by Italo Svevo
He felt he had already taken up again the serious intentions he had had when he had been an assiduous frequenter of the public library. But his thoughts kept on going back to the house from which he had come, imagining scenes in which he was implored to return.
He returned without being asked, simply because on Wednesday morning Macario had called out in passing: “Till this evening, then.”
The week had seemed very long, an interval of time full of incident—though actually nothing had really happened. He kept thinking that he had already carried out his intention and imagined a thousand consequences resulting from his energetic action. He was free to turn back, or rather to stay where he was, which pleased him. That week reminded him of his adventure with Maria, but this time it was only chance that prevented him taking some ill-considered step which would have broken off his relations with Annetta. If he had broken them, what would he be? Just a humble little clerk at Mallers about whose ill-humour no one would bother.
He presented himself at Annetta’s half-an-hour before the usual time, and was rewarded for his resolution because for the first time he found her alone. Everyone had sent excuses except Macario, who was still expected. Annetta said that she supposed they did not want to renounce some public celebration on that day, and showed Alfonso her gratitude by saying to him sweetly that he was wrong to come and shut himself up in a dreary room.
“Dreary? No, not at all!” assured Alfonso, looking at her ardently.
If she had never known she was beautiful, Alfonso’s glance would have been enough to tell her so. He confessed frankly that it was the first time he had heard of any public celebration that day.
“Do you lead such a solitary life, then?” asked Annetta in surprise.
They were sitting on a sofa next to the window, the brightest lit place in the room. Through the heavy curtains the colours of sunset entered mutedly.
In the street parallel to Via dei Forni the town band was passing. Nothing could be heard but the accompaniment and the rumble of a big drum. They listened in silence.
“I wonder what they’re playing?” asked Annetta, and flung open the window. The breeze swelled the curtains, and the clear ring of a trumpet brought the tune which had been lacking. For an instant they also heard the murmur of the crowd behind the band. Laughing, Annetta raised her face to Alfonso, who was still leaning on the window-sill.
“I wonder if our serious friends are among those people too?”
From the light side, where she was standing, she could not make out Alfonso in the half-darkness admiring her without restraint.
Her half-mourning, her grey had vanished too. She was dressed in soft white wool with a black cord around the waist. Annetta’s figure in spite of its curves was chaste and virginal, with a straight back hollowed towards the neck, and a white face which appeared clever and alert.
She told him to come to the window too and breathe the breeze which had replaced the strong bora of the week before.
The avenue was almost deserted; only on the corner was a group looking towards the next street.
“It almost makes me want to go down, too,” said Annetta.
Alfonso was intent on sensing the contact of his arm with Annetta’s, stirring his desire. He risked a movement to increase the pressure, and the blood rushed to his head from his own ardour and not from contact with Annetta’s arm, which was as if it belonged to a lifeless body.
Annetta had probably not noticed his daring. At first they were both a little embarrassed, because they had been too seldom alone together to find with ease a subject that could interest them both equally. But when the subject was found, Alfonso’s voice echoed calmly and sonorously, for the first time in that room, and for the first time Annetta heard complete phrases from him. If he did not know how to converse with numerous people, Alfonso at least knew how to talk alone with one.
Smiling, Annetta asked him: “What about your homesickness? I’ve heard so much about it!”
“It has vanished” replied Alfonso.
His voice, to his surprise, was firm, calm. But that first phrase still remained truncated because he had wanted to pay a compliment and say that it did not exist at that precise moment. With all his ease he had not enough to make a risky remark—though he might possibly have got away with one.
One of Annetta’s affectations since she had taken to literature was to make a show of finding everything interesting and wanting to know its reasons. She asked him to explain what homesickness was.
“It’s difficult,” began Alfonso, “but I think I can explain partly.”
He described first of all how it was a physical illness, because the lungs suffered from change of air, the stomach from change of food, the feet from change to pavements. What he did not attempt to describe was the intensity of his longing to see again places he had left behind, a blank wall, a tortuous lane with a gutter in the middle of it, even an uncomfortable room which dripped in bad weather; without mentioning his loathing of the building in which he actually lived, he described his reaction to the bank, the big wide street, even the sea.
“And as for people … it’s the same there too.”
“Did you hate me so much”
“Hate you? No! But I felt I would like to be far away from you, far away at home, so as to be there, and not here.”
Fearing that what he described with such sincerity did not seem sufficiently in the past he added explanations. He hated all the people whom he felt obliged to treat with respect; he liked freedom, and he wanted to treat those who were not his equals as if they were.
Ah, how lovely it was to talk to Annetta as an equal! How sweet to confide in her as freely as if he were talking to himself! This sweetness flowed into his speech which, until then had been tongued-tied, careful and literary.
Annetta listened in surprise. So this young man could talk as well as study, could he?
She explained to him that when one wants something in life, one must know how to win it. Alfonso recognized this as a dominating idea of Macario’s.
“It’s not difficult to win my friendship. This is the first time you’ve talked to me. You may not have noticed it, but you’re nearly always dumb. I felt, though, that it was not up to me to make you talk.”
Annetta laughed, thereby taking from her words anything that might have been offensive. Alfonso himself also laughed, finding rather comic this idea of someone waiting to be made to talk.
It was those first thoughts that gave Annetta the idea of their writing a novel together. A character revealing itself so ingeniously seemed to her worth describing. She told him simply of the first idea which had suddenly come to her, and which was certainly better than any later modifications.
“Once upon a time a young man comes from country to town with some very odd ideas about city customs. He’s worried at finding them different from what he had imagined. Then we’ll put in a love affair. Have you ever been in love?”
“I …” and his heart beat more strongly, from fear.
He had been on the point of making a declaration.
Annetta called Santo to light the gas, and Alfonso was blinded by the light and made to realize how false the step was he had been about to take. Annetta was just the same; she was giving sharp orders to Santo who, surprisingly, carried them out in silence.
She made Alfonso sit down at the table.
“Now we need pen and ink … but I prefer to leave first ideas to memory. We’ll put black on white later. Now how would you develop this novel?”
“We must have a good think.”
“Is it so difficult? We’ll describe your life,” and here she was still at her first idea. “Of course instead of a clerk we’ll make you rich and noble, or rather just noble. The riches we’ll keep for the end of the book.”
With one light jump she had abandoned her first idea altogether.
“We must allow time for the imagination to work.”
“Ah yes!” said Annetta with the surprise of
a young pupil reminded of a forgotten maxim. “D’you know what we’ll do? Each of us on our own, quite independently of the other, will put our own ideas on paper; then we’ll compare them and come to an agreement.”
Alfonso liked this suggestion immediately and said so with ingenuous expressions of joy that made Annetta smile with pleasure. Some good ideas for the novel were occurring to him, and he imagined what it would be like fitting them to Annetta’s. He was thinking only of minor details, not of the whole. About print and public he did not worry at all. For the moment his only aim was to cut a good figure with Annetta.
They spoke of the writing they had done till then. Annetta described a novel she said she had written about a woman married to a man unworthy of her. In time her artist’s soul affected her husband’s and changed him, and eventually the two really understood each other and lived together in perfect happiness for many a year.
Alfonso did not much like this theme, but Annetta stressed that she could not describe all she had written; for instance, in one place she had a careful description of a landscape, in another of a house—Alfonso ingenuously began admiring what did not exist.
Alfonso described his work on morals. As he spoke of it, he felt he had written it all, and following an opposite system to Annetta’s began describing what he had not done. He mentioned the kernel of his work, the negation of morality as everyone understood it, founded on religious law or individual good.
“If in a society founded on our moral ideas,” said Alfonso, “there happened to be a person with enough energy to put himself above all these, he would be better off than anyone else, as he would of course have the superlative intelligence needed to act astutely and ably in the abnormal circumstances in which he would soon find himself.”
Annetta looked at him, surprised at the ardour with which such an axiom was described by a voice which till a short time ago she had heard only in a timid and broken stutter. Then, less wordily and less energetically, he also spoke of a new foundation he wanted to give morality. The explanation of the first part of his work had made a striking impression, and he could not hope to obtain an equal effect with this other part, which dealt not with destroying, but with creating laws, a very different and boring matter.
Such was Alfonso’s delight at finding himself linked in some way to Annetta that he thought of hurrying home and jotting down the whole subject of the novel, even arranging the chapters. How surprised he was to have become Annetta’s collaborator all of a sudden, and when he thought of the feelings for him which he had attributed to her the preceding week, it all seemed quite incredible. If he had run across Macario just then, he would have flung his arms round his neck to thank him for the great happiness which he owed him, and with the expansiveness due to happiness would have told him of Annetta’s suggestion and of the value he attached to it.
But a part of his enthusiasm was cooled that same evening. He set the plot out as succinctly as possible: “An impoverished young noble comes to seek his fortune in the city … persecuted by his boss and his companions … loved by them because an intelligent action by him saves the company from serious loss … marries the boss’s daughter.” The plot was not very original in itself, but what he disliked most about it was the end, which had not actually been suggested by Annetta though it naturally derived from the principles she had set out. To Annetta that marriage might seem like a proposal and alarm her, make her suspect him of aims similar to their hero’s. He also realized, when he had pen in hand, that he did not know what Annetta really wanted. They had both been content with half-hints: he because, in his happiness, he had not remembered the insignificant matter of the plot; Annetta perhaps because she was such a novice that she did not realize all that was needed to write a novel.
He turned to Macario and asked him to tell Annetta his doubts. Macario had free access to the Maller home and could talk to her before Wednesday.
But Macario seemed to have little wish to do this. He did not hide his surprise at hearing that they intended to write a novel in collaboration. Alfonso was now subdued, realizing it was not dignified to show too much joy and thinking that he had even succeeded in seeming very cold. But Macario looked at him with a nasty ironic little smile and said: “Congratulations!”
Alfonso accompanied Macario to his office. Macario seemed very distracted, and when Alfonso told him with a serious air that he felt honoured by Annetta’s suggestion and wanted to return her trust by working hard and carefully, Macario covered his mouth with a hand as if to hide a yawn. Alfonso was a good enough observer not to believe in that yawn; under the hand he had seen a mouth open but inert, not contracted by any instinctive movement. Macario was jealous! Both the distraction as well as the yawn were affected, intending to hide anger or pain.
Alfonso went on talking with the same warmth, because whenever he noticed that somebody was trying to conceal something from him, his first instinct was to pretend he had not noticed it.
“Do please tell Signorina Annetta that I’m ready to begin at once, but need to know a little more about what I’m to do.”
“All right,” said Macario, who seemed to Alfonso a little paler than usual, “when I happen to see her, I’ll tell her.”
He regretted speaking to Macario and was sure he could no longer count on the other’s friendship. Perhaps Macario did not love Annetta, that Alfonso could not know, but was jealous of him only because he had a jealous nature. Alfonso had not understood this nature before because it was the first time Macario could have had any reason for jealousy. Macario’s own cleverness and social position must always have made him feel superior, and it was probably just because he enjoyed feeling that superiority and making it felt that he had sought out Alfonso’s company. Probably Macario had taken him to the Mallers supposing him too timid ever to gain Annetta’s friendship.
So he had confided in an enemy whom he had already given a chance to harm him, because it was likely that Annetta did not want their plan to be known. However much Alfonso wanted to appear cold, he must have shown his joy, and Macario was capable of describing it to Annetta with exaggeration. He saw him repeating some phrase of his, raising that hand which was sometimes more malicious than his tongue, and he imagined that would be enough to lose him Annetta’s friendship, won with so much effort. He recalled the treatment of that clerk who had dared to pay court to Annetta.
That week had been disagreeable because the fear of being reproached with tactlessness took away the joy of Annetta’s sudden friendship. He waited in vain from day to day for some communication from Macario in reply to the request which he had made. The man did not even bother to hide his ill-will and seemed to be avoiding him, because Alfonso did not manage to set eyes on him for the whole week.
He went to Annetta’s anxious to learn how Macario had behaved; he would know from the way she greeted him.
The whole company was gathered in the living-room. Fumigi, Spalati, Prarchi, and Macario; even Maller stayed for half-an-hour. Macario greeted Alfonso with a smile that was not malicious, and Annetta shook his hand warmly. Annetta’s friendship had not diminished since the Wednesday before. Alfonso suddenly felt other ideas open out, but could not even enjoy sloughing off his worries because he was disturbed by Maller’s presence, in spite of the latter’s friendly handshake.
Francesca was sitting apart on the sofa, holding some embroidery. Alfonso greeted her and went up to her, and she rose to her feet to give more warmth to her words which were as always rather dry and brusque. Signorina Francesca was never embarrassed. He had heard her talk in friendly, happy or annoyed tones, but always briefly and decisively like someone not to be imposed on. Maller was sitting on Annetta’s right, Spalati on her left. The latter always sat next to Annetta and seemed to set great store by it.
Alfonso, although more disturbed by Maller’s presence than were the others, noticed how their behaviour changed because of it.
At that period, whenever literature was mentioned, there was always a disc
ussion about realism and romanticism; this was a cosy literary argument in which all of them could play a part.
Maller was a partisan of ‘realism’, but, as he always wanted to seem more witty than learned, he confessed that he liked the realists all the more because they were not moralists. He also pretended to despise them because he considered their methods made it easy for them to achieve popularity.
Spalati, whose ideas as far as Alfonso knew were not likely to conform to Maller’s, immediately found a point of view from which he could agree.
“Yes, you who read only for pleasure are right to enjoy them.” Prarchi tried to go too far. He wanted to prove to Maller, who denied it, that the pleasure he found in reading those immoral authors derived from an unconscious artistic sense.
“You think you love them for the reason you say, but without your realizing it, surely it’s the books’ artistic merits that you enjoy?”
“Maybe,” said Maller, who did not seem to perceive that these two literary men were doing their best to flatter him. “I don’t understand, though, why some pages please me more than others. They’re the most artistic, perhaps.”
If he had perceived they were trying to flatter him, he was deriding the flatterers. When Maller began making his literary confessions, Annetta said to Alfonso in a loud voice: “Just listen carefully and you’ll hear some nonsense.”
Alfonso was so flustered by this phrase, which came as an unexpected gift to him in that general discussion, that he actually listened less.