A Life

by Italo Svevo

  In the complete quiet work went faster. To keep his attention on his work, Alfonso was in the habit when alone of declaiming aloud, for lack of anything more interesting, the letter he was writing. This one was particularly suitable for declamation as it was full of reverberating words and big figures. By reading out a phrase and repeating it as he transcribed it, he reduced the effort of writing because he needed only the memory of the sound to direct his pen.

  To his surprise he suddenly found that he had finished and went straight off to Sanneo, fearing he was already late. Sanneo kept the telegrams and told him to put the letters on Signor Maller’s desk.

  The floor of Signor Maller’s room was covered with grey carpets during the winter. The furniture was also dark grey, with arms and legs of black wood. Of the three gas brackets only one was lit, and at half pressure. In the dimness the room looked gloomier than ever. Alfonso always felt ill at ease there. He put down the letters on top of another pile already on the desk for signature and went out without making a sound, as if his chief had been present.

  He could have left now but was held back by exhaustion. He thought of putting his desk in order but sat there inert, daydreaming. Ever since he had become a clerk, deprived of the physical exercise of country life and mentally stifled in his work, his great vitality had taken to creating imaginary worlds.

  The centre of these dreams was Alfonso himself, all self-mastery, wealth and happiness. Only when daydreaming was he aware of the extent of his ambitions. To make himself into someone overwhelmingly clever and rich was not enough. In his dreams he changed his father. Unable to bring him back to life, he turned him into a rich nobleman who had married his mother for love, though Alfonso loved her so much that even in his dreams she was left as she was. Actually he had almost entirely forgotten his father, which accounted for his giving himself the blue blood needed for his daydreams. He would picture himself meeting Maller, Sanneo, Cellani with that blood and those riches. Then, of course, roles were entirely reversed. It was no longer he but they who were timid! But he treated them graciously, with true nobility, not as they had treated him.

  Santo came to warn him that Signor Maller was asking for him. Surprised and rather alarmed, Alfonso returned to the room where he had been shortly before. Now it was all lit up; his chief’s bare head and red beard glistened in the glare.

  Signor Maller was sitting with both hands on his desk.

  “I’m glad to see you’re still here, a proof of diligence, which anyway I’d never doubted.”

  Remembering Sanneo’s outburst a short time before, Alfonso glanced at him fearing that he was being ironic, but his chief ’s red face was serious, with blue eyes staring at a far corner of the desk.

  “Thanks!” muttered Alfonso.

  “I’d be pleased if you could come to my home tomorrow evening for some tea.”

  “Thanks!” repeated Alfonso.

  Suddenly Maller, as if he’d had difficulty in making up his mind, looked at him and spoke less carelessly.

  “Why d’you make your mother desperate by writing to her that you’re not content with me or with you? Don’t look so surprised! I’ve seen a letter from your mother to our housekeeper. The good lady complains a lot about me, but about you too. Read it and see!”

  He proffered a piece of paper which Alfonso recognized as coming from Creglingi’s shop. A glance told that it really was in his mother’s handwriting. He blushed, ashamed of the ugly writing and bad style. In some vague way he felt offended that the letter was being made public.

  “I’ve changed my mind now,” he stuttered. “I’m quite content! You know how it is … distance … homesickness …”

  “I understand, I understand! But we’re men, you know!” He repeated the phrase a number of times, then warmly assured Alfonso that he was well-liked in the office not only by himself and Signor Cellani but by the head of the correspondence department, Signor Sanneo, and by everyone else, all of whom hoped to see him make rapid progress. In dismissing him Signor Maller repeated, “We’re men, you know!” and gave him a friendly nod. Alfonso went out, feeling confused.

  He had to admit that Signor Maller seemed decent enough, and easily impressed, Alfonso felt his position in the bank to be improved; at last someone was taking notice of him!

  But he regretted not having behaved more frankly and sincerely; why had he denied truths confessed to his mother? He should have answered his chief’s kindness by telling him frankly of his hopes, and thereby had some chance of seeing some of them satisfied; anyway he would have got on to friendlier terms, since no one is ever offended by being asked for protection. He told himself he would be more frank on some other occasion, which would soon come up after this.

  Meanwhile, to avoid contradictions between what he had told Signor Maller and what he had written to his mother, he wrote to her again, saying that his prospects at the bank were improving and that for the moment he renounced open air, oak trees and rest. Either he would return home rich or never return at all.

  III

  THE LANUCCIS, with whom Alfonso lodged, lived in a small apartment in a house in the old town near San Giusto. From there he had more than quarter of an hour’s walk to the office.

  Just before her marriage Signora Lucinda Lanucci had spent a summer in Alfonso’s village as housekeeper to a family. She had then made the acquaintance of Alfonso’s mother, who had recommended her son. This introduction from Signora Carolina might have been worthless had the Lanuccis not been looking for someone to rent a small extra room in their house. And so Alfonso came along at the right moment and was welcomed.

  A few years before, seduced by a longing for independence, Signor Lanucci had left a job which was not particularly good but did keep his family adequately, and had begun acting as agent for a variety of companies representing almost every conceivable article. But though the poor man wrote off every day to companies whose addresses he took from the back pages of newspapers, he still earned less than he had before as a clerk. And so now the family’s finances were so precarious that their mood was sad.

  This had increased Alfonso’s homesickness, for sad people make places sad.

  They treated him affectionately, but Signor Lanucci aroused Alfonso’s pity, particularly when he saw the poor man making an effort to be polite, to smile and to show interest in his affairs, though Alfonso realized that he himself was only a source of revenue.

  Signora Lanucci, long accustomed to consoling her husband for his fruitless efforts, soon assumed a similar attitude to Alfonso’s and came to take such an intense interest in the young man’s affairs that she spoke of them as if they were her own. Signor Maller’s invitation, which Alfonso mentioned, aroused a most flattering reaction in her; she spoke of it as if it were sure to make the clerk’s fortune; so little was she used to good fortune that it took her by surprise.

  Lucinda was about forty but, being small and plump with thick grey hair, looked more. She had never been beautiful. The small dowry she had brought her husband had melted away in some speculation with Turkish shares. She was bright and lively and loved to talk; her pale suffering face had won Alfonso’s sympathy at once.

  She seemed devoted to her husband; not so devoted, apparently, to her son Gustavo, aged eighteen, whom she called a rough diamond; her chief affection went to her daughter Lucia, aged sixteen, who did dressmaking in private houses. The mother earned more than all of them as a teacher in an elementary school, but they could not have made ends meet without Lucia’s earnings. Signora Lucinda was desperate at seeing her daughter forced to spend her youth at a sewing machine, while hers had been spent better, for she had come from well-to-do people and had studied and amused herself. Their means now were so narrow that she had been unable to do anything about Lucia’s education; but she did not complain of this, unaware that the results corresponded to the outlay. Intelligent though she was, Signora Lucinda did not notice how insipid her daughter’s prattle was. She saw her as beautiful, while actually Lu
cia was thin and anaemic like the rest of the family, with fair reddish colouring and, because of her thinness, a mouth that seemed to reach her ears. The mother’s behaviour was like that of a woman of the people, and she even swore, all quite deliberately, for she was an extreme democrat; her daughter had quickly picked up, from the middle-class homes she frequented, ladylike mannerisms quite out of place in her own home. Gustavo, rough and simple, often jeered at her for it, earning his mother’s dislike more by that than by his wastefulness.

  Alfonso found his black suit laid out on the bed, carefully folded. Signora Lanucci had thought of everything, from tie to gleaming boots ready at the foot of the bed. Alfonso too felt excited by the visit he was about to make. Though he had not Signora Lanucci’s illusions about it, they were contagious, and he was more agitated than seemed necessary. He took off his everyday suit and flung it on the bed as though he would never have to put it on again.

  On entering the small living-room where the family ate, he almost imagined himself to be really well dressed. Signora Lanucci looked at him and admired his appearance. Gustavo, filthy, came up to him with a benevolent smile, his mouth full. This young gentleman aroused no envy in him as his own desires were quite different: a few coins in his pocket for an evening at a tavern, no more. Gustavo was then attached to a copying office and apt to criticize his new job where there was little pay but a lot of work.

  With his clean shirt, high collar, well-brushed thick hair, black suit, Alfonso looked quite handsome. He was holding in one hand some light-coloured gloves bought that day on Miceni’s advice. A more expert eye would have noticed shiny patches on the black suit, that its cut was not modern, its collar too open and of poor stuff that yielded to the stiff shirt. But the Lanuccis were not trained to such details.

  Lucia had now stopped eating and moved a little away from the table, leaning on the back of a chair with crossed hands—she showed no sign of noticing Alfonso’s special outfit. They were on good terms, and when he was at home she served him willingly. She liked to make herself useful to him, because he always thanked her so pleasantly for all she did. Their exchange of courtesies verged on the excessive, now that she had at last found someone whom she could treat in the way she had noticed people treating each other in the homes where she worked. Her mother encouraged her. Gustavo would say that she was letting off steam on Alfonso.

  Signor Lanucci must have been over fifty. He dyed his hair, because he had free samples of dye sent by companies he had offered to represent; his hair was black where it was not whitened by age, and yellowish where it would have been white without dye. He wore a long full beard, its colour blending with his hair. To read in the evenings he put on a clumsy pair of spectacles, so wide between his small grey eyes that they almost fell off his nose.

  He complimented Alfonso and asked him to sit next to him, an honour no longer granted to Gustavo since the youth had lost the decent job they had obtained for him with great efforts. This was the only punishment the father could inflict, having neither brain nor energy for any other.

  Gustavo, without a word—he had a grudge against his father for having one against him—handed Alfonso a letter. Alfonso did not open it very eagerly. So preoccupied was he that he had not the patience to decipher his mother’s shaky handwriting, and he put the letter back into his pocket after a quick glance.

  “That didn’t take long!” said Signora Lanucci with a hint of reproval.

  “It’s very short!” replied Alfonso flushing, “She sends you her best wishes.”

  The old man had begun describing his day’s work. It was the same tale every evening. To justify himself to his wife he would describe how much he had canvassed for business. That day he had earned, all told, a big packet of needles sent by a small factory as agent’s fee for some business he had arranged for them. In the morning with a letter of recommendation from a friend who was a merchant and whom he considered to have influence in the town, he had called at a few private houses trying to sell Cognac, but without result. The sample made a show on the table. At midday he had got some mail, comprising that packet of needles and a letter from an insurance company making him their representative. That very afternoon the old man had set off in search of people willing to be insured, going round town with a list of acquaintances, which he always carried with him. Friends had explained that they did not want to be, already were or could not afford to be insured: others either did not see him—Lanucci liked calling on people who kept servants to open their front doors—or sent him off with a few dry words as to a beggar.

  This comment was not Lanucci’s, who told his tale with the calm of perseverance, ready to begin all over again the next day. But later that day Lanucci had written to the insurance company telling them that, though he had not actually fixed anything yet, he still had high hopes, and that meanwhile the agent’s fee was too low in view of the difficulty of conducting business.

  “Oh dear, that postage!” murmured Signora Lanucci with a wink at Alfonso, to whom she had already spoken of her husband’s hopes and manias.

  But she had followed the account with close attention, and her eyes shone with indignation at all his vain efforts. Signor Lanucci spoke slowly, talking continually as he ate, putting his fork down after every mouthful and emphasizing each syllable to make his own activity and astuteness clearer. He repeated all the arguments he had used. To one person he had talked of the advantages of insurance in general and how wrong it was not to insure oneself, to another—some friend or known philanthropist—of his own need for encouragement. To all he had praised the company he represented. Signora Lanucci listened to him, sitting slightly back from the table, chewing little bits of bread very fast with her front teeth.

  Any remark by his family was apt to provoke Signor Lanucci to argument.

  “‘Oh dear, the postage,’ did you say? Why? You’ve an odd way of looking at things! Why, I couldn’t do any business at all …”

  Resentment accumulated during the day now burst loose. He sat stock still in his chair, but his lips were trembling. Gustavo grinned into his plate.

  Alfonso soothed the old man; he understood his anguish since he too found himself in financial straits from time to time. He told him that his wife was only joking and he must not take offence, and that she really longed to see his affairs prosper more than anyone.

  Alfonso’s words started Lanucci on a completely different train of thought: for it now occurred to him that the comforter might become a client, and he began asking if Alfonso had ever had any idea of insuring himself—against accidents say?

  Signora Lanucci protested.

  “Oh! Can’t you leave him in peace with your business?”

  Lanucci looked very put out: Alfonso was both embarrassed himself and distressed at the embarrassment of Lanucci, whom he supposed already regretted his tactless question.

  “Do let him go on talking,” he said to Signora Lanucci. “He’s so interesting, and after all it costs nothing.”

  He thus managed to reduce the matter to something purely academic.

  “Yes, indeed!” emphasized Lanucci. “I’ll make him insure himself either through me or through somewhere else! He can do it wherever he likes. But anyone in a position to be insured does wrong not to be. Suppose a tile falls on his head? If he’s not insured, he earns nothing while in bed, but if he is, he’s in clover.”

  To get out of it Alfonso now gave a frank account of his own finances. Signora Lanucci protested, and the old man calmly put up objections while still denying that a refusal needed any explanation.

  Every evening the Lanuccis went out after supper to take some air. This was not the sole aim of the outing. Signora Lanucci had introduced the custom to compensate Lucia for the hour’s parade on the Corso with other young dressmakers, which she had made her give up. Gustavo accompanied them but did not come home with them. Sometimes Alfonso went, too, bored but making such a good pretence of being amused that in the end he believed it himself.


  Signora Lanucci got up from table, put on a threadbare but heavy cloak, and stood waiting for Lucia to finish her far more complicated toilet. The old man, in an overcoat too small for him which his wife had helped him don, went on talking, still hoping to do some business before the day ended. But Alfonso, who had been on the point of giving way for an instant, now gave his exact salary and expenses in a slightly irritated tone, concluding that he could not dream of spending more. He expressed himself crisply to avoid finding himself in even worse financial straits; and, distrusting his own firmness, refused to hear any more argument. It seemed to him that Signor and even Signora Lanucci then said goodbye more coldly than usual, although the Signora did not omit wishing him good luck. Lucia gave him a bow, wished him a pleasant evening and held out her flaccid hand with a studied gesture.

  Once alone, to let a little more time pass before going to the Mallers, who might not have finished yet, Alfonso read his mother’s letter.

  Old Signora Nitti wrote of her hopes for Alfonso, and how she had written to Signorina Francesca Barrini, the Mallers’ housekeeper, to recommend him. The whole letter was scattered with greetings from friends in the village, patiently set down by the old lady with Christian name, surname and message: “sends lots of greetings”. Finally there were two lines of kisses and the signature—“your mother, Carolina”.

  Beneath this, under P S , was the phrase: “I’ve not been very well for the last two days, but am better today.”

  IV

  ALFONSO CONSIDERED HIMSELF to have poise. In his soliloquies he certainly did. Having never had a chance of showing this quality to people whom he considered worthwhile, now, on his way to the Mallers, he felt as if a dream was about to come true. He had thought a lot about how to behave in society and had prepared a number of safe maxims to replace lack of practice. Speak little, concisely, and if possible well; let others talk, never interrupt; in fact be at ease without appearing to make any effort. He intended to show that a man could be born and bred in a village and, by natural good sense, behave like a poised and civilized townsman.