A Life (6 page)

“This is quite different,” he would exclaim with contempt, pointing to his papers. “No variety, no initiative!”

He was the only one in the room to complain of leading a
penpusher
’s life. Alfonso, idle because Sanneo had not yet given him any letters to do, was meanwhile enjoying de Musset’s poetry.

Very soon it got round that relations between Miceni and Sanneo had become strained, for which everyone blamed Miceni.

Sanneo had a habit of jotting the initials
NB
for
nota bene
on any letter for which he had special instructions, so that the clerk it went to had to go and ask him for them before replying. Ballina, who was always inventing special words and phrases established
that to
NB
meant to visit Sanneo and ask him to explain what his sign meant.

Now Miceni, either because he considered he did not need all these explanations or just from laziness, often omitted to do what Ballina called to
NB
; and even more often, after
receiving
instructions he modified them, preferring his own ideas to Sanneo’s. The latter attributed all this to oversights and merely sent him back the letters with orders to change them; Miceni on his side tried to avenge himself by writing out the letters
carelessly
, muttering the while: “He’ll have to re-do them altogether in the end!”

This enmity might have remained latent for a long time had not Miceni in a moment of anger shown Sanneo his feelings openly.

At the peak working hour in the evening Sanneo came across a letter written by Miceni which was quite different from what he had told him to do; he also remembered that Miceni had not responded to his
NB
for that particular letter.

He rushed over to Miceni’s room, in great agitation, because he suspected the mistake to have been done on purpose.

“This letter can’t go,” and he shook it in a nervous hand. “I want it written differently, didn’t you see my
NB
? Show me the original.”

Seeing that Miceni was moving very slowly to gain time, he took up the pile of letters, scattered them over the table and drew out the offending page.

“Don’t you see this
NB
?” he yelled in a fury.

It was difficult not to see it in fact. In red pencil, the first leg of the N ran diagonally across the front; the second was shorter but only because there had not been enough space on the page; the
B
went right off the paper and lacked one of the humps.

“I saw it,” shouted Miceni, annoyed at being rebuked in front of Alfonso and White. “I’d already asked for instructions about other letters, and when this came, it was too much of a bother to go round to you and ask for explanations which I expected to find superfluous as usual.”

His voice was becoming strident; once the rage long smouldering inside him burst out, it made him say everything that came into his head. “Ah! So it’s like that, is it?” yelled Sanneo, after a second of
surprise at this reaction. Then he tore up the letter. “D’you think I put those
NB
s in for fun? Re-do this letter at once!”

In a voice trembling with emotion he gave his instructions.

“As I can no longer trust you,” he then added, yelling again, “in future you will always hand me the incoming letter together with your reply. And remember if you behave like this again, I’ll see Signor Maller and ask him to tell you what I think of you.”

Miceni had already begun writing, but at this he shrugged his shoulders almost imperceptibly, with a smile of open provocation.

It was said of Sanneo that he shouted until he met opposition; certainly he did not like quarrels and avoided them as much as he could. Pretending not to see Miceni’s gesture, he left.

Miceni was so red in the face that flushed skin showed through his black moustaches; his pen was heard scratching over the paper more loudly than ever. On finishing the letter, he flung his pen violently on to the table and cried: “He wants me to do what White did!”

After delivering the letter to Sanneo he explained to Alfonso how he could free himself of Sanneo; the latter had enough on his hands with correspondence for Vienna and Italy; Sanneo could be left the correspondence with Germany.

“Signor Maller knows my worth.”

On the following days Sanneo was obviously acting with studied moderation, for he never rejected one letter by Miceni, who on his side asked him for all instructions that he was supposed to, as indicated by Sanneo’s few
NB
s.

“So that’s the way he should be treated to make him behave, is it?” Ballina cried.

White congratulated Miceni and said he must realize that all he’d done was imitate him weakly.

“The next stage won’t be long now,” replied Miceni triumphantly, after revealing his intentions.

Ballina protested in the name of justice.

“Now that he treats you decently you’d be wrong to cause any more rows.”

Ballina had never had the courage to react against any superior for fear of losing his job; he was the worst treated of all the clerks in the correspondence department and envied those who said
what they thought. White tried to calm Miceni too, not much liking to see his own actions copied by others.

But Miceni would not listen to reason. In his impatience to carry his rebellion through, he was incapable of waiting for a propitious occasion, though he realized one could not be long in coming, since Sanneo had periodic days of great irritability when he easily let himself go and said things which even his directors had to criticize. If Sanneo gained an easy victory, it would be Miceni’s fault.

One Sunday another clerk in the correspondence department came with an order, in writing as usual, to write out a letter at once to a client firmly demanding payment for the deficit on some deal in stocks and shares. Although he knew that the order came from Sanneo, Miceni did not do it and wanted to leave, declaring that he did not work on Sundays. The clerk repeated this reply to Sanneo, who lost his temper. He rushed off to Miceni, and without asking for any explanation, foaming at the mouth, yelled: “Write this out at once!” and flung the admonitory letter on the table.

“Today’s Sunday,” replied Miceni, livid and trembling; his courage was forced, for he was a coward by nature. “I don’t work on Sundays.”

It was Sanneo who had first made the correspondence
department
work regularly on Sunday mornings, even before he became head of it, but urgent matters had always been dealt with then, work which could not be delayed.

“Oh! So it’s like that, is it?” asked Sanneo quietly. He had become calm again from one moment to the other, and strode quickly off as if not wanting to leave Miceni time to modify his answer.

Shortly afterwards he sent for Alfonso.

“Please, Signor Nitti, would you do this letter?”

He spoke with unusual gentleness and in a voice full of emotion. For a letter of a few lines he kept Alfonso a full quarter of an hour; first he explained its purpose and then dictated it word by word.

“So now it’s up to me!” said Alfonso to Miceni.

Miceni frowned.

“If he finds it so easy to get someone to work on Sundays,
anyone
who refuses is bound to be in the wrong.”

And he left, in order to assert that he could not work as he had something urgent on elsewhere. After having done what he had so long promised himself to do, he was now clearly worried.

Sanneo re-read the letter written out by Alfonso, put in a few commas which he had not pointed out and which Alfonso, with his exactness as a copyist, had not dared add, and with a smile of approval said: “Excellent! Please be kind enough to put it on Signor Cellani’s desk.”

Never had he been so polite.

At nine on Monday morning Miceni was called in by Signor Maller. Alfonso learnt what took place in the managing director’s office partly from White and partly from Miceni himself.

Miceni had entered with a loud greeting and a bow which also included Cellani, who was present. White, who was about to leave the room, stopped to listen.

“Signor Sanneo is complaining about you,” said Maller very
seriously
. “Why did you refuse to write that short letter yesterday?”

“I thought it might be done on Monday,” replied Miceni. At the last moment he had decided to give his reply a form of doubt.

“But if Signor Sanneo ordered it to be done on the Sunday”—here Maller raised his voice—“it must be done on Sunday.”

The partial repetition of Miceni’s phrase made the reply sound harsher.

“Anyway,” objected Miceni in the tone of one falling back on the other’s goodness of heart, “it was wrong of Signor Sanneo to make me work on a feast-day.”

“I myself had given orders for that letter to be written and sent yesterday,” replied Signor Maller severely.

Miceni made inarticulate sounds; there was nothing more to say.

White took pity on him and left the room.

The rest of the scene was reported by Miceni, who left Maller’s room as gaily as if he were quite sure things would work out in his favour.

He tried to arouse admiration. He said that when the verdict went against him anyone else would have taken the thing as lost, while he had been able to change his ground. He had brought up old incidents already known to his employers for which Sanneo had been rebuked; then he had talked contemptuously—
thinking more disrespect for Sanneo could do him no more harm—of those
NB
s which merely made a confusion of the letters and upset the clerks.

“Signor Sanneo’s behaviour to employees isn’t right, and I just won’t accept it.”

He had re-acquired all his self-confidence.

Then he was called back to Signor Maller’s room, and came out looking utterly different. Alfonso understood and asked nothing. Miceni gave a little laugh which was intended to be sarcastic; then with a decisive movement he put his hat and working jacket on his desk and said: “I didn’t expect this at all.”

White, who entered at that moment, looked at Miceni with cool curiosity.

The sight of someone more fortunate than himself made Miceni lose the little self-control that he still had. There was
nothing
to laugh about, he said, although White had not laughed; if he had enjoyed the protection that White did, things would have taken quite a different turn. White did not defend himself, and replied with a very cold smile that he knew he was protected and was sorry others were not. This made Miceni more furious than ever. He seemed to be trying to revenge himself for the attack which had left him so indifferent.

“Try and embrace too much and you’ll have nothing left to squeeze,” said White.

Then Miceni, from fury, broke down.

“Did I want too much? Is justice too much? To be treated decently? Is that too much?”

He did not actually cry, but his voice was tearful. White grew milder, but could not avoid loosing a last arrow.

“You said you wanted to be independent.”

This Miceni resolutely denied; he wanted, he explained, to be independent only if Sanneo did not learn to behave better. He was just realizing the difficulties of the role he had taken on and feeling ashamed of such a defeat.

Later White explained to Alfonso how serious Miceni’s position now was. Miceni was being relegated to the cashier’s department. This was an inferior position because no practice as a
correspondence
clerk was any help to his being a good cashier.

“And think of the boredom for someone used to more variety in work! He’ll have nothing to do all day long but sums, sums, and sums.”

Ballina entered and congratulated Alfonso ironically; he had come from Sanneo’s room where he had heard that Alfonso was appointed as Miceni’s successor. Alfonso looked at him
incredulously
, terrified already; the thought of Miceni’s work alarmed him as being too difficult and too much, it would take away the little time he still had for reading. White tried to calm him; what he did not know he would be taught, and if he did not manage to do all the work, it did not mean the end of the world. Certainly this was a step-up in his career, and if he had any sense he should be grateful for it.

“It’s only lately that Miceni has been giving himself this air of importance,” Ballina said to him. “He didn’t before, when Signor Sanneo had to explain every single thing from A to Z.”

He also mentioned having seen Miceni with eyes starting out of his head at the difficulties of some transaction which was quite simple and clear to others.

“Eyes starting out of his head?” asked Alfonso, who found the misfortune that had befallen his rival less enjoyable the more he thought of the suffering it might bring him.

Ballina’s announcement received official confirmation only at three that afternoon. Sanneo sent for him when he had
finished
his
NB
s to other clerks. He told him in an off-hand way that Signor Miceni had left the correspondence department and that he had decided to entrust him with part of the Italian correspondence connected with banking; just ledger work in fact, he added contemptuously. Alfonso had intended to plead ignorance but had not the courage; he was ashamed to show any hesitation about accepting work that was so easy. In a few minutes Sanneo handed him fifteen letters with a few words of explanation for each. He spoke of transfers, deposits, and suspensions, all terms whose meaning was still vague to Alfonso.

Two or three of the letters he wrote out easily: these were the last Sanneo had given him, so that he could still remember the instructions; the others he could not manage to answer without White’s help.

“Who will he give the rest of Miceni’s work to?” asked White in surprise after giving Alfonso, with great kindness, a thorough lesson on banking terms. “The Stock Exchange letters aren’t included here, or the half-a-dozen controversial letters that come in to him every day. He’s capable of doing them all himself.”

In fact when leaving the bank late that evening, Alfonso saw Sanneo’s room still alight, and reflected on the pavement was the shadow of the head of the correspondence department bent over his desk.