A Life

by Italo Svevo

  “It’s quite true that I’m fond of her and her family,” she began with a coldness which made her phrase sound ironic. “But it’s not only my affection that makes me act. This marriage might have such consequences for me that my life’s happiness could depend on it. Have you understood or d’you still wonder if my advice was given in good faith?”

  He could no longer doubt it; he had understood. In the delirium of the night Annetta had confessed that it was she herself who had opposed Maller’s marriage, and she had also hinted that by accepting him as a husband she could no longer persist in that opposition. So Francesca had a great stake in this marriage, and her fury was understandable at finding, when so close to her goal, something now unforeseen and unreasonable arising to put her victory in doubt.

  So shaken was he by this confession that he deviated once more from his method of defence; he wanted to convince her that his departure could not be such a great danger to his relations with Annetta. Annetta loved him, she had repeated it to him in every tone, given proof. Why then should he be so offensive as to doubt the seriousness of her affection?

  She was the first to give up the struggle. She walked another ten steps or so beyond the carriage, whose coachman was keeping the door open; not replying to Alfonso’s long speeches, perhaps not following them. Suddenly she looked at him, raising her head with a quick movement.

  “Either you don’t love Annetta or you’re afraid of her father.”

  He thought it more dignified not to reply.

  As she returned to the carriage she stuttered: “Never have I seen such a thing.”

  Before leaving, she turned to him and put her small cold hand in his, ready to shake it with the friendship which she would otherwise have been unable to show, saying: “Anyway, I shall do all I can to spare you the misfortune you deserve. I’m sorry.”

  She jumped into the carriage and helped the hesitant coachman shut the door.

  He was free at last. No one could any longer try and change his mind; he would leave knowing that by this step he was renouncing Annetta. Francesca had convinced him; departure was equivalent to renunciation. He felt calm and happy. If what Francesca foresaw took place, he was free from all doubt and remorse. She had said that if Annetta abandoned him he would go back to being a wretched petty-clerk of the Maller bank. No! He would be superior even to the position that Annetta wanted to give him, a superiority shown precisely by his renunciation.

  Next day at the bank he felt better. He worked willingly because, knowing nothing unexpected could happen to him, he felt calm, free from the fears which had torn at him the day before; the need he had felt to confide in someone for advice or support amazed him. Now he had tucked his secret away, and it merely seemed like an interesting episode in his life.

  Cellani was to talk to him, not he to Cellani, so he did not even fear that interview. Finding he was not called by midday he had but one fear, which was that Francesca, unable to convince him of the need to stay, had managed to convince Annetta that it was better not to let him leave. He would be in their hands, have to put up with rebukes from Maller that he deserved, and then, what was much worse, assume the part of an amorous lover.

  At midday little Giacomo came to tell him that the assistant manager was waiting to see him in his room. Alfonso lost a little of his calm because he had doubted whether he would be called, and the unexpected always agitated him.

  Signor Cellani was alone and had his desk clear of papers. Over that desk passed all the innumerable papers of the bank, not to leave it until signed by him; reading incoming and outgoing letters must have meant a vast amount of work.

  Cellani was easily embarrassed, and so Alfonso was more at ease with him than with Maller. At first the assistant manager asked him how he was, then, in hesitating words as usual, he observed with some wit that he usually only granted leave of absence when it was asked for, and this was the first time he found himself having to offer it. As the matter was being treated so lightly, obviously he had not been told the reason why this leave was being asked. Alfonso felt so calm that he also made an effort at humour in order to help the assistant manager out of the embarrassing position he had mentioned.

  “May I ask for the leave of absence which you can’t offer?”

  “Granted!” said Cellani laughing. “I don’t know quite what it’s all about, but it seems very important to Signorina Francesca and even a little to Signorina Annetta who asked me to let you go at once. I’m sure you’ll not abuse this leave and that we’ll see you back here in a fortnight.” He asked him to warn Sanneo and arrange with him about his work; perhaps it would also be necessary for him to work longer than usual that day. “Finally, if Signor Maller asks you why you ‘want’ this leave, you must give him some good watertight reason. Say, for example, that your mother is very ill; you can’t do any harm by saying that” and he bid him a warm goodbye.

  “Have a good time, now!”

  Sanneo was still hard at work, bent over a sheet of paper filled with his big writing, muttering words as he wrote them down. Alfonso entered and waited respectfully.

  “Yes?” he asked without raising his head.

  Alfonso began to speak, saying without remorse that his mother was ill and that Signor Cellani had granted him a fortnight’s leave. He noticed Sanneo was going on writing and muttering eagerly over what he was writing; it must be some dispute—all on account of Maller & Co—and in his ardour he had heard nothing said to him. Alfonso became impatient and eventually said in a changed voice:

  “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  “What’s that, what’s that?” asked Sanneo in surprise, raising his head at last “Leaving?”

  Alfonso repeated all that he had said, and Sanneo looked annoyed. Now the matter had all his attention, and he put his pen down to get away from other ideas. The day before, he had ordered Alfonso to take on some new work, checking calculations about liquidity, which he had done himself since Miceni’s departure from the correspondence department. It was a work that prolonged his hours considerably, and after deciding to hand it over to Alfonso he was alarmed to find it falling back on himself. It had been an effort to hand over the work and teach Alfonso, and that was now all wasted labour.

  “If Signor Cellani gave you leave”, which clearly he would have liked to doubt, “you’re free to go. Were you called by telegram?”

  “Yes,” replied Alfonso, annoyed at having to give details.

  “Oh! Then there’s no objection!” said Sanneo. “Although in such a case I would not leave at once but wait for confirmation of news which is sometimes given by relatives too easily alarmed.”

  But seeing that Alfonso did not reply to this veiled suggestion, Sanneo suddenly became a courteous friend bidding farewell. He warmly hoped Alfonso would find his mother in good health and, wanting to cancel any bad effect that might have been left by his hesitation, added laughing: “Even if you find your mother in perfect health, don’t give up any of the leave you’ve got. We’ll see you again in a fortnight, then.”

  Maller was no longer there, and Alfonso had to return in the afternoon to say goodbye to him. He found him alone in his office working hard at some notes in a pocket notebook. Alfonso was about to repeat the lie suggested by Cellani, but Maller interrupted:

  “A good journey to you, Signor Nitti, a good journey!”

  Alfonso bowed himself out; he was annoyed. Maller’s cold bearing disturbed him, however little he cared for the moment about being liked; he had even calculated on Maller’s decisive opposition to free him of his obligations to Annetta.

  The only employees he said goodbye to, apart from his colleagues in the correspondence department, were Miceni and Starringer the despatch clerk. He also said farewell to Marlucci, but only because he found him in Miceni’s room. The Tuscan was cold, realizing why Alfonso remembered him.

  Miceni behaved better than anyone. Starringer had asked for all the details and what illness his mother was suffering from and how long for and wh
y he could have known nothing about it till now. Then, showing that he was incapable of putting himself in the position of a son receiving news of his mother’s danger, he said:

  “Lucky beggar, you, going home,” and a shadow passed over his wide face. Ah! He was only thinking of himself, of the long holiday he had taken the month before which cancelled any right to another for two more years. Ballina, after warm consolations, had a doubt:

  “Is your journey money being advanced by Signor Maller?”

  Miceni, who obviously knew the ways of the world better, very sincerely hoped he would find his mother in good health. Then he exonerated him from bothering to greet all the other clerks and promised to make his excuses to them. Alfonso told him of Maller’s cold greeting and Miceni was able to soothe him by describing the reasons for his chief’s ill-humour.

  “He’s a man with many worries, and just at the moment he’s had a misfortune and a financial disaster in the family to cope with.”

  These were Fumigi’s madness and the failure of the latter’s business which was inevitable. Miceni told how Maller, from affection for his nephew, had taken on the responsibility of winding-up this business, and only then realized that it was in debt because of failed speculations of Fumigi’s during the last two months. Miceni said that the disaster was due to the weakening of Fumigi’s intellect. As to the reasons for the illness itself he supposed these lay in over-work.

  “I know this summer he was working ten hours a day in the office and more at home afterwards, on mathematical problems. His weak constitution couldn’t stand the strain.”

  Alfonso thought that he knew more about the cause of this illness. It must have been due to grief at Annetta’s refusal. Had Fumigi succeeded in his suit he would have enjoyed his good fortune very much more than Alfonso himself, who now felt another twinge of remorse at not profiting from it.

  He was very worried about finding a good lie to explain his sudden departure to the Lanuccis. He did not want to say that he was leaving due to his mother’s illness, or he would be asked for too many details.

  “I’m leaving!” he said, turning to Signora Lanucci whom he found sitting at table with the old man. Lucia was always out strolling with Gralli at supper-time.

  “How long will you be away?” asked old Lanucci, raising his nose from his plate in great alarm.

  “A fortnight!” said Alfonso quickly to calm him. He had understood the reason for that alarm. “I’m leaving on business …” He had not yet decided on any particular motive from the selection at his disposal, but none of them seemed likely enough to be believed without hesitation. It suddenly occurred to him that his mother had wanted to sell their house a long time ago. “We’re selling our house, which is too big and too far from the village for my mother.”

  The old man again stopped eating and straightened his spectacles, sure sign that he wanted to talk business.

  “So that’s why you’re leaving, is it? Leaving your job for a fortnight, as if that’s not enough!”

  Alfonso replied that Signor Maller had granted him leave quite willingly, and so he was losing nothing by his absence. But Lanucci did not give up so quickly. He rebuked him for wanting to carry through such an important business deal all alone, being too young to know how to set about it.

  “Our notary Mascotti will help me” replied Alfonso.

  One of Lanucci’s many jobs was also that of house-agent. He suggested that Alfonso, instead of leaving, should give him a description of the house and an idea of the price so that he could look around for a purchaser in town.

  Alfonso did not accept this suggestion and laughed to himself at the thought that he ran the risk of selling the house without intending to, and without having explained his departure.

  That evening Signora Lanucci helped him pack the things he was to take with him. During this operation, as she moved around the room with his shirts on her arm and spent a long time bent over the trunk straining to shut it, she talked to him about the happiness awaiting Lucia. That day Gralli had been to visit the Lanuccis three times, once for a few minutes as his work did not allow him to stay longer. He had walked for a whole hour just to see the face of his beloved. At that moment they were next door in the living-room chatting. “I wonder what about?” asked Signora Lanucci, raising her eyes from the trunk key which she was trying to turn. And as she threw herself with all her weight on the trunk, she added laughing: “They’re talking about something which I no longer know and you don’t yet know.”

  Before going to bed Alfonso went into the living-room where he found Lucia half stretched on the sofa and Gralli sitting cross-legged on the ground, admiring her. Even after catching sight of Alfonso she stayed in her position, while Gralli with a twist of his muscular body rose to his feet.

  “You’re leaving tomorrow? A good journey to you!” said Lucia, and without moving held out her hand with a ladylike gesture.

  Since her engagement she had lost her shyness with others because she had been told to; she had lost her respectfulness towards Alfonso for her own reasons. She had let herself be ill-treated and taken no revenge for so long that now she wanted to make him feel she was independent, expected nothing from him and did not like him. She was being particularly off-hand in order to make him forget the time when her behaviour might have made him think she loved him. Alfonso had so many other things on his mind that he had not even realized what efforts Lucia was making to offend him, and when he could not avoid noticing her coldness, he thought her quite right to be so.

  It was past ten o’clock when Santo brought him another letter from Annetta. She told him that Francesca had made her doubt the wisdom of his journey; but she left him free to do what he preferred and still wanted him safe from any possible offence. Anyway, she could not quite see how he could remain after having received the bank’s permission to leave. In case he did leave she sent her farewells, and was sorry not to have seen him before he went.

  He had no hesitation before replying. He wanted to leave and the doubts which Francesca had aroused in Annetta did not seem worthy of his attention. Why, even Annetta herself was still inclined to think he should leave.

  Santo was standing by his desk when he wrote the reply; Alfonso kept his face calm with an effort lest he showed the other that this was anything different from a routine reply. He had to cover his letter with another sheet of paper because he saw that Santo had calmly got to his feet and was reading over his shoulder. On seeing he was noticed Santo was not at all confused and sat down smiling.

  “I didn’t look at your letter at all.”

  Alfonso, frankly and unhesitatingly, had opened his letter with ‘Darling wife-to-be’. Then ‘I’m leaving!’ he wrote in the exclamatory tone of one decided on a sacrifice. He was leaving, he went on, though with such a prize reserved for him he was beyond being offended by any insults from her father ‘who is right to hate me’—what objective indifference that phrase showed!—he did not want such insults to be suffered also by her.

  He felt pleased with both phrases, but on rereading Annetta’s letter he realized that he had simply forgotten to answer it. Annetta in fact was telling him that she left him free to leave or not, and he was replying that he was leaving because she imposed it and very much against his will. He would have to be more careful and astute in his reply, or it would eventually make her think him stupid or indifferent in spite of his melodramatic words. Like this, it was pointless or mistaken. If Annetta still cared enough to study his letters, she was clever enough to soon realize that Alfonso was pretending and not even taking much trouble about his pretence. This should have worried him a great deal because he had tried to make her think he was the betrayed party, but such was his indifference that he could easily console himself. Annetta would not pore over that note of his for long.

  He was woken by old Lanucci, who wanted to accompany him to the station. Lanucci always got up at that hour and from what he said slept a very small part of the few hours he spent in bed.


  It must have been almost the same time as when he had left Annetta’s room two nights before, and that dim light of dawn, those deserted streets in which their steps resounded, reminded him of his walk home in a daze not only at the adventure that had happened to him, but at his own strange sensations. It was right that one walk should remind him of the other; this was the consequence of that previous walk. The sky did not promise a good day. A black cloud was hanging over the city, and the humid air showed signs of the sirocco.

  Old Lanucci as he went along was advising him on how to set about selling his house. He was first to pretend that he was in no hurry and had not come to the village for that purpose, or he would be cheated; the rumour that he wanted to sell the house should be scattered artfully about. Whoever made the first offer should be made to believe that the offer was being listened to from pure curiosity. Then, according to the offer, he must either pretend that it had seduced him into selling, or hint that the offer was not worth considering but might be if improved on. All this was to be done with an air not of asking favours but of granting them.

  But Alfonso was not listening to this vain chatter. Crossing the Via dei Forni he looked at the Maller house, brown and glum like all the others in the light of dawn, under a cloudy sky. In the empty grey street it had a grand look, with its two floors and wide windows and its stucco-work here and there, though rather without grace nevertheless. He was escaping because of the storm about to break over it. Gladder than ever to get away, he tried to excuse his own egotism and did so with a reason dictated by egotism personified; it was not worth suffering for something he did not want.

  When he was alone in a third-class carriage and no longer saw old Lanucci’s glum face, he stopped reasoning and felt no more need for self-excuse. He was free at last. For only a fortnight, but during it he did not even want to remember the town where he had suffered so much. He wanted to forget his own rather shabby behaviour, his own and others’ misfortunes. He was fleeing from Annetta, the girl who had given herself to him from adolescent curiosity and was persecuting him with her artificial love; but he breathed freely also at leaving all the people, bad or unlucky, among whom he had been forced to live. Beneath her submissive airs, Francesca, astute simulator that she was, hid an iron will and clever intrigues and, to elevate herself, had yielded to Maller because he was rich! And that dreary Lanucci home where he felt so wretched amid all its troubles—that girl was already in love with the man she was marrying from self-interest! Oh, what dreary and squalid people! The railway line running along the flat dykes seemed to be bearing him up to a point from which he could judge all those people rushing after goals that were stupid and unreachable. And he went on to ask himself, “Why don’t they live more serenely?”