got quite used to pretending not to notice his partiality for Carmen, and I had never dared to allude to the way he treated his wife. So I had no trouble in appearing to lend him my best attention when he dilated on his joy at his dear wife’s return.

When the train came in punctually at twelve o’clock, he hurried forward to meet his wife who was just getting out. He took her in his arms and kissed her affectionately. When I saw him stooping down to kiss her, I said to myself: “What a good actor!” Then he took Ada by the hand and led her up to us, saying: “She has come back to us at last, beautiful as ever!” In this he showed himself for what he was, a sham and a humbug, for if he had really looked the poor woman in the face he would have seen that she had nothing left of the beauty we had known. Ada’s face had lost all its shape; though she had got fatter, her cheeks seemed to have grown in the wrong place, as though the flesh had forgotten where it belonged and had become attached too far down. So that they looked more like swellings than cheeks. Her eyes had returned to their sockets, but it had been impossible to repair the ravages they had caused during the time they were displaced. The clear and characteristic lines of her face had become blurred and distorted. When I took leave of her outside the station, I saw by the brilliant rays of the winter sun that the whole colouring of her face, which I once loved so much, had become changed. She had grown paler, and there were little red patches here and there on her cheeks. It seemed as if health had departed from her face and only a feeble imitation had taken its place.

I told Augusta that Ada had completely recovered her girlish beauty, and she was delighted. What surprised me was that, after she had seen her several times, she entirely confirmed my false report. She said:

“Yes, she is as lovely now as when she was a girl, and my child will be just like her.”

Evidently a sister’s eye is not very discriminating. It was some time before I saw Ada again. She had too many children to look after, and so had we. Ada and Augusta used to arrange to meet several times a week, but always at times when I was out.

The time for making up our balance-sheet was approaching, and I had a great deal to do. I have never worked so hard as during this period of my life. Some days I would remain at my desk till ten o’clock at night. Guido offered to get me an accountant, but I would not hear of it. I had accepted the job and I meant to see it through. I wanted to make up to Guido for the fatal month when I had been away from the office, and I was glad that Carmen should see how industrious I was, for she would know it could only have been inspired by my love of Guido.

But as I proceeded in making out the accounts, I gradually began to discover the heavy losses we had incurred during our first year of business. I was worried by it and said something to Guido about it privately, but he was just going out shooting and would not wait to hear what I had to say.

“You will see that it is not as serious as you think, and besides the year is not over yet.”

There was exactly a week before the New Year. Then I took Augusta into my confidence. At first she could only think of it as a possible loss to me. Women are always like that, and Augusta was unusually excited, even for a woman, at the thought of my personal losses.

Should not I, she said, be held partly responsible for Guido’s losses? She wanted me at once to consult a solicitor. I must meanwhile break off all connexion with Guido, and stop going to the office.

It was not easy to make her see that I could not be held responsible for anything, as I was only one of Guido’s employees. She maintained that as I had no regular salary I could not be considered as an employee, but was more like a partner. Even after I had succeeded in convincing her, she remained of the same opinion still, because she then discovered that I should lose nothing if I stopped going to the office, where I should certainly end by ruining my business reputation. Good Lord! My business reputation! But I agreed with her that it was important for me to preserve it, and though her arguments were all wrong it was decided that I should do as she wished. She agreed to my finishing the balance-sheet as I had begun it, but said I must then arrange to return to my own little study, where it was true that I made no money, but where I also could not lose any.

Then I made a curious discovery about myself. However much I wished to do so I could not give up my work. I was astonished! To explain how this could be I must here have recourse to an analogy. I remembered it was the custom in England in the olden days to punish criminals condemned to hard labour by binding them on a wheel worked by waterpower; thus compelling the victim to move his legs to a certain rhythm, as otherwise they would be broken. All work strikes one as having this compulsory character. The position remains the same whether one works or not; and I may say that Olivi and I were both equally bound to the wheel, the only difference being that I did not have to move my legs. Of course the result was different, but I now know for a certainty that it deserved neither praise nor blame. The point really is whether one is bound to a wheel that is moving or standing still. The difficulty of freeing oneself is the same in either case.

I went on going to the office for several days after I had finished my balance-sheet, although I had made up my mind not to go again. When I left the house I was still uncertain; I walked uncertainly in a direction which was almost always that of the office, and, as I went on, the direction became more and more definite till I found myself sitting on my usual chair opposite Guido. Fortunately he begged me at this moment on no account to desert my post, and I at once agreed to remain, since I had meanwhile discovered that I was chained to it.

I closed my balance-sheet on the fifteenth of January. It was a calamitous one! We closed with a loss of half our capital. Guido did not want to show it to young Olivi, fearing that he might give us away; but I insisted, hoping that with his great experience he might discover some error in it which would change the whole position. Some entry, I thought, might have got shifted from credit to debit by mistake, which would make a very considerable difference. Olivi smilingly promised Guido to behave with the utmost discretion, and spent a whole day going through the accounts with me. Unfortunately he found nothing wrong with them. I confess I learned a great deal from that revision, and should feel quite ready now to draw up much more formidable balance-sheets.

“And what do you propose to do now?” inquired the spectacled youth as he went away. I knew very well what he wanted to suggest. My father, who had talked to me about business from my childhood up, had already taught me what ought to be done. Granted that we had lost half our capital, the laws of sound finance decreed that we ought to liquidate the business, and possibly start it again on a fresh basis. I allowed him to repeat the advice. He added:

“It is a mere formality.” Then he said smiling: “If you don’t, it may cost you dear!”

That evening Guido glanced at the balance-sheet, which he had not yet had time to take in. He did it without any method, verifying this or that entry at random. I wanted to put a stop to his futile labour, and told him what Olivi had said: that we ought to go through the little formality of liquidating the business.

Up to then Guido’s face had been contorted by the effort to find a mistake in the accounts which would explain everything. He frowned and contracted his brow like someone who has a bad taste in his mouth. But when I told him what Olivi had said his face suddenly cleared, and he was all attention. He could not understand at first, but when he did he burst out laughing. I interpreted his expression thus: face to face with those immutable figures he remained hard and bitter, but he recovered his gaiety and self-confidence directly the painful problem was put into the shade by a proposal which demanded a rapid and final decision.

He refused to understand. The advice seemed to him to have been given by an enemy. I explained that its chief value was in regard to the obvious danger of our losing more money and becoming bankrupt. It would be a criminal offence to go bankrupt after a balance-sheet like the one we had now registered in our books, unless we had taken some such step as that advised by Olivi. And I added:

“The punishment ordained by our law for criminal bankruptcy is prison.”

Guido’s face became so crimson that I feared for a moment he was going to have a stroke. He shouted:

“In that case I don’t need any advice from Olivi! I can deal with it perfectly well myself if that happens.”

I was impressed by his air of determination, and felt as if I had to deal with someone who was perfectly conscious of his own responsibility. I lowered my voice. I quite went over to his side and, forgetting that I had just put forward Olivi’s advice as worthy of consideration, I said:

“That is just what I said to Olivi. It is your responsibility, and it does not concern us, whatever you may choose to decide about a business which belongs only to you and your father.”

As a matter of fact it was to my wife and not to Olivi I had said this, but it was true that I had said it to somebody. After listening to Guido’s manly speech I should have felt quite equal to saying it to Olivi, for I have always found decision and courage irresistible. I cannot help loving recklessness too, though it is not always the result of those two qualities, but often of very inferior ones.

As I wanted to repeat everything he said to Augusta, in order to set her mind at rest, I still insisted:

“You know they say, and probably with truth, that I have no gift whatever for business. I can carry out what you tell me to do, but I can’t assume any responsibility for what you do.”

He assented eagerly. The rôle I had sketched out for him gave him so much satisfaction that he quite forgot his annoyance over the unfavourable balance-sheet. He said emphatically:

“I alone am responsible. Everything is in my name and I absolutely refuse to allow anyone else to share the responsibility with me.”

This was all excellent for repeating to Augusta; in fact it was a great deal more than I had asked for. And you should have seen the air with which he said it; he looked more like an apostle than someone on the brink of bankruptcy! Supporting himself comfortably on the unresisting balance-sheet he played to perfection the part of lord and master. On this occasion, as so often in the course of our life together, my sudden impulse of affection was quenched by his expression of ridiculous and exaggerated self-esteem. Yes, there was no getting out of it; that great musician played out of tune! I said sharply:

“Do you wish me to make a copy of the balance-sheet to-morrow, to send to your father?”

I was on the point of saying something more drastic still, namely that directly I had closed the accounts I intended to leave the office and not come back again. The only reason I did not do so was that I could not imagine how I should fill up my spare time. But my question was an admirable substitute for the statement I had refrained from making. I had incidentally reminded him that he was not the only master in that office.

He showed some surprise at my question; it did not seem to him quite in keeping with what had been said before, to which I had evidently agreed; and he replied in his former tone:

“I will instruct you how to make the copy.”

I loudly protested. I have never in all my life shouted so much as I did at Guido; sometimes he really seemed to be deaf. I said that the law regarded the accountant as responsible for the accounts, and I made it clear that I was not going to provide him with purely imaginary columns of figures.

He turned pale and admitted that I was right, but that it was in his power to forbid me to make extracts from his books. I was obliged to agree, whereupon he declared that he would write to his father himself. It seemed as if he were going to sit down at once and do so, but he changed his mind and proposed that we should go and get a breath of fresh air. I had nothing against it; I imagined that he had not yet digested the balance-sheet, and wanted to take a little exercise in order to do so.

Our walk reminded me of the night I got engaged. We could not see the moon, because there was a good deal of mist high up; but lower down the air was quite clear, and we could walk along without thinking. Guido remembered that evening too, and said:

“This is the first time we have been out together after dark since that evening. Do you remember? You were explaining to me that kissing went on in the moon as well as here. But that kiss in the moon is for eternity; I am sure of it although we can’t see the moon to-night. But here on earth....”

Was he going to begin talking about Ada again, his poor sick wife? I interrupted him, but quite gently, almost as if I agreed with him (had I not come with him in order to help him to forget?).

“Of course one can’t always be kissing here below. Besides, it is only the image of a kiss they have up there. Kissing is, above all, movement.”

I tried to avoid anything that bore on his affairs, Ada and the balance-sheet, but I was only just in time to stop myself saying something that was on the tip of my tongue, namely that up there in the moon a kiss did not produce twins. But he could find no better way to escape that balance-sheet than by complaining of his other misfortunes. And, as I had foreseen, he began talking against Ada. He thought her illness made her irritable, jealous and at the same time lacking in affection. He ended by exclaiming mournfully:

“Life is hard and unjust.”

I felt it was impossible for me to say a single word which implied any criticism of him or Ada. But I felt I must say something. He had ended by discussing life and had found two epithets for it which certainly did not err on the side of originality. If I succeeded in finding something better it was because I was able to start by criticising what he had said. One is often led to say things because of some chance association in the sound of the words; and directly one has spoken one begins to wonder if what one has said was worth the breath spent on it, and occasionally discovers that one has started a new idea. I said:

“Life is neither good nor bad; it is original.”

When I thought it over I felt as if I had said something rather important. Looking at it like that I felt as if I were seeing life for the first time, with all its gaseous, liquid and solid bodies. If I had talked about it to someone who was strange to it, and therefore deprived of an ordinary common sense, he would have remained gasping at the thought of the huge, purposeless structure. He would have asked: “But how could you endure it?” And if he had inquired about everything in detail, from the heavenly bodies hung up in the sky which can be seen but not touched, to the mystery that surrounds death, he would certainly have exclaimed: “Very original!”

“So life is original, is it?” said Guido, laughing. “Where did you read that?”

I did not bother to assure him I had not read it anywhere, for in that case he would have attached much less importance to my words. But the more I thought of it the more original life seemed to me. And one did not need to get outside it in order to realise how fantastically it was put together. One need only remind oneself of all that we men expect from life to see how very strange it is, and to arrive at the conclusion that man has found his way into it by mistake and does not really belong there.

Though we had not agreed beforehand in which direction we should go, we found ourselves, like last time, on the ascent to Via Belvedere. When we reached the parapet on which he had lain last time, Guido climbed up on it and lay down just as before. He was humming to himself, probably still oppressed by his thoughts, and no doubt going over and over again the inexorable figures in his account-book. I was thinking that it was on that very spot I had wanted to kill him, and when I compared my feelings then with my feelings to-day I could not help wondering afresh at the incomparable originality of life. But I suddenly remembered that a very little while ago I had been angry with poor Guido for having wounded my vanity, and that on one of the worst days of his life. I tried to analyse my feelings. The tortures which Guido had suffered from the balance-sheet I had drawn up had caused me no particular pain, and I began to entertain a doubt regarding myself, and at the same time remembered a curious passage of my childhood. The doubt was this: “Am I good or bad?” The memory was inspired suddenly by this doubt which I had evidently entertained before, for I saw myself as a tiny child, still dressed, I am almost certain, in petticoats, and lifting up my face to ask my mother, who was smiling down at me: “Am I good or naughty?” The doubt must have been put into the child’s head by having heard itself called good by so many people and naughty, in fun, by so many others. It is not surprising that the child became embarrassed by the dilemma. Was ever anything so original as life? It is extraordinary that the doubt which it had imposed on the child in so puerile a form should still remain unsolved by the grown-up person, even after he had lived half his life.

Once more by night, and on the very spot where I had once been tempted to commit a murder, I fell a prey to that doubt in a most acute form. The child whose head had only just emerged from its baby cap could not have suffered much when that doubt began to stir in its mind, for children are taught that even if you are naughty you can become good again. In order to escape from my agony of mind I tried to believe the same, and I succeeded. Otherwise I should have had to mourn over myself and Guido and our melancholy lot. But the resolution I took at that moment renewed the illusion! I resolved to stand by Guido, and collaborate with him in developing his business, on which depended his own life and that of his family; and I resolved to do it without any hope of personal gain. I saw myself travelling, negotiating and intriguing, all in his interests, and even entertained the possibility of becoming, in order to help him, a really remarkable and enterprising business man. Such were the thoughts that went through my mind on one dark night of this very original life!

But Guido had already stopped thinking about the balance-sheet. He left his post on the wall and seemed to have recovered his serenity. As if he had just drawn a conclusion from some line of reasoning of which I knew nothing, he told me that he had decided to say nothing to his father, lest the poor old man should undertake the huge journey from his summer sunshine into our wintry fog. He went on to say that the losses seemed enormous at first sight, but that they were not really so bad if one did not have to bear them all alone. He would ask Ada to make herself responsible for half the sum and in return would give her part of the next year’s profits. He himself would bear the other half of the losses.

I said nothing. I felt that it was impossible for me to offer any advice, as I should be drawn into doing exactly what I did not want to do, and setting myself up as an arbiter between husband and wife. Besides, at that moment I was so full of good resolutions that I thought it would be really quite a good thing for Ada to become a partner in a business run by us.

I accompanied Guido to the door of his house, and gave him a long handshake, silently to renew my vow of good will towards him. Then I tried to find something nice to say to him, and at last invented the following:

“I hope the twins will have a good night, and allow you to get some sleep; you must be in need of rest.”

As I went away I bit my lips with vexation at having found nothing better to say. As if I did not know that now the twins had a nurse each they slept about a quarter of a mile away from his room and could not possibly have disturbed his slumber! But in any case he must have understood that my intentions were good, for he accepted my good wishes gratefully. When I got home I found that Augusta had gone to her bedroom with the children. Alfio was at her breast and Antonia was asleep in her cot, with the back of her curly head turned towards us. I had to explain why I was late, so I told her of the method Guido had evolved for getting out of his difficulties. Augusta thought Guido’s suggestion shameful:

“I would refuse if I were Ada,” she exclaimed vehemently, though in a low voice so as not to disturb the children.

I began to argue with her, still under the influence of my virtuous resolution:

“So if I were to get into the same difficulties as Guido you would not help me?” I said.

“It is an entirely different thing,” she said, laughing. “We should always want to do what was best for them!” and she pointed to the two children. Then, after a moment’s reflection, she added: “And if we advise Ada to put her money into a business which you are just about to have nothing more to do with, shan’t we feel obliged to pay her back supposing she loses it?”

It was an absurd idea, but in my new rôle of altruist I exclaimed:

“And why not?”

“But can’t you see that it is our first duty to think of the dear children?”

Of course I saw! It was only a rhetorical question without any meaning.

“Haven’t they got two children as well?” I asked triumphantly.

She burst out laughing at this and made so much noise that she frightened Alfio, who stopped feeding and began to cry. She busied herself about him, still laughing, and I accepted her laughter as a tribute to my wit, though at the moment I asked the question I had felt a sudden wave of affection for everyone who had children, and for all the children of those parents. Her laughter, however, quite drove the feeling away.

My dismay at finding that I was not really good was becoming less acute. I felt as if I had solved that distressing problem. One is neither good nor bad, just as one is not so many other things besides. Goodness is the light which in brief flashes illuminates the darkness of the human soul. A burning torch is needed to light the way, (there had been moments in my life when such a torch shone on my path and it certainly would again), and the human intelligence must choose by its light the way it will have to take afterwards in the dark. So that one could continue to do good always, and that was the important thing. When the light returned to guide one it would neither surprise nor dazzle. Perhaps I should even blow it out straight away, as I should have no need of it; for I should have learnt how to keep my resolution, how not to lose my way.

The resolution to be good is a peaceable and practical one, and I had now become calm and cool. It was curious that this access of virtue had enormously increased my self-esteem and belief in my own powers. What could I do for Guido? In his office, it is true, I was as superior to all the others as old Olivi was to me in my own. But that did not prove much. To get to business: What advice should I give to Guido the next day? Should I rely on my inspiration? But even at the gaming-table one cannot always rely on one’s inspiration when one is playing with other people’s money. To keep a house of business going one must find some work for it every day, and that can only be done by devoting hours on end to organising it. I was not the person for a job like that, nor did I see why, just for the sake of being good to Guido, I must be condemned to a life of continual boredom.

All the same I could not help regarding my sudden virtuous impulse as a responsibility that I had assumed towards Guido, and I could not get to sleep. I sighed deeply several times and even groaned once, no doubt at the moment when I was feeling that I ought to bind myself to Guido’s office as Olivi was bound to mine.

Augusta murmured, only half awake:

“What is the matter? Have you quarrelled with Olivi again?”

That gave me a brilliant idea! I would advise Guido to take young Olivi as his business manager. He was such a serious, hard-working young man; yet it was distasteful to me to have him in my own business for I always felt he was only waiting to succeed his father as director and oust me altogether. It was obviously to everyone’s advantage that he should be in Guido’s office instead. If he were to give him a good position in his business, Guido would be saved and young Olivi would be much more useful in that office than in mine.

I was so excited by the idea that I woke Augusta to tell her about it. She was so enthusiastic that she became quite wide awake. She thought it would be the easiest way for me to get free from the dangerous muddle of Guido’s business. I fell asleep again with a quiet conscience; I had found a way of saving Guido without condemning myself to perpetual bondage; in fact I was now completely free.

Nothing is more disagreeable than to have one’s advice rejected when one has even sacrificed several hours of sleep to thinking it out. I was obliged to sacrifice an illusion too; the idea that I might be of some use in arranging Guido’s affairs for him. I had really made a superhuman effort. First I had fought my way through to real goodness, then to absolute objectivity, and all they did was to send me to hell!

Guido treated my advice with utter contempt. He did not believe that young Olivi was capable of doing it; he disliked his prematurely old appearance and particularly loathed his spectacles, which shone so horribly on that pale face. The reasons he gave were such as to make me feel that the only thing he really wanted was to annoy me. He finally said that he would be quite glad to appoint old Olivi instead, at the head of his office. But I did not see any way of inducing the old man to go in with him; besides, I did not feel equal to undertaking the management of my own affairs at a moment’s notice. I was foolish enough to discuss it with him, and to say that old Olivi was not good for much. I told him how much money he had made me lose, all because of his obstinacy in refusing to buy dried raisins at the right moment.

“Well!” exclaimed Guido. “If the old man is as bad as that, what chance is there of his son being any better? He is simply his pupil.”

This was the first good argument he had produced, and it was all the more irritating to me because my foolish gossip had supplied him with it.

A few days later Augusta told me Guido had suggested to Ada that she should indemnify him for half his losses. She refused, and said to Augusta:

“First he is unfaithful to me and then asks for my money!”

Augusta had lacked courage to advise her to give him any money, but assured me she had done her best to make Ada reconsider her verdict on her husband’s infidelity. Ada’s reply suggested that she knew a good deal more about it than we realised. And Augusta argued with me as follows:

“I know one ought to be prepared to sacrifice everything for one’s husband, but do you really think that it applies to Guido too?”

During the next few days Guido’s behaviour was really extraordinary. He would come to the office from time to time, but never stay there for more than a quarter of an hour; he dashed out again as if he had left his handkerchief at home. I heard later that he always went to Ada with fresh arguments--always decisive--to induce her to do what he wanted. He looked like someone who has been crying or shouting too much, or has just been in a fight, and even when he was with us he could not repress his emotion; it choked him and brought tears to his eyes. I asked him what was the matter. He replied with a sad but friendly smile, as much as to say that he had no quarrel with me. Then he tried to control himself enough to be able to talk to me without getting too excited. At last he brought out these few words: Ada was making him suffer by her jealousy.

He then went on to tell me that they spent their time in discussing their personal affairs, whereas I knew that there was also that question of “debit and credit” between them.

But it appeared that the latter was of no importance; so he said, and so Ada said to Augusta, to whom she never talked of anything but her jealousy. And the violent nature of those discussions, which left such deep traces on Guido’s face, made it possible that they were speaking the truth.

But afterwards it appeared that nothing was talked of by the two but this money question. Ada was entirely absorbed in her emotional grievances, but she was too proud ever to mention them to Guido, and he, perhaps partly because he was conscious of his guilt, and also because he was afraid of encountering Ada’s jealous anger, went on discussing business as if nothing else existed in the world. He ran after her money with untiring perseverance, while she, who was not in the least interested in business, countered his proposal with one unvarying argument: she must keep her money for her children. And when he tried other arguments, his peace of mind, the advantages the children themselves would derive from his work, the sense of security he would have if he could only put himself right with the law, she always dismissed him with a hard “No,” which exasperated him, and made him, like a child, only the more determined to get what he wanted. Yet both of them, when talking about it to anyone else, thought they were perfectly accurate in saying that the only difference between them was jealousy and wounded love.

A sort of misunderstanding prevented me from interfering at the right moment to put an end to this dreadful money question. I could easily have proved to Guido that it really had very little bearing on his affairs. I am rather slow at figures and can only understand things when I have them all set out in black and white in a book, but I think I arrived fairly soon at the conclusion that the sum Guido demanded from Ada would not have made very much difference. What was the point, really, in her making over her money to him? It could not diminish his losses unless she consented to throw her money directly into the balance-sheet, a thing which Guido had never asked of her. The criminal court would not have been much impressed to discover that after such heavy losses he was prepared to risk a little more by attracting more money into the business.

One morning Guido did not put in an appearance at the office, which surprised us as we knew that he had not gone out shooting the evening before. At luncheon Augusta told me, in a state of great agitation, that he had made an attempt on his life the evening before. He was out of danger now. I must confess that this news, which Augusta took so tragically, only made me angry.

He had adopted that drastic method to break down his wife’s resistance. I soon discovered that he had omitted no precaution, for before taking morphia he had been careful to be seen with the uncorked bottle in his hands. So directly he fell into a coma Ada sent for a doctor and he was very soon out of danger. Ada had passed an awful night, because the doctor had thought it his duty to make certain reservations about the effects of the poison, and her agitation was increased by Guido himself, who, when he came to, and even before he recovered consciousness completely, overwhelmed her with reproaches, calling her his enemy, his persecutor, the one person who prevented him from doing the good work he wanted to do.

Ada immediately gave him the loan he asked for, but at last, in an endeavour to defend herself, she spoke openly to him, and poured out all the grievances she had smothered for so long. They finally came to an understanding, for Augusta thought he had succeeded in dissipating all Ada’s suspicions as to his fidelity. He had emphatically protested his innocence, and when she mentioned Carmen he had exclaimed:

“Are you jealous of her? Well, if you like, I will send her away this very day.”

Ada had made no reply, meaning that she accepted his proposal, and assuming that he would feel bound by it.

I was astonished that Guido was able to behave thus while still under the effect of morphia, and was tempted to believe he had not even swallowed the small dose he said he had. I thought that one of the effects of the clouding of one’s brain by sleep was to soften the hard kernel of the mind and induce the most naïve confessions. Had not that very thing happened to me recently? This only tended to increase my distaste and contempt for Guido.

Augusta wept as she told me of the state in which she had found Ada. Her eyes were wide with terror, she had lost every trace of her former beauty.

My wife and I had a long discussion as to whether it would be better for me to call on Guido and Ada at once, or to pretend to know nothing about it and wait till Guido came to the office. The thought of that visit filled me with horror. How could I see him without telling him what I thought of him? I said to myself: “It is a cowardly thing to have done! I have no desire to commit suicide, but if I decided to do so I should certainly do it thoroughly!”

That was how I looked at it, and I wanted to say so to Augusta. But I thought I should be doing Guido too much honour by comparing him to myself, so I said:

“One doesn’t need to be a chemist to destroy the very delicate organism of the body. Not a week passes in our town but some little sempstress swallows a solution of phosphorus which she has prepared all by herself in her attic; there is no antidote to this primitive poison. She is carried off to die, her young face distorted by moral and physical pain. What agonising moments her innocent little soul has had to endure!”

Augusta refused to admit that the soul of the sempstress was so very innocent, but after a brief protest she renewed her attempt to make me call on Guido and Ada. She said I need not be afraid of feeling embarrassed. She had talked to Guido, who had treated the matter very calmly and as if he had only behaved in the most ordinary way.

I left the house without giving Augusta the satisfaction of seeing that I was convinced of her arguments. After hesitating a moment I decided to do what she wanted. During the short walk between our houses the mere rhythm of walking made me take a milder view of Guido’s action. I remembered the direction in which the light had pointed, that a few days ago had illumined my mind. Guido was a mere child, a child to whom I had promised to be indulgent. If he did not succeed in killing himself first, even he would arrive at maturity.

The servant showed me into a room which I took to be Ada’s boudoir. It was a gloomy day, and it was dark inside that little room, with its single window covered by a dark curtain. On the walls hung portraits of Ada’s and Guido’s parents. I was only there a few minutes before the servant came to call me and took me into the bedroom. It was large and bright even on a day like that; for it was lit by two high windows and had a light wallpaper and furniture. Guido was lying in bed with a bandage round his head, and Ada was sitting beside him.

Guido received me without any embarrassment; on the contrary, he was most grateful to me for coming. He seemed half asleep, but he woke up to greet me and was soon wide enough awake to give me his orders for the office. Then he sank back again on the pillow and closed his eyes. I wondered if he had remembered that he ought to give the impression of being still under the effects of morphia. In any case it was impossible to be angry with him; all my fondness for him returned and I felt very sympathetic. It was a moment or two before I could trust myself to look at Ada; but when I did look I was agreeably surprised, for I expected something much worse. Her eyes were larger than usual, it is true, in fact disproportionately so, but her cheeks had lost their swollen appearance, and she seemed to me to look more like herself. She had on a full red dress which buttoned up to the neck, and her slender body seemed quite lost in it. There was something very virginal about her appearance, and her large eyes gave her an air of great severity. I could not have explained exactly what I thought about her, but I had the impression of standing before a woman who resembled the Ada I had known.

Suddenly Guido opened his eyes wide, took from under his pillow a cheque on which I saw Ada’s signature, and gave it to me, asking me to pay it in and credit it to an account which I was to open in Ada’s name.

“In the name of Ada Malfenti or Ada Speier?” I asked Ada playfully.

She shrugged her shoulders and said:

“You two will know which will be best.”

“I will tell you later how to make the other entries,” said Guido, with a sharpness in his tone which I found offensive.

I felt inclined to interrupt the somnolence into which he had once more sunk back, by telling him that if he wanted entries made he had better make them himself.

Meanwhile a large cup of black coffee was brought in, which Ada handed to him. He brought out his arms from under the sheets and raised the cup to his lips with both hands. He looked exactly like a child, with his nose buried in the cup.

When I said good-bye he promised to come to the office the next day. I had already said good-bye to Ada, so I was rather surprised when she joined me again at the front door. She brought out with difficulty:

“Zeno! Please come here a moment. There is something I want to say to you.”

I followed her into the little room I had waited in before; from it I could hear the crying of one of the twins.

We remained standing, facing one another. She was still breathing heavily, and this made me think for a moment that she had called me into that dark little room to beg me for the love I had once offered her in vain.

Her great eyes were terrible in the darkness. I felt quite frightened, and wondered what I ought to do. Wasn’t it my duty to take her in my arms, and spare her the shame of having to ask anything of me? A host of resolutions sprang up in my mind at the same moment! One of the great difficulties of life is guessing what a woman wants. Listening to what she says is no help, for a whole speech may be wiped out by a single look, and even that is no guide if one is alone with her, by her own invitation, in a cosy, dark little room.

As I could not guess what it was she wanted I tried instead to understand myself. What did I want? Did I want to kiss those eyes and that skeleton body? I could not give a decisive answer because only a short time ago I had seen her looking so severely virginal, and as desirable as when I had loved her as a girl.

Her agitation had now given way to tears, and I was still in the dark as to what she wanted, and what my feelings were towards her. At last in a broken voice she told me again how much she loved Guido; so I had no right to her, then, no duties towards her. She stammered out:

“Augusta told me that you wanted to leave Guido, and not take part in his affairs any more. I must beg you to go on helping him. I don’t think he is capable of carrying them on alone.”

She asked me if I would go on doing what I had been doing before. It was really very little and I thought I might offer to do a little more. I said:

“Since you wish it, I will go on helping Guido. I will do my best to help him more effectually than I have done hitherto.”

There I was exaggerating again! I realised it the very moment I had committed myself, but it was too late then to turn back. I wanted to tell Ada, falsely perhaps, that she meant a great deal to me. She did not want my love, only my support, but I spoke in such a way that she might think I was ready to grant her both.

She suddenly seized me by the hand. A thrill went through me. A woman who offers you her hand offers you a great deal. I have always felt this; and when I take a woman’s hand I feel as if I were taking her altogether. I was conscious of Ada’s body close to mine and as we stood thus locked together I felt as if we were embracing each other. It was certainly an act of intimacy.

She added:

“I must return to Bologna at once to the sanatorium, and it will be a great comfort to me to know that you are with him.”

“I will stay with him,” I said resignedly. Ada must have thought my air of resignation referred to the sacrifice I was making for her. But I was really resigning myself to returning to my very ordinary everyday life, since she had no thought of joining me in the very exceptional life I had dreamed of.

I made an effort to come down to earth again, and immediately found myself confronted with a problem of book-keeping which was not easy to solve. I had got to credit Ada’s newly opened account with the amount which was written on the cheque. That was clear; but it was not at all clear what bearing this could possibly have on Guido’s debit and credit account. I said nothing about it to Ada, for perhaps she was ignorant that such a thing existed in the world as a day-book in which such very diverse accounts were entered.

But I did not want to leave that room without saying something more. Instead of talking about book-keeping I carelessly threw out a remark, just for the sake of saying something, which I soon felt to be very significant for Ada, Guido and me, but above all for me, because I was compromising myself again. The remark seemed to me to be so important that I remembered for years afterwards how lightly I had opened my lips to utter it in that dark room, with the four portraits of their ancestors, wedded there on the wall, looking down at us. I said:

“You ended by marrying a queerer man even than me, Ada!”

It is strange how a word can bridge time! It is itself an event which is linked to other events. And those words of mine became a tragic event because they were addressed to Ada. I should never have been able by thinking about it to evoke so vividly the hour in which Ada had chosen between Guido and me in that sunny street where, after days of waiting, I had at last succeeded in meeting her; and how I had walked beside her trying to force a smile from her which I then hailed as a promise! And I remembered too, how the difficulty I experienced in controlling the muscles of my legs made me feel inferior to Guido, who moved with even more ease than Ada herself, and whose only mark of inferiority was the extraordinary stick which he insisted on carrying.

She said in a low voice:

“Yes, that is true!”

Then, smiling fondly at me she said:

“But I am so happy for Augusta’s sake that you have proved yourself a much better man than I ever imagined.”

She sighed and went on:

“So glad, that it comforts me a little for finding Guido quite different from what I expected.”

I said nothing; I still did not know what to make of it. I felt as if she had said that I was now what she had hoped Guido would become. Was she in love with me then? She went on:

“You are the best man of our family, all our hope and trust is in you.” She seized me by the hand again, and perhaps I pressed hers too hard, for she withdrew it so quickly as to leave me no further doubts. It again became quite clear how I was expected to behave in that little boudoir. Perhaps it was to mitigate the sudden withdrawal of her hand that she threw me another caress. “Now that I know what you are really like, I hate to think of having made you suffer. Did you really suffer so much?”

I gazed back into my dark past in search of that suffering and murmured:

“Yes!”

Little by little the memory of Guido’s violin came back to me, and then how they would have turned me out of their drawing-room if I had not clung to Augusta; and then again the drawing-room in the Malfentis’ house where one couple made love at a Louis Quatorze table, while the other couple watched them from another table. And I suddenly remembered Carla; for she had seen Ada too. I heard her voice again quite distinctly, telling me I belonged to my wife--meaning Ada. The tears rose to my eyes and I repeated:

“Yes. A great deal! A great deal!”

Ada actually sobbed as she said: “I am so very, very sorry.” She pulled herself together and said:

“But now you love Augusta!”

A sob interrupted her for an instant, and I trembled, not knowing whether she had stopped short to see if I should confess or deny my love. Fortunately she did not give me time to speak, but continued:

“Now we are really able to feel to each other like brother and sister. I need you; I have got to be a mother to that great child of mine, I have got to protect him. Will you help me in my difficult task?”

Her emotion made her almost lean against me, as in my dream. But I forced myself to concentrate on what she was saying. She was asking me to love her like a brother; the bond of love which I thought bound me to her was thus transformed into a fresh right claimed by her from me. I promised at once to help Guido, to help her, to do everything she wanted. If I had been calmer I should have told her how unequal I felt myself to the task she had allotted me, but this would have destroyed the never-to-be-forgotten emotion of that moment. And I was so moved that I was incapable of feeling my insufficiency. At that moment I could not believe in anyone’s insufficiency. Even Guido’s only needed a light breath of enthusiasm to blow it away.

Ada accompanied me to the landing and stood leaning on the banister to watch me go down. That was what Carla used to do, but it was curious that Ada, who loved Guido, should do it too, and I felt so grateful to her that before I went down the second flight I looked up and waved to her again. Lovers always did that, but clearly friends might do so too.

I went away with a light heart. She had come with me to the top of the stairs, but no farther. There was no room for doubt. Our position was now this: I had loved her and now I loved Augusta, but my former love gave her a claim on my devotion. She went on loving “that man of hers,” but reserved for me a strong sisterly affection, not only because I had married her sister, but to make up to me for everything she had made me suffer, which now constituted a secret bond between us. This relationship of ours was very sweet, and of a fragrance rare in this life. Ought not such sweetness to have brought me health? And in fact I did walk that day without difficulty or pain; I felt magnanimous and strong, and was conscious of a new sense of security in my heart. I forgot that I had ever been unfaithful to my wife (and that in a very discreditable manner), or, if I remembered it, I resolved never to do anything of the sort again; and I really felt myself to be what Ada said I was, the best man of the family.

When this heroic mood slowly faded away I should have liked to revive it, but Ada had meanwhile left for Bologna, and I could not succeed in squeezing a fresh stimulus out of what she had said to me. I would do what I could for Guido, but a resolution like that could neither increase the air in my lungs nor the flow of blood in my veins. I still entertained a very tender feeling for Ada in my heart, which was renewed each time she sent me an affectionate message in her letters to Augusta. I heartily reciprocated her affection and watched the course of her treatment with eager solicitude. Perhaps even yet she might recover all her former health and beauty!

The day after my conversation with Ada Guido came to the office and began discussing the entries he wanted to make. He said:

“Let us put half our debit and credit account down under Ada’s name.”

So that had been all the time what he wanted to do, and it was really quite useless. If I had still been his mere unreflecting agent, as I had been up to a few days ago, I should have made those entries without thinking any more about it. But now I felt it my duty to tell him everything. I thought it would stimulate him to work if he knew that he could not so easily cancel the losses he had incurred.

I explained to him that, so far as I knew, Ada had given him the money to put down to her credit on her own account, and that it would not be at all the same thing if we put half his losses down in the opposite column. Further, that part of his losses which he intended to bear himself ought to go down to his account. But then the whole of his losses ought to go down to his account as well, and instead of cancelling them that would only make them more evident. I had thought about the matter so much that I had no difficulty in explaining it to him. I concluded:

“Supposing we found ourselves in the position Olivi foretold--which God forbid--a practised eye would at once discover from the books exactly what your losses were.”

He gazed at me in astonishment. He knew enough about book-keeping to understand me, and if he could not do so it was because his wishes prevented him from accepting the evidence. Then I added, so that there should be no fear of his misunderstanding:

“Don’t you see that there was no point in Ada making this payment?”

When at last he understood he grew very pale and began to bite his nails nervously. He stood there wrapt in thought, but made an effort to control himself, and with his comic, magisterial air insisted that all the entries must be made as he had prescribed, adding:

“In order to relieve you of all responsibility I am ready to make the entries myself and sign them with my own name.”

I saw quite clearly that he wanted to go on dreaming, but there is no room for dreams in double entries!

I remembered all I had undertaken on the heights of Via Belvedere, then I remembered Ada in her dark little boudoir, and I said magnanimously:

“I will make the entries you wish. I don’t think they need the authorisation of your signature. I am here to help you, not to put obstacles in your way.”

He shook me warmly by the hand.

“Life is difficult,” he said, “and it is a great comfort to me to have a friend like you near me.”

We looked feelingly into each other’s eyes. His were shining.

To avoid giving way to a like emotion, I said smiling:

“Life is not difficult, but very original.”

He laughed heartily at this sally.

Then he stood over me to see how I proposed to settle that profit and loss account. It was all done in a few minutes. The account ceased to exist, but not without dragging Ada’s account with it into the abyss. We credited her nevertheless with the amount in a small separate notebook, in case a sudden catastrophe should destroy all other evidence of the loan, and as proof that we had paid her the interest. The remainder of the profit and loss account went to swell Guido’s already very considerable debit account.

Accountants are by nature a race of animals much inclined to irony. While making those entries I thought to myself:

“One account, that known as profit and loss account, died a violent death; the other--Ada’s--died a natural death, because it was impossible to keep it alive. Only Guido’s we could not succeed in killing; its eternal debit is an open grave which sooner or later will swallow up all our undertaking.”

Book-keeping remained a subject for discussion in the office for a long time. Guido racked his brain to discover another method of protecting himself against the wiles of the law, as it pleased him to call them. I think he must have consulted an accountant too, for one day he came into the office and proposed destroying all the old books, and opening new ones in which we were to put down a sham sale in some name or other--Ada’s money figuring as payment of the same. It was painful to have to undeceive him, for he had hurried to the office full of such lively hopes. But the fraud he now proposed to perpetrate was quite revolting to me. Hitherto we had only played at shifting real transactions about from one column to another; only somebody who had implicitly given his consent to the procedure could possibly suffer from it. But now he was proposing actually to invent business transactions which had really never existed. I too saw that it was the only possible way of covering up every trace of our losses. But what a price to pay for it! We should be obliged to invent the name of a buyer, or to ask somebody’s permission to write him down as such in our books. I had no objection to seeing the old books destroyed, though I had written them with so much care, but it would be a nuisance to have to make new ones. I made various legal objections which in the end convinced Guido. It was not so easy to forge a whole business transaction; we should have to forge as well all the documents proving the existence of the wares in question and of our right of possession.

He gave up that plan, but the following day he arrived in the office with a fresh one, which also involved destroying all the old books. I was tired of seeing all the work of the office help up by discussions of this sort, and protested:

“To see all the time you spend thinking about it, one would suppose you were actually proposing to become bankrupt! Otherwise what difference can such a small reduction of your income make to you? No one has been justified hitherto in asking to see our books. What we have got to do is to work, and not waste our time in thinking about such follies.”

He admitted that the thought had become a positive obsession with him. How could he help it? He only needed a short run of ill-luck to plunge straight into an encounter with the criminal law and finish up in gaol!

I knew from my study of law that Olivi’s statement of what is incumbent on a business man who shows a balance-sheet like Guido’s could not be improved on, but I advised him, in order to escape from his obsession, to consult a solicitor friend of his own.

He replied that he had already done so, or rather that he had not been to him for that express purpose, because he did not wish to confide his secret to a solicitor, but that he had contrived to turn the conversation on to the subject whilst out shooting with his friend. So that he knew, alas, that there had been no mistake and no exaggeration in what Olivi had said!

Realising what an inane occupation it was, he ceased exercising his ingenuity on fresh schemes for falsifying the accounts, but did not thereby recover his peace of mind. Whenever he came to the office he stood with lowering brow, gazing at his account book. One day he confessed to me that as he came into our room he suddenly thought he was standing in the entrance of the prison, and wanted to run away.

One day he said:

“Does Augusta know all about our balance-sheet?”

I blushed because I thought the question implied a reproach. But it was clear that if Ada knew about it Augusta might do so too. This did not occur to me at once; instead I thought that I deserved any reproach he might address to me. I murmured however:

“She may have heard of it from Ada or perhaps from Alberta, to whom Ada may have said something about it.”

I thought I had taken into account all the possible ways by which Augusta might have heard about it, without however denying that she had had it direct from the fountain head; that is to say, from me. I anyway implied that it would have been useless for me to keep silence. It would have been much better, and I should have felt much more loyal and upright, if I had said straight out that I had no secrets from Augusta. The simple fact of pretending not to have done some perfectly innocent thing which it would have been much better to own up to, is quite enough to endanger a really genuine friendship.

I will set down here, though it has no bearing on Guido nor on my story, that a few days later that cackling broker, with whom we had had some dealings over the sulphate of copper, stopped me in the street and gazing up at me--a procedure to which his insignificant stature obliged him--said ironically:

“They tell me you have been doing some big business lately, like your sulphate of copper deal!”

When he saw me turn pale he shook me by the hand and added:

“For my part I wish you every success. I hope you don’t doubt my word!”

Thereupon he left me. He had probably had news of us from his little daughter who was in the same class as Anna at school. I did not mention the encounter to Guido. My chief duty was to save him from unnecessary worries.

I was surprised that Guido took no steps to get rid of Carmen, for I knew he had definitely promised his wife to do so. I expected Ada to return home after several months’ absence, as she had done last time. But instead of returning to Trieste she went to stay in a villa on Lake Maggiore where, shortly afterwards, Guido joined her with the children.

On his return, either because he remembered his promise or because Ada had reminded him of it, he asked me if I did not think it would be possible to employ Carmen in my office--that is to say, in Olivi’s. I knew there was no post vacant in that office, but as Guido was so insistent I consented to go and talk to my chief about it. By a fortunate chance one of Olivi’s staff was leaving just then, but his salary was lower than Guido had been giving Carmen during the last few months; for, as far as I could see, it was his custom to charge his donations to his women friends to the general expenses account. Old Olivi asked me about Carmen’s qualifications and offered to take her on the same terms as the employee who was leaving, though I gave her a brilliant testimonial. I told Guido, who scratched his head in his embarrassment and annoyance.

“What does he mean by offering her a lower salary than what she has been receiving? Couldn’t you persuade Olivi to give her the same for the present?”

I knew it was out of the question and, moreover, that Olivi was not in the habit, like us, of regarding a woman employee as his wife! If he had thought that Carmen deserved a krone less wages than he had offered her he would have cut them down pitilessly. The end of it was that Olivi did not get her, and did not even ask for a definite answer; while Carmen continued to roll her lovely eyes in our office.

Between Ada and me there was a secret, which remained important just because it was a secret. She wrote regularly to Augusta, but never told her of the explanations she had had with me, nor that she had confided Guido to my care. I said nothing about it either. One day Augusta showed me a letter from Ada which concerned me. She began by asking for news of me, and ended by appealing to my goodness of heart, and begging me to tell her something of how Guido’s affairs were going. My heart beat at the thought of her appealing to me, but grew calm again when I saw that she had, as usual, only applied to me for news of Guido. Once more I had no excuse for taking any liberties.

I said nothing about it to Guido, but agreed with Augusta that I had better write to Ada. I sat down, fully intending to write to her only about business, and said that I was very pleased at the way Guido was conducting his business now; he was so industrious and alert.

This was true, or at least I was satisfied with him on that particular day, because he had succeeded in making some money by the sale of goods which he had had stored in the town for some months past. It was true that he did seem rather more industrious, though he still went out fishing and shooting every week. I rather exaggerated my praise of him because I hoped it might hasten Ada’s recovery. I re-read the letter, but was not satisfied with it. Something was lacking. Ada had addressed herself to me, and certainly wanted to have news of me as well, so that I should be lacking in courtesy if I failed to give her any. And by degrees--I remember it as distinctly as if it had just happened--I felt as embarrassed, sitting at that table, as if I had been face to face again with Ada in her dark little boudoir. Ought I to press the hand she had held out to me?

I wrote on, but was then obliged to re-write my letter because I had used some compromising expressions; I was longing to see her again, I wrote, and I hoped she would soon have recovered all her former health and beauty. But this seemed to suggest that I wanted to hold for life a woman who had only offered me her hand. My duty was only to press her hand, to hold it long and tenderly in my own, so that she might understand that I meant a great deal more than I could ever say.

I won’t repeat here all the phrases I passed in review, trying to find something which might take the place of that long, tender, eloquent handshake--but only the phrases I actually wrote. I said a good deal about my approaching old age. I could not stand still a moment without growing old. Each time the blood circulated in my veins something crept into my flesh and bones which betokened old age. Every morning when I woke the world took on a greyer hue; I only did not notice it because everything was of the same dull hue. There was not one touch of the colouring of the day before; otherwise I should have detected it and my regret would have driven me to despair.

I remember very well the complete satisfaction with which I posted that letter. There was nothing compromising in the words themselves, but if Ada were feeling like me she would understand perfectly that affectionate handshake. It did not require much penetration to guess that my long disquisition on old age meant no more than that I feared love could no longer catch me up in my rapid flight through time. I seemed to be crying out to love: “Come to me, come!” But I am not at all sure that I really wanted this love and, if I feel any doubt about it, it is simply because I know that I really did write something of the sort.

I made a copy of the letter for Augusta, leaving out my disquisition on old age. She would not have understood it, but it is better to be on the safe side. I might have blushed to feel her eye on me, whilst I was holding her sister’s hand in mine. Yes! I was still capable of blushing. And I really did blush when I received a note of thanks from Ada which made no mention at all of my discourse on old age. I felt that she had compromised herself much more by this than I had ever done. She had not withdrawn her hand from my pressure. She had left it lying passively in mine, and for a woman to remain passive is a form of giving consent.

A few days after I had written the letter I discovered that Guido had been gambling on the Bourse. I learnt it through an indiscretion of the broker Nilini.

I had known him for years, for we had been at school together; he had been obliged to leave suddenly to go into his uncle’s office. We had met again occasionally, and the difference in our fortunes had given me a certain ascendancy over him. He would be the first to salute, and he made various attempts to get into closer touch with me. This seemed to me quite natural, and I was the more surprised that at a certain moment--I don’t remember exactly when--he took up a very haughty attitude towards me. He no longer took any notice of me when I met him, and made hardly any response to my greeting. I was a little worried by this, for I am very thin-skinned and easily hurt. But what could I do about it? Perhaps he had discovered I was in Guido’s office, and despised me because he thought I held a subordinate position in it or, what is equally probable, his uncle being now dead and he on his own as a stock-broker, he had become rather pleased with himself. In narrow circles like ours this sort of thing often happens. Without there being any open enmity, two people suddenly begin to look at each other with dislike and contempt.

So I was surprised to see him come into the office one day when I was alone there, and ask for Guido. He took off his hat and held out his hand. Then he immediately sank into one of our great arm-chairs. I watched him with interest. It was years since I had been at such close quarters with him, and the dislike he had shown me made me observe him with the closest attention.

He was about forty at that time, very ugly and almost entirely bald, except for an oasis of thick black hair at the back of his neck and another on his temples; he had a thick nose and a yellow, hairy face. He was short and thin, and had to stretch up so much when he talked to me that I used to feel a sympathetic pain in my own neck, the only feeling of sympathy he aroused in me. On that particular occasion he seemed to be trying to restrain himself from laughing, and his face was contracted by a sarcastic or contemptuous smile which I could not regard as personally offensive, seeing that he had greeted me in such a friendly way. I discovered later that nature, in a whimsical mood, had stamped that expression on his face. His jaws did not close properly, and on one side of his mouth there always remained a gap which compelled him to wear habitually an ironical expression. It was perhaps in order to adapt his character to a mask which he only succeeded in casting off when he yawned, that he took such apparent pleasure in teasing people. He was no fool, and there was often a poisoned head to his arrows, though he preferred to shoot them at the absent.

He talked a great deal and rather fancifully, especially when discussing the Bourse. He spoke of the Bourse as if it were an individual, and would describe it as a terrible being, breathing out threats; or as sleepy and inert, with a face susceptible to tears or laughter. He saw it dancing up the steps of a rising value or tearing down again at breakneck speed; he saw it caressing one stock and throttling another, or again, giving people lessons in industry and temperance. Only crafty and capable people could hope to do business with such a being. There was plenty of money lying scattered about on the floor of the Bourse, but it was not so easy to stoop down and pick it up.

I offered him a cigarette and kept him waiting while I dealt with some correspondence. He grew tired of waiting after a while, and said he could not stay any longer. He had only come to tell Guido that some shares which bore the strange name of Rio Tinto, and which he had advised Guido to buy the day before, had already gone up about ten per cent. in value. He laughed heartily.

“While we sit talking here the closing prices will have done the rest. If Signor Speier wanted to buy those shares now, I don’t know what he might not have to pay for them. I saw at once in which direction they were going.”

He went on boasting of the insight which his long familiarity with the Bourse had given him. He broke off to ask me:

“At which school do you think one learns most: the University or the Bourse?”

His lower jaw fell a little more and emphasised his expression of sarcasm.

“The Bourse of course!” I replied emphatically.

This won me an affectionate handshake when he at last took his leave.

So Guido was gambling on the Bourse! If I had been more on the spot I might have guessed it before, for when I had shown him an exact list of the quite considerable profits our last undertakings had brought in, he had read it through smiling, but with a touch of scorn. He thought we had had to work too hard to win that small amount of money. Yet, with about a dozen such transactions we should have covered our losses of the year before! What ought I to do now, I who only a few days before had been singing his praises?

Guido came into the office soon after, and I told him exactly what Nilini had said. He stood listening so intently that he did not even notice I had found out about his gambling; then he rushed away again.

I told Augusta about it that evening, and she thought it advisable to leave Ada in peace, but to warn Signora Malfenti of the danger Guido was running. She begged me to do what I could to prevent him committing any further follies.

I thought carefully over what I ought to say to him. Here was an opportunity of putting my good resolutions into practice, and redeeming the promise I had made to Ada. I knew how I ought to approach Guido in order to ensure his listening to me. I ought to explain to him that it is always very foolish to gamble on the Bourse, but especially for a business man with a balance-sheet like Guido’s behind him.

Next day I began brilliantly.

“So you have started gambling on the Bourse? Do you want to end in prison?” I said severely. I was prepared for a scene, and was holding in reserve the threat that since he was acting in such a way as to compromise the firm I proposed to leave his office on the spot.

But Guido disarmed me at once. He had kept the secret so far, but now with engaging boyish frankness he went into every detail of what he had been doing. He was dealing in mineral shares of some country or other, and had already made enough almost to cover our last year’s losses. The danger was over now, and he could tell me all about it. If he were so unlucky as to lose what he had gained he would simply give up gambling. If however fortune continued to favour him, he would at once put all his books in order, for they still continued to cause him considerable anxiety.

I saw there was nothing to be angry about; that on the contrary one ought to feel rather pleased with him. As for the book-keeping, I told him he could set his mind at rest about that, because directly one had money in hand it was the easiest thing in the world to settle the most tiresome account. Directly Ada’s account had been restored to its proper place in our books, and that bottomless pit which was Guido’s account had to some extent been filled up, our book-keeping would be able to put a smiling face on things.

Then I proposed that we should begin to carry out the reforms at once, and put down his speculations on the account. Fortunately he refused to do this, otherwise I should have become a gambler’s accountant and should thus have taken on a still greater responsibility. As it was, things took their course as if I had never existed. He rejected my proposition for reasons which seemed to me good. He said it was a bad omen to pay one’s debts too quickly, and it is indeed a widespread superstition at all gaming-tables that other people’s money brings one good fortune. I don’t really believe this, but when I play I omit no precaution.

For a while I reproached myself for having accepted all Guido’s statements without protest. But when I saw that Signora Malfenti took the same view, and told me of the large sums her husband had made by gambling on the Bourse, and when I found that even Ada looked upon gambling just as if it were any other kind of business, I realised that no one could possibly blame me for anything that might happen on that score. My protests would never have sufficed to stop Guido on the downward slope, unless they had been supported by all the other members of his family.

And so it came about that Guido continued gambling, and all his family with him. I was of their train too in the sense that I entered on a rather curious relationship with Nilini. I could not really endure him, because I knew him to be ignorant and conceited, but apparently I was so successful in hiding my real feelings (which I did for Guido’s sake because he hoped for good tips from him), that he came to look on me as a devoted friend. I don’t deny that it was partly my desire to avoid the uneasy sensation his dislike had produced in me, which made me nicer to him; a sensation which was increased by the sarcastic expression on his ugly face. But I did not carry my friendliness further than to shake hands with him and greet him when he came in or went out. He, on the other hand, was extremely friendly to me, and I could not help accepting his proffered courtesies gratefully; perhaps that is after all the greatest proof of politeness one can give in this world. He procured contraband cigarettes for me and only made me pay what they cost him, which was next to nothing. If he had been more sympathetic to me I might have been persuaded to use him as my intermediary for gambling on the Bourse, which I never did because I could not face having to see him often.

I saw him too much as it was! He spent hours at our office in spite of the obvious fact that he was not in love with Carmen. He actually came to keep me company. He had apparently taken it into his head to instruct me about politics, into which he had some insight owing to his activities on the Bourse. He represented the Great Powers to me as shaking each other cordially by the hand one day and boxing each other’s ears the next. I don’t know if he foretold what was coming, for I disliked him so much that I could never listen patiently to him. I kept a silly, fixed smile on my face all the time, which he misunderstood, and interpreted as a smile of admiration; but that was not my fault.

I only know that he repeated the same things every day. It was easy to see that he was not whole-heartedly Italian, from the fact that he thought Trieste had better remain Austrian. He adored Germany, and above all the German trains which arrived with such marvellous punctuality. He was in his way a Socialist, and would have liked it to be illegal for any single individual to possess more than a hundred thousand kronen. I did not smile one day when, in conversation with Guido, he acknowledged that he possessed exactly one hundred thousand kronen, and not a penny more. I did not smile, nor even ask him whether he would have modified his theory supposing he had made a great deal of money. Ours was a very curious relationship. I could not bear to laugh either with him or at him.

When he had fired off one of his theories he would raise himself in his arm-chair so that his eyes were gazing at the ceiling, while that strange gap between his two jaws was aimed straight at me. I am sure he could see with that gap! If ever I tried to take advantage of the position he had got into in order to think of something else, he would call me to attention by saying suddenly:

“Are you listening to what I am saying?”

After that effusion of Guido’s which I found so sympathetic it was a long time before he talked to me again about his affairs. Nilini said something to me about them first, but he also had become more reserved on the subject. I heard from Ada that Guido was still making money.

When she returned to Trieste I noticed that her looks had gone off again very much. She had not exactly got fatter, but her face had become puffy. Her cheeks, which had filled out, seemed to have grown in the wrong place again, and made her face look almost square. Her eyes were bursting out of their sockets. I was very much surprised, because Guido and several other people who had been to see her said that she was getting stronger and handsomer every day. But health in a woman is surely above all her beauty.

Ada had other surprises in store for me. She greeted me affectionately, but only in exactly the same way as she had greeted Augusta. There was clearly no secret between us any longer, and she had evidently forgotten that she had ever wept at the thought of having caused me to suffer. So much the better! She would have forgotten too that she had any claim on me! I was her good brother-in-law, and she loved me solely because of the terms of perfect affection I was on with my wife, which always aroused the admiration of the Malfenti household.

One day I made a discovery which surprised me extremely. Ada still believed herself to be beautiful! Away there on the lake they had been paying court to her and she was evidently proud of her successes. She probably exaggerated them, for it seemed rather excessive to pretend that she had been obliged to leave her summer retreat in order to escape the persecutions of a lover. There may have been a grain of truth in it, I admit; for she probably did not appear so ugly to anyone who had not known her before. But there was not much in it, surely, with those eyes and that complexion, and a face that shape! She seemed, of course, uglier to us because we remembered what she had been and could realise what ravages her disease had made.

One evening we invited her and Guido to spend the evening with us. It was a pleasant family gathering, a kind of sequel to our twofold engagement. But the lustre was gone from Ada’s hair.

When they got up to go, I was left a moment alone with Ada, helping her into her coat. I at once had the sense of a slight change in our relationship. We were left alone and perhaps we should be able to say something to one another which the presence of the others made impossible. Whilst I helped her on with her coat I was thinking it over, and finally made up my mind what it was I wanted to say:

“You know that he has taken to gambling,” I said gravely. I sometimes wonder whether I did not hope by these words to evoke the memory of our last meeting which I could not allow to be so lightly forgotten.

“Yes,” she said smiling, “and he is quite right. He is doing very well now, from all they tell me.”

I smiled with her, whole-heartedly. I felt relieved of all responsibility. As she left me, she murmured:

“Is that Carmen still in the office?”

She was gone before I had time to answer. Our past no longer existed between us. But there was still her jealousy, as lively as at our last meeting.

When I look back over it, I feel as if I ought to have realised some time before I was actually told, that Guido had begun losing on the Bourse. The triumphant air disappeared from his face and it wore again that look of anxiety which had appeared on it at the time of the balance-sheet.

“Why do you worry about it?” I asked him innocently, “when you have already got all you need in your pocket for covering those false entries. You need never go to prison with all that money about you.” At that moment, as I discovered later, he had not a penny in his pocket.

I believed so firmly in the fortune he was supposed to have made that I paid no attention to all the indications which ought to have put me on the right track.

One evening in August he carried me off fishing with him again. It was very unlikely that we should succeed in catching anything, with a dazzling moon like that. But he insisted on going, for he said we should find it a little cooler out at sea. And that was in fact all we found. After one attempt we did not even bait our hooks again, but let our lines hang down from the boat, while Luciano rowed it out to sea. The moon’s rays must have penetrated to the bottom of the sea, lighting up all the wiles of the fisherman for the fishes big and small, so that they only nibbled at the bait but never let the hook come near them. Our bait only gave them a little extra meal.

Guido was lying in the stern of the boat; I was in the bows. After a while he murmured:

“How melancholy all this light is!”

He probably said so because the light prevented him from sleeping, and I agreed, just to please him, and also because I did not want to disturb the solemn peace of that scene by any stupid argument. But Luciano protested, saying that he loved the bright light. As Guido did not answer I tried to reduce him to silence by saying that the light was certainly sad because it lit up this sad world and also because it prevented us fishing. Luciano laughed and said no more.

We were all silent for some time. I yawned in the moon’s face several times. I regretted having let myself be persuaded to come out in the boat.

Suddenly Guido said:

“You’re a chemist. You will be able to tell me which is the most efficacious--pure veronal, or veronal and sodium.”

I did not even know there was such a thing as veronal and sodium. A chemist cannot be expected to know the whole world off by heart. I know enough of chemistry to be able to look up anything in my books and even to discuss--as you will see in this case--things of which I know nothing.

Veronal and sodium? But everyone knows that compounds of sodium are the most easily assimilated of any. I remembered, and was able to reproduce more or less accurately, a hymn in praise of sodium which had been sung by one of my professors at the only one of his lectures I ever attended. Sodium was the vehicle on which all the other elements rode when they wanted to move more rapidly. The professor had shown how chlorate of sodium passed from body to body till it sank, by law of gravity, into the deepest hole in the world, namely the bottom of the sea. I don’t know if I succeeded in reproducing exactly what the professor had said, but at that moment, with the spectacle of that immense quantity of chlorate of sodium in my mind’s eye, I spoke of sodium with infinite respect.

After a moment’s hesitation, Guido said again:

“If one wanted to die, ought one to take veronal and sodium?”

“Yes,” I replied.

Then, remembering that there are cases where one may want to simulate a suicide, and not at once realising that I was reminding Guido of an unpleasant episode in his own life, I added:

“And if one doesn’t want to die, one must take pure veronal.”

Guido’s exhaustive inquiries about veronal ought to have opened my eyes. But I at once became so interested myself in the possible uses of sodium that I did not notice anything odd. In the course of the next few days I was able to demonstrate to Guido by various new experiments that sodium really possessed the qualities I had attributed to it. You added sodium to mercury in order to facilitate the amalgamation of two bodies, this amalgamation being no other than a close embrace or union of bodies. Sodium, I showed, was the assimilating medium between gold and mercury. But Guido had already lost all interest in sodium, probably because his prospects on the Bourse were better at the moment.

Ada came three times to the office in the course of a single week. It was only after her second visit that it occurred to me she might have something to say to me.

The first time she came, she ran into Nilini who had planted himself there in order to continue my political education. She waited a whole hour, expecting him to go; but she made the mistake of entering into conversation with him, so that he thought it his duty to stay on. After I had introduced them to each other I breathed a sigh of relief to see the gap between Nilini’s jaws no longer turned towards me. I took no part in their conversation.

Nilini was quite witty, and astonished Ada by saying that there was just as much malicious gossip to be heard at the Tergesteo as in a fashionable drawing-room. With this difference, according to him, that they were better informed at the Bourse than elsewhere, on this as everything else. Ada thought he was being unfair to women, and said she had never heard any malicious gossip and did not know what he meant by it. At this point I intervened, and said that during all the years I had known her I had never heard a single unkind word come from her lips about anyone. I smiled as I said this, for I really intended it as a reproach. She did not talk against other people, for the simple reason that she took no interest whatever in anyone else’s affairs. When she was well she had only thought about her own affairs, and when she became ill the very small corner she had kept for other things was entirely filled by her jealousy. She was an out and out egoist, but she accepted my words gratefully, as if they were really a tribute.

Nilini pretended not to believe either her or me. He said he had known me for many years and thought me a very naïve character. This amused both Ada and me. But I was very much irritated when, for the first time before a third party, he announced that I was one of his dearest friends and that therefore he must know me thoroughly. I did not dare to protest, but I felt my modesty as much offended by his impudent assertion as a girl who has been accused in public of having given herself to a man.

I was so naïve, declared Nilini, that Ada might easily, with a woman’s well-known subtlety, have been as malicious as she liked in my presence without my being aware of it. I thought Ada was amused by his compliments, which seemed to me in very doubtful taste, but afterwards discovered that she had let him run on in the hope that he would exhaust his stock of eloquence and go away. She would have had to wait a long time for that!

The second time Ada came she found me with Guido. It was then that I noticed an expression of impatience on her face, and realised that it was really to me she wanted to talk. Till she returned the third time I indulged in my usual dreams. At bottom, it was not love she asked of me, but she too often wanted to be alone with me. It is difficult for men to know exactly what it is that women do want, for they often do not know themselves.

Her words excited no new feeling in me. Directly she had an opportunity of speaking to me her voice became strangled with emotion, but not because it was I to whom she was talking. She wanted to know why Carmen had not been sent away. I told her all I knew about it, including the effort we had made to find her a post in Olivi’s office.

She at once grew calmer, for what I was saying corresponded exactly to what Guido had told her. I heard later that her fits of jealousy came on at regular intervals. They began without any apparent reason, and a reassuring word would be sufficient to dispel them again.

She asked me two more questions: Was it really so difficult to find a post for an employee like Carmen, and was her family obliged to depend entirely on her earnings?

I explained to her that it was in fact very difficult in Trieste just then to find jobs for women in offices. As for her second question, I was unable to answer it as I knew no other member of Carmen’s family.

“And Guido knows the whole family,” she muttered angrily, while the tears again streamed down her cheeks.

When she was going, she shook hands with me and thanked me. Smiling through her tears she said she knew she could count on me. Her smile gave me pleasure, because it was certainly not addressed to a brother-in-law, but to someone who was bound to her by secret ties. I tried to prove that I deserved such a smile and murmured:

“It is not so much Carmen I am afraid of for Guido, it is his speculations on the Bourse.”

She shrugged her shoulders:

“Oh, you need not worry about that. I talked to Mamma about it. Papa used to speculate there too, and made heaps and heaps of money.”

I was rather taken aback by her reply, and insisted:

“I don’t like that Nilini. It is not at all true that he is a friend of mine.”

She looked at me in surprise:

“He seems to be a gentleman. And Guido likes him very much too. Besides, I think that Guido is very careful in business now.”

I had made up my mind never to say anything against Guido, so I was silent. When I was alone again, it was not of Guido I thought, but of myself. Perhaps it was a good thing that Ada had at last come to seem to me like a sister, and nothing else. She neither promised nor threatened me with anything in the nature of love. For the next few days, however, I walked about the streets in a very unsettled state of mind. Something seemed to have upset my balance. I could not understand myself. Why did I feel exactly as if Carla had just given me up? Nothing fresh had happened to me. I honestly believe that I have always needed to be in the middle of an adventure, or of some complication which gives the illusion of one. Yet there was nothing in the least complicated now in my relations with Ada.

One day Nilini was preaching louder than ever from his arm-chair; there was a cloud upon the horizon: money was growing dearer. The market had suddenly become saturated and could not absorb any more.

“Let us throw in some sodium,” I said flippantly.

He was not at all pleased at my interruption, but pretended he had not heard, so as not to be obliged to get angry and interrupt his sermon. He said there was suddenly a shortage of money everywhere, so it had gone up in price. He was only surprised at it happening just now, whereas he had prophesied it for a month later.

“They must have packed all the money off to the moon!” I said.

Nilini did not deign to look at me, but went on staring at the ceiling.

“This is no laughing matter,” he said. “It is extremely serious. Now we shall be able to see who is the real fighter, and who is going to give in at the first blow.”

Just as I was quite unable to understand how there could possibly be a shortage of money in the world, so I never guessed that Nilini was numbering Guido among the fighting men who were to prove their valour. I was so accustomed to defend myself from his sermons by paying no attention to them, that even this one, which I actually listened to, passed over my head without making the smallest impression on me.

A few days later, however, Nilini began to sing to quite a different tune. He had made a discovery. He had found out that Guido was doing business with another broker. Nilini began protesting in an injured tone of voice that he had never failed Guido in anything, and that he had behaved with the utmost discretion. Could not I bear him out in this? Had he not always made a secret of Guido’s affairs even to me whom he regarded as his dearest friend? But now he was going to throw all reserve to the winds and shout into my ears that Guido had lost everything and was up to his neck in debt. As far as the business was concerned which had been done through him, he asserted that it would recover with the smallest improvement in the situation, and they could afford to wait for better times. It was monstrous that the first time things went wrong Guido should have treated him like this.

Nilini’s jealousy was far worse than Ada’s. Nothing could appease him. I tried to get some definite facts out of him, but he only became more and more furious, and went on talking of the wrong that had been done him, so that, contrary to his own intentions and to my hopes, he remained perfectly discreet and gave nothing away.

That afternoon I found Guido in the office. He was lying at full length on the divan in a curious state between sleep and desperation. I said:

“Is it true that you are ruined up to the ears?”

He did not answer at once. He only raised his arm and covered his face with it. Then he said:

“Was there ever anyone more wretched than me?”

He lowered his arm and changed his position, turning over on his back. He shut his eyes again and seemed to have completely forgotten my presence.

I had no consolation to offer him. It made me quite angry that he should think himself the unhappiest man in the world; it was not even an exaggeration, it was a lie pure and simple. I would have helped him if I could, but to comfort him was out of the question. In my opinion, not even people who are more innocent and more unhappy than Guido deserve pity, otherwise there would be no room for anything but that feeling, which would be very tedious. The law of nature does not confer the right to be happy, on the contrary it condemns us to pain and suffering. Wherever the feast is spread parasites will flock to it from all parts, and if there are not enough of them they hasten to breed more. Soon there is only sufficient for the barest need, and very soon all is devoured, for nature does not calculate, she only makes experiments. When there is no more left the number of consumers must dwindle, by a process of pain and death, and thus the balance is restored for a moment. What is the use of complaining? Yet all do complain. Those who have had no share at all of the prey die arraigning the injustice of nature; those who have had their share feel that it ought to have been bigger still. Why don’t they live and die in silence? On the other hand it is pleasant to see the joy of someone who has succeeded in securing a good share of the booty, and flaunts himself in the sun, amidst the plaudits of the crowd. The only cry I should allow is the cry of triumph.

But Guido! He not only lacked the power to conquer, but even to hold the riches he had got. He would come from the gaming-table and weep over his losses. He could not even behave like a gentleman; he sickened me. That was why, at the moment when he probably most stood in need of my sympathy, I had none to give him. Not all my many good resolutions could move me so far.

Meanwhile Guido’s breathing was becoming gradually louder and more regular. He had fallen asleep! What an unmanly way to meet misfortune! They had stolen his booty and he quietly closed his eyes and dreamed, perhaps, that it was still in his possession, instead of opening them wide and trying to snatch back a small part of it.

I was curious to know whether Ada had been told of the calamity that had befallen him, and asked him in a loud voice. He started, and it was a few moments before he could accustom himself to his misfortune, which suddenly rose again before him to its full stature.

“No!” he murmured, and again closed his eyes.

I believe it is a fact that all who have received a violent blow have a tendency to sleep. Sleep restores one’s strength. I stood a few moments irresolute, looking at Guido. If he insisted on sleeping how was one to help him? It was not the moment for sleep. I took hold of him roughly by the shoulder and shook him:

“Guido!” I said.

He had really been fast asleep. He looked at me doubtfully, his eyes still heavy with sleep, and asked:

“What is it?” Suddenly he got angry, and shouted out again: “What is it you want?”

I wanted to help him, otherwise I should have had no right to wake him up. I got angry too and shouted that this was not the moment for going to sleep; that we must get to work quickly and save what we could. We must decide what was to be done, and discuss it with all the members of our family here and in Buenos Aires.

Guido sat up at last. He was still rather disconcerted by my rough method of waking him. He said bitterly:

“It would have been much better if you had let me go on sleeping. Who do you imagine can help me now? Don’t you remember what means I had to adopt last time in order to get the little I then needed to save me? But now it is a matter of very large sums of money. Who do you propose I should turn to now?”

I felt quite unsympathetic, even angry, at the thought that I should have to rob myself and my own family in order to help him.

“Aren’t I still here?” I said. My avarice, however, at once stepped in to modify my first generous impulse:

“Isn’t Ada still there? And your mother-in-law. Can’t we all combine to save you?”

He rose and came towards me, evidently intending to embrace me. But I was determined to avoid that at all costs. Now that I had offered to help him I had a perfect right to take him to task, and I made the utmost use of it. I upbraided him for his weakness and for his conceit, which had really been the cause of his ruin, and which he was even yet not free from. He had acted just as he thought fit, without consulting anybody. How often I had tried to find out what he was engaged on, so that I might restrain him if necessary, and save him from the very danger into which he had fallen; and he had always refused to tell me anything, and had persisted in confiding only in Nilini.

At this Guido smiled; he actually smiled, poor man! He said that for the last fortnight he had had nothing to do with Nilini; he thought his ugly mug would bring him ill-luck.

How characteristic of him that smile was, and that falling asleep; he could ruin everyone belonging to him and still go on smiling. I put on a very severe judicial air; if I was going to save Guido I should have to educate him first. I wanted to know how much he had lost, and flew into a rage when he said he could not tell exactly. I was still more furious when he named a relatively low figure, which turned out to be the sum that must be paid at the fortnightly settlement which was only five days ahead. Guido asserted that the end of the month was still a long way off and things might easily change before then. The shortage on the money market could hardly last for ever.

I shouted:

“I suppose if there’s a money shortage on the earth you’ll get some down from the moon!” I said he must not go on gambling for a single day longer. His losses were already huge and we must not take the risk of increasing them. I said that his losses would have to be divided into four parts, and borne by me, by him (that is to say his father), Signora Malfenti and Ada; that we must return at once to sound, unspeculative business methods, and that I refused ever to see Nilini or any other broker in our office again.

He very gently asked me not to shout so much, because the neighbours might hear us.

I made a great effort to calm myself, and succeeded in so far as only to go on abusing him under my breath. I said it was positively criminal to lose as much as he had done, and in such a way: one must be an absolute idiot and worse, to get into such an impasse. I was determined that not a word of my lecture should be lost on him.

But here Guido made a mild protest. Was there anyone who had not at some time or other speculated on the Bourse? Our father-in-law, for instance, who was such a respectable business man, had not let a day pass without some speculation. And then, Guido was sure, I had speculated myself.

I protested that there was gambling and gambling. He had staked the whole of his patrimony on the Bourse; I had only staked a month’s income.

Guido’s childish attempts to shift his responsibilities on to some one else made a melancholy impression on me. He asserted that Nilini had induced him to play for much higher stakes than he had ever meant to, by holding out to him the hope of winning a great fortune.

I laughed and made fun of him. It was no use to blame Nilini; he was only looking after his own interests. Besides, after he had left Nilini, hadn’t he plunged headlong into still further losses through the medium of another broker? It would have been time enough to boast of his new business connection if, unknown to Nilini, he had begun speculating _à la baisse_. What was the use of changing his broker only to pursue the same ill-fated policy as before? Guido begged me at last to leave him in peace, and with a sob in his throat acknowledged his error.

I left off attacking him. I was genuinely sorry for him now, and would gladly have embraced him, if he had allowed me. I said I would at once see about providing my share of the money and that I would also undertake to speak to our mother-in-law. He, for his part, was to tell Ada all about it.

My pity for him increased when he confessed to me that he would not mind speaking to his mother-in-law instead of me, but that he was tortured by the thought of having to speak to Ada.

“You know what women are! They don’t understand business, or at least only when it turns out well.” He said he would prefer not to speak to Ada, but could ask her mother to tell her what had happened instead.

This decision removed a great weight off his mind, and we went out together. When I saw him walking along beside me with his head drooping, I repented of having been so cruel to him. But if one was fond of him, what else could one do? He really must be brought to his senses, or he would be totally ruined. What sort of terms must he be on with his wife, if he was so afraid of speaking to her?

But he almost immediately contrived to enrage me again. As we walked along he was engaged in perfecting the plan he had thought so brilliant. Not only was there no need for him to speak to his wife, but he would not see her at all that evening, for he would go straight out shooting. Having made this proposal he cast all care aside. The mere thought of getting out into the open air and leaving all his troubles behind was enough to restore him completely, and drive every cloud from his brow. I was furious with him! He might easily go back to the Bourse with the same regardless air and play away the whole remaining capital of his family and mine.

He said:

“I am going to allow myself this one last pleasure, and I invite you to come too, on condition that you undertake not to say a single word which would remind me of what has happened to-day.”

Up to this point he had been talking gaily. But when he saw my serious face, he became more serious too. He added:

“You must agree that I need a little rest after such a shock as this has been. It will be easier for me afterwards to take my place again in the fight.”

His voice trembled with emotion; I could not doubt his sincerity, so that I succeeded in controlling my irritation, or only showed it in so far as to refuse his invitation, saying that I must remain in town to see about collecting the necessary funds. This was surely a reproof in itself! I, the innocent one, must remain at my post, while he, the culprit, could go off and amuse himself as he pleased.

We had already reached Signora Malfenti’s front door. His face had not resumed the joyous expression it had worn before at the thought of the pleasant hours which awaited him; so long as he was with me he kept on his face the fixed expression of conventional grief which I had called back to it. But before leaving me he gave vent to his feelings by a display of independence which I felt was partly inspired by resentment.

He said he was surprised to find what a good friend he had in me. He hesitated to accept the sacrifice I had offered to make for him. He wished me definitely to understand that he did not consider me bound in any way whatever, and that I was free to give or not exactly as I thought fit.

I feel certain that I blushed. To escape from my embarrassment I said:

“Why should you imagine I want to withdraw, when only a few minutes ago I offered to help you, without your having asked anything of me?”

He looked at me rather doubtfully and said:

“Since you wish it I accept without more ado. Thank you. But we must make a fresh contract, and each of us must receive the share he deserves. So that from henceforth, if business comes our way and you are willing to go on dealing with it, you must have a proper salary. Yes, we must put the company on a totally different basis. Then there can be no danger of any trouble accruing to us from our suppression of last year’s losses. It will only have been a lesson to us.”

“It is no use your thinking any more about those losses; we have finished with that. What you have to do now is to try and win over your mother-in-law. That is all that matters.”

And so we parted. I have no doubt I smiled at the naïveté with which Guido had betrayed to me his inmost feelings. He had made all that long speech solely in order that he might accept my gift, without having to show me too much gratitude. But I did not demand it of him. It was quite enough for me to know that he really owed it.

For my part, as soon as I had parted from him I felt a sense of relief as well, as if I too had just escaped into the open air. I felt I had regained the freedom I had lost when I set about trying to educate Guido and put him on the right path. The teacher is really much more chained than the pupil. I had fully made up my mind to get the money for him. It is difficult for me to say whether I was really doing it out of affection for him or for Ada, or perhaps also because I felt that a certain responsibility might attach to me for having worked in his office. In any case I resolved to sacrifice part of my own fortune, and even to-day I look back on that moment in my life with great satisfaction. The money would save Guido and procure me a quiet conscience.

I walked about till dark in this exalted frame of mind, and then found it was too late to catch Olivi at the Bourse. I was obliged to apply to him in order to get a large sum of money. Then I decided that it was not really so urgent. I had a certain amount of money at my disposal which would be enough to cover the fortnightly settlement. There was plenty of time for me to take all the necessary steps before the end of the month.

I put Guido out of my mind for the whole evening. Later on, after the children had been put to bed, I several times made up my mind to tell Augusta about Guido’s financial collapse and how it was going to affect me, but I hated the thought of discussing it, and decided it would be better to wait for Augusta to give her consent when everything had been arranged, and the settlement of Guido’s affairs was in full swing. Besides, I did not see why I should have all this tiresome business just when Guido was out amusing himself.

I slept perfectly and went to the office next morning with rather a light purse. I still had in my pocket the old envelope which Carla had returned to me and which I was saving up religiously for her or for one of her children, and I had drawn a little money from the bank. I spent the morning reading the papers, while Carmen sat sewing and Luciano employed himself in various feats of multiplication and addition.

When I went home to lunch I found Augusta quite bewildered and cast down. She was very pale, as she always was on occasions when I had made her suffer. She said to me gently:

“I hear that you have decided to sacrifice part of your fortune to save Guido! I know I had no right to have been told.”

She was so doubtful about her right that she hesitated. Then she began to reproach me for not having told her.

“But I am not like Ada. I have never opposed your will in any way.”

It was some time before I discovered what had happened. Augusta had arrived at Ada’s house just when she was in the middle of discussing Guido with her mother. When she saw her, Ada had burst out crying and told her of my generous offer, which she absolutely refused to accept. She had begged Augusta to ask me not to persist in it.

I saw at once that Augusta was suffering from her old malady, jealousy of her sister; but I took no notice of it. Ada’s attitude surprised me.

“Do you think she was offended?” I asked, pretending to look very surprised.

“No! no! Not offended!” cried the straightforward Augusta. “She hugged and kissed me ... perhaps it was really meant for you!”

That seemed an odd enough way of expressing herself. She kept her eyes fixed on me suspiciously, as if she were trying to read my thoughts.

I protested.

“Do you really believe Ada is in love with me? What can have put that into your head?”

But I could not succeed in pacifying Augusta, whose jealousy I found terribly tiresome. It was true that Guido had stopped enjoying himself by then, and was no doubt having a horrible time between his wife and his mother-in-law; but I was having a sufficiently bad time myself, and I could not help feeling my sufferings were disproportionately great, seeing that I was entirely innocent.

I tried to calm Augusta by caressing her. But she drew her face away, so that she could look at me better, and uttered a gentle reproof which moved me deeply.

“I know you love me too,” she said.

It was clearly not Ada’s state of mind, but mine, that she was troubled about. I suddenly had an inspiration which I thought must prove my innocence.

“So Ada is in love with me?” I said laughing. Then, drawing away a little from Augusta so that she could see me better, I puffed out my cheeks and opened my eyes very wide so as to make myself look like Ada. Augusta gazed at me in astonishment for a moment, but soon guessed what I was doing. She burst out laughing, but at once felt ashamed of herself.

“No!” she said; “please don’t laugh at her.”

Then she admitted, still laughing, that I had succeeded in imitating exactly the bulges which gave Ada’s face such an odd appearance. And I knew that I had, for whilst I was imitating her I had actually felt as if I were kissing Ada. And when I was by myself I repeated the process with a mingled feeling of desire and disgust.

In the afternoon I went to the office hoping to find Guido there. I waited for some time, then decided to go and look for him at his house. It was necessary that I should know whether or not I was to ask Olivi for the money. I must fulfil my duty, painful though the prospect was of seeing Ada’s face still more distorted in her efforts to express her gratitude. Who knows what surprises that woman still had in store for me!

On the steps leading up to Guido’s house I ran into Signora Malfenti who was ponderously ascending. She told me at great length everything that had been decided about Guido’s affairs up to then. When they separated the evening before they had almost agreed that it was essential to do all they could to save that unfortunate man from the ruin which threatened him. It was not till the next morning that Ada discovered I was proposing to collaborate in covering Guido’s losses, and then she absolutely refused to accept. Signora Malfenti tried to make excuses for her.

“What are you going to do about it? She cannot reconcile it with her conscience to rob her favourite sister.”

At the top of the first flight of steps the Signora stopped to get breath, to enable her to go on talking. She said with a smile that everything would turn out well for everybody concerned. Before lunch she and Ada and Guido had gone to consult a solicitor, an old friend of the family who was now little Anna’s guardian. The solicitor had said there was no need to pay; gambling-debts did not come under the law. Guido had taken the opposite point of view, and talked about honour and duty, but she was sure that if everyone, including Ada, decided not to pay, he could very soon fall into line.

“But will his business be declared bankrupt on the Bourse?” I asked in bewilderment.

“Probably it will!” replied Signora Malfenti, with a sigh, before climbing the last flight.

Guido was in the habit of lying down after lunch, so that we were received by Ada in the little boudoir I knew so well. When she saw me she betrayed a moment’s uneasiness; only a moment, but enough for me to notice and remember, for it was as clear as if she had confessed it to me herself. Then she made an effort to control herself, and offered me her hand with a decided, almost virile movement, which seemed meant to contradict the feminine hesitation that had preceded it.

She said:

“Augusta will have told you how grateful I am to you. I feel too bewildered at the moment to express to you what I really feel. I am ill too. Yes, I am very ill! I ought really to go into the nursing-home again at Bologna.”

A sob interrupted her. Then she went on:

“I want to ask you one favour. Please tell Guido that you find you can’t let him have any money. It will make it much easier for us to persuade him to do what ought to be done.”

She had sobbed before, thinking of her own illness; she sobbed again now, before going on to talk about her husband:

“He is only a child, and must be treated as such. If he knows that you are ready to let him have that money, he will cling all the more obstinately to his idea of throwing away the rest, quite uselessly, for now we know for a certainty that a bankruptcy on the Bourse is not illegal. The solicitor told us so.”

She gave me the opinion of a high financial authority without ever asking for mine. As an old _habitué_ of the Bourse my opinion might have had some weight alongside that of the solicitor, but I quite forgot what my opinion was, even if I had ever had one. It was obvious to me, however, that I was put in an awkward position. I could not back out of the promise I had made Guido; it was in return for that promise that I had thought myself authorised to shout so many insults in his ear, pocketing thereby a sort of interest on the capital which it was thus impossible for me to refuse him.

“Ada!” I said hesitatingly, “I don’t think I can go back on my word like this, from one day to another. Wouldn’t it be better if you tried to persuade Guido to do things as you want them done?”

Signora Malfenti, with the peculiar sympathy she always showed me, said that she understood perfectly well the situation in which I found myself, but that she thought when Guido discovered he could only dispose of a quarter of the money he needed he would be obliged to submit with a good grace to their will.

But Ada had not yet exhausted her supply of tears. With her face hidden in her handkerchief, she said between her sobs:

“You did very, very wrong to make him such an extraordinary offer. Now one sees what a great mistake you made!”

She seemed to me to waver between gratitude and resentment. Then she said she did not want my offer ever to be mentioned again, and begged me not to procure the money for him, for if I did she would not let me give it him, or would forbid Guido to accept it.

I felt so embarrassed that I ended by telling a lie. I told her that I had already procured the money, and pointed to my breast pocket where that very light envelope was lying. Ada looked at me now with an expression of genuine admiration which might have given me pleasure if I had not known how little I deserved it. In any case it was that lie, for which I can give no other explanation than my strange tendency to try and appear to Ada better than I really was, that prevented my waiting for Guido and made me get out of the house as quickly as possible. It might easily have happened that, contrary to all expectation, I should have been asked to hand over the money I said I actually had with me, and what sort of a figure should I have cut then? I explained that I had urgent business at the office, and hurried out of the house.

Ada accompanied me to the door and assured me that she would persuade Guido to come to me himself and thank me for my kindness, refusing at the same time to accept it. She made this statement with so much determination that I was quite startled. I could not help feeling that so definite a resolution was aimed in part also at me. No! at that moment she certainly did not love me. My generosity had been too great. It threatened to overwhelm those whom it was supposed to benefit, and it was no wonder if they rose up and protested. On my way to the office I tried to shake off the unpleasant impression which Ada’s behaviour had made on me, by reminding myself that the sacrifice I proposed to make concerned Guido and no one else. What had Ada to do with it? I promised myself to make Ada see this at the earliest opportunity.

I went to the office simply in order to avoid having another lie on my conscience. A fine rain had been falling since the early morning, which had made the air very chilly; spring was slow in coming. A few steps would have taken me home, whereas to reach the office I had to walk down a much longer street, which in itself was sufficiently annoying. But I thought I had a duty to fulfil.

Guido joined me shortly afterwards. He sent Luciano away, so as to remain alone with me. He had on that agonised air which was such a help to him in his disputes with his wife, and which I knew only too well. He had evidently been crying, and shouting too.

He asked me what I thought about his wife and mother-in-law’s plan which he knew I had already been told of. I was not very ready with my reply. I did not want to tell him my opinion, which was contrary to that of the two women, and at the same time I knew that if I were to agree with them I should only provoke fresh scenes with Guido. I hated to seem to grudge him my assistance, and agreed on the whole with Ada that the decision ought to come from Guido and not from me. I said that we must make some calculations and work things out and hear what other people had to say about it. I was not a good enough business man to be able to pronounce an opinion on such an important matter. To gain time, I asked him if he would like me to consult Olivi.

This was enough to make him scream:

“That idiot! I beg you to leave him out of the question!”

I did not feel in the least inclined to work myself up in defence of Olivi, but my calmness had no effect on Guido. We were in a precisely similar situation to that of the day before, only now it was his turn to scream and mine to be silent. It is a matter of temperament; I felt so very awkward that all my limbs were absolutely paralysed.

But he insisted on my saying exactly what I thought about it. So I began to speak and, by an almost divine inspiration, spoke very well; so well that if he had paid the smallest attention to what I said the subsequent catastrophe would never have happened. I said that I was inclined for the moment to consider the two questions separately, that of the fortnightly and that of the monthly settlement. Not such a very large sum was required for the former and one must induce the two women to consent to that relatively light loss. Then we should still have plenty of time before us to make wise provision for the other settlement.

Guido interrupted me to say:

“Ada told me that you have got the money all ready in your pocket. Have you got it with you now?”

I blushed. But I speedily found another lie which saved me:

“As they would not accept the money when I was at your house, I deposited it at the bank. But we can draw it out again as soon as we like; early to-morrow morning, if necessary.”

He reproached me for having changed my mind. And only the day before I had declared that everything could be put in order at once, and that there was no need to wait for the second settlement! Here he was overtaken by a violent fit of rage and finally sank helpless on to the sofa. He would chuck Nilini out of the office, and all those other brokers who had encouraged him to speculate. Oh! when he had begun speculating he had foreseen, of course, that he might be ruined, but not that he would come under the thumb of women who understood nothing, less than nothing about it!

I went up and shook him by the hand. If he had let me, I would have embraced him. All that I had ever wanted was that he should make up his mind, as he had done now, to give up gambling and settle down to regular work. Then our future would be secure, and he would regain his independence. He would have a short, difficult time to go through first, but after that everything would be quite simple and straightforward.

He left me soon afterwards still depressed, but calmer. Weak though he was, he seemed to have come to a definite decision.

“I am going back to Ada,” he murmured, with a bitter but confident smile.

I accompanied him to the door, and would have gone all the way home with him, but his carriage was waiting for him outside.

Nemesis seemed to pursue Guido. Half an hour after he had left me I thought it would be wise if I were to go to his house and see if there was anything I could do for him. Not that I thought he was in any particular danger, but I was now entirely on his side, and might have helped to persuade Ada and Signora Malfenti to help him. A bankruptcy on the Bourse was not at all to my taste, and all things considered, though his losses were by no means insignificant even if divided between four of us, they were not enough to ruin any of us.

Then I reflected that my chief duty at the moment was not so much to assist Guido by my presence as to have ready the sum I had promised him for the following day. I at once went in search of Olivi, and prepared myself for a fresh struggle. I had thought out a system of paying back the large sum to my firm, over a period of several years, though I should be obliged during the next few months to spend whatever remained over of the money I had inherited from my mother. I hoped Olivi would not make any difficulties, for up to that time I had never asked for anything but my share of the profits and the interest due to me, and I could undertake not to worry him again with similar requests. It was clear that I might hope to recover from Guido at least a part of the sum.

I was unable to find Olivi that evening. He had only just left the office when I got there. They thought he had probably gone to the Bourse. But I could not find him there, so went on to his house, where I heard that he was at a meeting of the Economic Association, in which he occupied an honorary post. I might have gone on to look for him there, but by now it was getting late, and the rain was falling heavily and uninterruptedly, turning the roads into streams of water.

The deluge continued all night, and was remembered for many years as a record. The rain went on falling steadily, without a moment’s cessation; pouring, pouring down in sheets. The mud was washed down from the hills which surround the city on all sides, and combined with the refuse of the streets to block up the few canals. I decided at last to go home, after waiting vainly under shelter for the rain to stop, and finally making up my mind that it was useless to hope for a change in the weather; but even where the pavement was highest I had to wade through water. I hurried home as fast as I could, soaked to the skin and cursing the weather. I was cursing partly at having spent all that long time in hunting for Olivi. I can well believe that my time is not so very precious, but I know I suffer horribly when I have to waste it in some useless occupation. As I hurried along, I thought to myself: “I will leave everything till to-morrow, when it will have cleared and be fine and dry again. To-morrow I will go to Olivi, to-morrow I will go and see Guido. I will get up as early as you please, if only the weather is dry and fine.” I was so convinced of the reasonableness of this view that I told Augusta we had all agreed to wait till the next day before making any decision. I changed into dry clothes and nice, warm, comfortable slippers, and after supper went early to bed and slept soundly and dreamlessly till morning, while the heavy rain whipped the window panes without ceasing.

So that it was getting late before I heard what had happened during the night. First we were told that the rain had caused floods in various parts of the town, and then that Guido was dead.

It was not till much later in the day that I heard what had really happened. At about eleven o’clock, when Signora Malfenti had left them, Guido told his wife that he had swallowed an enormous quantity of veronal. He tried to convince her that all was over with him. He kissed her again and again, and implored her to forgive him for having made her suffer. Then, before his speech became incoherent and almost inaudible, he assured her that she had been the only love of his life. She did not believe this assurance, any more than she believed he had really taken enough veronal to kill him. Nor did she believe he had really become unconscious; she imagined he was only pretending, so as to get more money out of her.

But after an hour, when she saw him sink deeper and deeper into sleep, a kind of terror seized her, and she wrote a note to a doctor who lived not far from their house. In the note she said that her husband was in need of immediate help, as he had swallowed a large quantity of veronal.

Up to then there had been nothing to warn the servant that anything was wrong; she was an old woman who had only been with them a short time, and she had no idea of the nature of her mission.

The rain was responsible for the rest. The servant was almost up to her knees in water, and lost the note. She only discovered this when she was actually shown in to the doctor. But she succeeded in persuading him that it was urgent, and induced him to go back with her.

Dr. Mali was a man of about fifty-five, not the least clever, but a practical doctor who had always done his duty as well as he could. His regular practice was not very large, but he had a great deal of work to do for a Society which had a very large membership, and for which his fees were very small indeed. He had not been home long, and had just succeeded in drying and warming himself by the fire. One can imagine how reluctant he was to tear himself away from his warm, snug corner. When I was trying to unravel the causes of my poor friend’s death I made a point of getting to know Dr. Mali. All I could gather from him was this: that when he got outside the door and felt the rain soaking him actually through his umbrella, he repented having studied medicine instead of agriculture, for the peasant, he said to himself, stops at home when it rains.

When he reached Guido’s bedside, he found Ada much relieved. Now that she had the doctor there it was easier for her to remember what a trick Guido had played on her a few months ago, when he pretended to commit suicide. She was able now to shift all responsibility on to the doctor, to whom she gave a full account of what had happened, and of the reasons which led her to think this might also be a false alarm. The doctor took it all in with one ear, and listened with the other to the torrents of rain pouring down the street. As he had not been warned that it was a case of poisoning, he had brought with him none of the instruments necessary for treating the case. He stammered a few words of excuse which Ada could not hear. The worst of it was that he could not send anyone else to fetch the stomach pump he needed; he would have had to wade twice through that flood himself. He felt Guido’s pulse and found it excellent. He asked Ada whether Guido was accustomed always to sleep very soundly. She said yes, but not as soundly as that. The doctor then examined Guido’s eyes; they at once re-acted to the light. He finally left, after having recommended her to give him a spoonful of very strong coffee from time to time.

I heard also that when he had got down to the street and was setting off home again, he muttered furiously:

“It ought to be illegal to pretend one has committed suicide in weather like this!”

When I heard all this from the doctor I did not dare to reproach him openly for his carelessness; but he guessed what I was thinking, and began defending himself. He said he was so astonished when he heard next morning that Guido was dead, that he thought at first he must have come to, and taken another dose of veronal. It was impossible, he said, for a layman to realise how used the doctor becomes to protecting himself against his patients, who are continually making attempts on his life, in their selfish insistence on saving their own.

After about an hour, Ada got tired of trying to force the spoonful of coffee between Guido’s teeth, and noticing that he absorbed less and less of it, and that most of it went on to the pillow, she took fright again and begged the servant to go for Dr. Paoli. This time the servant managed not to lose the note. But she took more than an hour getting to the doctor’s house. When it is raining like that one naturally feels one must stop from time to time and take shelter under a porch. Rain like that does not only soak, it positively scourges one.

Dr. Paoli was not at home. He had been called out by a patient a little while before, and had gone off saying he hoped to be back before long. But it looked as if he had chosen to wait at the patient’s house for the rain to stop. His housekeeper, who was a kind elderly person, insisted on Ada’s servant sitting down by the fire and getting thoroughly warm. The doctor had not left his patient’s address, so the two women spent several hours sitting by the fire together. The doctor did not come back till the rain had stopped, and day was breaking when he at last got to Ada, armed with the necessary instruments. But only one task remained for him now; to hide from Ada that Guido was already dead, and to get Signora Malfenti to come, without Ada realising it, so that she might help her in her first access of grief.

And so it happened that the news reached us rather late and without many details.

As I got out of bed, anger surged up in me for the last time against poor Guido: how he complicated every misfortune by playing the fool like that! I left the house alone, for Augusta could not leave the baby to its own devices. When I got outside, I hesitated for a moment. Hadn’t I better wait till the bank opened and Olivi would be in his office, so as to be able to appear before Guido armed with the money I had promised? So little did I believe really that things were as bad with Guido as they were reported to be.

I heard the full truth from Dr. Paoli, whom I met as I went upstairs. I was so startled that I almost fell down the stairs backwards. Ever since we had spent so much of our time together Guido had been a very important person to me. So long as he was alive I saw him in a peculiar light, and in that light part of my days was passed. When he died the light was suddenly refracted as though it had passed through a prism. It was that which dazzled me so much at first. He had had many faults, but I saw at once that now he was dead nothing remained of them. In my opinion the wit who, in a cemetery full of laudatory epitaphs, asked where the sinners were buried, was a fool. The dead never have been sinners. Guido was pure now. Death had purified him.

The doctor was deeply moved by Ada’s sorrow. He told me something of the horrible night she had lived through. They had succeeded at last in making her believe that the amount of poison which Guido had swallowed must have been fatal; that nothing could have saved him. She must on no account discover the real truth.

“The truth is,” said the doctor, shaking his dead, “that if I had arrived a few hours sooner I could have saved him. I found the bottles still full of poison.”

I examined them. It was certainly a strong dose, but not much stronger than the first time. He showed me several little bottles, all labelled: “Veronal.” Not veronal and sodium then. I could appreciate the significance of this better than anyone. I knew now that Guido had not intended to kill himself. But I have never said a word to anyone.

Paoli left soon after, warning me not to try and see Ada for the moment. He had prescribed a strong sleeping-draught and did not doubt that it would soon take effect.

As I stood in the passage I heard a subdued lamentation coming from the little room where Ada had twice received me. From time to time I heard a few unintelligible, grief-stricken words. The word “he” was repeated several times, and I tried to picture what she might be saying. She was trying to set up a new relationship between herself and the dead man. It would have to be very different from the one she had had with the living. It was clear to me that she had sinned against her husband while he was alive. He had died for a sin which they had all committed, for he had gambled on the Bourse with the approval of them all. It was only when it came to paying up that they had left him alone. And he had made haste to pay. I had had nothing to do with it, yet I alone of all his relations had felt it was my duty to help him.

Poor Guido was lying all alone in their bedroom, covered by the sheet. The _rigor mortis_ was already far advanced. There was no sense of strength in that rigidity, only an immense surprise at being dead without having wished to die. His dark, handsome face seemed to wear a reproachful expression; but the reproach could not be intended for me.

I went back to Augusta, to urge her to go and be with her sister. I was deeply moved and Augusta burst into tears and embraced me.

“You have been a brother to him,” she murmured. “I quite agree with you now, and am ready to sacrifice part of our fortune to keep his memory pure.”

I took pains that every honour should be paid to my poor friend. First of all I put up a notice on the office door, announcing that the office was closed on account of the death of the chief. I myself composed the obituary notice. The arrangements for the funeral were not made till the following day, and Ada herself took part in them. Then I was told that she had decided to follow his coffin to the grave. She wanted to give him every possible proof of her affection. Poor thing! I knew only too well what terrible pangs of remorse one may suffer beside a grave. I had suffered enough myself at the death of my father.

I spent the afternoon shut up in the office with Nilini. We were engaged in drawing up a provisional balance-sheet. The situation was really terrible! Not only was the entire capital of the firm lost, but Guido owed as much again, if his debts were to be paid in full.

I ought to have put all my energies into working for my poor dead friend, but I found I could do nothing but dream. My first thought had been to give up my whole life to working in that office for the sake of Ada and her children. But should I really be able to carry it through?

Nilini, as usual, went on chattering, while I was looking far ahead into the future. He too felt the need now of a fundamental change in his relations with Guido. He understood it all now! When he treated him so unfairly poor Guido was already stricken by the disease which was to lead him to commit suicide. Everything was forgiven and forgotten!

“I am made like that,” he said. “I can’t bear ill will against anyone. I was always fond of Guido, and I still am.”

Nilini’s dreams ended by mingling with mine and imposing themselves upon me. There was no hope of repairing a catastrophe like this by slow business methods; the only hope was in fresh speculations on the Bourse. Nilini went on to tell me about a friend of his who had saved himself at the very last moment by doubling his stakes.

We spent several hours in conversation, but Nilini’s proposal to carry on Guido’s gamble was made shortly before midday, and I at once agreed to it. My joy in accepting it was almost as great as if I had succeeded in bringing my friend to life again. I ended by buying, in poor Guido’s name, a number of new shares with such odd titles as Rio Tinto, Southern French, etc.

This was the beginning of forty-eight hours of the hardest work I have ever done in my life. I stayed at the office till evening, pacing up and down with great strides, waiting to hear if my orders had been carried out. I was afraid the news of Guido’s suicide might already have reached the Bourse, and that they might refuse to do any more business in his name. But, as it turned out, they did not put his death down to suicide till several days later.

When Nilini finally told me that all my orders had been carried out there began for me a time of terrible anxiety, increased by the fact that at the very moment of receiving the purchase papers I was told that I had already lost quite a lot on what I had bought. When I look back on it, the very anxiety I felt produces on me the impression of actual work. I have the curious sensation of having sat for forty-eight hours on end at the gaming-table trying to exercise a magnetic influence on the cards. I noted every fluctuation in the prices, I brooded over it and, if I must tell the truth, willed it up or down according as it best suited me, or rather my poor friend. I got no sleep at all.

Fearing lest some member of the family might step in and interfere with the work of salvation I had taken upon myself, I spoke to no one about the fortnightly settlement, when it came. I paid it all myself, for everyone else had forgotten about it, busy as they were in preparing the corpse for burial. As a matter of fact I had less to pay than had been supposed in Guido’s lifetime. The tide had suddenly begun to turn in my favour. My grief at Guido’s death had been so great that I thought I might mitigate it somewhat by taking every possible risk both with the money of my firm and my own personal money. I was sustained by that vision of benevolence which had inspired me long ago at Guido’s side. But I suffered so intensely from the state of agitation I lived in at this time, that I have never again gambled on my own account.

In consequence of poring over the money market, my only occupation during those few days, I was actually not present at Guido’s funeral. This was how it happened. The shares we were interested in took an upward leap that very day. Nilini and I spent all our time in working out how much of our losses we had won back. Old Speier’s fortune was now only reduced by half, a magnificent result which filled me with pride! Exactly what Nilini had predicted had now taken place. It was true that his original prophecy had been made in a very doubtful tone, but now this naturally vanished and he repeated it with the utmost confidence. I remembered that he had foreseen what actually happened, but also the exact opposite, so that it was impossible for him to be in the wrong; but I did not say so to him, for it was essential to me that he should work at the business with the whole energy of his ambition. I hoped that his will might influence the prices too.

We left the office at three, and set off at a run, for we had just remembered that the funeral was to take place at a quarter past three.

When we got to the top of the Volti di Chiozza, I saw the procession in the distance, and even thought I recognised a carriage which a friend had put at Ada’s disposal for the funeral. Nilini and I leapt into a cab and told the driver to follow in the procession. We went on talking about our speculations all the way. Our thoughts were so far from our dead friend that we even complained because the carriage went so slow. Who knows what might be happening on the Bourse, now that we were no longer there to keep an eye on it? Suddenly Nilini looked me straight in the face, an unusual thing for him, and asked me why I did not gamble at all on my own account. I blushed, I don’t quite know why.

“For the moment,” I said, “I am only working for my friend.”

Then, after pausing a moment, I added:

“I will think of myself later.” I wanted to encourage him in the hope that he might be able to induce me to gamble, simply because I was bent on keeping him friendly for the moment. But meanwhile I was saying to myself what I did not dare say to him: “I will never put myself in your hands!” He went on with his sermon:

“Who knows if you will ever have such an opportunity again,” he said. He forgot that he himself had taught me there were fresh opportunities on the Bourse every hour.

When we reached the place where the carriages generally stop, Nilini put his head out of the window and gave a cry of surprise. Our cab was still following the procession, which seemed to be going on to the Greek cemetery.

“Was Guido a Greek Catholic?” he asked in surprise. And the procession was, in fact, passing the Catholic cemetery and proceeding towards one of the others, Jewish, Greek, Protestant or Serbian.

“Can he have been a Protestant?” I wondered. But I at once remembered having gone to his marriage in the Catholic church.

“It must be a mistake!” I exclaimed, thinking for a moment that they were going to bury Guido in the wrong place.

Nilini suddenly burst out laughing, and laughed so unrestrainedly that he fell back helpless on the back of the seat, with his huge mouth wide open, seeming to fill the whole of his little face.

“We have made a mistake,” he said. When he at last succeeded in bridling his mirth, he overwhelmed me with reproaches. I ought to have noticed where we were going. Surely I must have known what time it was to be, and might have been expected to recognise the people. It was someone else’s funeral!

I was in a great state of irritation. I had not shared his mirth, and found his reproaches hard to bear. Why hadn’t he kept a better look-out himself? I suppressed my vexation simply because the Bourse was of more importance to me than the funeral. We got out of the carriage to see where we were, and made our way towards the entrance into the Catholic cemetery. Our carriage followed us. I noticed that the survivors of the other dead person looked at us with surprise, unable to explain to themselves why, after having accompanied him so far, we abandoned him at the very last moment.

Nilini went on ahead impatiently. He said to the porter, after a moment’s hesitation:

“Has Signor Guido Speier’s funeral procession arrived yet?”

The porter did not seem surprised by the question, though I thought it rather comic. He replied that he could not say. He only knew there had been two funerals in the cemetery during the last half-hour.

We took counsel together in our perplexity. There was evidently no means of discovering whether the funeral was already inside the cemetery or not. Then I made up my mind. It was obviously impossible for me to burst into the middle of the service which perhaps had already begun, and interrupt it. So I decided I would not enter the cemetery at all. On the other hand I could not risk meeting the procession on my way back. So I gave up all thought of taking part in the burial and decided to go back to the town, making a long detour beyond Servola. I left the carriage to Nilini, who wanted at least to put in an appearance, because he knew Ada.

I walked fast so as to avoid meeting anyone, and joined the country road leading to the village. I no longer minded having made a mistake about the funeral, and not having paid the final honours to poor Guido. I had no time to waste in religious practices. I had another duty to perform: I must save the honour of my friend and defend his inheritance for the sake of his widow and children. When I told Ada that I had succeeded in retrieving three-quarters of his losses (I ran through the whole account again in my mind: Guido had lost his father’s fortune twice over and now, after my intervention, that fortune was only reduced by half; so I really had recovered three-quarters of his losses), she would certainly forgive me for not being present at his funeral.

The weather had become glorious again. The air was soft and delicious, and the country-side, still wet from the recent rain, was bathed in brilliant sunshine. After being confined to the office for so many days, my lungs expanded and I found it delightful to exercise my limbs. I was full of health and strength. Health is all a matter of comparison. I compared myself with poor Guido, and rose victorious from the same battle in which he lay vanquished. Everything around me seemed to breathe out health and energy. Everywhere the young, green grass was springing; the catastrophic floods of a few days ago had sunk into the frozen earth, which now drank rapturously the sunrays it had waited for so long. Yet if that blue sky were to remain long without a cloud, it too would become hateful. It is only now as I write that I make this observation drawn from everyday experience; it did not strike me then. At that moment my soul was filled with joy: joy in my own well-being and in the perennial well-being of nature.

I quickened my steps. I rejoiced to feel myself so light and free. As I came down the hill into Servola I almost broke into a run. When I reached the promenade of Sant’ Andrea I slackened my pace again, but I still had a marvellous sense of ease. The air seemed to bear me along.

I had completely forgotten that I was coming from the funeral of my dearest friend. My whole being breathed victory. But my elation was a homage to my poor friend’s memory; it was for his sake that I had entered the lists.

I went to the office to look at the closing prices. They were a little slacker, but not enough to damp my assurance. I was determined to go on speculating, and did not doubt of attaining my end.

I was compelled at last to go to Ada’s house. Augusta came to open the door to me. She said at once:

“Whatever can have possessed you not to come to the funeral? and you, the only man in the family!”

I put down my hat and umbrella, and said, in some perplexity, that I should like to speak to Ada and her together, so as not to have to repeat myself. But meanwhile I could assure her that I had a very good reason for missing the funeral. I no longer felt quite so confident as before, and suddenly my side began to pain me again, perhaps because I was tired. It must have been that Augusta’s remark made me doubt the possibility of explaining my absence, which was naturally regarded as scandalous; in my mind’s eye I could see before me all who had taken part in that gloomy function distracted for a moment from their grief by the speculation as to where I could possibly be.

Ada never came. I heard later that she had not even been told I was waiting to see her. I was received by Signora Malfenti, who began speaking to me in a severe tone such as I had never known her to use before. I muttered some excuses, but I was very far from feeling as sure of myself as I had been during my rapid flight from the cemetery to the town. I stammered as I began to tell her a few half truths about what I had been doing in my attempt to rehabilitate Guido, and said that quite a short while before the hour of the funeral I had been obliged to wire some instructions to Paris, and had not felt I could leave the office till I received an answer. It was true that Nilini and I had been obliged to telegraph to Paris, but it had been two days ago, and we had also received the reply two days ago. But I realised that the truth was not a sufficient excuse, perhaps because it was impossible for me to tell it all, or to talk about what I regarded as my most important operation: my attempt to influence the world Exchanges by will-power. But Signora Malfenti forgave me when she heard the amount by which I had already reduced Guido’s losses. She thanked me with tears in her eyes. I again became not only the one man of the family, but the best one. She asked me to come with Augusta in the evening to see Ada. She would meanwhile tell her all about it. For the moment she was not in a condition to receive anyone. I went off only too gladly with my wife. She did not feel it necessary either, to say good-bye to Ada before leaving. The poor creature alternated between desperate floods of tears and such prostration that she was even unaware who was in the room.

A faint hope remained to me:

“So it was not Ada, then, who noticed my absence?”

Augusta confessed that she would rather have said nothing about it, for Ada’s anger at my failure to be at the funeral had passed all bounds. She had insisted on an explanation, and when Augusta was obliged to say she knew nothing about it, not having seen me herself, she gave way again to her despair, crying out that of course one must expect Guido to be treated like that when he was dead, because all the family hated him.

I did think Augusta might have spoken up for me, and reminded Ada that I was the only person who had offered to help Guido in the way he wanted. If they had listened to me he would have had no need to commit suicide, or even to pretend to.

But Augusta had said nothing. She had been so much moved by Ada’s despair that she feared it might seem an outrage to her grief to enter on a discussion. But she was sure that Signora Malfenti’s explanations would convince Ada how unjust she had been to me. I must say I thought so too, and looked forward in perfect confidence to witnessing her surprise and expressions of gratitude. Everything about her was excessive on account of Basedow’s disease.

I went back to the office, where I learned that there was again a slight upward movement, very slight as yet, but enough to warrant the hope that the shares would be up next day as high as they had been that morning.

After dinner I was obliged to go and see Ada alone; Augusta could not come with me because the baby was ill. Signora Malfenti received me, and said she was obliged to attend to something in the kitchen and must therefore leave me alone with Ada. She added that Ada had begged to be left alone with me, because she had something to say to me which no one else must hear. She led me into the little boudoir where I had twice before seen Ada alone, and before taking leave of me said laughing:

“You know she is not quite ready to forgive you yet for not being at Guido’s funeral, but--almost!”

My heart always beat faster in that little room. But this time it was not for fear of finding myself loved by someone I did not love. During the last few moments, and solely in consequence of what Signora Malfenti had said, I was conscious of having committed a serious breach of friendship towards poor Guido. I sat down and began studying the portraits of Guido’s parents. The old Señor wore a satisfied air which I felt he owed entirely to my intervention, while Guido’s mother, a thin woman in a dress with full sleeves, and a huge hat balanced precariously on mountains of hair, was very severe-looking. But then everyone puts on an unnatural face in front of the camera, and I looked away, feeling almost ashamed of myself for trying to read their character in those faces. The mother could certainly never have foreseen that I should not have attended her son’s funeral.

But the way in which Ada spoke to me came as an unpleasant surprise. She must have spent some time in preparing what she wanted to say, and she paid not the smallest heed to my explanations, protests or corrections, which she could not have foreseen. She galloped along like a frightened horse to the bitter end.

She was dressed very simply in a black boudoir gown. Her hair was in great disorder, as if she were continually running her fingers through it, in a kind of desperate need to find something for them to do. She came up to the table at which I was sitting, and rested her hands on it so as to see me better. Her face was quite thin again and had shed once more that uncanny fullness which grew all in the wrong place. She was no longer beautiful, as she had been when Guido won her for himself, but no one looking at her would have remembered her illness. There was no trace of that now, only a great sorrow which entirely transformed her. I could understand her immense grief so well that I was unable to speak. All the time I was looking at her I kept wondering what words I could think of to say to her, which should be equivalent to taking her in my arms and comforting her as a brother: then perhaps she might weep and ease her over-burdened heart. When she began to attack me I wanted to defend myself, but I did it too feebly, and she did not hear.

She went on talking, talking, talking: I cannot remember all she said. Unless I am mistaken she began by thanking me gravely but quite coldly for all I had done for her and her children. Then she suddenly began to reproach me:

“And yet you drove him to his death for something which was not worth the trouble!”

She lowered her voice as if she wanted to keep secret what she was saying to me, and there was more warmth in her tone of voice, due no doubt to her love for Guido, and perhaps also--or did I merely fancy it?--for me:

“I forgive you for not having come to his funeral. You were unable to do so, and I forgive you. He would have forgiven you too if he were alive. What good would you have done beside his grave? You, who never loved him! Kind as you are, you might have shed tears for me, you might have wept to see my tears, but you would have shed none for him. You hated him! Poor Zeno! My poor brother!”

It was monstrous that she should say a thing like that, which was such a parody of the truth. I protested, but she would not listen to me. I believe I must have screamed; anyway I had the sensation of doing so, in my throat:

“But it is all a mistake, a lie, a calumny. How can you possibly believe such a thing?”

She went on, still in a low voice:

“But I did not really love him either. I was never unfaithful to him, even in thought, but I felt for him so little that I had not even the strength to protect him. I watched your relationship with your wife, and I envied you both. I thought what you gave her was better than what he offered me. I am grateful to you for not having come to the funeral, for otherwise I might not even yet have understood anything. But now I see it all; I understand it all. No, I did not love him either; if I had, how could I have hated even his violin, which was the most perfect expression of his great soul?”

When she said this I rested my head on my hands and hid my face. The charges she brought against me were so unjust that it was impossible to discuss them; and their unreasonableness was so mitigated by the gentle, almost affectionate tone of her voice that I had not the heart to refute them sternly, as I must have done if I was to issue victorious from this duel. And then Augusta had set me an example of consideration, by keeping silence in the presence of such bitter grief. But when I closed my eyes I saw in the darkness that her words had created a new world, like all words which are not true. I seemed to see myself as having always hated Guido, as having stood by his side ever on the watch for an opportunity to strike him down. And then she had spoken of Guido and his violin together. If I had not known that she was almost beside herself from grief and remorse, I might have thought she had set up his violin as a part of Guido, in order to bring home to me my hatred of him.

Then in the darkness I saw again Guido’s dead body, still wearing that expression of astonishment on his face at finding himself lying there lifeless. I raised my head in horror. It was better to face Ada’s accusations, unjust as they were, than to go on looking into the dark.

But she still continued talking about Guido and me:

“Poor Zeno, you went on living with him without realising that you hated him. It was impossible! It had to end like this! There was a time when I was foolish enough to think I might use the love I knew you felt for me, to build up a defence for him who so much needed it. But he could only have been protected by someone who loved him and, between ourselves, he was loved by no one.”

“What more could I have done for him?” I asked. Hot tears fell from my eyes, to persuade her of my innocence, and to persuade myself. Tears sometimes take the place of loud argument. I was not even sure if I ought to speak at all; still less could I cry out and dispute loudly with her. But I had somehow to crush her assertions--so I wept.

“You might have saved him, dear brother. Between us we ought to have saved him, you and I. But I, though I was at his side, could not save him because I did not really love him; and you were never there; you were absent, always absent till he was actually in his grave. Then you appeared armed with a great love for him. Till then you gave no thought to him at all. Yet he was with you up to that last evening. And you might have guessed, if you had paid any attention to him at all, that something serious was going to happen.”

Tears prevented me from speaking, but I stammered out something to the effect that the night before he had spent amusing himself out shooting in the marshes, so that no one could possibly have foreseen in what way he would spend the following night.

“He had to have shooting, he had to have it!” She rebuked me in a loud voice. Then, as if all her strength had been spent in the effort of that one cry, she suddenly collapsed and fell in a faint on the floor.

For an instant I remember that I hesitated to summon Signora Malfenti. I thought her fainting might reveal the meaning of what she had been saying to me. The next moment I called for help.

Signora Malfenti and Alberta came hurrying in. Her mother bent over her, and said to me as she lifted her up:

“Has she been talking to you about those hateful speculations?” Then: “This is the second time she has fainted to-day.”

She asked me to go away for a moment, and I went out into the passage and waited there till I heard whether I was to go in again or go away. I prepared myself for further explanations with Ada. She was forgetting that if only they had done what I had suggested, the catastrophe would never have happened. It ought to be enough to remind her of this, in order to convince her of the wrong she was doing me.

Soon after Signora Malfenti joined me, and said that Ada had recovered and would like to say good-bye to me. She was lying on the sofa, where I had been sitting up to a few minutes ago. When she saw me she began to cry, and those were the first tears I saw her shed. She held out her hand to me, damp with perspiration, and said:

“Good-bye, Zeno dear! Please remember! I want you always to remember! Don’t ever forget!”

Signora Malfenti broke in to ask what it was I was always to remember, and I told her that Ada was anxious for an immediate settlement of Guido’s affairs on the Bourse. I blushed as I uttered this lie, and was afraid lest Ada might contradict me. But instead of that she burst out:

“Yes! yes! everything must be settled at once! I don’t ever want to hear that horrible place spoken of again!”

She had become very pale again, and to quiet her Signora Malfenti said that everything should be done at once as she wanted.

Then Signora Malfenti accompanied me to the door and begged me not to be over-hasty. I was to do whatever I thought best in Guido’s interests. But I answered that I had lost confidence in myself. The risks were enormous, and I could no longer venture to play with other people’s money in that way. I didn’t really believe in gambling on the Bourse, and I no longer believed in my power to influence the rise or fall of stocks. So I should make an immediate settlement, and be thankful that things had gone as well as they had.

I did not repeat to Augusta what Ada had said. Why should I distress her? But just because I told them to no one, those words continued to beat on my ears like a drum, and went on echoing for many years. Even to-day I often find myself brooding over them. I can hardly say that I loved Guido, but only because he was such a strange man. And I stood by him as if he had been my brother, and helped him in every way I could. No, I don’t deserve Ada’s reproof.

I was never alone with her again. She did not feel the need to say anything more to me, and I never demanded an explanation, perhaps because I did not want to intensify her grief.

On the Bourse things turned out as I had foreseen, and Guido’s father, after hearing in one cable that he had lost the whole of his fortune, was naturally pleased to find that half of it still remained intact. Unfortunately I did not get the pleasure I expected from my handiwork.

Ada behaved affectionately to me up to the time when she set off to Buenos Aires with her children to join her husband’s family. She always liked to see Augusta and me. I sometimes tried to believe that her speech had been due to a sudden mad outburst of grief and that she did not even remember it. But once when she talked of Guido before us she repeated and confirmed in two words everything she had said that day:

“No one loved him, poor darling!”

Just as she went on board the boat, she kissed me. (She was carrying one of the children who was not very well.) Then, at a moment when no one was by, she said to me:

“Good-bye, Zeno, my brother. I shall always remember that I did not love him enough. I want you to know this. I leave my country gladly, for I feel as if I were leaving my pangs of conscience behind.”

I reproached her for tormenting herself like that, saying she had been a good wife, and that I knew all about it and could bear witness to it. I don’t know if I succeeded in convincing her. She said no more, her sobs overcame her. But long afterwards it seemed to me that in taking leave of me like that she had wanted to renew her attack on me. But I know that she judged me unfairly. I certainly have no need to reproach myself with not having loved Guido.

It was a gloomy, miserable day. One innocent-looking cloud seemed to be spreading over and darkening the whole sky. A great cargo boat, with its sails hanging inert from the masts, was being rowed out of the harbour. Only two men were at the oars, and row as they might they scarcely succeeded in stirring the great ship. Perhaps out at sea they would find a slight breeze to help them.

From the deck of her steamer Ada waved good-bye to us with her handkerchief. Then she turned away. Her last look must be for Saint Anna where Guido was buried. Her slender little figure took on a fresh grace as she was carried away from us. The tears blinded my eyes. She was leaving us for ever. Never again should I be able to prove to her that I was innocent.

PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

_May 3, 1915._

I have finished with psycho-analysis. After practising it assiduously for six whole months I find I am worse than before. I have not yet told the doctor, but nothing will make me change my mind. Yesterday I sent to say that I was prevented from coming, and I shall let him expect me for a few days. If I could be sure of laughing at him without getting into a rage, I should not mind seeing him again. But I am afraid I should end by assaulting him.

Since war broke out, this town has become more tedious than usual, and to fill up the time which I used to give to my treatment, I have returned to my beloved notebooks. I had not written a word for a year, obeying the doctor in this as in everything else; for he asserted that during the cure I must not examine myself except in his presence, as any self-examination which was not controlled by him would only strengthen my resistances, and prevent my being able to give myself up completely. But now I am more unbalanced and in worse health than ever, and I think that writing may help to work off the mischief that the treatment has done me. Anyway I am certain that this is the only way to give prominence to a past which it is no longer painful for me to dwell on, and to banish the hateful present as quickly as possible.

I had abandoned myself to the doctor with such entire confidence that when he told me I was cured I believed him absolutely, and gave no credence to the pains which still continued to torment me. I said to them: “You are not really there!” But now I can doubt no longer. They really are there. The bones in my legs have turned into sharp fish-bones which wound my muscles and my flesh.

But I should not mind that so much: that is not the reason I am giving up the cure. If, during the hours of self-examination which I spent with the doctor, I had continued to make new discoveries and to experience fresh sensations, I would never have given it up, or at least I would have waited till the end of the war which puts a stop to all my other activities. But now that I have seen through it, and know that it is nothing but a stupid illusion, a foolish trick which might take in an hysterical old woman, how can I any longer endure to be in the company of that ridiculous man, with his would-be penetrating eye, and the intolerable conceit which allows him to group all the phenomena in the world round his grand new theory? I am going to employ my free time in writing as I please. And, to begin with, I shall write the story of my cure. All sincerity had disappeared between me and the doctor; now I breathe again. I am no longer under constraint. I have no longer got to try to believe, nor to pretend to believe if I don’t. I forced myself to be cringingly subservient to him just in order to hide what I was really thinking, and that encouraged him to invent some fresh monstrosity every day. I ought to be cured, for they have found out what was the matter with me. The diagnosis is exactly the same as the one which Sophocles drew up long ago for poor Œdipus: I was in love with my mother and wanted to murder my father.

I did not even get angry. I listened enraptured. It was a disease which exalted me to a place among the great ones of the earth; a disease so dignified that it could trace back its pedigree even to the mythological age! And I don’t feel angry, even now that I sit here alone, pen in hand. I can laugh at it whole-heartedly. The surest proof that I never had the disease is that I have not been cured of it. This proof should surely convince the doctor himself. He need not worry; his words have not been able to spoil the memories of my youth. I have but to close my eyes and immediately there rises up before me my love for my mother, and the great respect and affection I felt for my father.

And then the doctor attaches too much importance to those confessions of mine, which he refuses to give back so that I may look at them again. My God! He has only studied medicine, and so he has no idea what writing in Italian means to us who talk dialect but cannot express ourselves in writing. A written confession is always mendacious. We lie with every word we speak in the Tuscan tongue! If only he knew how we tend to talk about things for which we have the words all ready, and how we avoid subjects which would oblige us to look up words in the dictionary! That is the principle which guided me when it came to putting down certain episodes in my life. Naturally it would take on quite a different aspect if I told it in our own dialect.

The doctor confessed to me that during the whole of his long practice he had never met with such violent emotion as I displayed before the images which he believed himself to have suggested to me. That was why he was in such a hurry to say I was cured.

And I did not simulate that emotion; it was really one of the strongest I have ever felt in my life. I was bathed in perspiration whilst creating the images, and in tears when I recognised them. The idea of being able to live again one day of innocence and inexperience gave me inexpressible delight. It supported me and gave me courage for months and months beforehand. Was it not like the miracle of plucking in October the roses of May? The doctor himself assured me that the image in my memory would be clear and complete, so that it would be another day added to my life. The roses would have all their fragrance, even perhaps their thorns.

And by dint of pursuing these memory-pictures, I at last really overtook them. I know now that I invented them. But invention is a creative act, not merely a lie. My inventions were like the phantasies of fever, which walk about the room so that one can survey them from all sides and even touch them. They had the solidity, the colour and the movement of living things. My desire created these images. They existed only in my brain and in the space into which I projected them; I felt the air, I saw the light that was in this space, and even its hard corners, just as in any other space that I have ever walked through.

When I fell into that dream-state which was to aid in creating the illusion, and which was probably only a mingling of great energy with extreme inertia, I thought my dream-pictures really were an actual reproduction of the past. I might have suspected at once that they were not, because directly they had vanished my memory of them was free from any excitement or agitation. I remembered them as one remembers an event one has been told by somebody who was not present at it. If they had been actual reproductions, they would have continued to move my tears or laughter as they had done when I first saw them. The doctor noted everything down. He said:

“We have had this, we have had that,” though we had really had nothing but graphic signs, mere skeletons of images.

I was persuaded into the belief that it was really my childhood I was evoking, because the first picture placed me in a relatively recent epoch, of which I still retained a pale memory that the image seemed to confirm. There was one year in my life during which I was already going to school, while my brother had not yet begun; and the hour I evoked seemed to belong to that year. I saw myself coming out of the house one sunny morning in spring, and walking through the garden on the way down to the town, on and on, with my hand in that of our old servant Catina. My brother did not appear at all in this dream-scene, but he was the hero of it. I thought of him so happy and free at home, while I had to go to school. I went there with a dragging step, and with anger in my heart, and felt as if I wanted to cry. I only saw one of those walks to school, but the bitterness in my heart told me that I should have to go to school every day, and that every day my brother would stay at home--for ever and ever. Whereas actually I believe that my brother, who was only a year younger than me, soon after went to school too. But at that moment the truth of my dream seemed to me indisputable. I was condemned eternally to go to school, while my brother was allowed to stay at home. As I trotted along beside Catina I counted up how long my torture would last: Till midday! While _he_ is at home! And I remembered that on other days, whenever I had been scolded at school, or threatened with punishment, I had always thought, “They can’t touch him.” It was an extraordinarily realistic vision. Catina, whom I knew to have been short, seemed to me tall on that occasion, because I was so little. She had always seemed immensely old; but then children always think grown-up people are old. On the way to school I also saw in my dream the curious little columns that used, at that time, to border the pavements in our town. I was born early enough to have seen those little columns even when I was quite grown up, in the centre of the town, before they were removed. But in the street I walked along that day with Catina there were none left almost before I had outgrown my childhood.

My faith in the authenticity of these images was not shattered even when, stimulated by the dream, my sober memory began to evoke other details of that period; of which the chief was that my brother envied me too, because I went to school. I was sure that I had been conscious of this, but it was not at first enough to throw suspicion on the truth of my dream. Later on it deprived it of every vestige of truth; there certainly had been jealousy, but in my dream it had got attached to the wrong person.

My second vision carried me back also to a comparatively recent date, though earlier than the first. I saw a room in our house, but I don’t know which, for it was larger than any that is there in reality. The curious thing is that I saw myself shut up in that room, and was at once aware of a fact which the vision alone could not have revealed to me: the room was a long way off from another room in which my mother and Catina used to sit. Also I had not yet begun going to school.

The room was quite white, indeed I had never seen such a white room, nor one so entirely flooded with sunlight. Could it be that the sun was really shining through the walls? It must have been high in the sky, but I was still in bed with a cup in my hand from which I had drunk up all the _caffelatte_; I was going round and round the empty cup with my spoon, trying to get out the sugar. There came a point when I could not get any more out with the spoon, and then I tried to reach the bottom of the cup with my tongue. But I was unsuccessful. I ended by sitting with the cup in one hand and the spoon in the other, watching my brother who was in a bed next to mine, still busy drinking his _caffelatte_, with his nose buried in the cup. When he at last raised his head I saw his face all wrinkled up in the sun, which shone full on it, while mine, for some reason or other, was in the shade. His face was pale and slightly disfigured by a protruding jaw. He said:

“Will you lend me your spoon?”

Then I noticed for the first time that Catina had forgotten to give him a spoon. I replied without the slightest hesitation:

“Yes, if you will give me a piece of your sugar in return.”

I held my spoon up, to enhance its value. But at once I heard Catina’s voice in the room, saying:

“For shame! You little Jew!”

Fright and shame brought me back with a start to the present. I should have liked to argue with Catina, but she, my brother and I--that tiny, innocent little Jew--plunged together into the abyss and disappeared.

I was sorry to have felt so much ashamed as to have destroyed the image I had built up so laboriously. It would have been much better if I had quietly given my brother the spoon gratis, and not tried to discuss that bad action which was probably the first I had ever committed. Perhaps Catina would have called in my mother to punish me, and so I should have seen her again at last.

I did see her a few days later, or imagined that I did. I ought to have realised at once that it was an illusion, for the image of my mother, as I had evoked it, bore too much resemblance to the portrait I have over my bed. But I must confess that in that vision of her my mother behaved like a living person.

The sun! the sun! dazzling sunlight! From the picture of what I thought to be my youth, so much sun streamed out that it was hard for me not to believe in it. Our dining-room in the afternoon. My father has come home and is sitting on the sofa beside my mother, who is printing initials in indelible ink on a lot of white linen scattered all over the table at which she is sitting.

I am under the table playing with some marbles. I move nearer and nearer to mamma. I probably want her to join in my game. Suddenly I seize hold of the linen which is hanging down from the table, in order to pull myself up by it; and now a disaster happens. The bottle of ink falls on my head, soaking my face and my clothes and mamma’s skirt, and leaving a slight stain on papa’s trousers. My father lifts his leg to give me a kick....

But I got back in time from my long voyage and found myself safely here, grown-up and old. I must confess that the threatened punishment positively hurt me, and immediately afterwards I felt sorry to think that I had not been there to see mamma’s protecting gesture, which I know must have followed. But who can stop those pictures, once they have taken flight through time, which never before had seemed so much like space? At least I thought so while I still believed in the authenticity of the pictures. Now alas, to my sorrow I believe in them no longer, and know that it was not the pictures which fled, but my eyes from which a veil was lifted, so that they looked out again on real space where there is no room for spirits.

I will describe some visions which came to me another day, and which the doctor regarded as so important that he declared I was cured.

In the state between sleep and waking into which I had sunk I had a dream that was fixed and unmoving as a nightmare. I dreamt of myself as a tiny child, only to see what a baby’s dreams are like. As it lay there, its whole small being was filled with joy. Yet it was lying there quite alone. But it could see and feel with a clearness with which in dreams one sometimes perceives quite distant objects. The baby, who was lying in a room in my house, saw, God knows how, that on the roof there was a cage, built on solid foundations, without doors or windows, but filled with a gentle light, and pure, perfumed air. And the child knew that he alone could reach that cage, and that he need not move to get there, for the cage would come to him. In it was only one piece of furniture, an arm-chair on which was seated a beautiful woman, perfect in shape and dressed in black. She had fair hair, great blue eyes and exquisitely white hands; she wore patent leather shoes on her feet, which shed a faint reflexion from under her skirt. She seemed to me to be one indivisible whole in her black dress and patent leather shoes. It was all part of her. And the child dreamed of possessing that woman, but in the strangest manner; he was convinced that he would be able to eat little bits off her at the top and the bottom!

Looking back on it now I am surprised that the doctor who professed to have read my manuscript so attentively, was not reminded of another dream I had had before going to see Carla for the first time. When I thought of it some time later, the dream I have described seemed to me exactly the same, with slight variations which made it more childish.

But the doctor took everything carefully down, and then said with a rather sly air:

“Was your mother fair and good-looking?”

This question surprised me, and I replied that so was my grandmother too. But from his point of view I was completely cured. I opened my mouth wide to rejoice in his rejoicings, and listened meekly to his prescription: no more self-examination, no more analysis, no more meditation on the past, but a thorough and gradual re-education.

From thence onwards those sittings became a torture to me, and I went on with them only because I have always found it as difficult to stop once I am in motion, as to start when I am at rest. Occasionally, when he said something altogether too wide of the mark, I ventured mildly to object. It was by no means true, as he assumed, that every word and every thought of mine were criminal. That made him stare. I was cured, and I refused to admit it. It was sheer blindness! He had shown me that I had wanted to carry off my father’s wife--my mother!--and I would not allow that I was cured. It was unheard-of obstinacy. However the doctor admitted that I should be more completely cured when I had finished my re-education, and had accustomed myself to look on such things as the desire to kill my father and possess my mother as the most innocent things in the world, for which one need feel no remorse, since they often cropped up in the best families. After all, what harm could it do me? One day he told me I was like someone recovering from an illness who has not yet got accustomed to doing without fever. Only have patience! I should get used to it in time.

He felt that he had not won me completely, and besides re-educating me he went back to the cure from time to time. He tried me with dreams again, but I had no more authentic ones. Tired at last of waiting, I ended by inventing one. I should never have done it if I could have foreseen the difficulties attending my invention. It is not easy to stammer a few words as if one were half-asleep, to be covered with perspiration or grow pale, without betraying oneself; to go crimson from the effort one has made, and not to blush! I talked as if I were seeing the woman in the cage again, and as if I had persuaded her to put one of her feet through a hole which had suddenly appeared in the wall of her cell, so that I might suck it and eat it. “The left one, the left one!” I murmured, adding a singular detail which should make it more like the dreams that had gone before. I thereby showed that I had grasped perfectly the disease which the doctor insisted on my having. The infant Œdipus was just like that; he sucked his mother’s left foot, leaving the right one to the father! In the imaginative effort I made to deceive the doctor I almost succeeded (and this is no contradiction) in deceiving myself too, so that I could actually taste that foot. It made me feel quite sick.

The doctor could not have been more eager than I was myself, that I should continue to see those pictures of my childhood, whether genuine or not, which had come to me spontaneously, without my needing to invent them. As they would no longer come when I was with the doctor, I tried to evoke them away from him. There was a danger of my forgetting them, as I was by myself, but then I was not hoping to be cured by them! I wanted to see once more in December the roses of May. I had seen them once; why should they not come again?

I found solitude sufficiently boring, but at last something came which for a while took the place of my visions. I thought I had made an important scientific discovery. I suddenly felt called to complete the physiological theory of colour. My predecessors, Goethe and Schopenhauer, had never dreamed how far one might go simply by a skilful arrangement of the complementary colours.

I must tell you that I spent my time in my study, lying on a sofa facing the window, from which I could see a stretch of the sea, and the horizon. One evening, when the sun was setting and the sky was broken by clouds, I lay there a long while watching a white cloud take on a marvellous shade of pure tender green. The clouds in the west were fringed with red, but a pale red, bleached by the white rays of the sun shining directly upon it. The light dazzled me, and after a while I closed my eyes. Then it was clear to me that all my attention and love had been given to that shade of green, for its complementary colour was produced on my retina, a brilliant red which had nothing to do with the luminous, but pale red of the sky. I gazed in enchantment at the colour which I had myself brought into being. My great surprise came when I opened my eyes again, for then I saw that flaming red spread over the whole sky and cover up my emerald green, so that for some time I was unable to see it. So I had actually found a way of painting nature! I naturally repeated the experiment several times. The strange part was that I had actually endowed the colours with movement. When I opened my eyes again, the sky would not at once take on the colour from my retina. There was a moment’s hesitation during which I could just detect the emerald green from which the red had sprung, and which seemed to have been destroyed by it. It emerged now from within and spread in all directions like a giant conflagration.

When I had convinced myself of the accuracy of my observations, I carried them to the doctor, hoping to animate our tiresome sittings a little. The doctor polished me off by saying that my retina had become ultra-sensitive from so much nicotine. It was on the tip of my tongue to reply that in that case the visions which we had regarded as a reproduction of events of my childhood might also have been due to the same poison. But that would have betrayed the fact that I was not yet cured, and he would have tried to induce me to begin again from the beginning.

But the idiot did not always treat me as if I was poisoned. That is evident from the method of re-education adopted by him to cure me from what he called my smoking-disease. This is what he said: smoking did not hurt me at all, and if I only could persuade myself that it was harmless it would really become so. Then he went on to say that now that my relations with my father had been brought to light and judged by my adult consciousness, I should be able to see that I had adopted that vice merely in order to compete with my father, and had attributed a poisonous effect to tobacco because of my secret conviction that he would punish me for attempting to compete with him.

I left the doctor’s house that day smoking like a Turk. He wanted to make an experiment, and I lent myself to it with enthusiasm. I smoked without ceasing, all day long. This was followed by a sleepless night. My chronic bronchitis had broken out again, of that there could be no doubt; the spittoon bore witness.

Next day I told the doctor I had smoked a great deal and that it no longer did me any harm. He regarded me with a complacent smile and I could guess from his expression how proud he felt of himself. He proceeded with my re-education in quiet confidence, and the certainty that every sod he stepped on would eventually bear fruit.

I remember very little of that re-education. I submitted to it, and every time I left his room, shook myself like a dog coming out of the water. Like the dog I remained wet, but was never drenched.

But I remember my indignation on hearing my tutor state that Dr. Coprossich was right in addressing to me the words that had so roused my indignation. Was it true then that I deserved the blow which my father aimed at me just before he died? I don’t know if that was one of the things he said, but I distinctly remember him saying that I hated old Malfenti, whom I had substituted for my father. There are so many people who think it impossible to live in the world without a certain amount of affection; but I, according to him, was quite lost without a modicum of hatred. I wanted to marry one or other of his daughters, it did not matter which, because all I needed was to see their father in a position where I could reach him with my hatred. I did my best to dishonour the family I had married into, so far as it lay in my power; I was unfaithful to my wife, and, if I had been able, it was clear that I would have seduced Ada and Alberta. Of course I am not attempting to deny this, and it even made me laugh when the doctor, in saying it, put on an air of Christopher Columbus discovering America. All the same I think he must be the only person in the world who, hearing that I wanted to go to bed with two lovely women, must rack his brain to try and find a reason for it!

I found it still more difficult to bear what he felt it necessary to say about my relations with Guido. He had heard from my own account how much I disliked Guido on first making his acquaintance. According to him I never ceased to do so, and Ada was quite right in regarding my absence from his funeral as a final manifestation of my dislike. He quite forgot that I was at that very moment engaged in my labour of love to save Ada’s fortune, and I did not deign to remind him of it.

Apparently the doctor had made some inquiries about Guido on his own account. He insisted that as Ada had chosen him it was impossible he should have been what I had described. He discovered that an enormous timber-yard, quite close to the house where he practised his psycho-analysis, had belonged to the firm of Guido Speier & Co. Why had I never mentioned it?

If I had mentioned it, it would have added a fresh complication to my already very difficult statement. The fact that I omitted it is only another proof that no confession made by me in Italian could ever be complete or sincere. There are a vast number of different kinds of wood, which in Trieste we call by various barbaric names, taken from our own dialect, from Croatian, from German, and sometimes even from French (_zapin_ for instance, which does not with us only mean _sapin_). Who would have provided me with the necessary vocabulary? Was I, at my age, to enter the employ of a Tuscan timber-merchant? Besides, that timber-yard belonging to the firm of Guido Speier & Co. showed no profits whatever. And then there was nothing for me to say about it, because it was always in a stagnant condition, except when thieves came and made the wood with barbaric names fly through the air as if it was destined to be made into tables for experiments in psychic research.

I suggested to the doctor that he might get some information about Guido from my wife, from Carmen and also from Luciano who has now become a respected merchant. I know for a fact that he did not apply to any of them, and can only suppose that he abstained from fear that his whole edifice of false charges and suspicions would crumble, when confronted with the facts. I wonder why he took such a violent dislike to me. He is probably also a hysteric, who avenges himself for having lusted after his mother, by tormenting innocent people.

In the end I felt quite worn out by this incessant duel with the doctor whom I was paying. I don’t think those dreams were very good for me, and the freedom to smoke when I liked gave me my final _coup de grâce_. I had a happy idea: I paid a visit to Dr. Paoli.

I had not seen him for a good many years. He had grown rather grey, but his spare figure was as upright as ever, and he had not put on any fat. He still looked at things with a caressing air. I suddenly realised why he always makes that impression. I think it is that he enjoys observing things, and he observes the beautiful and the ugly with the same satisfaction with which he might caress someone he loved.

I went to him with the intention of asking him whether he thought I ought to go on with psycho-analysis. But when I found his cold, penetrating gaze fixed on me, my courage failed. Perhaps he would think I was merely making a fool of myself, at my age, to be taken in by such quackery. I hated keeping silent about it; it is true that it would have simplified my position very much if Dr. Paoli had forbidden me to go on with psycho-analysis, but I could not long have endured being caressed by those great eyes of his.

I told him of my insomnia, my chronic bronchitis, the eruptions on my face which were tormenting me just then; of the sharp stabbing pains in my legs, and finally of my inexplicable lapses of memory.

Paoli analysed my urine in my presence. The mixture turned black and Paoli looked grave. At last I was going to have a true analysis after all this psycho-analysis. I felt quite touched as I remembered the time, now long past, when I was myself a chemist and made true analyses; I thought fondly of retorts and re-agents. The element which is being analysed sleeps till it is summoned imperiously to life by the re-agent. There is no resistance in the retort, at least it yields to the smallest rise in temperature, and shamming is out of the question. Nothing took place in that retort to remind me of my behaviour with Dr. S., when, to please him, I invented fresh details of my childhood in order to conform to Sophocles’ diagnosis. Here was only the truth. The thing which had to be analysed was imprisoned in the phial and, incapable of being false to itself, awaited the re-agent. When that came it always responded in the same way. In psycho-analysis, on the other hand, neither the same images nor the same words ever repeat themselves. It ought to be called by another name: psychical adventure, perhaps. Yes, that is just what it is. When one starts such an analysis, it is like entering a wood, not knowing whether one is going to meet a brigand or a friend. Nor is one quite sure which it has been, after the adventure is over. In this respect psycho-analysis resembles spiritualism.

But Paoli did not think that sugar was the trouble. He wanted to see me again next day, after he had polarised the liquid.

I meanwhile went off triumphant, sure that I had got diabetes. I was tempted to go at once to Dr. S. and ask him how he would propose to analyse the psychical causes of that disease in order to cure it. But I had had enough of that individual and felt I could not bear to see him again, even to poke fun at him.

I must confess that the thought of diabetes was very sweet to me. I spoke of it to Augusta, who listened to me with tears in her eyes.

“You have talked so much about diseases all your life,” she said, “that you were bound to end by having one.” Then she tried to console me.

But I loved my disease. I thought with sympathy of poor Copler who preferred real diseases to imaginary ones. I agreed with him now. A real disease was so simple; you had only to let it work its will. And, in fact, when I looked up the description of my sweet sickness in a medical prescriber, I found a whole programme of life (not of death!) drawn up for the various stages of the disease. Farewell resolutions! Henceforth I should be free of them. Everything would pursue its own course now, without any intervention.

I further discovered that my disease was always, or almost always, very agreeable. The invalid eats and drinks a great deal, and suffers very little so long as he is careful to avoid getting abscesses. Then he sinks into a delightful state of coma and dies.

It was not long before I was called to the telephone by Paoli. He said he could find no trace of sugar. I went to see him next day, and he ordered me a diet which I only kept to for a few days, and a medicine illegibly scribbled on a prescription, which did me good for a whole month.

“That diabetes gave you a fright, I know!” he said smiling.

I denied this, but did not tell him that I felt very lonely now that I was deserted by my diabetes. He would never have believed me.

It was about this time that Dr. Beard’s famous work on neurasthenia fell into my hands. I followed his advice and changed my medicine every week, according to the prescriptions which I copied clearly out of his book. For a few months I thought the treatment was doing me good. Not even Copler, in the whole course of his life, could have had such consolation from drugs as I had then. My faith in them evaporated by degrees, but I had had a certain respite from psycho-analysis, and kept putting off my return from day to day.

One day I met Dr. S. by chance. He asked if I had decided to give up treatment. He was most polite, much more so than when he had had me in his clutches. He was evidently anxious to get hold of me again. I told him I had a great deal of business to attend to, family affairs which took up all my time and attention, but that directly I had settled them and had some time to myself again, I should return to him. I wanted to ask him to give me back my manuscript, but I did not dare; it would have been as good as confessing that I wanted to have nothing more to do with his treatment. I decided to put off asking him till another time, when he should have realised that I had given up all idea of returning to him, and become reconciled to it.

Before we parted, he said a few words with the obvious intention of drawing me again into his net.

“If you examine your state of mind,” he said, “you will find a great change in it. You’ll see that you will want to come back to me of yourself, when you realise how much good I did you in a comparatively short space of time.”

What I really think is that, with his help and by dint of studying my psyche, I only infected myself with new diseases.

My one thought now is how to recover from his treatment. I avoid dreams and memories, which produced such a state of confusion in my poor head that it is hardly sure yet whether or not it is firmly fixed between my shoulders. I am terribly absent-minded. Whilst I am talking to someone I am all the time trying to remember what it was I said or did a little while ago, and have quite forgotten. Or it may be a thought I am trying to recapture, which I feel to be of enormous importance, as much importance as those thoughts my father had a short while before he died, and which he likewise failed to remember.

I must put a stop to all this folly, unless I want to end in a lunatic asylum.

_May 15, 1915._

We have been spending the two feast-days in our villa at Lucinico. My son Alfio is recovering from influenza, and is to stay on for several weeks with his sister. We shall come back here for Whitsun.

I have succeeded at last in getting back again to my former good resolutions, and I have given up smoking. I feel much better already, since renouncing the liberty which that fool of a doctor forced on me. To-day we have reached the middle of the month, and I am struck by the obstacles which our calendar places in the way of carrying out a straightforward, well-ordered resolution. All the months are a different length. In order to demonstrate my resolution properly I ought to stop smoking at the same time that something else comes to an end--the month, for instance. But except for July and August, December and January, there are no two successive months which have an equal number of days. Time is really very ill-ordered!

In order to be able to concentrate better, I spent the afternoon of the second day alone, on the banks of the Isonzo. Nothing helps one to concentrate so well as gazing for a long time at running water. One remains perfectly still oneself and all the necessary diversion is provided by the water, which is never the same for a single instant, either in colour or design.

It was a wonderful day. A strong wind must have been blowing in the upper air, for the clouds were continually changing shape, but down below there was no movement in the atmosphere. From time to time the sun, which already gave some warmth, found a gap in the swiftly moving clouds and streamed through, flooding with light some expanse of upland or some mountain peak, and lifting the tender May green out of the shadow which covered all the landscape. The air was warm, and there was something spring-like even in that flight of clouds across the sky. There could be no doubt the weather too was convalescent!

In my contemplative mood I enjoyed one of those moments which niggard life so rarely grants, when one ceases to feel oneself a victim, and can take a large, impersonal view of things. In the midst of all that green, so exquisitely radiant under the fitful sunrays, I was able to smile at life and at my malady. Women played a great part in both. Even the details of a woman’s body--her feet, her waist, her mouth--were enough to fill my days. And as I looked back over my life and my malady, I felt that I loved and understood them both. How much better my life had been than that of the so-called normal healthy man who, except at certain moments, beats or would like to beat his mistress every day. But I had always been accompanied by love. Even when I was not thinking of my mistress, I still thought of her in the sense that I craved her forgiveness for thinking of other women as well. Other men leave their mistresses disillusioned and despairing of life. I have never known life without desire, and illusions sprang up afresh for me after every shipwreck of my hopes, for I was always dreaming of limbs, of gestures, of a voice more perfect still.

I remembered that among the many lies I had imposed on that profound observer, Dr. S., one was that I had never betrayed my wife after Ada went away. He built up a whole theory on that lie. But on the river-bank I suddenly realised with horror that for some days past, perhaps since I had given up treatment, I had not run after any woman except my wife. Was I really cured then, as Dr. S. pretended? I am getting old and it is some time now since women ceased to take any interest in me. If I were to lose interest in them, there would be an end to all relationship between us.

If such a doubt had assailed me in Trieste I should at once have known how to solve it. Here it was a little more difficult.

A few days before I had had in my hands the memoirs of Da Ponte, an adventurer who was contemporary with Casanova. He too must certainly have passed through Lucinico, and I dreamed of meeting one of his powdered ladies, with her limbs hidden by a crinoline. Good Lord! How did those women manage to give themselves so quickly and so often, cased as they were in all those clothes?

I found the thought of a crinoline sufficiently exciting, in spite of my cure. But it was rather an artificial desire which it aroused, and it did not suffice to reassure me.

The proof I was in search of came to me soon after, and certainly reassured me, though I paid dearly for it. In order to obtain it I spoilt and destroyed the purest relationship I have ever had in my life.

I happened to meet Teresina, the eldest daughter of a peasant who had settled on a plot of ground near to my villa. Her mother had died two years before, and the large family of small brothers and sisters had found a second mother in Teresina, a robust girl who rose early to begin work, and went to bed directly the day’s work was over, to rest before beginning again. That day she was leading the donkey which was generally entrusted to her young brother, and she was walking beside the cart laden with new hay, because so small a beast would not have been able to carry the girl’s weight as well, going up the hill.

A year ago Teresina had seemed to me quite a child, and I had felt nothing but a fatherly affection for her. Only the day before, when I had seen her again for the first time, although I noticed that she had grown, that her sunburnt face had become more serious, and her slender shoulders had widened out above the swelling curve of her breasts, her undeveloped, hard-worked little body made me look on her still as a mere child, in whom I could only admire her extraordinary activity and the maternal instinct which she lavished on her little brothers and sisters. If it had not been for that odious cure, and the necessity of verifying on the spot exactly what stage my malady had reached, I should have left Lucinico this time too, without troubling her perfect innocence.

She wore no crinoline, and her round, smiling little face was innocent of powder. She was barefooted and I could see half-way up her naked leg. Neither her face, feet nor legs sufficed to kindle my desire. Her face and such limbs as I could see were all the same colour; they belonged to the open air, and there was no harm in their being abandoned thus to the air. Perhaps that was why they failed to excite me. But I was shocked to find myself so cold. Could it be that after my cure I needed a crinoline to stimulate my imagination?

I began by stroking the donkey, which was thus obliged to take a few minutes’ rest. Then I turned my attention to Teresina, and put in her hand no less than ten kronen. It was my first attempt on her virtue! Last year I had given her and her brothers _centesimi_ only, as an expression of my fatherly affection for them. But everyone knows that fatherly affection is quite a different thing. Teresina was dumbfounded by such a magnificent gift. She carefully lifted her skirt to put the precious piece of paper away in her pocket, and as she did so I caught a glimpse of her leg above the knee, but that was just as sunburnt and chaste.

I returned to the donkey and kissed it on the head. My display of affection aroused its own. It stretched out its neck and emitted that impressive cry of love which I have always listened to with respect. How far-reaching it is, and how significant, with that first cry which it utters again and again like an invocation, growing feebler and feebler till it ends in a despairing sob. But to listen to it at such close quarters was positively painful.

Teresina laughed, and her laughter encouraged me. I turned again to her and seized her suddenly by the forearm, moving slowly up it with my hand towards the shoulder, and studying my sensations the while. Thank Heaven I was not cured yet! I had stopped the treatment just in time.

But Teresina urged on the donkey with a stick. She evidently intended to go on and leave me behind.

I could not help laughing heartily; I felt very happy, even if the peasant girl would have none of me. I said:

“Have you a lover? You ought to have. It would be a pity if you hadn’t got one yet.”

She answered, as she continued to move away from me:

“When I take one, he will certainly be younger than you!”

Even this could not obscure my happiness. I should have liked to read Teresina a little lesson, and turned over in my mind that episode in Boccaccio--“Maestro Alberto of Bologna virtuously shames a lady who would have shamed him for falling in love with her.” But Maestro Alberto’s reasoning took no effect, for Madonna Malgherida de’ Ghisolieri said to him: “Your love is precious to me, as that of a wise and valiant man must always be, and therefore, _saving my honour_, impose your will on me, as on all things that are yours.”

I tried to improve on this:

“When will you begin to look at old men, Teresina?” I shouted, so that she might hear me--for she was already some way off.

“When I am old too,” she shouted back without even stopping, and burst out laughing.

“But the old men won’t look at you then. You mark my words! I know them!”

I shouted at the top of my voice, enjoying a joke which was directly inspired by my sex.

At that moment the clouds opened at various points in the sky and let some sunrays through, which fell straight on Teresina, who was now about fifty yards away and more than thirty feet above me. She was dark and small, but shining!

The sun did not shine on me! When you are old, you have to stay in the shade, however witty you may be.

The war has reached me at last! I used to listen to stories of the war as if it were a war in times gone by, which it was amusing to talk about, but about which it would be foolish to excite oneself; when, to my astonishment, I found myself right in the middle of it, and was surprised then to think I had not realised that I must sooner or later become involved. I had lived quite peacefully in a building of which the ground-floor had caught fire, and it had never occurred to me that sooner or later the whole building, with me in it, would go up in flames.

The war took hold of me, shook me out like a rag, and robbed me at one blow of all my family, including my steward. From one day to the next I became a completely new man or, to be more exact, every one of my twenty-four hours was different. Since yesterday I have felt a little calmer, for after waiting a whole month I have at last had news of my family. They are safe and sound at Turin, while I had already lost all hope of ever seeing them again.

I have to spend the whole day in my office. There is nothing for me to do there, but the Olivis, who are Italian citizens, have had to go, and all the best of my employees have gone off to fight in one place or another; so I must stick to my post and superintend it all. I go home in the evening laden with the huge warehouse keys. To-day, when I felt so much calmer, I took this manuscript with me to the office, thinking it might help to pass the time. And it did in fact procure me a wonderful quarter of an hour, which reminded me that there was once a time in the world’s history when one could allow oneself the luxury of sitting down in peace and quietness to enjoy such trifles as this.

It would be nice if someone were to invite me seriously to fall into a state of half-consciousness in which I might live again even one hour of my former life. I should laugh in his face. How could one give up a present like this to pursue such frivolous trifles? It is only now that I feel myself definitely detached from my preoccupation with health and disease. As I walk through the streets of our unfortunate city I am conscious of being a privileged person who does not have to go and fight and who daily has what he needs to eat. In comparison with all the rest I feel so happy (especially since I had news of my family) that I should be afraid of provoking the wrath of the gods if everything were absolutely well with me.

My first encounter with the war was a violent one, of which I can now see the comic side.

Augusta and I had returned to Lucinico to spend Whitsun there with the children. On May 23rd I got up early, for I had to take some Carlsbad salts and go for a walk before my morning coffee. It was during this cure at Lucinico that I realised that the heart carries on its restorative work much better on an empty stomach, and spreads a sense of well-being through the whole body. My theory was to find remarkable confirmation that very day, when I was compelled to practise a long and salutary fast.

Augusta raised her white head from the pillow to wish me good-morning, and reminded me that I had promised to get my daughter some roses. Our only rose-tree had finished flowering, so I was obliged to get them from elsewhere. My daughter has grown into a fine girl, and is very like Ada. I had suddenly forgotten to behave towards her as a stern mentor, and had assumed the rôle of a cavalier who respects femininity even in his own daughter. She at once realised her power and abused it, to Augusta’s and my great amusement. She had expressed a wish for some roses, so I must procure some for her.

I proposed to walk for about two hours. The sun was shining brightly, and as I intended to walk all the time and not to stop till I got back home, I did not even take a coat or hat with me. I fortunately remembered that I should have to pay for the roses, so I did not leave my pocket-book at home as well as my coat.

I went first of all into the neighbouring property, belonging to Teresina’s father, to ask him to cut some roses, which I would call for on my way back. I entered the great courtyard surrounded by a partially ruined wall, but found no one there. I shouted Teresina’s name. The youngest of the children, aged about six, came out of the house. I put a few coppers into his hand, and he told me the whole family had gone off early to the other side of the Isonzo for a day’s work on a field of potatoes which needed earthing up.

This was quite welcome news to me, for I knew the field, and it would take me about an hour to reach it. As I had decided to go for a two hours’ walk I was glad to be provided with a definite goal. There was no danger now of my interrupting it by a sudden attack of laziness. I set off across the plain, which lies higher than the road so that I could only see from it the tops of a few flowering trees which grew along the sides. I was in a cheerful mood; I felt so light and airy in my shirt-sleeves and without a hat. I breathed the pure air with delight, and as I walked along did some of Niemeyer’s lung gymnastics which I had been practising now for some time past. A German friend had taught me the exercises, and they cannot be too highly recommended to anyone living a sedentary life.

When I got to the field I saw Teresina working on the side nearest the road. I went towards her, and then caught sight of her father and little brothers at work a little farther on. I should think they must have been between ten and fourteen years old. Though one feels exhausted after any unusual effort when one is old, one nevertheless feels younger than when doing nothing, because of the accompanying sense of excitement. I went to Teresina and said gaily:

“There is still time, Teresina. Don’t be too long.”

She did not understand, and I did not think it necessary to explain. Since she had forgotten, I could go back to my old relations with her. I had already repeated the experiment, and the result had again been favourable. In addressing those few words to her I had caressed her, and not with my looks alone.

I soon came to an agreement with her father. He would let me cut as many roses as I liked, and we should certainly not quarrel about the price. He was going to return to his work at once, whilst I had begun to set off homewards, when he changed his mind and ran after me. When he caught me up, he asked in a low voice:

“Haven’t you heard anything? They say war has broken out.”

“Well yes, we all know that! It has been going on for nearly a year,” I replied.

“I don’t mean that,” he exclaimed impatiently. “I mean the other with ...” and he made a gesture in the direction of the Italian frontier. “Haven’t you heard anything about it?” He waited anxiously for my reply.

“You can rest assured,” I said with complete confidence, “that if I have heard nothing about it, it means that there is nothing to hear. I have just come from Trieste, and the very last thing I heard was that they will have nothing to do with the war. In Rome they have turned out the Government that wanted war, and have put in Giolitti.”

He was reassured at once.

“Then all these potatoes that we are just covering up, and which promise so well, will be ours after all. There are so many of those scaremongers about.” He wiped away the sweat that was pouring from his brow with his shirt-sleeve.

Seeing that I had made him happy, I tried to make him happier still. I do so like to see people enjoying themselves. So I said a number of things which I hardly like to remember. I asserted that even if war had broken out it would not be fought anywhere near there. First of all there was the sea, which it was time they began fighting on, and then in Europe there were battlefields enough and to spare. There was the whole of Flanders and several departments in France. I had heard say--I could not remember by whom--that there was such a shortage of potatoes in the world that they even cultivated them with great care on the field of battle. I talked a great deal, keeping my eyes fixed the while on the slender little form of Teresina, who was crouching down to feel the earth with her hand before she began digging.

The peasant went back to his work, with his mind set completely at rest. But I who had given him part of my own tranquillity had so much less left for myself. It was clear we were too near the frontier at Lucinico. I would speak to Augusta about it. Perhaps we should do well to return to Trieste, or anyway to move farther from the frontier, in whichever direction. It was true that Giolitti was now in power, but one could not tell whether, once he had arrived there, he would continue to see things in the same light as when someone else was in power.

My uneasiness was increased by a chance meeting with a troop of soldiers who were marching towards Lucinico. They were none of them young, and they were shabbily dressed and ill-equipped. They were carrying what we used to call a “darlindana” in Trieste, a kind of old-fashioned long bayonet which in the summer of 1915 the Austrians had had to fetch out of their old stores.

I continued to walk behind them for some time, eager to be at home again. But the unpleasant odour which emanated from them at last forced me to slacken my pace. My anxiety and my haste were equally foolish. It was ridiculous to be alarmed just because I had been talking to a timid peasant. I could see my villa in the distance now, and there was no sign of the soldiers on the road. I began walking faster so as to get the sooner to my _caffelatte_.

It was at this point that my adventure began. At a bend of the road I was suddenly stopped by a sentinel, who shouted:

“_Zurück_,” at the same time pointing his gun at me. I was going to talk German to him because he had given his command in German, but that was the only word he knew and he repeated it threateningly several times.

There was nothing for it but to go _zurück_ and I did so rather hurriedly, looking behind me constantly to make sure that he was not going to enforce his words by firing; and even when he was lost to view I did not slacken my pace.

But I had not yet given up the idea of reaching my villa as quickly as possible. I thought that by climbing the hill on my right I should come out a good way behind the threatening sentinel.

It was not a difficult climb, especially as the tall grass had been trodden down by many footsteps. It seemed as if a whole crowd had come that way before me, driven to do so, no doubt, by the impossibility of going along the road. As I walked I recovered my assurance, and decided that directly I reached Lucinico I would protest to the mayor against the treatment I had received. If he allowed people who had country houses to be treated like that, very soon everyone would give up coming to Lucinico.

But when I reached the top of the hill I was unpleasantly surprised to find it already occupied by the regiment of soldiers who smelt like venison. A number of soldiers were lying in the shade of a cottage belonging to some peasants I had known for a long time; at that hour there would be no one in it. Three of them seemed to be sentinels, but they were not facing the direction I had come from; others were standing in a semicircle in front of an officer who was giving them orders, which he illustrated by pointing to a map he was holding in his hand.

I had not even a hat which I could take off in greeting him. I bowed several times, and putting on my best smile advanced towards the officer who, when he saw me, stopped talking to the soldiers and stared at me. The five Czeckish soldiers who were gathered round him also gave me their best attention. Under the fire of all those eyes, and on the uneven ground, I found it a very difficult matter to move at all.

The officer shouted:

“_Was will der dumme Kerl hier?_” (What does the fool want here?)

Amazed at being insulted like this without the slightest provocation, I should have liked to make a dignified and manly protest, but thinking discretion to be the better part of valour I left the path and was going towards the hill beyond which lay Lucinico. The officer began shouting at me that if I took another step he would order his men to fire. I at once became very polite, and from that day to this I have always been most polite. It was monstrous that I should be obliged to treat with an uncivil lout like that, but there was at least this advantage, that he talked German fluently. It was such an advantage, that the more I thought of it the easier it became for me to talk gently to him. Supposing the horrible creature had not even understood German! I should have been lost.

It was a pity I could not talk the language very fluently myself; otherwise I should have had no difficulty in making his Highness laugh. I told him my _caffelatte_ was waiting for me at Lucinico, and that I was only parted from it by his division.

He did laugh, on my honour he laughed. He laughed and swore at the same time, and had not the patience to hear me out. He said that other people would drink up my coffee for me at Lucinico, and when he heard my wife was waiting for me there, as well as the _caffelatte_, he shouted:

“_Auch Ihre Frau wird von anderen gegessen werden._” (And other people will eat up your wife as well.)

By this time he was in a better temper than I was. I think he was sorry to have said something which the loud laughter of his five soldiers might have made to seem offensive; he became serious, and explained to me that I must not hope to see Lucinico again for some days, and he advised me as a friend not to ask any questions, because this in itself would be enough to compromise me!

“_Haben Sie verstanden?_” (Do you understand?)

I did understand, but could not so easily resign myself to giving up my _caffelatte_ which was less than half a mile away. So I hesitated to turn back; for it was clear that if I went down the hill again I should certainly never reach my villa that day at all. To gain time I said politely to the officer:

“But to whom must I apply for permission to return to Lucinico and fetch at least my hat and coat?”

I ought to have realised that the officer was in a hurry to be left alone with his map and his men, but I never expected to arouse his fury to the extent I did.

In a voice which seemed as if it would burst the drum of my ear he shouted that he had already told me not to ask any more questions. Then he bade me go where the devil took me (“_wo der Teufel Sie tragen will_”). The idea of being taken anywhere was not displeasing to me, for I was extremely tired; but I still hesitated. The officer meanwhile, by dint of shouting at me, had become more and more enraged, and in threatening tones called to his side one of the men who were gathered round him, and calling him _Signor Caporale_ ordered him to take me down the hill and not to lose sight of me till I was well on the road leading to Gorizia. If I hesitated to obey him for a moment he was to fire.

On hearing these instructions I was almost glad to be on my way down again.

“_Danke schön_,” I said, without the least touch of irony. The corporal was a Slav who spoke Italian fairly well. He thought it best to seem brutal in the officer’s presence, and shouted: “_Marsch!_” to me, to indicate that I was to go ahead. But when we had gone a short distance he became quite gentle and friendly. He asked if I had any fresh news of the war and if it was really true that Italy was coming in. He awaited my reply anxiously.

So not even they knew whether they were at war or not! I wanted to cheer him as much as possible, so I gave him the same news which I had already imparted to Teresina’s father. This weighed on my conscience afterwards. In the awful storm which burst soon after, all the people I tried to reassure probably perished. What a horrified expression of surprise death must have graven on their faces. My optimism was invincible. Surely I must have felt that the officer’s words meant war, still more the tone in which he spoke them!

The corporal was much relieved, and showed his gratitude by advising me to make no further attempt to reach Lucinico. After hearing my news he felt sure that the order forbidding me to go home would be withdrawn on the following day. In the meantime he advised me to go to Trieste to the _Platz Kommando_ who would perhaps grant me a special permit.

“To Trieste?” I exclaimed, horrified. To Trieste without a coat or hat, and without my _caffelatte?_

According to the corporal a close cordon of infantry was being drawn across the road into Italy at this very moment, forming a new and insuperable frontier. He said with a condescending smile that in his opinion the shortest way to Lucinico was via Trieste.

I had now heard this so often that I was getting resigned to it, and set off for Gorizia, intending to catch the midday train to Trieste. I was excited, but I must say that I felt very well. I was more light-hearted than I had been for a long time. I was not at all sorry to be obliged to go on walking. My legs were rather tired, but I thought I could hold out as far as Gorizia, my breathing was so free and deep. Once my legs had warmed up to walking at a good rate, I got along without any difficulty at all. I went at an unusually quick pace, beating time as I walked, and with my physical well-being my optimism returned. They were threatening here and threatening there, but they wouldn’t really fight. And that is why when I reached Gorizia I hesitated as to whether I had not better reserve a room in the hotel to spend the night, and go back to Lucinico next day to make my complaint to the mayor.

I hurried to the post-office to telephone to Augusta. But they could get no answer from my villa.

The only thing I remember about the clerk at the post-office is that he was a little man with a scanty beard whose small stature and stiff movements gave him a rather absurd and pompous air. When he heard me swearing furiously at the dumb telephone he came up to me and said:

“This is the fourth time to-day that we have had no reply from Lucinico.”

When I turned towards him his eyes shone with a malicious joy (I was mistaken in saying I remembered nothing else!) and he gave me a piercing look as if to see whether I was really as surprised and angry as I seemed. It was a good ten minutes before I really understood. Then I had no further doubts. Lucinico was already in the line of fire, or would be in a few minutes’ time. It was not till I was on my way to the café to drink the cup of coffee I had been waiting for since the early morning, that I realised the full significance of that eloquent glance. I at once changed my direction and went to the station instead. I wanted to be nearer to my family and, in accordance with the direction of my friend the corporal, I took a ticket for Trieste.

It was during my brief train journey that war broke out.

Thinking that I should soon be at Trieste, I did not even drink the cup of coffee I had been panting for so long, though I should have had plenty of time for it. When I was alone in my compartment my thoughts turned at once to my family from whom I had been separated in so strange a manner. Nothing unusual happened to the train till beyond Monfalcone.

Apparently the war had not yet got as far as this. I recovered my peace of mind by reflecting that at Lucinico things would by now have reverted to what they were on this side of the frontier. Augusta and my children would probably already be in the train on their way into Italy. The peace of mind which this thought gave me combined with the vast and astounding calm produced by hunger to send me into a sound sleep.

It was probably hunger also which woke me. My train had come to a standstill in the middle of the great stony plain, known as the Sassonia di Trieste. The sea was not visible, though we must have been very near to it, for a light mist prevented me from seeing far. The Carso has a great charm in May, only to be appreciated by one who has not been spoilt by the brilliant colours and exuberance of spring in other places. The stone which everywhere emerges from the soil is encircled by a tender green which soon becomes the predominant note of the landscape.

At another time I should have been in a terribly bad temper at not being able to eat when I was so hungry. But the tremendous nature of the historic event I had witnessed this day impressed me so much that I resigned myself to the inevitable. The guard to whom I gave a good cigarette could not even procure me a bit of bread. I told no one about my experiences that morning. I thought I would wait till I got to Trieste and found a friend. No sound of fighting reached my ears from the frontier towards which I was going. We had stopped there in order to let eight or nine trains go winding down the long serpentine curves towards Italy. The open wound, as they soon began to call the Italian front, in Austria, had broken out again and needed more matter to feed it. And the poor men advanced towards it shouting and singing. From every train which I passed issued the same sounds of joy and intoxication.

When I reached Trieste night had already descended on the city.

The darkness was lit by the glow of many incendiary fires, and a friend who saw me going towards my house in my shirt-sleeves called out to me:

“Have you been taking part in the sack too?”

At last I was able to get something to eat, and I went to bed at once, overcome by an immense fatigue, which was caused, no doubt, by the hopes and fears that chased each other perpetually through my mind. I was still feeling very well, and during the short time before I fell asleep, when I had become accustomed by psycho-analysis to retain the images which came to me, I remember I had one last childish idea with which to end my day: No one had been killed yet at the frontier, so it was still possible for peace to be patched up again.

Now that I know my family to be safe and sound I don’t dislike the life I lead. There is not much for me to do, but I cannot say I am altogether idle. One is not allowed to buy or sell. Trade will begin again when peace has come. Olivi sends me good advice from Switzerland. If only he knew how inappropriate it is to these surroundings, where everything is entirely changed! At the moment I am doing nothing.

_March 24, 1916._

I have not touched this notebook since May of last year. And now suddenly Dr. S. has written from Switzerland asking me to send him as much as I had written up to now. It is an odd request, but I have no objection to sending him these notes as well; they will show him pretty clearly what I think of him and his treatment. He already has all my confessions; let him keep these few pages too, as well as a few more which I shall willingly add for his edification. I have very little time, as business takes up my whole day. But I shall let Dr. S. have it, and not spare him. I have thought about it so much that my ideas on the subject are quite clear.

He is no doubt expecting to receive more confessions of weakness and ill-health, and will receive instead an account of my perfect health; as perfect, that is, as my rather advanced age permits. I am cured! I not only have no desire to practise psycho-analysis, but no need to do so. And my good health is not merely the result of feeling myself to be a privileged person among so many martyrs. It is not only by comparison with others that I feel myself to be well: I really am well, absolutely well. For some time past I have realised that being well is a matter of conviction, and that it is a mere day-dreamer’s phantasy to try and get cured otherwise than by self-persuasion. Of course I have pains from time to time, but what do they matter when my health is perfect? I may have to put on a poultice now and then for some local ailment, but otherwise I force my limbs to keep in healthy motion and never allow them to sink into inertia. Pain and love--the whole of life, in short--cannot be looked on as a disease just because they make us suffer.

I admit that my fate had to change, and my body to be warmed up by fighting and above all by victory, before I arrived at the conviction that I was well. It was my business which cured me, and I should like Dr. S. to know it.

Up to the end of August in last year I watched the convulsions of the world in a state of horrified inaction. Then I suddenly began to _buy_. I underline this word because it has a greater significance than it had before the war. At that time, when a business man used it, he meant that he was ready to purchase a particular article. But when I used it I meant that I was ready to become a buyer of any goods which offered themselves. Like all strong characters I had only one idea in my head, and on this I lived, and made my fortune by it. Olivi was not at Trieste; if he had been he would never have allowed me to take such a risk; he would rather have left the profits to others. But for me there was no risk at all. I was absolutely convinced of the success of my venture. First of all, in accordance with a time-honoured custom in time of war, I proceeded to convert my whole fortune into gold; but there was a certain difficulty about buying and selling gold. Ready money, as being more easy to handle, was my merchandise, and I laid in a large stock. I sold from time to time, but my sales were far smaller than my purchases. Because I had begun at the right moment, I was so lucky in my buying and selling that I soon acquired the means of realising more ambitious schemes.

I remember with pride that my first purchase was apparently sheer lunacy, and I only made it in order to put my new idea into practice as soon as possible. It consisted of a stock of incense. The seller boasted of the possibility of using incense as a substitute for resin which was already beginning to run short. As a chemist, I knew for an absolute certainty that incense could never take the place of resin, from which it differs _toto genere_, but I thought the world would soon reach such a pitch of misery that it would be _obliged_ to accept incense as a substitute for resin. So I bought! A few days ago I sold quite a small portion of it, and received as much for it as I had originally paid for the whole amount. When I pocketed the money my breast swelled at the thought of my strength and abounding health.

When the doctor gets the last part of my manuscript, he will have to give me back the whole. I should be able to write it all over again with absolute certainty now; how was it possible for me to understand my life when I did not know what this last part was going to be? Perhaps I only lived all those years in order to prepare for it!

I am not so naïve as to blame the doctor for regarding life itself as a manifestation of disease. Life is a little like disease, with its crises and periods of quiescence, its daily improvements and setbacks. But unlike other diseases life is always mortal. It admits of no cure. It would be like trying to stop up the holes in our body, thinking them to be wounds. We should die of suffocation almost before we were cured.

Our life to-day is poisoned to the root. Man has ousted the beasts and trees, has poisoned the air and filled up the open spaces. Worse things may happen. That melancholy and industrious animal--man--may discover new forces and harness them to his chariot. Some such danger is in the air. The result will be a great abundance--of human beings! Every square yard will be occupied by a man. Who will be able then to cure us of the lack of air and space? The mere thought of it suffocates me.

But it is not only that, not only that. Every effort to procure health is in vain. Health can only belong to the beasts, whose sole idea of progress lies in their own bodies. When the swallow realised that emigration was the only possible life for her, she enlarged the muscles which worked her wings, and which became by degrees the most important part of her body. The mole went underground, and its whole body adapted itself to the task. The horse grew bigger and changed the shape of his foot. We know nothing about the development of certain animals, but it must have existed, and can never have injured their health.

But spectacled man invents implements outside his body, and if there was any health or nobility in the inventor there is none in the user. Implements are bought or sold or stolen, and man goes on getting weaker and more cunning. It is natural that his cunning should increase in proportion to his weakness. The earliest implements only added to the length of his arm, and could not be employed except by the exercise of his own strength. But a machine bears no relation to the body. The machine creates disease because it denies what has been the law of creation throughout the ages. The law of the strongest disappeared, and we have abandoned natural selection. We need something more than psycho-analysis to help us.

Under the law of the greatest number of machines, disease will prosper and the diseased will grow ever more numerous.

Perhaps some incredible disaster produced by machines will lead us back to health.

When all the poison gases are exhausted, a man, made like all other men of flesh and blood, will in the quiet of his room invent an explosive of such potency that all the explosives in existence will seem like harmless toys beside it. And another man, made in his image and in the image of all the rest, but a little weaker than them, will steal that explosive and crawl to the centre of the earth with it, and place it just where he calculates it would have the maximum effect. There will be a tremendous explosion, but no one will hear it and the earth will return to its nebulous state and go wandering through the sky, free at last from parasites and disease.

[End]

Transcriber’s note

HTML versions of this text use emphasis and language markup to improve accessibility. This edition of the book was not printed with a table of contents; one has been added for convenience. The cover image accompanying some versions of this e-book was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.