Tales of Madness (6 page)

That's how far I was from the suspicion that my wife was betraying me.

"Blame? Blame? No!" he said all of a sudden in a loud frenzied
tone.

Vardi! Him, Cesare Vardi, my neighbor! I recognized him, I saw him in his voice: stocky and solid, as if nourished by earth, sun, and clean air.

Immediately thereafter, I heard the shutters bang violently shut, as if the wind had helped her hands. Then I heard him leaving. I didn't move from the position I had assumed. Holding my breath, I continued listening to the sounds of his footsteps, which were much slower than my heartbeat. Then I got up, still shuddering from the effects of my initial shock, and then what I had seen and heard, almost no longer seemed true.

Is it possible? Is it possible? I asked myself, wandering again through the countryside, among the trees, as if inebriated. A muted, continuous whimpering issued from my throat, mingling with the violent rustling of the leaves, as if my body, having been wounded, was suffering on its own, while my soul, upset and amazed, paid no attention to it.

"Is it possible?"

Finally I heard that whimpering sound coming from me, and panting heavily, I stopped. I took a strong hold of each shoulder with both of my hands, crossing my arms on my breast as if to brace myself, and I sat down on the ground. I then burst out sobbing desperately. I cried and cried. Then, worn out but relieved by my tears, I began to take courage.

Running back to the little villa, I found that the relatives had withdrawn from the dead woman's room, and that only two servants had stayed behind to keep vigil. I relieved them of their sad task, telling them that I would keep vigil for them. I stopped a while to gaze at my sister-in-law. She seemed more
peaceful, more serene, as if, having died in the shadow of the sin
whose horrible secret she had wanted to keep, she had now been freed of it, since I knew everything. I then entered Mirina's room.

I found her crying. As soon as she saw me, her face changed.

"Don't be afraid," I told her. "Come with me."

"Where?"

"With me. You'll no longer feel any remorse."

"What are you trying to say?"

"I want to do, not say. And what you want. Come now, I'll show you."

I took her by the hand, pulling her forward. Trembling, quivering, she let me drag her to the dead woman's room. I pointed out her sister to her.

"See?" I said. "Now she'll forgive you. And you can repeat to me that you've killed her."

"Me?"

"Yes, just as you told him a little earlier from the window. Quiet, don't shout! I won't do anything to you. You'll just leave this house this very moment. Don't cry! It's your prison. I want to free you."

"Go where? Where?" she asked, full of anguish.

"I don't want to hurt you, no. What obligation do you have to love me unwillingly?"

"Where are you taking me?"

"To the man who is waiting for you."

Upon entering a house, I was thinking at that moment, we have to content ourselves with the chair that the host can offer us, and not ponder whether, to suit our taste and size, we would have fashioned a more stylish or larger one from the tree used to make it. For Mirina the chairs in my house were too tall. When she sat, her legs dangled, and she wanted to feel the ground under her feet.

But I promised to tell you only what I did. Fine, let's overlook this brief sample of madness. But how much quicker it would have been to fire a shot... Goodness knows!

I was holding her hand and talking to her as we walked out in
the open. I don't remember exactly what I said to her, but I know
that, at a certain moment, she freed her wrist from my hand, and fled racing, racing through the trees as if she had been swept away by the wind. I was perplexed and surprised by her sudden flight. I had thought she was following me so submissively. I called out like a blind man:

"Mirina! Mirina!"

She had disappeared in the darkness among the trees. For a long time I wandered about looking for her, but to no avail. At daybreak I continued to look for her until I had not a single doubt that she had gone on her own to take refuge where I had wanted to bring her without resorting to any violence.

I looked at the sky, veiled with scattered bands which were like the remaining traces of the great flight of clouds I saw the night before, and I felt dazed amidst a new, unexpected silence, getting the vague impression that something was now lacking in the land about me. Ah yes, that's it: the wind. The wind had subsided. The trees were immobile in the damp, squalid light of that dawn.

"Imbecile!"

She was right, poor thing.

Two years later, I see myself again traveling. Vardi deserted Mirina, and she, rescued from poverty, vice, and desperation, now lives at the home of a relative. However, she is in the grips of a horrible illness and is about to die from it. With my forgiving and peaceful spirit I had hoped and dreamt of comforting her remaining days by bringing her back to our countryside. I go to see her in that squalid room and say to her:

"Do you understand me now?"

"No!" she answers, withdrawing her hand as I am about to caress it, and looking at me odiously.

She, too, was right, poor thing.

As everyone knows, to exercise any profession well, we need ample resources which can allow us to hold out for the best opportunities without having to seize the first ones, like dogs fighting over a bone, which is the fate of the person who finds himself in financial troubles and, to make ends meet today, is constrained to make his tomorrow, himself, and his profession, wretched.

Now this goes for the thief's profession as well.

Poor Santi (to whom I'm now indebted for not now being reduced to receiving handouts) knew the extent of my wealth and wisely estimated that it was sufficient to provide
generously for myself, as well as for all those others who, like him,
could be satisfied with discreetly scraping a bit off the top without causing exceedingly obvious damage. Perhaps, for the sake of their common interest, he didn't fail to advise moderation to his colleagues. Certainly he wasn't heeded. He created enemies for himself and suffered quite a bit, poor man. The others continued to bundle and cart off all they could. He, instead, pilfered like a sober little ant. And when I finally became as poor as Job, one could easily see that good old Santi was much more distressed than I was. He had scraped together just enough to live modestly, and could not resign himself to the fact that those others had not even condescended to leave me in the condition he was in.