Zeno's Conscience, Page 8

  One evening Carlo, the orderly, summoned me to observe some new progress in my father. I rushed after him, my heart pounding at the idea that the old man might become conscious of his illness and reproach me for it.

  My father was on his feet, in the middle of the room, dressed only in his underwear, his red silk nightcap on his head. Though his gasping was still very loud, he uttered from time to time some brief, intelligible words. When I came in, he said to Carlo: “Open!”

  He wanted the window opened. Carlo replied that he couldn’t do it because of the great cold. And for a while my father forgot his own demand. He went and sat down in an armchair by the window and stretched out, seeking relief. When he saw me he smiled and asked: “Did you sleep?”

  I don’t believe my reply reached him. This wasn’t the consciousness I had feared so long. When a man dies, he has too many other worries to allow any thinking about death. My father’s whole organism was concentrated on respiration. And instead of listening to me, he shouted again at Carlo: “Open!”

  He could find no rest. He left the chair in order to stand up. Then, with great effort and with the attendant’s help, he stretched out on the bed, settling first on his left side for a moment and then immediately on his right, but he could tolerate this position only for a few minutes. Once more he called for Carlo’s help to stand on his feet again, and finally he went back to the chair, in which he occasionally stayed a bit longer.

  That day, moving from bed to chair, he stopped at the mirror and, gazing at himself in it, murmured: “I look like a Mexican!”

  I think it was to escape the ghastly monotony of the race from bed to chair that, on this day, he attempted to smoke. He managed to fill his mouth with a single puff, which he immediately expelled, breathless.

  Carlo had called me to observe a moment of clear consciousness in the patient.

  “Am I seriously ill, then?” he asked, ‘with anguish. This clarity did not return. On the contrary, a little later he had a moment of delirium. He rose from the bed and thought he had wakened after a night’s sleep in a Vienna hotel. His parched mouth and his desire for something cool must have led him to dream of Vienna, as he remembered the cold, icy water of that city. He immediately spoke of the good water awaiting him at the next drinking font.

  In general, he was a restless patient, but docile. I was afraid of him because I always feared I might see him turn harsh if he came to understand his situation; so his docility did not ease my great strain. But he obediently accepted any suggestion given him, because he expected one of them might save him from his breathlessness. The attendant offered to fetch him a glass of milk, and he agreed with genuine joy. After waiting with great eagerness to receive that milk, he was equally eager to be rid of it, having taken barely a sip, and when he wasn’t promptly obeyed, he dropped the glass on the floor.

  The doctor never seemed disappointed by the condition in which he found the patient. Every day he asserted an improvement, but he saw catastrophe imminent. One day he came in a carriage and was in a hurry to leave. He urged me to persuade the sick man to remain in bed as long as possible, because the horizontal position was best for his circulation. He repeated this recommendation to my father, who understood, and with an intelligent expression, promised, while he remained standing in the middle of the room, returning immediately to his distraction or rather to what I called his meditation on his suffering.

  During the night that followed, I felt for the last time my terror of witnessing that consciousness I so feared. He had sat down in the armchair by the window and was gazing through the panes into the bright night, the sky filled with stars. His breathing was still shallow, but he didn’t seem to be suffering, absorbed as he was in looking up. Perhaps because of his respiration, his head seemed to be nodding repeated assent.

  I thought fearfully: Now he is pondering the problems he always avoided. I tried to identify the exact point of the sky at which he was staring. He looked up, his trunk erect, with the effort of someone peering through an aperture too high for him. It seemed to me he was looking at the Pleiades. Perhaps in his whole life he had never looked so long at something so far off. Suddenly he turned to me and, still erect, he said: “Look! Look!” with an air of severe admonition. He went back immediately to staring at the sky, then he faced me once more: “You see? You see?”

  He tried to return to the stars, but he couldn’t: he sank back exhausted in the chair, and when I asked him what he had wanted to show me, he didn’t understand, nor did he recall having seen anything or having wanted me to see it. The word he had sought so hard in order to pass it on to me had eluded him forever.

  The night was long but, I must confess, not particularly tiring for me and the orderly. We let the patient do as he pleased, and he walked about the room in his strange garb, completely unaware that he was awaiting death. Once he tried to go out into the corridor, where it was very cold. I stopped him, and he obeyed me at once. Another time, on the contrary, the orderly, who had heard the doctor’s instructions, wanted to prevent the sick man from getting out of bed; but then my father rebelled. He emerged from his daze, rose, weeping and cursing, and I insisted he be allowed to move as he chose. He became calm at once, and resumed his silence and his vain pursuit of relief.

  When the doctor returned, the patient let himself be examined, and even tried to take a deep breath as he was asked to do. Then he spoke to me: “What is he saying?”

  He ignored me for a moment, but quickly turned to me again: “When will I be able to go out?”

  Encouraged by such docility, the doctor urged me to tell him to make an effort and stay in bed as long as possible. My father heard only the voices to which he was accustomed: mine, Maria’s, Carlo’s. I didn’t believe in the effectiveness of those orders, but still I repeated them, putting a threatening tone in my voice.

  “Yes, yes,” my father promised, and at that same moment he got out of bed and went to the chair.

  The doctor looked at him and, with resignation, murmured: “Obviously changing his position gives him some relief. “

  A little later I was in bed, but I couldn’t close my eyes. I looked into the future, seeking to discover why and for whom I could continue my efforts at self-improvement. I wept a great deal, but rather for myself than for the hapless man who was rushing around his bedroom without peace.

  When I got up, Maria went to bed and I stayed at my father’s side with Carlo. I was dejected and tired; my father was more restless than ever.

  It was then that the terrible scene occurred which I shall never forget and which was to cast a long, long shadow, vitiating all my courage, all my joy. Before I could forget that sorrow, my every feeling was to be undermined for years.

  The orderly said to me: “It would be such a good thing if we could manage to keep him in bed. The doctor considers that very important!”

  Until then I had remained lying on the sofa. I got up and went to the bed, where, at that moment, the patient had lain down. I was determined: I would force my father to stay at least half an hour in the repose the doctor wanted. Wasn’t this my duty?

  Immediately my father tried to roll over toward the edge of the bed, to escape my pressure and get up. With a hand pressed firmly against his shoulder, I blocked him, while in a loud, imperious voice I ordered him not to move. For a brief moment, terrified, he obeyed. Then he cried out: “I’m dying! “

  And he pulled himself erect. For my part, frightened by his cry, I had relaxed the pressure of my hand, so he could sit on the edge of the bed, directly facing me. I believe his wrath increased when he found himself— if only for one moment—prevented from moving, and he was sure I was also depriving him of the air he so needed, just as I was taking away the light by standing over him, while he remained sitting. With a supreme effort he managed to stand on his feet. He raised his hand high, as if he had learned he could endow it with no other strength beyond its mere weight, and let it fall against my cheek. Then he slipped to the bed and, from th
ere, to the floor. Dead!

  I didn’t know he was dead, but my heart contracted with grief at the chastisement that, dying, he had meant to give me. With Carlo’s help I lifted him and laid him on the bed again. Weeping exactly like a punished child, I shouted into his ear: “It’s not my fault! It was that damned doctor who wanted to force you to stay on your back!”

  It was a lie. Then, still childlike, I also promised never to do it again: “I’ll let you move any way you please.”

  The orderly spoke: “He’s dead.”

  They had to pull me out of the room by main force. He was dead, and I could no longer prove my innocence to him!

  Alone, I tried to pull myself together. I reasoned: it was inconceivable that my father, still out of his mind, could decide to punish me and could direct his hand precisely enough to strike my cheek.

  How could I be certain that my reasoning was correct? I actually thought of going to Coprosich. As a doctor, he could tell me something about a dying man’s capacity for decision and action. I might even have been the victim of an act inspired by an attempt to ameliorate his respiration! But I didn’t speak with Dr. Coprosich. It was impossible to go and reveal to him how my father had bidden me farewell. To that man! He who had already accused me of lack of affection for my father!

  I received another serious blow when I heard Carlo in the kitchen that evening, telling Maria: “The father raised his hand high and, with all his remaining strength, he slapped his son.” Carlo knew it, and therefore Coprosich would know it as well.

  When I went into the mortuary chamber, I found that they had dressed the corpse. Carlo must also have combed the beautiful white hair. Death had stiffened that body, which lay there proud and menacing. The great, powerful, well-shaped hands were livid, but they lay so naturally that they seemed ready to seize and punish. I was unwilling, unable, to see him again.

  Afterwards, at the funeral, I managed to remember my father weak and good as I had always known him from my infancy, and I convinced myself that the slap given me by a dying man hadn’t been intentional. I became good as gold, and my father’s memory accompanied me, growing sweeter all the time. It was like a delightful dream: now we were in perfect harmony, I had become the weaker and he the stronger.

  I returned to the religion of my childhood and remained there for a long time. I imagined that my father heard me and I could tell him that the fault had been not mine but the doctor’s. The lie was of no importance because now he understood everything, and so did I. And for quite some time the conversations with my father went on, tender and secret like an illicit love, because with everyone I continued to laugh at all religious practices, while it is true—and I wish to confess it here—that into someone’s hands I daily and fervently commended my father’s spirit. True religion, indeed, is that which does not have to be avowed in order to provide the solace that at times—if only rarely—you cannot do without.

  THE STORY OF MY MARRIAGE

  In the mind of a young man from a middle-class family, the concept of human life is associated with that of a career, and in early youth the career is that of Napoleon I. This is not to say that the young man dreams of becoming emperor, for you can remain at a much lower level and still resemble Napoleon. The most intense life is narrated, in synthesis, by the most rudimentary sound, that of the sea-wave, which, once formed, changes at every instant until it dies! I expected therefore also to assume form and to dissolve, like Napoleon and like a wave.

  My life could provide only a single note with no variation, fairly high and envied by some, but horribly tedious. Throughout my life my friends maintained the same opinion of me, and I believe that I, too, since arriving at the age of reason, have not much changed the notion I formed of myself.

  The idea of marrying may therefore have come to me from the weariness of emitting and hearing always that one note. Those who have not yet experienced marriage believe it is more important than it is. The chosen companion will renew, improving or worsening, our breed by bearing children: Mother Nature wants this but cannot direct us openly, because at that time of life we haven’t the slightest thought of children, so she induces us to believe that our wife will also bring about a renewal of ourselves: a curious illusion not confirmed by any text. In fact, we live then, one beside the other, unchanged, except for an acquired dislike of one so dissimilar to oneself or an envy of one who is our superior.

  The strange thing is that my matrimonial adventure began with my meeting my future father-in-law and with the friendship and admiration I felt for him, before I learned he was the father of some nubile girls. Obviously, therefore, it was not a resolution on my part that caused me to advance toward the goal of which I was ignorant. I neglected one young girl who for a moment I might have thought suited for me, and I remained attached to my future father-in-law. It’s almost enough to make you believe in destiny.

  My deeply felt desire for novelty was satisfied by Giovanni Malfenti, so different from me and from all the people whose company and friendship I had sought in the past. Having gone though two university departments, I was fairly cultivated, thanks also to my long inertia, which I consider highly educational. He, on the contrary, was a great businessman, ignorant and active. But from his ignorance he drew strength and peace of mind, and I, spellbound, would observe him and envy him.

  Malfenti at that time was about fifty, a man of iron constitution, huge body, tall and heavy, weighing perhaps two hundred pounds or more. The few ideas that stirred in his immense head would then be expounded with such clarity, examined so thoroughly, and applied to so many new situations every day, that they became part of him, of his limbs, his character. I was quite lacking in such ideas, and I hung on to him, to enrich myself.

  I had come to the Tergesteo building on the advice of Olivi, who told me that I would get my commercial activity off to a good start by spending some time at the Bourse, and that I might also garner there some useful information for him. I sat down at that table where my future father-in-law reigned, and I never left it afterwards, since it seemed to me I had really come upon a classroom of commerce, such as I had long been seeking.

  He soon became aware of my admiration and repaid it with a friendship that immediately struck me as paternal. Can he have known at once how things were to end? One evening when, thrilled by the example of his great activity, I declared that I wanted to rid myself of Olivi and manage my own affairs, he advised against it and even seemed alarmed by my intention. I could devote myself to business, but I should always maintain my firm tie with Olivi, whom he knew.

  He was more than willing to instruct me, and in my notebook he actually wrote in his own hand the three commandments he considered sufficient to make any firm prosper:

  1. There’s no need for a man to know how to work, but if he doesn’t know how to make others work, he is doomed.

  2. There is only one great regret: not having acted in one’s own best interest. 3. In business, theory is useful, but it can be utilized only after the deal has been made.

  I know these and many other axioms by heart, but they were of no help to me.

  When I admire someone, I try at once to resemble him. So I also imitated Malfenti. I wanted to be very clever, and I felt that I was. Indeed, I once dreamed I was smarter than he. I thought I had discovered a flaw in his business organization: I decided to tell him immediately in order to win his esteem. One day at the Tergesteo table I stopped him when, in a business argument, he was calling his interlocutor a jackass. I told him I thought it a mistake for him to proclaim his cleverness far and wide. In my view the truly clever man in business matters should take care to appear foolish.

  Giovanni made fun of me. A reputation for cleverness was very useful. For one thing, many came to seek his counsel, bringing him the latest news, while he gave them the most helpful advice, confirmed by experience accumulated ever since the Middle Ages. At times he happened to gain, along with the news, the possibility of selling some merchandise. Finally—and he
re he started shouting because he felt he had at last hit upon the argument that should convince me—to sell or to buy profitably, everyone seeks out the most clever man. From the fool they could hope for nothing, except perhaps to persuade him to sacrifice his own interest, but his goods always cost more than the clever man’s, because he has already been swindled at the moment of purchase.

  For Giovanni, I was the most important person at that table. He confided in me his business secrets, which I never betrayed. His trust was well bestowed, and in fact he was able to deceive me twice, even after I had become his son-in-law. The first time his shrewdness cost me money, though, as it was Olivi who was deceived, I didn’t complain much. Olivi had sent me to him to collect some information shrewdly, which I relayed to him. The information was such that Olivi never afterwards forgave me, and whenever I opened my mouth to tell him something, he would ask: “Who told you that? Your father-in-law?” To defend myself, I had to defend Giovanni, and in the end I felt more swindler than swindled. Quite a pleasant feeling.

  But on the other occasion I myself was the imbecile, yet even then I couldn’t bear my father-in-law any grudge. He provoked my envy one moment and my hilarity the next. In my misfortune I saw the precise application of his principles, which he had never illustrated to me more clearly. He also found the way to laugh with me, never confessing that he had deceived me and declaring that he had to laugh at the comic aspect of my ill luck. Only once did he admit he had played that trick on me. It was at the wedding of his daughter Ada (not to me), after he had drunk some champagne, which affected that great body whose usual beverage was pure water.

  Then he told me the story, shouting to overcome the hilarity that almost robbed him of speech: “So then this decree comes along! Very depressed, I’m figuring out how much it’s going to cost me. At that moment, in comes my son-in-law. He declares that he wants to go into business. ‘Here’s a fine opportunity,’ I say to him. He falls on the document and signs it, afraid Olivi might arrive in time to stop him, and so the deal is done.” Then he showered praise on me: “He knows the classics by heart. He knows who said this and who said that. But he doesn’t know how to read the daily paper!”