A Life (8 page)

There was no need of this warning to show Alfonso the sort of love for study which he had managed to inculcate in his pupil, but he found it not unpleasant to be feared.

Once Lucia plucked up the courage to refuse a lesson without making any excuse. She went to open the door for Alfonso and just announced, with a loud laugh copied from a friend, that she would not be having her lesson that evening.

“Why not?” asked Alfonso with a frown. He was not laughing but unpleasantly surprised.

“Let’s spend the time having a laugh, not studying,” replied Lucia bravely.

“Hadn’t we better stop these lessons altogether, as you don’t seem to like them much?”

Lucia blanched, terrified at once. Her mother came to her
rescue
and explained to Alfonso that Lucia had not found time to do her homework and so was having no lesson that evening lest they got too far ahead before she mastered what they had gone over together. Then he too spent a much more pleasant evening than if he had studied with Lucia. He chattered away and was listened to devoutly.

At their next lesson he was more brutal than usual and even called her an ignoramus. He had given her half-an-hour to find an answer which she could not give at once, and behaved as if she had committed a crime by being unable to think of it in that interval; he forgot that where there is no blood it cannot be made to flow. He declared, for lack of other cutting phrases, that it was time to suspend lessons that were producing no results, and got to his feet to suspend this one at once. The girl had not dared declare
frankly till then that she could not say what she did not know. She looked up at the ceiling for a reply, made sounds of impatience to diminish Alfonso’s own impatience, and gave a smile so forced that it was pitiable.

At Alfonso’s crude announcement she burst into tears, got up, left, banged the door violently and flung herself into the arms of her mother, who was alone in the living-room. Alfonso, alarmed by the effect he had produced, would willingly have stopped her to apologize.

He followed her and was struck by a look of intense fury flung across the room at him by Signora Lanucci, who was holding the girl tight to her breast. Lucia was sobbing so hard that she had been unable to explain anything so far. On
seeing
him, the Signora said grimly: “What have you done to the poor girl?”

Very embarrassed, Alfonso replied: “I shouted at her because she’d done no studying!”

“Of course she’s studied! I saw her myself!”

Lucia’s anger, like all weak people’s, burst out violently because long repressed. Between sobs she now yelled at Alfonso three clearly distinguishable insults: “Fool, idiot, ass!”

In her emotion the fine manners learnt with difficulty during recent years left her, and she was reduced to the words, tone and gestures of Gustavo. Alfonso was offended but speechless and uncertain whether to defend or to save himself from her anger by taking refuge in his room.

Signora Lanucci, pained at this break in the harmony she hoped to see between the two young people, turned on Lucia: “It’s you who’re the idiot and fool! Will you be silent?” and she pushed her away.

Lucia went and flopped into a chair but did not seem to have had her say yet: “He thinks he’s clever.”

“Will you be quiet?” interrupted Signora Lanucci threateningly.

Lucia went on sobbing for another half-hour.

Signora Lanucci wanted to minimize the incident and laughed about it to Alfonso, who felt in no state to imitate her.

“But I do want peace in my home, and I realize that the only way to have it is to stop these lessons. Such a pity!”

She could share her regret without fear of arousing Alfonso’s suspicions, because at the start of the lessons she had explained how she hoped Lucia would gain from his instruction. “Men,
particularly
those with a real enthusiasm for study,” Signora Lanucci had said with a flattering bow towards Alfonso, “are better
teachers
than women, who love petty things and get lost in useless detail, so harmful to an understanding of the whole.” But men, she was just realizing, had other defects that were just as
damaging
. In spite of these defects she went on being surprisingly kind to Alfonso.

Lucia less so. For a week she did not address a word to him. She served him at table as her mother ordered, but without uttering a word. Signora Lanucci, in consolation, would wink at him, laugh and turning to Lucia say ironically:

“Just hand that dish to Signor Alfonso, will you? D’you hate him so much you’ll let him die of hunger?”

Lucia obeyed, looking very glum; Alfonso, just as glum, let
himself
be served with a cold word of thanks.

One evening, on suddenly entering the living-room with Gustavo, who had the keys of the house, he found old Lanucci and his wife looking angry and Lucia with eyes red from weeping. Evidently the two old people had been preaching at her. He sat down at table, pretending that he had noticed nothing.

He regretted his behaviour but did not know how to ask for pardon. The poor girl’s mute attempts at excusing herself came back to him as he thought it over in the evening or in the office, and he had to confess that his rage had been both stupid and
brutal
. He concluded that it was his duty to meet Lucia halfway, beg her pardon, and stop obviously making her wretched. But when he saw that stupid, expressionless face again, with its projecting cheek-bones and set sulk, the kind words he had ready stuck in his throat.

Lucia, without looking him in the face, after some hesitation went up to him, held out her hand and said:

“Excuse me, Signor Alfonso, I was wrong; let’s make it up!”

Alfonso, touched, shook her hand warmly.

“The fault was mostly mine; it’s you who must excuse me!”

Lucia gave him a grateful glance which made her less ugly, and
soon had the calm relaxed air of one who has forgotten any
misunderstandings
. She often laughed and quickly went back to her affected ways.

He was sorry to have been outdone in generosity and was less at ease. He, the person of culture, the teacher, should have been the first to give way. This regret, slight as it was, continued to worry him even when lying in bed. There were always insignificant facts such as these disturbing his life, in which nothing important ever happened, and every night he would brood over some ill-
considered
remark uttered by himself, or by someone else, whose real meaning he had only just realized, and he would either regret not having revenged himself with a sharp answer or blame himself for having produced an answer that was unjustifiably brusque.

In the living-room they were talking, and he listened
mechanically
. It was Signora Lanucci and her husband; he could
distinguish
nothing but the sound of their voices, and only when they passed by his door on their way to their room did he clearly hear Lanucci exclaim with a good-humoured little laugh, probably to end their discussion: “Real lovers’ quarrels, these are!”

He already had suspicions about Signora Lanucci’s aims for him but had considered them till then not so much real aims as hopes which could flatter but not alarm. Those few words overheard by chance, the end of a longer conversation, seemed to prove that not only had they hopes of him but were plotting against him, against his liberty. Both mother’s and daughter’s behaviour fitted in with this. The mother had handed over to him, who in his
simplicity
had wanted to teach her daughter, not a pupil but a bride.

He remembered some words of advice from her which could have had a double meaning. The daughter had put up with
everything
rather than see the lessons interrupted as he had threatened. Now making up the quarrel must have revived their hopes.

Should he get indignant? Their attempt deserved it because, had it succeeded, his situation would have become much worse.

The Lanuccis were in a nasty situation themselves though, with the two men in the family unable to better their state. So safe did he feel from the nets spread by Signora Lanucci that he could look at the situation quite objectively and realize that never again would he ever have a chance of doing such a good deed as marrying Lucia.
What would her future be? Probably she would remain an old maid, uselessly hanging on to all those ‘society manners’, as her mother called them, till the end of her life. In his dreams he was capable of heroic action; but next day his bearing towards her was less affectionate. When alone he saw the situation quite differently from when he was with Lucia; he found excuses, forgave her, even felt remorse at being incapable of acting nobly enough, recalled the love which Lucia had shown for him by her patience in putting up with his brutality and by the violence of her misery on realizing she could not reach her goal. But face to face with Lucia he noticed her prominent cheek-bones. No, he did not desire her! He was free and wanted to remain so.

“I’m ill!”

This conclusion was reached after making a series of
observations
about himself. The deep gloom which turned everything grey and dull for him had seemed till then a natural result of his discontent; his insomnia he thought must be due to brain agitation brought on by night study; and an abnormal
restlessness
he sometimes noticed in himself must be because his
muscles
and lungs were insisting on exercise and pure air. At other times a few hours’ freedom was enough to restore his vivacity and calm. But now he was constantly, monotonously, obsessed by one vision which made him incapable of taking part in the present, hearing and examining anything said by others. Sanneo, after giving very lengthy instructions, asked him in a changed tone: “Do you understand?” That change of tone tore Alfonso away from his fantasies. He said, “yes,” just in order to be left in peace and fall back into his dreams as soon as possible. But he had understood nothing, heard nothing and was even incapable of worrying. He went slowly off to his place, taking short steps so as to gain time and to interrupt his beloved visions as little as possible.

He still went on spending every evening in the library, though he came out as he had entered, with no new ideas because his mind was shut to them. He could only re-evoke the past, complete some megalomaniac dream in which he saw himself showing off his knowledge before others. A vague sensation of madness
weakened
his nerves. He feared and avoided people whom he did not
know, and a passer-by at night made him start with fright. He felt awful in the dark and quivered at the faintest sound. Crouching in bed, his head under the covers, he would lie for hours unable to conquer sleep. What a difficult conquest it was! How could he think of nothing? Sometimes he went to bed really tired and felt he would only have to close his eyes to fall asleep. But on flinging himself on the bed, sleep deserted him, and when hours later he managed to lie quiet on some part of the bed, he had to be content with a sleep lacking depth in which his brain went on working dumbly and instinctively, and none the less tiringly for that.

“You’re unwell, it seems to me,” said Cellani, seeing him pale, with eyes staring. “Take a couple of weeks off if you need ’em.”

Alfonso did not accept at once and had to go and ask Cellani that evening for what he had refused that morning.

Sanneo, rather brusquely, also granted him the required
permission
. For some time now he had put an assistant with Alfonso, one Carlo Alchieri, an artillery lieutenant on half-pay because of a weak chest. As the small pension granted him was not enough, he had joined Maller’s. He was young with an old man’s face and a full drab beard: outwardly he looked strong enough. He was the only one to curse on hearing of Alfonso’s holiday, because he knew he would have to bear all that burden of work alone. Sanneo was not one to take other clerks away from their usual jobs to help out someone temporarily overwhelmed by work. Sanneo would say a clerk who found himself in that position was officially a
substitute
for the one away.

All Alfonso needed to combat his inertia was to be out in the open air, knowing he could stay there some time for the sake of his health. He longed to feel well again. Till then he had not felt any regret for his weakness, thinking of it as do holy men in India who find an increase of intelligence by annihilating the material. But his state of boredom, of greyness and monotony, was not that of an intelligent person.

The sun was just up when Alfonso jumped out of bed with a
violent
effort of will. He did not know where to go or where chance would take him; there were plenty of hills around the town.

First he thought of following a company of soldiers going out on manoeuvres. But the sound of their heavy measured tread on
the cobble-stones irritated him. He went up Via Stadion almost at a run to get away from them, as they were taking the same road. He wanted to reach the cliff-side. The effort would have been enough for that first day. But before he was past the last houses of the city, low and rustic, some thatched and painted in bright earthy colours, he had already changed his mind. Now he wanted a green hillside lying on his right, not a grim cliff. He crossed a wooden bridge over the wide but nearly dry bed of a stream; a thread of water ran amid white stones. He crossed a wide avenue on the other side and at last felt bare earth beneath his feet, living grass soft beneath his weight. Already tired and panting, he flung himself on the ground. He was in a copse of young trees with slim trunks, with tufty tops wavering in the morning breeze. This sound joined with the murmer of water trickling into a pool near a low white house only a few steps away.

Again he was seized with a desire to run, a yearning to get far away. As he climbed, the trees became thicker and stronger. Here and there bushes held him up, and he forced himself ahead with febrile impatience, without the strong man’s calm step. He crossed another road and strode through another copse, still climbing aimlessly. The blood was churning in his head and his breath failing, but this only stopped him for very short stops. Exhaustion only overwhelmed him when he came up against a high wall blocking his way. He had climbed for less than an hour before flinging himself on the ground completely exhausted; it seemed to him a well-deserved rest.