Her Husband (16 page)

Giustino regretted spending so much money on the furnishings, and while he feared this could make him lose out on some admiration and gratitude, at the same time he needed her approval like a balm to soothe this regret. Also, he was really sorry he had made his wife travel alone for the first time without thinking about the separation from her son and her uncle’s death (the only reasons for Silvia’s stiff behavior as far as he could tell). And finally . . . there was another private, very particular reason for wanting her approval, founded on the most rigorous, most scrupulous observance of his conjugal duties for nearly six very long months. At least Dora Barmis would be able to surmise this last reason. She was smiling to herself. But of course! Without a doubt she had guessed it. . . .

However, that wasn’t the only reason she would not acquiesce in
Giustino’s insistent pleas when it was time for supper (which had been ordered for four people before they went to the station), and she left. Raceni realized that it was only right that he should follow Signora Barmis, but the fact remained that he had been dazzled by Silvia Roncella from the first moment he saw her, and was unable to say no when she had said with a smile:

“You’ll stay at least.”

Silvia continued to dazzle him during the supper that evening, much to Giustino’s astonishment. At a certain point he felt so spiteful that he couldn’t contain himself and snorted: “I’m so sorry about Signora Barmis!”

“My goodness!” Silvia exclaimed. “If she didn’t want to stay… You begged her enough!”

“You could have begged her, too!” Giustino retorted.

And Silvia, coldly: “It seems to me I did tell her, just as I told Raceni. . .”

“But you didn’t insist at all! You could have insisted. . . .”

“I never insist,” said Silvia, and she added, turning to smile at Raceni: “Did I insist with you? I don’t think so. If Signora Barmis had wanted the pleasure of our company . . .”

“Pleasure! Pleasure! And what if she left,” Giustino interrupted, unable to contain his irritation, “so’s not to bother you after your trip?”

“Giustino!” Silvia responded at once in a tone of rebuke, but then smiled. “Now you’re being rude to Raceni who stayed with us. Poor Raceni!”

“Not at all! Not at all!” Giustino rebelled. “I’m defending Signora Barmis from your suspicions. Raceni knows we want the pleasure of his company, if we asked him to stay!”

Raceni didn’t believe he really brought all that much pleasure to him, but to her, yes, a lot. The young man could hardly sit still. He was as red as a poppy and could feel his blood running like liquid fire through his veins, so strongly it practically stunned him.

Giustino, who saw what a state he was in, and heard him smilingly repeat Silvia’s words from time to time– “
Poor Raceni!. . . Poor Raceni!
”–felt a different fire blaze up in him: the fire of irritation, or rather anger, fomented also by annoyance with his wife for not giving a single sign of pleasure, or surprise, or admiration for that dining room, for the table settings, for that splendid array of flowers in the middle of the table, full of fragrant white carnations, for Èmere’s impeccable service in that nice uniform, and the cook’s work. Nothing! Not the least sign. As though she had always lived amid such splendor, used to such service, to eating that way, to having guests at the table; or as though she had already known about everything ahead of time and had expected to find their own home, furnished like it was; or rather, as though not he, but she, she alone had thought of everything and had done everything.

But why? Was she doing it to him on purpose? And why? What was it? Just because he hadn’t gone to get her at Carigiore? Because he hadn’t thought of her missing her baby? But if she didn’t seem the slightest bit upset? Look at her there, laughing. . . . But what sort of laugh was that? And still going on with that “
poor Raceni!
”

Giustino was shaken and felt himself inwardly ripped apart from his toes to the roots of his hair when Silvia announced a great bit of news to Raceni: she had written some poetry at Cargiore, a lot of poetry, and promised to give him a sample for
The Muses
.

“Poems? What poems? You’ve been writing poetry?” he exploded. “Please!”

Silvia looked at him as if she didn’t understand. “Why,” she asked, “can’t I write poetry? It’s true I’ve never written any before. But the poems wrote themselves, believe me, Raceni. I’m not sure if they’re any good. They could even be bad. . . .”

“And you want to publish them in
The Muses?”
asked Giustino, his eyes glaring more furiously than ever.

“And why not, Boggiolo?” Raceni spoke up. “Do you really think they could be bad? Just imagine how popular they’ll be with readers as a new, unexpected manifestation of Silvia Roncella’s talent!”

“No, no, for heaven’s sake, don’t talk like that, Raceni,” Silvia protested at once. “Otherwise I won’t give them to you. They’re little ditties
you can’t give any importance to. I’ll give them to you on this condition, and only as a favor.”

“All right, all right,” Giustino chewed it over. “But. . . may I… remind you … not for Raceni who … all right, you’ve already promised him, so that’s that. You promised Senator Borghi a short story first, and you haven’t done it!”

“My goodness, I’ll do it, if it comes to me.” Silvia replied.

“I’m saying … instead of poems … you could at least have written this short story at Cargiore!” Giustino couldn’t restrain himself. “And now . . . if you can’t give these poems to the senator after promising them to Raceni … I would say … at least wait until Borghi’s short story is ready.”

Absolutely everything was ruining his celebration of the new house this evening, the reward for all his hard work! So now his wife wanted to return to those wonderful days when she gave her work away to everyone? Did she also want to start doing everything herself, taking advantage of the fact that this evening he wouldn’t want to be discourteous to her?

Dear me, he realized he was losing all semblance of manners, and he could feel his agitation growing. Of course! Certainly! Disappointment over the lack of praise, over the lack of surprise, her whole manner, the unnecessary snub to Signora Barmis, now this promise to Raceni. . .

To vent his feelings, to make the furies evaporate, Giustino hurled a string of abuse and insults after Raceni as soon as he left: “Stupid! Imbecile! Clown!”

But here was Silvia defending him, smiling: “And your gratitude, Giustino? When he’s been such a help to you?”

“He? He’s been in my way!” Giustino broke out furiously. “Only in the way! As he was this evening! As he always is! Signora Barmis really helped me, don’t you see? She, yes! Signora Barmis, who you made leave like that. And to that man, smiles, compliments,
poor Raceni, poor Raceni
, and even . . . even giving him poems, by heaven!”

“But don’t the two of them work together?” Silvia asked. “He, the director; she, the editor? Don’t you think it would be better from now
on to compensate them every once in a while for all the help they’ve given you, until they no longer want to help us for … I don’t really know why. . . .”

“Oh, no, dear, no, dear… listen, dear…” Giustino started babbling, losing all control, wounded to the quick. “You mustn’t get mixed up in things that are my business! But have you looked around, tell me, have you looked around carefully? All these things here … All ours! And it’s the fruit, I say, of my work and worry! Now do
you
want to teach me what I should do and what I should say?”

Silvia broke off the argument at once, saying she was dead tired after the long trip and needed to rest.

She realized he would never give in on that point and that any attempt to stop him in the exercise of what he now considered his duty, his profession, would inevitably cause a rift between them, an incurable break.

She understood him better when, rejected, undressing in the adjoining room, he began wholeheartedly to give vent to his disappointment, his bitter irritation and rage, with curses and rebukes, reprimands and regrets, and outbursts of nasty laughter. The more these provoked and wounded her, the more his now exposed and flagrant absurdity grew before her eyes.

“But yes! She was right!
Help her, Boggiolo, help her avenge herself!
I was an idiot not to do it! This is my reward! This is my compensation! Stupid . . . stupid . . . stupid … A hundred thousand occasions . . . Well, all right! This is nothing, gentlemen! We haven’t even started yet! Just wait and see! .. . We give them away, we give them away. . . . We write poems and we give them away…. Poetry, now! Poetry’s popping out. … Of course! Let’s start living in the clouds, shutting our eyes to all these expenses here. … All too boringly prosaic … So much pain, so much work, so much money: that’s the thanks I get! We knew it… But such unimportant things … A little villa? Bah! What’s that? Ducrot furniture? Bah! Nothing special… Oh, here’s the bed! What a nice bed of roses!… What a nice way to inaugurate it, my dear Signor Ducrot! Hurry here, stupid! Run there! Break your neck! Get out of
breath! Lose your job! Beg, threaten, pull strings! This is my reward, gentlemen! This is my reward!”

And he went on like this in the dark for more than an hour, tossing and turning wildly on the bed, coughing, snorting, scornfully laughing.

In the meantime, in the other room, curled up under the blankets, with her head buried in the pillows to shut him out, she cursed her fame that had escalated with his help, but at the price of so much laughter and derision from others. She now felt attacked, whipped, enveloped by all that laughter, all that mockery, with the roar of the train still in her ears. Why hadn’t she noticed it before? Only now all the times he had made a spectacle of himself, each more ridiculous than the other, rose before her eyes, tormenting her with such cruel clarity: all the times beginning with the banquet, when he stood up with her at Borghi’s toast as if it was for his benefit also as her husband, up to the scene at the station before her departure for Cargiore when he, leading the way, had bowed as applause broke out in the waiting room.

Oh, to be able to turn back, to crawl into her shell to work quietly and unknown! But he would never allow her work of so many years, from which he now drew all his satisfaction, to be stymied like that. With that villino that he, with good reason, considered entirely the fruit of his labor, he had intended to construct a kind of temple to Fame where he could officiate and pontificate! It was madness to hope he might give it up now! It was fixed in his mind, and there it would stay forever as part of that fame that he knew he had made! And that he would keep trying to make greater so he could stay in the middle and keep looking more ridiculous.

It was her fate, and it was inevitable.

But how could she bear that torture, now that the blindfold had fallen from her eyes?

A few days later, Giustino wanted to solemnly institute the first of a series of “Literary Mondays at Villa Silvia,” as Signora Barmis had suggested.

For the housewarming he invited all the best-known musicians and music critics of Rome for a piano recital of music from the opera
The New Colony
, composed by the young Maestro Aldo di Marco.

The composer’s name drew a blank with everyone. All anyone knew was that this di Marco was a very rich Venetian Jew and that in order to set
The New Colony
to music, he had made such offers that Boggiolo had hurriedly broken off negotiations with one of the more distinguished composers.

Although Giustino didn’t expect much to come of this work, and in fact he hoped it had only modest success so it wouldn’t cast a shadow over the play, nevertheless he had his journalist friends announce that the composition would soon be introduced in Italy, etc., etc., and he had a picture printed in the newspapers of the slender, not too well-groomed young Venetian maestro, who . . . etc., etc.

The announcement had seemed to him necessary and opportune, not only considering the enormous amount of money the composer spent to set the successful play to music (with lyrics by Cosimo Zago), but also to enhance the solemnity of the inaugural evening.

That was the least he could do.

That piano recital, and the young, unknown composer, who looked so unpromising, was an annoyance to everyone. On the other hand, the curiosity to see Signora Roncella, in person, in her house after her triumph, was very lively.

Silvia expected it. Nervous about having to face that curiosity shortly, seeing her husband so frantically getting things set up but acting like someone who knows everything and needs no one, she would have liked to cry out: “Stop! Let it all go. Don’t trouble yourself anymore! They are coming for me, just for me! You have nothing to do with it anymore; you don’t have to do anything except sit quietly in a corner!”

Her nervousness was not only because of the expected curiosity; it was also because of him–in fact, primarily because of him.

She even went so far as to pretend to be jealous of Signora Barmis, to keep him from running to her for help with the preparations, hoping
that without her he wouldn’t take so much trouble and would think he had done all that was necessary.

The idea that his wife, who had become such a celebrity (even though it was through him), was beginning to be a little jealous (however wrongly) gave Giustino a certain pleasure. The irritation that this jealousy caused him at that moment manifested itself in a smug little smile. Signora Barmis’s help was indispensable. But Silvia stood her ground.

“No, not her, no! Not her!”

“But, heavens . . . Silvia, are you serious? If I. . .”

Silvia shook her head angrily and hid her face in her hands to interrupt him.

Her deceitfulness made her suddenly ashamed and disgusted, seeing that deep down he was enjoying it: ashamed and disgusted, because it seemed to her that she was making fun of him for his silly spectacle, too.

Suddenly, wanting to give him a hard shake to save him and save herself, to make the blindfold fall from his eyes, too, she burst out: “Why, why do you want to make them laugh? At you and at me? Haven’t you noticed Signora Barmis is laughing at you, has always laughed at you? And everyone with her, everyone! Haven’t you noticed?”

Giustino wasn’t the slightest bit shaken by his wife’s angry outburst. He gave her an almost compassionate smile and raised his hand in a gesture more of philosophical indifference than derision.

“They’re laughing? Yes, for some time now . . .” he said. “But add it up, my dear, and you’ll see if those who laugh are the fools or I who … Look here … who did all this and put you on top! Let them laugh. See? They laugh and I take advantage of it and get everything I want from them. Look around you, here’s all their laughter. . ..”

And he waved his hands while looking around the room, as though to say: “See what fine things they changed into?”

Silvia’s arms dropped to her sides. She stood looking at him open-mouthed.

Then he knew? He had noticed? And he had gone ahead without
caring, and had wanted to keep on going? It didn’t matter that everyone was laughing at him and at her? Oh, dear, but then … If he was sure, very sure, that her fame was solely his work, and that all his work consisted of basically nothing more important than letting them laugh at him, and then converting this laughter into large earnings, into that little villa, into the nice furniture in it–what did it mean? Did it mean that for him literature was something to laugh at, something a man of good judgment, wise, and discerning, wouldn’t become involved in except to take advantage of the laughter of fools who took it seriously?

That’s what it meant? Oh, no!

As Silvia continued to look at her husband, she suddenly realized these presumptions painted the wrong picture of him. No, no! He couldn’t have wanted to be considered a laughing stock. From the time those three hundred marks arrived down there in Taranto for the translation of
Stormy Petrel
, he had begun to take literature seriously. The only foolishness for him was her indifference toward the profit it could make if administered well, like any other work. . . . And he had set about to supervise it with such fervor, or rather with such fury, as to provoke everyone’s laughter. He hadn’t intentionally provoked that laughter to sell her work, but he had been forced to endure it, and now he considered it the laughter of fools because he had succeeded in spite of it. No matter what he did now, people would laugh at him! The more serious he wanted to appear now, the more ridiculous he would seem.

Ah, that inaugural evening! Silvia seemed to detect mockery in every sound, in the rustle of dresses, in the light squeak of shoes muffled in the thick rugs, when a chair moved, a door opened, or a spoon stirred in a cup. And then the sound of the piano when di Marco began to play, and little smiles, titters, looks, gales of loud laughter, words blurted and babbled. Every smile of deference or sympathy seemed mockery. She sensed mockery in every look, in every gesture, behind every word of the many guests.

She tried to ignore her husband, but how could she if he was always there in front of her, small, all dressed up, restless, beaming, and believing that everyone in every part of the room wanted him? Now
Luna took him by the arm, and another four or five journalists flocked around him, then Signora Lampugnani called to him from a group of the liveliest women.

She would have liked to have been more receptive and sociable, but being incapable of this and boiling with scorn, she had been tempted from time to time to say or do something outlandish, unheard of, to make the desire to laugh pass from everyone who had come there to mock her husband, and consequently her, too.

Instead, she had to put up with the almost insolent flirting that those young literati and journalists felt free to engage in. As though she, fortunate enough to have a husband like that so willing to show her off to everyone, a husband who did so much to make everyone like her, a husband surely not even she could take seriously, she couldn’t, indeed she shouldn’t, refuse their attention, in order not to displease him.

And in fact, didn’t he come up to her from time to time to suggest that she do what she could with one person or another, and particularly with the most shameless, with those she tried to keep at a distance with hard and cold contempt? Betti, that Betti who up to now had taken every occasion to write ill of her in several newspapers, and that Paolo Baldani recently come from Bologna, a very handsome young man and very erudite critic, writer of verses and journalist, who with incredible arrogance had whispered a declaration of love as though it were quite normal?

So it wasn’t just the laughter and mockery she had to put up with, but this, too? Silvia asked herself in regard to her husband’s brief, furtive recommendations that didn’t seem innocent to her, as they apparently did to him. This, too?

She was freezing with disgust and burning with indignation.

The strangest thoughts darted through her mind, arousing dismay in her, since they went ever deeper into the unexplored parts of herself, uncovering things she hadn’t wanted to know about herself. She had a premonition that if her demon should ever take possession of her, it would drag her who knows where.

Every concept that she had tried to hold firmly decomposed in her
mind and, abandoned to her new destiny, or rather to chance, she saw that without wanting to, her soul could change in a minute, revealing itself capable of anything, of the most unthinkable, unexpected resolutions from one instant to another.

“It seems to me that… I say … it seems to me that. . . everything went well, eh? Very well, it seems to me.” Giustino hurriedly said to her when the last guest had left, in order to shake her out of her mood: stiff, eyes intense and staring, mouth clamped shut.

Her cold hands could still feel the fiery clasp Baldani had given her just before he left.

“Everything was just fine, wasn’t it?” Giustino repeated. “And, you know, walking around I heard them say so many… good things about you . . . very good things . . .”

Silvia shook herself and gave him such a look that he stopped a moment, as though lost, with an empty smile on his lips like someone who doesn’t quite know what face to put on.

“Don’t you think so?” he then asked. “Everything fine, I say… Only di Marco’s music seems … did you listen? Scholarly, yes … It’s scholarly music, but. ..”

“Do we have to go on like this?” Silvia suddenly asked in a strange voice, as if only her voice were there and she herself were miles away. “I’m warning you that I won’t be able to write any more like this.”

“How . . . Why?… In fact, now that. . . but what!” Giustino stammered, shocked by this unexpected blow. “With that study upstairs…”

Silvia blinked, made a face, shook her head violently.

“What?” Giustino repeated. “You can close the door. . . . Who will disturb you?. . . With so much silence . . . What I meant. .. Everyone asks what you are preparing. I answered: nothing, for now. No one believes it. Certainly a new play, they say. They would pay anything for a hint, some news, a title. . . . You have to think about it, get back to work now. . . .”

“How? How? How?” shouted Silvia, shaking her fist in frustration. “I can’t think, I can’t do it anymore! It’s over for me! I was able to work when I was unknown, when I didn’t even know myself! Now I can’t
anymore! It’s over! I’m not that person anymore. I’m a different person! It’s over! It’s over!”

Giustino watched her in her frenzy. Then, with a shake of his head: “We are doing so well!” he exclaimed. “Now, that it’s beginning, it’s over? What are you talking about? Look here, why does anyone work? To reach a goal, I think! You want to work and stay unknown? Work, then, for what? For nothing?”

“For nothing! For nothing! For nothing!” Silvia responded passionately. “That’s just it, for nothing! To work for work’s sake and nothing else! Without knowing how or when, hidden away from everyone and almost hidden from myself!”

“But this is insane!” shouted Giustino, beginning to get worked up, too. “Well, what have I done? Was it wrong of me to make your work pay, is that it? Is that what you mean?”

With her face in her hands, Silvia shook her head yes several times.

“Really?” Giustino continued. “Then why did you let me do it for so long? This is how you thank me now that you are reaping the rewards so many yearn for who work like you: glory and ease? You’re complaining about it… And that’s not crazy? Come on, my dear, it’s just nerves! Besides, what do you have to do with it? Who tells you to bother with things that don’t concern you?”

Silvia looked at him dumbfounded. “They don’t concern me?”

“No, dear, they don’t concern you!” Giustino answered immediately. “You go on working for nothing, just as you did before. Go back to work when you like and let me worry about the rest. Of course, I understand . . . such a novelty! … I understand that if it was up to you . . . But look, if I milk it with my work, what do you have to do? Do I burden you with this, too? This is my business! You give me the written work, write for nothing, as you please, throw it away. I’ll take it and change it into hard cash for you. Can you stop me? It’s my business, and you have nothing to do with it. Work like you’ve worked up to now; work for work’s sake… but work! Because if you don’t work anymore, I. . . I. . . what will I do? Can you tell me? I lost my job, my dear, by looking after your work. You need to think about this! Now the responsibility
is mine … I say, for your work. We’ve earned a lot, it’s true, and there will be more with
The New Colony
. But you see here how the expenses have increased…. Now with the house we have another style of life. There are still thirty thousand lire to be paid for the house. I could have paid it, but I wanted to keep something aside so you could have a breather. . . . Now you’ll get yourself together. It’s been a big shock–the change was too sudden. You’ll get used to it quickly, you’ll calm down. The biggest part has been done, my dear. We have the house…. I wanted it like this. I spent a lot, but… for the sake of appearances, you know? Every little bit counts! Your name is worth something now, worth a lot in itself. . . . Without giving anything to anyone! If Raceni expects those poems you promised him for his magazine, he’ll be in for a surprise! I won’t let him have them.
Poor Raceni, poor Raceni
, you’ll see how much those poems will earn now. . .. Leave it to me! You just get back to your writing. Write and don’t think about anything else. Upstairs, by heaven, in that magnificent study.”

In Giustino’s long discourse Silvia saw no well-meaning intention to restore her to a calm and reasonable state, to the recognition and gratitude for what he had done and still wanted to do for her; she only saw, in that moment of exasperation, what she was supposed to do for the enemy and tyrant: that is, now that he had lost his job, he made it absolutely imperative that she work so he could have employment–a job that would seem odious to anyone, never mind how ridiculous. Didn’t he want to live on her work and for her work, then take credit for the earnings himself? As long as the work hadn’t cost her great effort, she could recognize that the credit for those unexpected earnings were all or almost all due to him, but no longer, now that he had so expressly and clearly made it her obligation to work. Now her work was an agony, just thinking how she had to turn everything over to him, unable to do as she pleased with it. She had to give him everything, everything, because in spite of the scorn and now also with the contempt of others, he wanted to make money out of it. That was it, make everything profitable, even those poor, private, shy little poems. … A business, even at the cost of her own dignity! Did he realize this? Was
it possible that the furor blinded him to the point where he couldn’t see it?