understand him either. Never mind. Look, there’s been a hitch.”
Signor Crowell squirmed a little in his chair, as if hurt by certain words he didn’t think he deserved.
“I’ll explain,” Signor Ippolito said, squirming a bit also. “Giustino has gone to the office … uffi-uf-fi-cio, to the ufficio, yes, sir, the Notary Public Office. He’s gone to ask permission–again! and he’ll lose his job, I keep telling him!–permission to take leave because we had a fine consolation yesterday.”
At this pronouncement Mr. Crowell was perplexed at first, and then suddenly he had a gleeful reaction as the light finally dawned.
“Conciolescione?” he repeated with his eyes full of tears. “Really, a conciolescione?”
This time it was Signor Ippolito who was caught off guard.
“No, no!” he said irritably. “What do you think I said? We received a telegram from Cargiore announcing that Signora Velia Boggiolo, that would be Giustino’s mother, is arriving today. It’s nothing to celebrate because she’s coming to help Silvia, my niece, who finally … we’re almost at the end. In a few days a boy or a girl. And let’s hope it’s a boy because if it’s a girl, she’ll start writing, God help us, my dear sir! Did you understand?”
“I’ll bet he didn’t understand a damn thing!” he grumbled to himself, looking at him.
Mr. Crowell smiled.
Then Signor Ippolito smiled back at Mr. Crowell. And so, both smiling, they looked at each other for a while. What a fine thing, eh? Oh, to be sure …
Her Husband Page 7