A Life

by Italo Svevo

  “Not in there! It’s Signor Cellani calling you!”

  Santo thought he had not been called for the bonus. Alfonso went purple in the face; this was even worse than he had expected. Even on that occasion Maller did not want to see him.

  He went to Cellani, who was bent as usual over his desk and did not see him at once.

  “Signor Maller was suddenly called out of the office and told me to give you this!” and with ill grace he put two bank notes on the table. Alfonso took them glumly, murmured scarcely intelligible thanks and went out.

  In the passage he had another proof of the contempt with which he was being treated. Maller was in his office. With his ginger hair poking out from his room he was shouting, calling for Santo. He was in such a rage that he did not see Alfonso. Alfonso in his own first flush of anger could not restrain himself; he wanted to be seen. Without bowing or greeting Maller he called to him:

  “I’ll get Santo if you like.”

  Maller looked at him with some surprise. “All right!” he said brusquely and shut the door in his face.

  Alfonso returned to his room without bothering to look for Santo. He was asked what money he had received and what Maller had said to him, and replied that they had been the usual words and showed the two bank notes. All thought the money little. Alfonso reminded Ballina of his words a few days ago.

  “Do you think I’m favoured now?”

  He left with a firm tread, after hesitating an instant in front of Sanneo’s door. The custom was to go to the department head and thank him for the bonus. But no, Sanneo did not deserve that. His recommendations must have been very weak if that was all the result they had.

  On reaching the open air he remembered how when he was at school his parents came to town at the end of the scholastic year and accompanied him to school to fetch his certificate. They would wait for him in the public gardens opposite the school, and he would hurry triumphantly over to receive his father’s praises and his mother’s warm embrace when he knew he had deserved them. One year his certificate was spoiled by a bad report. Alfonso had hesitated a long time before entering the garden, then finally made up his mind, went up to his father and handed over the certificate without saying a word, not answering Signora Carolina’s affectionate words of encouragement. His father responded to the bad report very seriously, and when his wife excused their son, doubted if it was deserved and suggested it might be attributed to the antipathy of some teacher, he replied that he did not believe it and that doing one’s duty banishes all evil. How wrong his father was! Even at that young age Alfonso already knew from experience that none of his efforts could lessen a hatred roused through no fault of his own.

  At that very moment he met Annetta for the first time. Her figure looked majestic in a heavy black cloak; beside her trotted Francesca, insignificant as a servant. It seemed impossible that he had ever possessed such a splendid creature. That must be a dream. No trace of his kisses remained on that beautiful pure white face. How calm and regal she was, as if she had never erred with him and not been about to deceive and dishonour another man.

  He greeted her humbly, feeling he looked at her as if asking pardon. Francesca did not answer his greeting, as if she had not seen him; Annetta nodded after a slight hesitation, as if just remembering she had known him.

  Turning round to look he saw her talking to Francesca; her face seemed very pale. He tried to assure himself about this and hoped he had not been deceived; it would have been a comfort if she were flustered. He followed her slowly but could no longer see her face as he did not dare accelerate. The distance between them increased, and when Annetta vanished into the milling midday crowd on the Corso, he felt more alone and unhappy than ever. How far away from her he was. There was no way open for his return; he would stay poor and abandoned when he could have been rich and beloved. Perhaps it was his own fault.

  That evening on entering the living-room he heard himself called from Lucia’s room.

  “Mother forgot,” said the girl in a voice which seemed to be trembling with emotion, “do please close my door.”

  Her flurried tone made him think that door had been left open on purpose. He glanced into the little room and saw a sheet gleaming in a ray of light from the window. He had to struggle with himself not to enter. Though not desiring Lucia, it seemed to him that a kiss from her might cancel the effect of Maller’s behaviour; why spend the night alone in such a state of agitation?

  Actually he needed no kiss to calm himself, a small effort at self-domination was enough. “One more renunciation.” he said to himself with a smile, and the word recalled to his mind the state he had been in a few days before. It had taken so little to get him out of it. Maller had now shown openly the antipathy of which he had given definite signs before; nothing else new had happened.

  He went to bed quite surprised to find he could achieve quiet by cold reasoning, slept soundly and had a fantastic dream of a kind he had not had since childhood, about riding through the air on a wooden board, walking dry-shod over water and lording it over a great city. But next day something happened for which no reasoning could console him, a disaster that showed he really was being persecuted.

  Early that morning he went as usual to Sanneo to ask for instructions about letters which had arrived the day before. Sanneo greeted him with an embarrassed smile, holding the bundle of letters in front of him with a staring look which was obviously to gain time to think. Then he politely asked Alfonso, before receiving instructions, to go and see Cellani, who wanted to talk to him.

  “D’you know what he wants to say?” asked Alfonso, to prepare himself for Cellani’s communication which he already guessed to be very important.

  “I don’t know,” replied Sanneo, “but they seem to have gone off their heads in there.”

  But he obviously knew quite well what it was, for in the offhand way he dealt with everything not strictly business he asked Alfonso to hand over the bundle of letters in his hand to Bravicci. He was polite but obviously wanted to waste no time. So Alfonso expected the worst. Dismissal.

  Cellani was not in his office but hurried in as soon as he heard Alfonso enter. He looked very serious, but as he was at last speaking in complete sentences—Alfonso found him politer than usual.

  “I have something to tell you which you may be glad to hear.” He obviously doubted this, and in spite of his serious air the phrase sounded ironical. “In the counting house they need an expert clerk for the central desk and Signor Maller has decided this clerk is to be you.”

  It was an order not a suggestion, though transfers to the counting house were usually made by agreement with the particular clerk, as a suggestion.

  “So I’m to leave the correspondence department, am I?” asked Alfonso to prolong the interview. He was undecided whether to protest, to react against what he realized to be a punishment, or resign himself with good grace. But anger won. Was Cellani jeering at him by trying to pass off such a humiliation as promotion? “What have I done to be kicked out of the correspondence department like this?”

  Cellani looked at him in surprise. He moved towards his chair with an impatient shrug, incapable of more pretence.

  “Ask Signor Maller; I know nothing about it myself.”

  He puffed out his cheeks and began writing and signing nervously.

  “All right,” said Alfonso resolutely, “I’ll go and ask Signor Maller.”

  He went out. But already in that brief interval he had calculated the risk of going to Maller. He could always take that step later, after time for reflection. He went straight to his own room and handed the letters over to Bravicci as Sanneo had told him. Bravicci said he’d known the day before that he was to take over Alfonso’s work. Alfonso, who had been told nothing, brusquely handed over his other pending letters. For a moment he hated the other man.

  “So you’re being sent to the counting house, are you?” asked Ballina, seeing Alfonso leave his room with overcoat, hat and a bundle of papers. �
��You’re the second one. Sanneo is gradually shoving the lot of us in there.”

  Alfonso did not excuse Sanneo; in fact Ballina’s observation suggested a reply to give all those who asked him the reason for his transfer.

  In his new office he found his old colleague Miceni, who greeted him joyfully and congratulated him on having finally left the correspondence department. It was worth the lower pay, he asserted; they were much better off in the counting house and, what was more, had the privilege of not seeing Sanneo.

  Marlucci was less warm, but only because he was sorry that the room in which there had till then been two of them would now have to fit three. It was not very big and not quite square because one corner, that of the building itself, was rounded. Alfonso’s desk had not been set up and there was no gas-light.

  Miceni explained to him what his work would be, so briefly that Alfonso understood little or nothing. He was merely to look after the central desk, which Miceni had done with others till then.

  “I never asked for an assistant,” said the latter, laughing because other people’s misfortunes always put him in a good humour. “The only reason why they could have sent you here was because Sanneo wanted to get rid of you.” He asked Alfonso what had caused the quarrel, but Alfonso felt incapable of making up a story.

  “Don’t let’s talk of it,” he said, the blood rushing to his face as if on the verge of a fit of rage.

  He would soon adapt himself to this new situation too, he thought, and remembered how at one time he had even wanted to move to this section for its cool calm. The clerks called it ‘Siberia’ because people such as Miceni were sent there from other departments for punishment or because they had failed at other jobs; but advancement was possible in the counting house too, and in fact Cellani himself had been head of it before becoming deputy manager. In that quiet area, only reached faintly by the sound of business, he could work calmly and happily. His pay and the money he still had should be enough to live on for some time; there was no reason to precipitate decisions.

  So he reasoned, though still agitated; a first day of long dull unsuccessful work was enough to unsettle him. He had been shown how to draw up the day’s accounts and enter them in the master ledger, a long but easy job of copying. But every night he was to add up the sums registered that day and balance the debit against the credit columns. His first attempt did not work out and both Miceni and Marlucci, after spending some time helping him look for errors, had given up trying to make the figures tally and gone off. Before leaving, Miceni, sorry at wasting so much time, exclaimed:

  “I wonder what mistakes you’ve managed to think up today!”

  Alfonso went on comparing columns for some time longer, but did not find a single one of the errors which must be there: he realized the work had got on top of him and that he could not concentrate enough to compare the two sets of figures properly. Then he remembered telling Cellani that he wanted to go to Maller and complain of the injustice done him. He had not renounced this project; now he told himself that he had not gone to Maller at once in order to avoid disturbing him in working hours, but had never thought of taking the injustice done to him without a protest. The ineffable boredom of his day had an effect. Rather than go home with his worries about unfinished work, he turned his thoughts to the idea of Maller at that hour calmly congratulating himself on disposing of Alfonso; this made the blood go to Alfonso’s head, and he entered Maller’s room intending to show his anger. Once inside there he had a second’s panic; Maller might reply by telling him frankly the reasons for his hatred. But he overcame his agitation. If that happened, which seemed very unlikely, he would have less regard for Maller, speak of Annetta as if the other were not her father, insulting him and, after taking his revenge, leave the bank with his head held high. A satisfaction like that was worth anything, the loss of his job was nothing in comparison.

  Maller was lounging on a sofa reading a newspaper which hid half his face. He raised his head to speak to Alfonso and during the interview often let it drop back, either from weariness or to hide the expression on his face. In spite of the warning which Alfonso had given to Cellani, Maller did not seem prepared for the interview. His bearing was undecided, first cold and severe like a superior who considers he is being good to reply at all, then restless and changeable.

  “Signor Cellani told me that I was transferred from the correspondence department to the counting house by your order,” began Alfonso, stuttering, “I’d like to know if that’s to punish me for some failure.”

  “No” exclaimed Maller. “We needed a clerk in the counting house and could spare one in the correspondence department. That was all.”

  He bent his head down behind the newspaper for the first time, obviously thinking the interview was over.

  Maller’s coldness made Alfonso calm; its tone was very far from the frank one he had feared. The matter was represented as being purely office routine. In a cool-headed moment he realized that he must not behave in a way that would force Maller to dismiss him, yet possibly say all he had in his heart. But he was now in battling mood, conscious of being so and more resolved to fight than he had ever been in his life.

  He had worked hard in the correspondence department, he said, and was sorry to lose through no fault of his own a place won with so much effort. In the correspondence department he knew he could be useful to the bank and expect quick advancement, while in the counting house he would just become like other employees.

  “It’s for the moment,” said Maller, with a look of surprise at finding him so bold, and also of curiosity about what was in the back of Alfonso’s mind.

  “For ever!” insisted Alfonso.

  The resolute phrase gave him back the calm nearly expunged by Maller’s glance. In a voice no longer uncertain he said that he was not a person who could live among figures alone; his brain needed to use words and sentences because it was used to studies which Signor Maller knew something about. He tried to smile because this last observation was intended as a joke.

  Maller’s face went the colour of his mottled hair; that must be his form of pallor. The smile froze on Alfonso’s lips; on that face there was no trace of good humour. What had alarmed Maller, he realized, was his allusion to studies which his chief could have known nothing about if they had not been connected with Annetta.

  “Well, what d’you want?”

  Alfonso had looked so fierce that Maller had gone calm; then as soon as the other went calm, he attacked in his turn.

  The question annoyed Alfonso: was this a flat refusal?

  “What do I want?” he said angrily. “I demand to be put back in the correspondence department. I need a chance of promotion,” and he gave a candid account of his financial difficulties.

  “But people get on in the counting house too,” said Maller. He seemed very impatient.

  Alfonso, firmly intending to put up an energetic defence and to give a quick reply to every remark, was now in a state of great agitation due to the intense effort required to be always on the alert. So he was more and more at the mercy of his first impressions. Usually he was hesitant and silent when faced by the unexpected, abandoning previous plans and eventually regretting his own lack of resolve. This time his regret was quite different. Maller was being brusque, and he wanted to be too.

  He repeated that his transfer to the counting house must be a punishment; the clerks called the counting house the ‘Siberia’ of the bank.

  “I don’t see why you’re doing me this wrong.”

  If Maller lost patience and gave a frank explanation, then the battle was lost; otherwise this way it was won.

  Maller dryly observed that he was not used to reversing his decisions and would be glad if Alfonso accepted them, otherwise … and he completed the phrase with a gesture which clearly meant that he would be consoled even if Alfonso left the bank.

  “All right!” shouted Alfonso, “I’ll leave.” He felt strengthened at the thought that the worst that could happen to
him was to be left jobless. He went on more calmly, but with a wish to hurt and offend, “I can’t stay in a job where I’m persecuted with no reason … or no reason I can see.”

  This last addition gave him relief; he had had his say. For an instant he was undecided still, unwilling to leave before he was certain of having said his all, then he gave a bow and moved towards the door.

  At his last remark Maller had made a slight movement which did not escape Alfonso, then raised his head from the newspaper.

  “Don’t take a serious decision like that on the spot,” he said in a gentle voice, almost begging, which surprised Alfonso, because its tone was quite different from that of his replies till then. “I’ll see if I can get you back to the correspondence department one day.”

  It was obvious. The great man was worried.

  For a moment, quite dazzled by the unexpected victory, Alfonso did not find this result enough.

  “Till then am I to go on working in the counting house?”

  That day’s boredom was too recent for him not to raise this too.

  “I’ll see you’re helped with your work there,” said Maller, giving way at once.

  Alfonso left without any thanks after a slight bow.

  This interview left him in a ghastly state of agitation. Once outside Maller’s room he was dissatisfied, felt that the victory obtained was not the desired one because he had not succeeded in destroying the management’s disdain for him. He was keeping his job—that was about all. The honest Cellani would continue to treat him coldly and contemptuously. Oh if he could speak out to him, tell him how much his affair with Annetta was due to her flirtatiousness which had aroused in him an emotion maybe ignoble or impure but irresistible. Then he would no longer be considered by Cellani merely a person who had insinuated himself into the Maller home in order to grab a dowry by dishonest wiles.

  Every detail of that interview worried him as he went off, and he tried in vain to think of a word in it which he could remember with any pleasure. All Maller’s words had been stamped with antipathy or offhandedness when they did not betray fear; and he himself had made the mistake of aiming each word of his own at keeping his position and improving it, none at making Maller friendlier. What put him in despair, in fact, was that he had won the battle only by alluding to recondite reasons for his ill-treatment in the bank. Had he made a threat which alarmed Maller?