Her Husband (17 page)

Sleepless all night long, Silvia lay thinking, and at a certain point, with the help of the darkness and silence, she was surprised by a strange and unusual mixture of feelings that brought an unexpected anguish, almost like nostalgia, from the depths of her being up to her throat. She could clearly see the houses of her Taranto. Inside them she saw her good, meek fellow townswomen, who were used to being jealously protected by their husbands with the most scrupulous rigor so that no suspicion might come their way, used to seeing their men re-enter their own home as in a temple closed to all strangers, even distant relatives. They would be upset, offended, as though their modesty were violated, if their husbands started opening the door of that temple, almost as if their good reputation was of no importance.

No, no. She had never had these feelings. Her father, down there, had always been hospitable, especially toward his underlings and outsiders. In fact she had scorned these feelings, knowing that many talked about her father’s hospitality, which without a doubt would have made it difficult to marry anyone from her town. Rather, it seemed to her that the women should be offended by their husbands’ possessive concern, as though it showed lack of esteem and trust.

Why was she now offended by the opposite, having discovered in herself those unexpected feelings, just like those women down there?

Suddenly, the reason was clear.

Almost every woman down there had not married for love, but for convenience, to achieve a certain status. She entered the home of her husband, the master, dependent and obedient. This obedience and devotion was not moved by affection, but only by respect for the man who worked and maintained her, a respect that she could feel only on the condition that this man, with his hard work (if not by his good behavior), knew in every way how to preserve the respect due the master. On the other hand, a man who relaxed his rigorous hold and opened his home to others lost the respect even of his guests, and his wife’s modesty was injured because she felt exposed in her loveless private
life, in her state of subjection to a man who no longer deserved it, for the sole reason that he permitted something that no other man would ever have permitted.

Yes, of course. She, too, had married without love, moved by the desire to achieve a status, and persuaded by a feeling of respect for and gratitude to the man who was willing to take her as his wife without getting skittish about another serious defect that would have turned away the men in her town, in addition to her father’s hospitality–her writing. But look at him now trying to make a business of that secret on which her esteem and gratitude were based; he had set about to sell and tout the merchandise so loudly, so that everyone could be in on her secret, to see and touch it. What respect could others have for such a man? Everyone laughed at him, and he didn’t care! What esteem and gratitude could she have now if he, reversing their roles, made her work and wanted to live off it?

More than anything else at that moment, it offended her that the others could think that she might still love such a man or, what’s more, that she was devoted to him.

Did he perhaps believe this also? Or did his certainty lie in his faith in her integrity? Ah, yes; but integrity for herself, not for him! His certainty could have no other effect on her than to provoke her like a challenge, and offend and fill her with scorn.

No, no: she couldn’t continue to live like this–that was clear.

Two days later, as was to be expected after that handshake, Paolo Baldani returned to the little villa.

Giustino Boggiolo welcomed him with open arms. “Disturb her? What an idea! On my honor, it’s a pleasure. . . .”

“Shhh . . .” Baldani said, smiling, putting a finger to his lips. “Your wife is upstairs? I don’t want her to hear me. It’s you I need.”

“Me? Here I am. . . . What can I do? Let’s go to the living room . . . or, if you wish, let’s go to the garden … or in the parlor in the next room. Silvia is upstairs in her study”

“Thanks, this will be fine,” said Baldani, sitting in the parlor; then, leaning toward Boggiolo, he added softly: “I have to be indiscreet.”

“You? But no . . . Why? Not at all. ..”

“It’s necessary, my friend. But when the indiscretion is for a good end, a gentleman must not hold back. Here, I’ll tell you. I have prepared an exhaustive study about the artistic personality of Silvia Roncella . . .”

“Oh, tha . . .”

“Easy, wait a minute! I’ve come to ask some questions. … I would say very personal, very particular questions that only you are in a position to answer. I would like from you, dear Boggiolo, a certain, I would say . . . physiological enlightenment.”

By the low, mysterious tone with which Baldani continued to speak, Giustino was almost tugged by the tip of his nose to listen, with head bowed, eyes intent and mouth open.

“Physio?”

“–logical. Let me explain. A critic today, my friend, has other research aids that were unheard of previously. For the complete understanding of a personality a deep and precise knowledge is necessary, even of the most obscure needs, of the most secret and hidden needs of the organism. These are very delicate investigations. A man, you’ll understand, submits to them without so many scruples; but a woman … eh, a woman … I say, a woman like your wife, let’s be clear! I know a lot of women who would submit to these investigations without any scruples, even more openly than men. For example … no, let’s not mention names! Now to make a rash judgment, as so many do, based solely on obvious physical characteristics is for charlatans. The shape of a nose, my God, can very possibly not correspond to the true nature of the one who wears it on his face. Your wife’s dainty little nose, for example, has all the characteristics of sensuality. . . .”

“Really?” Giustino asked, surprised.

“Yes, yes, certainly,” Baldani confirmed with great seriousness. “And yet, perhaps … To finish my study I need some information from you, dear Boggiolo. … I repeat, intimate, indispensable for the complete
understanding of Roncella’s personality. If you don’t mind, I’ll ask you one or two questions, no more. I would like to know if your wife . . .”

And coming still closer, still more quietly, Baldani, polite and serious, asked the first question. Giustino, leaning over with his eyes more intent than ever, turned deep red as he listened. In the end, placing his hands on his chest and straightening up: “Oh, no sir! No, sir!” he denied strongly. “This I can swear to!”

“Really?” Baldani said, searching his eyes.

“I can swear to it!” Giustino repeated solemnly.

“And now,” continued Baldani, “be kind enough to tell me if. . .”

And very quietly, as before, still polite and serious, he asked the second question. This time Giustino’s brow furrowed a bit as he listened. Then, expressing great surprise, he asked: “Why?”

“How naive you are!” Baldani smiled; and he explained why.

Then Giustino, again becoming red as a poppy, first pursed his lips as if he were ready to whistle, then he closed them with an empty little smile and answered hesitantly: “This . . . well. . . yes, sometimes . . . but you mustn’t think that. . .”

“For heaven’s sake!” Baldani interrupted. “You don’t have to tell me. Who could ever think that Silvia Roncella … for heaven’s sake! That’s enough. Those were the two points I needed to clear up. Thank you so much, dear Boggiolo, thank you!”

A little disconcerted, but smiling, Giustino scratched an ear and asked: “Excuse me, perhaps in the article?. . .”

Paolo Baldani interrupted him with a wag of a finger; then he said: “First of all, it’s not an article. I told you, its a study. You’ll see! The research remains secret; it will help me shed light on the criticism. Later you’ll see. Later. If you’ll be good enough to tell your wife I’m here …”

“At once!” said Giustino. “Please wait just a moment. .. .”

He ran up to Silvia’s study to announce Baldani. He was very sure of having swayed her recently and so didn’t expect her furious refusal to see him.

“But why?” he asked, stopped in his tracks.

Silvia was tempted to hurl the truth in his face, to alter his demeanor
of stunned, sorrowful surprise, but she feared he might resort to a show of philosophical indifference, as he had when she had thrown the laughter and mockery of people in his face.

“Because I don’t want to!” she told him. “Because he irritates me! You can see I’m knocking my brains out!”

“Oh, come on, five minutes . . .” Giustino insisted. “He’s making a study of all your works, you know! Today a critic like Baldani, look … He’s a fashionable critic… a critic–wait! What are they called? I don’t know … a new criticism that is talked about so much now, my dear! Five minutes … He’s studying you, that’s all. May I let him come up?”

“A wonderful thing, wonderful thing,” Paolo Baldani said a little afterward in the study, lightly tapping his feminine hand on the arm of the chair and winking at Giustino Boggiolo. “A wonderful thing to see a man so solicitous about your fame and your work, so entirely devoted to you. I can just imagine how happy that must make you!”

“But you know?.. . because . . . if I. . .” Giustino tried immediately to butt in, fearing Silvia didn’t want to answer him.

Baldani stopped him with a hand. He hadn’t finished.

“May I?” he said, and continued: “I imagine so much solicitude and devotion must carry their weight in the importance of your writings, as far as selling them; you certainly can, without any extraneous cares, abandon yourself entirely to the divine joy of creating.”

He seemed to be talking that way now in jest, as though he was aware of his affected way of speaking and accompanied it with a slight, barely perceptible ironic smile. Not to modify it, however, but to arm it with the fascination of disturbing ambiguity. “Only I know what I have in mind,” he seemed to say. “For you, for everyone, I have this profusion of words, and I cloak myself in them with lordly indifference; but when necessary I can also throw them off and suddenly reveal myself strong and handsome in my bare animal nature.”

Silvia had clearly made out that animal nature in the depths of his eyes. She’d had proof of it in the brazen declaration the other evening. If her husband left the room for a minute, she was certain she would be subjected to a new and more brazen assault. In the meanwhile
–oh, how irksome!–he was praising and admiring Giustino to her face, to make friends with him, and after looking at him, he turned to her with unbelievable impudence. In fact, Baldani s look said: “You couldn’t dream or even guess what I know about you. . . .”

“The joy of creating?” Silvia broke out. “I’ve never felt it. I’m really sorry I can’t now, as before, attend to what you call extraneous cares.’ They were the only things that put me at ease and gave some security. All my wisdom was in them! Because I don’t know anything. I don’t understand anything. If you speak to me about art, I won’t understand anything at all.”

Giustino squirmed nervously in his chair. Baldani noticed, turned to look at him, smiled and said: “But this is a priceless confession . . . priceless.”

“Would you like to know, if it will help you, what I was doing, put here for the purpose of writing?” continued Silvia. “I have counted the black and white stripes on the sleeve of my mourning dress. One hundred and seventy-two white stripes from my wrist to the length of the sleeve. Therefore all I know is that I have an arm and this dress. Other than that I know nothing; nothing, nothing, nothing at all.”

“That explains everything!” Baldani exclaimed then, as if that was what he expected. “All your art is here, my dear lady.”

“In the black and white stripes?” Silvia asked, pretending to be amazed.

“No,” smiled Baldani. “In your marvelous unconscious that explains the no-less marvelous spontaneous naturalness of your work. You are a real force of nature. More than that. You are nature itself, which uses the instrument of your imagination to create works above the common run. Your logic is that of life, and you can’t be aware of it because it’s an inborn logic, a mobile and complex logic. You see, my dear lady: the elements that make up your spirit are extraordinarily numerous, and you are ignorant of them. They join and separate with ease, with a prodigious speed, and this doesn’t depend on your will. They don’t let you fix them in any stable form. They keep themselves, I might say, in a state of perpetual melding, without ever congealing, malleable, plastic,
fluid. And you can assume all shapes without knowing it, without your consciously willing it.”

“Look! Look! Look!” Giustino began to babble, jumping about overjoyed. “That’s it! That’s it! Tell her, repeat it, make it stick in her mind, dear Baldani! She is writing something very nice at this moment. She’s a little confused, you see … a little uncertain, after the triumph.”

“Not at all!” shouted Silvia heatedly, in an effort to stop him.

“Yes, yes, yes!” Giustino urged, on his feet, standing between them, almost as though to keep the propitious occasion from slipping away now that he had it in his grasp. “You explained it so well, Baldani! It’s just like you said, Baldani! She can’t find a theme for the new play, and . ..”

“She can’t find it? But she already has it!” Baldani exclaimed, smiling. “May I make a suggestion out of the affection I hold for you? You already have the play! Fools believe (and they go around saying) that it’s easier to create outside daily experience, putting people and things in imaginary places, in unspecified times, almost as if art didn’t mix with so-called common reality, and it didn’t create its own superior reality. But I know your strengths, and I know you can confound these idiots and reduce them to silence and force them to admiration, facing up to and dominating a material much different from that of
The New Colony
. A play about people around us in a city. In your book
Stormy Petrels
you have a short story, the third, if I remember correctly, entitled “If Not This Way."… That’s the new play! Think about it. I will consider myself fortunate to have pointed it out if someday I can say: This play she wrote for me; it was I who planted this vital new seed for fertilization in the womb of her imagination!”

He rose and said almost severely to Giustino: “Let’s leave her alone.”

Baldani went over, took her hand, with a bow deposited a kiss on it, and left.

As soon as Silvia was alone she was assaulted by that fierce anger that we feel when, buffeted in a storm in which we can’t see our salvation or almost have no hope for it, suddenly and calmly it is offered to us by someone from whom we would least have wanted it–here it is,
a plank, a rope. We would rather drown than use it so as not to owe our salvation to the one who offered it to us so effortlessly. This ease, which almost makes our previous desperation silly and vain, seems insulting, and we want to make it clear that the help so effortlessly offered is silly and vain instead. But in the meanwhile we realize we have already grabbed it against our will.

Silvia yearned to get back to work, to a project that would captivate her and keep her from seeing, thinking of herself, and feeling. But she was seeking and not finding. The desire consumed her as she became more and more convinced that she really couldn’t do anything anymore.

Now she didn’t want to go to the bookshelf and take down
Stormy Petrel
but the idea had taken root–she was already trying to visualize the play in the story Baldani had pointed out.

Was it there? Yes, it really was. The drama of a sterile wife. Ersilia Groa, a rich provincial, not beautiful, with a deep, passionate heart, but rigid and hard in aspect and manner, married for six years to Leonardo Arciani, a writer with no desire–after the wedding–either to write or to care about publishing books after he had aroused great public interest and expectation with one of his novels. Those years of marriage have gone by in apparent tranquillity. Ersilia doesn’t know how to offer that treasure of affection she locks in her heart; perhaps she fears it might have no value to her husband. He asks little of her and she gives him little. She would give him everything if he desired it. So there is a void beneath that apparent tranquillity. Only a child could fill it, but now after six years she despairs of having one. One day a letter arrives for her husband. Leonardo has no secrets from her: they read this letter together. It’s from his cousin, Elena Orgera, who was once engaged to him: her husband has died; she is left poor and without any income, with a son she wants to put in an orphanage. She asks for his help. Leonardo is indignant, but Ersilia persuades him to send her help. Soon after that he suddenly goes back to work. Ersilia had never seen her husband work. Completely ignorant of literature, she doesn’t understand her husband’s sudden new enthusiasm. She
watches him waste away day after day, afraid he will become ill. If only he would not tire himself out so. But he tells her that his inspiration has revived and that she couldn’t understand what it is. Thus he manages to fool her for nearly a year. When Ersilia finally discovers her husband’s infidelity, he already has had a baby girl with Elena Orgera. Double betrayal: and Ersilia doesn’t know if her heart bleeds more for the husband that woman took from her or for the child she was able to give him. Conscience certainly has a curious sense of shame: Leonardo Arciani breaks his wife’s heart, steals her love, her peace, but he has scruples about money. Of course! But not scruples about his wife’s money. As a gentleman he doesn’t like having a love nest outside his house. But the rare and uncertain earnings of his stressful work aren’t enough to provide for the needs that soon begin to fill that nest with thorns. As soon as she discovers the betrayal, Ersilia seals herself up hermetically without letting either scorn or sorrow leak out on her husband: she only expects him to continue living at home in order not to cause a scandal, but completely separate from her. She never favors him with a look or a word. Leonardo, oppressed by an unbearable weight, profoundly admires the dignified, austere behavior of his wife, who perhaps understands that, above and beyond all her rights, there is a more imperious duty now for him: his duty toward his child. Yes, in fact, Ersilia understands this duty: she understands it because she knows what she lacks; she understands it so well that if he, worn out now and discouraged, should return to her, abandoning the child with his lover, she would be horrified. He has proof of her tacit, sublime compassion in her silence, in her peace, in the many modestly concealed considerations he finds at home. And his admiration gradually becomes gratitude; and from gratitude, love. He no longer goes into that nest of thorns now except to see his daughter. And Ersilia knows it. What is she waiting for? She herself doesn’t know; and in the meanwhile the love she feels growing in him is nurtured in secret. Her father appears to break up this state of affairs. Guglielmo Groa is a big country merchant, rough, uncultured, but full of sharp good sense.