A Life (36 page)

Gralli soon changed his tune, hesitated, was about to give way. Alfonso noticed it. Then Gralli refused again.

“I’m not marrying her, I can’t marry her. I’ve a mother to think of and can’t take on such an expense.”

With repugnance Alfonso went back to reasoning. He had not yet understood the real reason for Gralli’s hesitation and thought he could convince him in the end. He said that it would take very little extra to keep Lucia, because food for two was nearly the same as for three and the dowry he was offering would cover most of their expenses.

But this was a working-man who knew his sums. As Alfonso had said that the expense of keeping Lucia was insignificant Gralli now demonstrated that the interest from the sum offered was not enough to cover more than a fifth of this expense.

“So you want to live on interest now, do you?” exclaimed Alfonso indignantly.

Gralli was making an act of reparation dependent on selfish calculation, and that stirred him.

“No, I’m not thinking of myself, but of whoever wants to live on
me,” replied Gralli brutally. He stopped the argument. “If Lucia had a dowry of seven thousand lire I’d marry her.”

Alfonso tried to reduce this demand, having already decided to give way if the other resisted, and Gralli was immovable.

“You’ll get your seven thousand lire,” said Alfonso, getting to his feet.

Gralli went as far as the Lanuccis’ door with him.

“Your word’s enough, just your word before a notary.” Having so ably looked after his own interests he now wanted to cut a good figure as well. He said that Alfonso’s money would be far from enough for Lucia’s needs, but he was also thinking both of his affection for her and of his feelings as a father, aroused, so he assured Alfonso, the moment he knew he was to become a father.

“Yes,” he added seriously. “I’m convinced it’s much better for the child to be born legitimate.”

These amiable remarks from Gralli were so incompatible with his bearing till then that Alfonso thought the other was quoting
verbatim
from someone else. But he was pleased that Gralli was making an effort to seem disinterestedly in love, since this took away his worry about Gralli suspecting an impure motive for his own interest in the Lanuccis.

Gralli seemed to guess what his benefactor was expecting of him. He said, looking moved:

“You love Lucia’s parents as if you were their own son.”

He could not have expressed himself more delicately. They agreed that next day Gralli would go to old Lanucci and ask for his daughter’s hand.

Signora Lanucci ran to meet him on the stairs.

“So everythings settled, is it?”

“Who told you that?”

“Gustavo! He was in such a state, though, that I doubted if he was telling the truth! Dear son, I wronged him!”

She blew kisses in the air and leaped up the stairs like a little girl. She left him alone without saying good night, and while on his way to bed Alfonso heard her waking her husband to give him the good news. Then he heard her again in Lucia’s room and the sound of celebratory kisses. The girl was sobbing from joy.

Finally everyone in the house was asleep except himself. He had
done well not to throw his charity into Signora Lanucci’s face, for it would have lessened her joy. She would know it sooner or later. He did not want to be an anonymous benefactor nor seem to be seeking gratitude either. He went to sleep, happy at that expected gratitude. It was some days before he realized what a great sacrifice he had made and how much he had worsened his situation by that huge decrease of his capital.

The next day, after wandering a long time round the streets, he reached home very late and missed Gralli, who must have been there some hours. He did not learn what had been talked of because no one bothered to tell him, but it was obvious from their attitude that they had no idea it was he who had saved Lucia.

Soon after his arrival the girl left the house, giving him only a restrained bow. Signora Lanucci said it had all been a
misunderstanding
, their ideas about Lucia. This remark which excluded him from their confidence was said coldly on purpose because Signora Lanucci was clever enough to realize he would not believe her; its only purpose must therefore be to hurt him. When alone with Gustavo he found to his great surprise that the brother also believed Lucia’s salvation to be due to his own action. He boasted of it.

“A reasonable word at the right time, eh!”

Alfonso left him with that opinion for the moment.

Not even the next day did anyone breathe a word about Alfonso’s generosity, and he felt no need to mention it. He did not want to admit it, but he was being silent because he enjoyed increasing his own generosity; every curt word from the Lanuccis gave him a little stab of satisfaction because on realizing how unjustly they had treated him their gratitude would be all the greater. He felt like laughing when Lucia, who hated him because she had offered him her love twice, turned her back on him to show her contempt, which was, however, no greater than old Signora Lanucci’s now that she had given up all hope of his marrying Lucia. He smiled as he confessed to himself that he liked the idea of their gratitude so much that he was even acting a part in order to increase it. His actions, he still kept on finding, contradicted his theories. That intense desire to be thanked and admired was quite unlike genuine renunciation. He was still vain.

The next day at supper old Lanucci waited gravely for Alfonso to be seated; then he told them dryly that for reasons which he had been told but had forgotten, Gralli would not be coming that day. After which he turned to Alfonso and went on:

“I did not know he had been promised seven thousand lire of dowry. He asked me about it, and I said I knew nothing. Is it true you want to give him that?”

“Yes,” replied Alfonso. “It’s no use to me.”

There was a chorus of thanks, not all equally lively. Signora Lanucci could not have enjoyed passing suddenly from hatred to gratitude. She held her hand out to Alfonso and, trying to make up in the firm brevity of her thanks what they lacked in intensity, said:

“My thanks to you!” She smiled at her daughter whose eyes were full of tears and said to her: “Why are you crying? Silly girl! At least it means you’ll have some money!”

Lucia thanked him amid sobs. The thought of Gralli returning to her from love alone had flattered her, and the pain of learning the contrary was greater than her gratitude. She cried and cried then withdrew to her room, after saying good night to Alfonso with thanks which sounded fervent because of repetition.

“What I don’t understand,” said Alfonso, talking to avoid the embarrassment he found those thanks gave him: “What I don’t understand is the connection all this has with Gralli’s absence.”

Lanucci said that he thought Gralli had said something to excuse himself but he could not remember what.

That evening, as he left the office, Alfonso easily guessed the excuse Gralli had given Lanucci and been silent about. On the Corso he was stopped by Gralli, who must have been waiting for him on purpose but did not want to seem so. He was very friendly, but obviously his thoughts were elsewhere, and he was looking for a way of saying something difficult.

“How are you?”

Apart from what was so close to Gralli’s heart they had nothing to talk about. After giving the question a dry answer and waiting unsuccessfully for the other to begin explaining why he was
waiting
for him, Alfonso, impatient and irritated at having to walk the Corso in his company, asked what he wanted; Gralli had no
chance to prepare his little speech as he’d have liked: he asked him to follow him out of the crowds, and they went towards a
fountain
. The
sirocco
had made the weather milder, and warm air had brought many people out of doors.

“I spoke to old Lanucci today, and he told me he knew nothing about the promised dowry …” he was talking slowly to give the other time to get used to his distrust, but in those few words he had already expressed everything.

“Why should old Lanucci know about it? I’ve promised it and that’s enough!” cried Alfonso, quite capable in his fury of letting Gralli believe he had wanted the Lanuccis to know nothing of his gift.

“I never had any doubts!” cried Gralli.

That must be true because Alfonso knew that Gralli had acted on the promise alone. He told Alfonso in a tone of sincerity that his mother had insisted he must not marry unless he had the dowry in hand first.

Alfonso began laughing contemptuously, pretending not to believe what he had already realized was true.

“So you think me a liar, do you? Well, I utterly refuse to hand you the money because I distrust you with better reason than you could have to distrust me.”

Gralli looked desperate.

“If that’s how things are, what shall we do? Mother sticks to what she says and declares she won’t hear of it before seeng the money! She won’t even accept your promise before a notary.”

This, which seemed an insurmountable obstacle to Gralli, could have been used by Alfonso as an excuse to get out of his pledge. He had no wish to do so, and as he suggested a possible
arrangement
he felt his chest swell at his own generosity. He proposed that they should go before a notary together the next day and deposit the money with a declaration that it was to be handed over to Gralli only on the actual day of his marriage to Lucia.

Gralli gratefully accepted this suggestion, which he approved, and he thought his mother would approve too. Urged by Alfonso, who warned him that they were worried about his absence, he went straight to the Lanuccis. Alfonso recommended him to say nothing of what had happened because it would not help him
with Lucia. Now that he knew there was no danger of the
beneficiaries
remaining in ignorance of his sacrifice he felt he could act as if he had wanted to hide it.

Gralli the egotist, as Alfonso called him, was more frank than he was himself.

“I don’t care what Lucia thinks,” he said simply, “the others, if they’re not stupid, must realize I could do nothing else. Without this dowry I just couldn’t marry her.” Anyway, he was going to the Lanuccis with no fears, because the moment they saw him enter, their faces would clear, whatever they had against him.

“They’re so fond of me,” he said slyly.

But, they could not have been very pleasant to him that evening, for when Alfonso arrived, he found Gralli already gone and the whole family in bed, a sign of great ill-humour. Alfonso felt a pang of disappointment that not even on the very day when the Lanuccis heard of his generosity had they felt grateful enough to wait up for him.

Lucia did, but in her own room, so she did not realize he was home. Just as he was leaving the living-room on his way to bed the girl appeared at her door.

“May I?” she asked with a shyness unusual for her, and with a hint of a smile. “I’ve come to thank you. Mother knows I’ve come; I must thank you in her name too in fact.”

She broke off and burst into tears. They seemed the
continuation
of tears suppressed a short while ago, for they came pouring out.

Touched and embarrassed, he asked her to calm herself. He felt an unpleasant sensation, almost a remorse at suffocating this poor family under a weight of gratitude. He told her that he had done nothing but his duty. She went on sobbing, holding the
handkerchief
to her mouth and standing on the threshold without leaning against the door.

“There’s nothing to thank me for or cry about. You’ll be happy now, that’s all.”

At this Lucia at once began talking.

“Happy? Never!” Then, interrupted from time to time by tears, she told how that same evening she had asked Gralli to renounce the dowry, and he had refused. “Now I don’t love him any more,”
and she began crying again. She was a child really, and Alfonso felt more revolted than ever at the thought of Gralli’s betrayal. “I’ve never really loved him. They told me I had to marry him, and I realized it too, but I’d never imagined he’d be so horrid.”

Alfonso tried to convince her that Gralli was better than she thought and that he wanted the money only so as to enjoy it with her. He could find no other arguments. And he realized he was making no real effort to turn away a new and gentle affection for himself born in the girl’s heart and see it went to Gralli.

She tried to kiss his hand, and he did not let her, but drew her to him and kissed her on the forehead, while the girl trembled in his arms. Slowly, with dignity, talking to her and telling her not to cry he led her back into the living-room and finally to the door of her room.

Thinking over his own behaviour with Gralli, whose admiration he had not hesitated to arouse, and with Lucia, whose gratitude he had managed to increase, Alfonso repeated to himself the question:

“Is this how a philosopher should behave?”

Once again he had to smile at himself for being so pleased at old Lanucci’s gratitude. The latter would bow before him as to a
superior
being, listen with reverent attention whenever he spoke.

“Never have I seen such a thing in all my life!” he exclaimed when he was present at the handing over of the money to the notary.

“You’re very kind!” Gustavo said to him. “How much money have you got left now?”

On hearing Alfonso’s reply he refused to believe it was true. And Alfonso was weak enough to spend a long time persuading him.

T
HE YEARLY
balance sheet had been made up for a
fortnight
, and still no one at the bank knew anything about the bonuses annually distributed among employees on that
occasion
.

“D’you think they mean to abolish them?” asked Ballina, worried. The sum he hoped for was already earmarked to pay debts and, as he said, it would mean bankruptcy for him if
nothing
was forthcoming. His remarks now became more biting than ever. “If it’s his fault, that old redskin ought to be strung up.” ‘Old redskin’ meant Maller.

Alchieri acted the buffoon, though also worried at the long delay in getting money on which he was relying; he jeered at Ballina and urged him on. He arranged with Santo to call each clerk except Ballina one by one and make them all pretend that they had received a hundred or two or three hundred francs a head. Ballina went wild, saying he was going to complain to Maller, and listing his services to the bank, the hours in which he had worked overtime. To Alfonso, who had agreed to pretend he had received three hundred francs, he said: “Of course you’re favoured, we all know that, you go to Signorina Maller and give her lessons! It’s a scandal, this bank is!”

Hurriedly Alfonso revealed the joke, red in the face and
thoroughly
regretting he had provoked Ballina.

One Sunday Santo came to call Bravicci in Maller’s name. Bravicci warned Ballina before going, but the latter went on calmly writing.

“My dear fellow, you can pull my leg once but not twice!” When Bravicci returned and showed him two notes of a hundred francs each, Ballina had doubts, and when he too was called he went off to Maller with a spring in his step. “If you’re deceiving me, it’ll be all the worst for you.” He was almost content when he came out. “It’s enough, I can’t complain. I’m fated never to be quite free of debt.”

Starringer and Alchieri were the most pleased; both received more than they had hoped.

Miceni came in for mutual congratulations and to tell what his luck was. He was not discontented; he had been praised but told that not so much responsibility was expected of him as he was in the counting house, and so he was not to expect a lot from his superiors.

“I’m still looking out for another job, and one of these days I hope to cut and run.”

The only one not yet called was Alfonso; Santo, who was acting as messenger that day, eventually came up to him instead of
shouting
his name out and whispered a few words which Alfonso did not quite catch but supposed to be the call to see Maller.

From the moment when Bravicci was called Alfonso had been in a great state of agitation. Now after all this time he was about to speak to Maller again; he was disturbed by the idea that Maller might have to exercise self-control to treat him in calm office tones. Alfonso had now persuaded himself that he could hope for an increase of pay and a big bonus; a few days before he had actually been in fear of overpayment as a possible bribe for silence. Now he needed money he would try and enjoy what was given him,
remembering
that he had done work enough to deserve any bonus.

Already discontented, he was about to enter Maller’s room when Santo stopped him with an ironic smile.

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

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

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

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

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

“I’ll get Santo if you like.”

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

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

“Do you think I’m favoured now?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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