by Italo Svevo
He rebuked Alfonso almost sharply for making Signora Carolina cry.
“You’re intelligent enough to realize it might do her harm.”
“I cried, but it wasn’t he who made me cry,” said Signora Carolina.
But Mascotti did not hear and repeated the same phrases, pleased maybe at a chance of showing zeal, while Alfonso suffered at his making as much thoughtless noise in that room as if he were in a public square.
With a determination of which he would not have thought her capable Signora Carolina interrupted his shouts by declaring in a loud voice that she was quite well and pressed the pulse of Alfonso’s left hand; his right was still beneath her head.
Alfonso longed to reprove Mascotti for not having sent a warning before and to make him realize that he was not satisfied with the way the poor sick woman had been treated, but could not for the moment. He felt a certain satisfaction at noticing that Mascotti himself must be feeling he was to blame, since he tried to excuse himself. Without anyone questioning him on the reasons which had induced him to leave Alfonso in ignorance of Signora Carolina’s illness, he said that it had seemed pointless to warn him since she had always been in good hands, and he repeated this phrase as if to silence anyone who asserted the contrary. Every day he paid her a visit, as he was only too pleased to, of course, and Giuseppina, whom he had put with her, was a good nurse.
This, which was perhaps true, seemed so little to Alfonso that he could not contain himself and he reprimanded him before his mother: “You should have warned me!” and looked at him angrily to make him realize that he had other more serious things of which to complain.
“And what about your career?” asked Mascotti. “I, as your guardian, had to see it was not interrupted.”
Signora Carolina was not listening to this conversation.
“Now I understand”—she seemed to have been studying Alfonso in silence for a long time—“now I understand why you look so changed. You’re dressed quite differently. You’re in the fashion.” And she laughed with pleasure at finding her son looking like a gentleman. She admired each garment, from his stiff straw hat to the cut of his trousers, and so interrupted the discussion between Mascotti and Alfonso. But not given up, thought Alfonso, who needed someone on whom to take his revenge.
Shortly after, in came Doctor Frontini, a handsome smartly dressed young man with an oval face, too regular features, and a thick brown moustache with gleams of gold. He was courteous to the sick woman but Alfonso sensed her antipathy to the doctor and realized that she feared him. She swore she had taken his potion twice that day, while to Alfonso she had confessed to not touching it since the night before.
As Alfonso later learned, Doctor Frontini was a young man who had started in a big city where, maybe for lack of patients, he had been unable to build up a sufficient practice and had fallen back on the wretched job of a ‘panel’ doctor; so he considered himself a misfit and disliked his patients.
After declaring that he found some improvement in the sick woman’s condition and recommending her to take the medicine regularly, he left.
Alfonso ran after him and caught up with him in the garden. He wanted to hear his frank opinion.
Doctor Frontini declared that the illness was very serious indeed, but he did not exclude a possibility of the heart regaining regular activity; that often happened. He had noticed the immense anguish in Alfonso’s face and added the last words out of pity. Seeing that the doctor was looking at him attentively, Alfonso, with his usual speed of perception, realized that the diagnosis had been modified to save his feelings. He could not complain of that. He knew as well as the doctor did himself how serious the illness was, and the latter’s opinion could not soothe him, but as the doctor had been so kind to him he felt he must be deceived about him. Certainly, at that instant at least, Doctor Frontini was taking an interest in the patient. Perhaps that was an advantage obtained for Signora Carolina by Alfonso’s arrival, for a person’s life seems precious mainly because of the value others put on it.
Alfonso spent the rest of the day by his mother’s bedside. He suffered at being unable to go to the village and greet his friends, see some part of old haunts again, satisfy his yearning. But he could not move away.
On his re-entering the room Signora Carolina soon expressed a wish to sleep; her eyes were closing with drowsiness. He threw himself on his father’s bed to watch her fall asleep. But it was more difficult for Signora Carolina than she seemed to suppose. Just when she was about to fall asleep she came to with a violent start. Sometimes the start was so violent that she flailed her arms like a person losing balance.
“I can’t!” she sighed, and, already resigned, asked him to talk to her so as to dissipate the drowsiness which she could not satisfy. Readily he rose and sat by her bed. Instead of talking to her of other things as she wanted, he tried to persuade her to make another effort to sleep. She closed her eyes to please him, and he sat still, looking at her. When by an almost imperceptible movement of her arm he saw that she was about to give another start, incapable of remaining a passive spectator, he seized her hand in his and held it firmly. Seeing the sick woman grew quieter he gripped her other hand too. With surprise and happiness he saw her fall into a quiet restorative sleep; but even then, if he relaxed his grip, she at once seemed less secure.
So he could still bring some advantage to her, and this made him so happy that for some time he forgot the doctor’s bad forecast and his own despair. It was long since he had felt a joy so intense and pure! He thought with contempt of his sorrows in town. What importance could they have in comparison with the feelings sweeping over him by the poor dying woman’s bed? He remembered with pleasure Francesca’s remark that his leaving town would mean breaking off his relations with Annetta once and for all. Now, beside this bed, he felt neither remorse nor regret. His love for Annetta and his repugnance for her both seemed colourless. The whole affair lacked importance, except that it had chanced to bring him faster to his post, beside his mother.
In the long hours which he spent there inert, he tried once more to reason out again the motives which had induced him to leave Annetta; but as always his reasoning was nothing but dressed-up emotion. His revulsion for Annetta, he said to himself, was explicable, indeed natural. There was nothing in common between him and a silly woman whom he had come to know as closely as if he had been able to watch her every action, hear her every word, know her every thought since birth. Her chief motive when she spoke was a desire to please—when she wrote she was vain, vain and sensual when she loved. He compared her with the poor woman whose sleep he was now watching. Even in that state Signora Carolina betrayed how much and in what manner she had loved her husband; so humbly that she still kept him as a living memory and unconsciously imitated his gestures and ways, even something of his physiognomy.
It would have been torture for him to live with Annetta. She would have made him rich and held to her right to enslave him; the vanity and sensuality which had flung her in his arms might lead to her doing the same with others.
“Aren’t you very bored?” asked Signora Carolina, opening her eyes towards evening. In the weak light of dusk those eyes were gleaming with laughter. She had not slept so well for a long time, and as she said this, she gave a grateful kiss to Alfonso’s hands, which he could then withdraw.
“Who knows, maybe I’ll still live!” To talk like that she must be feeling much better, and it was enough to rouse Alfonso’s hopes. He gave her a long kiss on the forehead and said they would always be together for the rest of their lives, identifying his own condition with his mother’s to fortify her illusions. She did not have any great hopes even then. She declared that she’d given up any idea of ever running or jumping again, of ever leaving the house perhaps; she might always stay in bed, but she wanted to live.
While she had supper with him, he looked at her ecstatically, amazed at watching the desire to live awakening in her so promptly. He tried not to see that the hunger s
uddenly aroused in his mother was merely the natural reaction of a weakened organism making a last effort. The haste with which she swallowed the small amount of food showed how much she wanted to delude herself, to make quick use of the truce granted her. Very soon she pushed the tray away with disgust. She stretched out on the bed, and it was difficult to know if she was really pleased when she said, “It’s ages since I’ve eaten such a lot!”
Giuseppina announced a visit from the doctor, which disturbed Signora Nitti. Surprised and put out, she said that this was the first time he had felt a need to come and see her twice in one day. Alfonso laughingly asked her if she wanted to criticize him for coming twice that day or only once on others. She replied disdainfully that he understood nothing about her illness and would have done better not to have come at all.
Then she agreed to the visit, unable or not bothering to hide that it annoyed her. The doctor was attentive, asked her for news, gave her advice, but in reply received only monosyllables, and found his advice received with silence interrupted by an unenthusiastic exclamation or two:
“Yes … yes … I’ll try this too if you want me to.”
Alfonso tried to make up for his mother’s rudeness by himself giving the answers that the doctor wanted from the sick woman, but he saw from the latter’s pallor and embarrassment, and from the sudden interruption of the visit, that his intention had not succeeded. Alarmed by the anger which he thought must be hidden beneath the pretence of coldness, he ran after him and with the frankness which he thought his best policy asked if his mother’s behaviour had put him out. He awaited the reply with real anxiety. There being no other doctors in the neighbourhood he was anxious to keep in with this one. The young doctor made the mistake of hesitating for a second and then the even greater one of saying contemptuously as he smoothed his big moustache affectionately with a hand:
“Oh! These old people lose their heads, particularly when they’re ill.” Then he did not reply to Alfonso’s promise that he would induce his mother to be more respectful towards those who deserved it. The young doctor was offended and obviously intended to show it.
On returning to Signora Carolina Alfonso tried to convince her that Doctor Frontini was worth treating better.
“Yes, yes,” she replied, bored. “I’ll treat him better; but not twice a day,” and she forgot the doctor at once.
She had no wish to sleep any more, and they spent half the night making plans for the future. She would come and live with him in the city. To lure her into hoping and to make her believe in the sincerity of his own hopes, he described life in town and even tried to embellish it. Then he found himself telling her most of his own adventures there and, since it was the most important, could not wholly avoid his adventure with Annetta. He described his friendship with old Signor Maller, with Macario, and then how he spent his evenings writing the novel with Annetta. This girl Annetta was immediately suspected by Signora Nitti, and he told her she was very ugly and, what was more, engaged to a cousin; he could not have better assumed a tone of indifference.
In town they would both live happily and comfortably, because the money from selling the house and garden would help. They would not go to the Lanuccis, who were too gloomy: they would keep to themselves because they wanted to live happily. Perhaps neither’s hopes were sincere, but they were listening to lovely music. His words sounded almost reasonable. Why, in leaving the country behind, should she not leave her illness behind too?
Soon they were recalled to sad reality. For a quarter of an hour Signora Carolina succeeded in hiding that she was in pain. To questions by Alfonso, who had noticed her restlessness, she replied that she was well, though agitated. She pressed Alfonso’s hand as if seeking relief by that grip and kept her eyes closed, warning that she wanted to sleep. But this resistance lasted a short time, and she sat up with a cry of pain.
“I can’t bear any more!” she muttered dully. Her breathing was fast and short. “Here,” she said, pointing to her chest, “the air doesn’t reach beyond here.” Only from this did he realize what she felt.
He helped her to get out of bed as she asked, and to sit on a comfortable armchair in which old Nitti had spent idle hours in the open air and which now was next to the bed, ready for the sick woman’s worst hours. He covered her as she let her head fall back in a cold sweat: apparently she did not see what he was doing. From time to time she gave a cry in an altered voice or, with a supreme effort, brought out some complaint or curse.
She did not find so much voice to speak to him as she did to complain. Twice he did not understand what she was asking. She wanted air, she wanted him to open the window; after he had understood and was hesitating for fear of her catching cold, she murmured with a glance of exasperated resentment:
“I’ll open it.”
She did not do so because she could not manage to get out of the chair.
From the window which he had thrown open, air now entered in abundance. In spite of his agitation he felt it enter her gasping lungs with relief. His mother continued to breathe hurriedly and with shallow breaths.
He remembered he might need Giuseppina. He ran into the next room and found her sleeping with the covers pulled up to her chin. He called her with a cry, but in vain, then impatiently decided to shake her by an arm.
“What’s up?” she muttered, obviously still half-asleep and struggling to go on sleeping because she was trying to unloose his hand and was huddling up against the wall.
“Mother’s bad. Get up and light the fire.”
“What’s the use? It will pass by itself.”
She was certainly nearly awake, but used the little capacity for reason so far acquired to show him he would do better to leave her in bed.
“Get up!” replied Alfonso imperiously, but had to rush back at a shout from his mother.
Signora Carolina had got back into bed alone and was pressing her mouth on the pillow. She now asked him to close the window as the warmth might do her good, and soon after made him reopen it again, always surprised that she got no relief from so many efforts.
“I’ll have the fire lit. Would you like some tea? It may soothe you.”
“Yes, yes!” she cried with delight as if his suggestion would make her feel better immediately.
Giuseppina was still in bed and asleep again. Furious, he pulled violently at an arm dangling out of the bed; it was the only part of her which had obeyed his first call. Giuseppina, annoyed now and wide awake, began shouting that it was a shame that she was not allowed to sleep after such a hard day’s work. Then she became alarmed.
“Are you mad?” she asked in a whisper, seeing him rush about the room and fling her skirt at her.
“Go and make some tea at once!” he yelled furiously. “Or I’ll throw you out of that door!”
Without another word she began getting up.
His mother’s terrible panting had lessened; she was still breathing fast but no longer complained. A little colour had returned to her face. Supine like that with arms inert she seemed to be sleeping. He shut the window, taking care to make no noise. When Giuseppina came with the tea he tried to prevent her going up to the bed, but Signora Carolina called her. She drank some spoonfuls of tea without opening her eyes and Giuseppina, seeing her calm, said harshly: “So it wasn’t so serious!”
“Out with you!” yelled Alfonso, furious at seeing her so indifferent.
“Why do you get so angry?” asked Signora Carolina when Giuseppina had left. “It’s no use! She does not understand.”
So she too had suffered from the other’s idiocy and indifference.
For another half-hour she did not move, but when he was just hoping she had fallen asleep, he heard her talking. She was thinking out aloud.
“I didn’t say anything,” she replied to his question. Then without his asking anything more she added, “I was thinking how silly it was to make plans for the future when I’m in this state.”
He tried to encourage her and for lack of
better arguments spoke of the medicine prescribed by the doctor. That should make her well, and as she had never taken it as regularly as she should, she must try. He was the first to be convinced by his own words.
His chief duty in fact, what others had neglected, was to convince her to follow the treatment. If salvation was still possible it could come only from that.
He put a spoonful of the medicine to her lips before she had agreed. Shrugging her shoulders she let herself be convinced.
An hour later she felt better.
“Yes, yes,” she said to calm Alfonso’s enthusiasm. “Last month too the medicine helped me the first time I took it, but then it only did me harm.”
He stretched out, fully dressed, on his father’s bed, intending not to fall asleep. But sleep overcame him, and he awoke only in broad daylight.
“How are you?” he asked his mother, who had been looking at him as he slept.
“Better, better!” she replied with a smile of gratitude. “I took another spoonful of the medicine and feel slight relief.”
Then she asked him if he did not want to see the village and greet old friends. She assured him that she could remain alone for an hour or two.
He told Giuseppina, whom he found busy again among the vegetables, to look after his mother, and she promised to do so. He spoke gently. Alarmed at the sight of him the peasant woman hurriedly told him she was gathering herbs for dinner. She was not simple, but preferred working on the land to tending a sick woman, and whoever had made her a nurse was really to blame.
One side of the house overlooked the main road and was connected to it by a track made by the feet of passers-by.
The country was still white with the frost which the autumn sun had not yet melted. Seen from there the village looked much more insignificant than it really was; it seemed only a couple of plain rows of houses. A bend of the main road hid the less regular but more populated part. On the valley side was another street of half the length of the main street to which it was parallel, and next to that a disordered tangle of dirty shacks where the poorest of the population lived. In its small way the village contained in embryonic form every city district. Alfonso felt excited and hastened his step on seeing at a window the dark head of Rosina, his first love. He no longer loved her, that was certain, but it gave him a joyous sensation to see her again!