THE NEXT DAY FIRST EDITION

    MILAN GALLI     DI     CHIESA & GUINDANI
    PUBLISHING BOOKSTORE     =Leipzig= and =Vienna=, F.A. Brockhaus—=Berlin=, A. Asher and C.     =Paris=, Veuve Boyveau—=Naples=, Ernesto Anfossi

1889

Literary property.

Milan. Tip. Lombardi.

I thought some people might turn up their noses at this "morrow after," a term not accepted by everyone; and some critics, as sometimes happens, might focus all their acumen on the title page, depriving the work of that intelligent examination which is the greatest reward to which a writer aspires.

Changing tomorrow for tomorrow wouldn't have been difficult, had I not clung to that first word, which arose spontaneously in my brain along with the very concept of the work, with a kind of superstitious fondness; besides, it seems to me more streamlined, more lively, more effective, more precise.

However, I decided to ask for advice, or rather I asked for several, with the result of widening the circle of doubts; because the partisans of tomorrow and of the day after_ multiplied without merging.

I did, it is true, have Manzoni on my side, because he features the morrow in The Betrothed , and with such an ally I could go to war; but I also wanted to hear the opinion of a learned young, talented, and well-known poet, who from Rome occasionally sends out verses exquisite in thought and form; and here is the answer:

"L'indomani" has had many accusers, including Fanfani, and many defenders, including Nannucci and Gherardini. Even some authoritative writers used it. I believe that, while "il domani" better expresses a specific day, "l'indomani" better expresses a continuous time; it is no longer a precise adverb, but a true noun. The preposition " in" gives it this meaning, and I cannot see, since its etymology is purely classical, why it should be banned, forcing the word " domani" to mean a concept that instead finds its proper expression in the word "l'indomani."

* * *

As Marta's eyelids opened, out of habit, she searched for her familiar bedroom; but even before the walls, the furniture, and the large bed alerted her to the change, her heart leaped. She was a bride.

She immediately looked at her husband. Alberto was asleep, his features calm, his cheeks suffused with a rosy hue, so childishly placid and serene that his beard seemed a joke around his face. Marta gazed at him for a long, intense look, seeing one of her oldest fantasies of love slipping away in that stubborn slumber. Yet she was happy to watch over and almost protect that sleep, overcome by a maternal tenderness mingled with the melancholy of a hidden thought.

Of course, she couldn't blame her husband for not waking up before her; perhaps it was even better that way; yes, yes, better. Another train of thought assailed her, making her slip from bed with an eagerness that resembled flight.

And as she dressed slowly in the dim light of the room, she took full possession of her position as a married woman, gazing at the gold ring glittering on her left hand, fearful of losing it as she put on her sleeves, and pondering whether or not she should remove it before washing. Because she wanted to continue for the rest of her life what she had done on her first day; she was a friend of order and system; she wanted to be a good little woman like her mother and like so many models of brides she had read about in English novels.

The dream of her ardent youth had come true to the letter; a young, charming, honest man had asked for her hand in marriage, had given her his name, and was taking her with him; he therefore loved her. It was the ideal love, true, indestructible — strong as death . The grandeur of the biblical comparison moved her; she felt a surge of profound gratitude to Alberto, who gave her all this, and, bending down gently, she placed a tender kiss on the hand her husband held outstretched from his tuck.

It was strange, however, that she found herself locked in the same room with a man she hadn't even met two months earlier; who until last week hadn't addressed her informally; whom she had always seen around her mother and relatives; whose past she didn't know, and whose tastes, habits, affections, and aversions she was unaware of. She, who had been raised with the inviolable idea of ​​feminine modesty, who wouldn't turn her back on a brother or an uncle, had nevertheless slept with this man!

It was right, legal, approved by the code and by religion; approved by herself because she had said yes, because she liked Alberto, because she expected love from him.

She waited! But meanwhile she felt dizzy, like someone groping around blindfolded, bumping into new and undefined objects, hearing the voices of her companions shouting: go ahead, don't be afraid!

When they introduced her to Alberto, Marta, who was twenty-three years old, intelligent and serious, immediately understood from her mother's anxieties, from his scrutinizing gaze, that the great act of her life was about to take place.

What she didn't know was that her fate had been decided for several months among five or six candidates chosen and vetted by her mother's friends, so she was successively on the verge of becoming Signora De-Martini, with a widower, a captain, a nobleman, a man of order, and reasonably well-off; or Signora Valdranchi, marrying Valdranchi, the famous sculptor, who didn't have a penny but earned a good living, a charming young man who was showered with amorous adventures. At the same time, Anselmo Bianchi, a grain merchant, a bit unassuming, yet handsome and wealthy, had been considered. Three absolutely opposite personalities, but who, in the form of a husband, offered the same guarantees of happiness for the bride, according to her friends.

De Martini, tall, slim, blond, slightly bald, distinguished, quiet, and extremely well-mannered, must have appealed to Marta. Valdranchi, short, lively, accustomed to shady company, but with a brilliant eye, restless, and charming, must have appealed to Marta too; and there was no reason why she couldn't like Anselmo Bianchi, although no longer in the prime of life, but still healthy, with an almost princely villa, complete with a huge greenhouse, where Marta could indulge her passion for flowers. This paragraph was noted with great interest by the group of friends.

While the possibilities of such marriages were being discussed, De Martini had already been invited to lunch, and Mr. Bianchi had been told about the great fortune he could gain from a good wife; just as Marta was being persuaded that unemployed bosses like Valdranchi make, in the long run, the best husbands, Alberto Oriani showed up. "Look," observed a cousin, "what a wonderful combination, Oriani! And Marta is Oldofredi; she wouldn't even change her initials." Negotiations began on this happy discovery.

Alberto Oriani wasn't entirely new to the Oldofredi family; his mother had met him ten years earlier; and then at school, a certain Oriani girl had been in the same class as her, oh! she remembered very well; a brunette with lightning-fast eyes.

Alberto lived in the countryside, tending his farm; alone, well-off, a gentleman, thirty-seven years old, the weariness of celibacy, the clearly expressed desire to marry and end the miserable life of a bachelor. His mother, relatives, and friends looked at each other and shouted: It's him!

When Marta saw him later, it seemed a coincidence. After spending an entire evening at the theater, with a dark, amiable young man at her side, a deliciously scented vanilla in his buttonhole; after having agreed on the merits of the play and the leading lady's clothes, thus creating a kind of friendly understanding, a moral accord, Marta had no qualms about seeing him again two days later, leaving Mass, and for another two days afterward, welcomed into her home as a friend.

When the time came to make up her mind, everyone pointed out to her, and she herself, with what little experience she had, her singular fortune compared to the general average of young women; many of whom marry late, unpoetic and already withered; others never marry at all; some must settle for an old man, some for a widower, some for someone a little short-sighted, some for a penniless person or a stammerer or a semi-consumptive because—so-called people say—you can't have everything.

Alberto had everything, or almost everything, Marta had to admit; and she rejoiced in her own good fortune and accepted with enthusiasm—an enthusiasm that wasn't precisely for Alberto, but for the future Alberto would give her. She knew, too, that they couldn't love each other right away; today was merely a preparation; only tomorrow would open the mysterious doors of love to her.

Marta eagerly stretched out her heart and arms to this future good, amidst the feverish preparations for the wedding; indifferent to the joy of the gifts, absentmindedly touching the embroidery and lace of the trousseau, smiling faintly at the good wishes, not savoring, not grasping those fragments, those particles of happiness swirling around her, her eyes fixed on the goal. Neither Alberto's kindness, nor the kiss he, in her mother's presence, planted on her hand and on her cheek in the final days, touched her much. Later—she thought—when will we truly love each other, when will we be alone!

At fifteen, Marta had experienced her first love-struck moment; nothing more than a thrill, a long handshake, a look that made her shudder; and then many sleepless nights, many hours of sadness, many tears shed in secret; no amorous exhilaration, but the intuition of all exhilarations. And that was how it ended.

Later, in society, she had found herself preferring to gaze into certain eyes, to dance willingly with one young man rather than another; but since she could neither encounter these flashes of love, nor solicit them, nor abandon herself to them, eight years had passed, apparently empty and cold.

Whatever the dreams, desires, hopes, and expectations of the past eight years, everything now had to be fulfilled. In the fullness of her womanhood, Marta's soul, her senses, her thoughts demanded their share, and she repeated anxiously: later! later!

The altar, the town hall, her weeping mother, the departure from her father's house—she saw it all shrouded in a cloud; one of the many clouds that, shifting, dissolving, and reuniting in different forms and guises, robbed her of the sense of truth, of that single essential point where her gaze fixed, and which was always contested. She had never been alone with Alberto; when they were together, they had a host of conversations already prepared: the upholsterer, the seamstress, the goldsmith, the invitations, the travel schedule.

Alberto ran back and forth, busily, with a bundle of papers to check and sign; always serene and cheerful.

He's an angel of goodness! his mother exclaimed. Marta looked at him intently, right into his eyes, so much so that he said, laughing: "Hey! You want to magnetize me!"

This turmoil will end, thought Martha; he will be mine, all mine; two more days, one more day, one more hour….

Marta dressed slowly, standing in her corset, reluctantly tying the pink ribbon of her beautiful wedding gown, pausing to gaze at the foliage of the fretwork that stood out in relief against a background of small stars.

One of her worries, before getting married, had been having to show Alberto her arms, her tiny little arms, those of a child who had grown up so quickly. Luckily, she thought, he never even saw them!

She tightened her corset, brand new, punctuated with white silk; she tied a lovely little skirt with embroidered flounces over a sheer pink flannel dress around her hips—a dangerous skirt, her mother had said. Why? She put on her stockings, her boots, her dress; she was dressed.

She looked back at Alberto and was overcome by emotion; a strange emotion made of desire and regret, of ardent tenderness and a fearful cold. "Oh! Alberto," she murmured with clasped hands, "if I were wrong, if I didn't understand you…"

The seriousness of her education and temperament rose up in her, raising the ghost of duty. The shackles of imagination had to disappear before the austere task of life; she now assumed a sacred mission, she held this man's happiness and honor in her grasp, she owed him all her affection, all her obedience, all her sacrifices. She had married; it was hers.

How she longed to do something great, something heroic, to demonstrate the strength of her love! To flee the world, to bury herself alive in a desert, to renounce everything, but with the love of Alberto, of that handsome young man she yearned to love, from whom she still asked, with fearful dismay, the answer to her happiness.

Silent beside the bed, she dreamed of unknown ecstasies, distant, undefined raptures, even as she feared waking Alberto by furtively watching him. He had a perfectly regular face, a noble and pure profile; a dimple in his chin, a soft, flowing beard, parted in the Nazarene style. His voluminous hair took on a hundred shapes under the pressure of the pillow, improvising boyish curls, whimsically encircling his ear with a feminine delicacy.

But what was he thinking? What visions crossed his mind as he slept? Had he always slept like this, on his side, with one arm under his head, the other outstretched? So rosy, so calm? What was it that held the sphinx of that beautiful face, and when could she, penetrating his soul, truly call it hers?

She would have gladly opened her mind and heart before him, to show him that she understood him; out of an irresistible need for fusion, which the physical closeness had irritated without satisfying. No, it couldn't always be like this and nothing else! Marta still felt like there were bandages around her eyes, ties around her hands; she still felt her way, she didn't yet possess love, she hadn't yet grasped the truth.

A movement from Alberto startled her, and with a natural sense of modesty, she didn't want to be discovered staring at him. She moved toward the window through which the cheerful March sun was shining; she raised the curtains covering the glass and glanced out at the street; the unknown street of that city. It was an alley leading directly to the port, crowded at that hour with carts, porters, and fishmongers, all of whom were chattering in a dialect Marta didn't understand. She glanced at the windows opposite, low, without shutters, all hung with ropes, on which the laundry fluttered, drying.

This aspect of the city, so different from her native town, interested her without pleasing her; she raised her eyes, and, through a gray and melancholy swathe of slate roofs, far away, in the splendor of the morning, she glimpsed the blue line of the sea, grandiose and fantastic in its calm, with something dreamlike, immaterial, beyond...

* * *

The carriage, after having welcomed the two travellers, the trunk, the umbrellas and the small leather bag that Marta carefully placed next to her, moved along the green avenue.

Finally!—thought Marta—I've reached the port and entered my nest.

She was tired of cities, hotels, monuments, museums, art galleries. The Venuses she had seen, triumphant in their superb nudity; the voluptuous Ledes, the enamoured Dianas, a swarm of nymphs, an Olympus of goddesses, all speaking to the senses of woman, proclaiming the empire of beauty through art, had left her with both despair and desire, a great disillusionment and an even greater curiosity.

—Tell me—she said, hugging Alberto, because in that carriage that belonged to her, she already felt like she was at home——the first time you saw me, that evening, at the theatre, did you like me immediately?

“Right away,” Alberto replied, taking a Virginia from his elegant cigar case.

—Did you like my face?

-Yes.

—And my figure?

-Yes.

—And the voice?

—Everything. I said to myself: Here's a good little wife.

Marta remained thoughtful. —He asked her if she was comfortable, if she wanted a shawl around her knees, and when she nodded negatively, he lit the virginia smiling, taken by the comfort of that jog.

—And afterward, on the way home, did you think about it?—Marta murmured, her face on his shoulder.

—To what?

—Nothing, nothing, nonsense.

The landscape expanded at every turn of the road, wide and serene, crisscrossed by white paths that stretched indefinitely into the distance, beneath the umbrella of black locust trees. The gently undulating terrain connected the plain to the mountains, which folded over it at the edge, like a cord tightening a pearl. All around, as far as the eye could see, lay a peaceful landscape of fertile fields, sparse, neat farmhouses, and mills turning over crystal-clear streams. A donkey on the white paths, a cow in the green meadows, and above, the sunny sky.

How many things Marta wanted to ask, looking inside the carriage, refurbished in her honor, with its beautiful blue fabric, the freshly upholstered seats, the rose-patterned carpet! Her eyes, turning to the country coachman who, at home, had other duties to perform, stopped on the horse.

—What's his name? He's beautiful, isn't he? I've never owned horses and I don't know anything about them.

"First of all, she's a mare," Alberto replied cheerfully. "Her name is Bigetta. She's not particularly beautiful, but she's been my property for four years and serves me well. Isn't that right, Gerolamo?"

Gerolamo, from his seat, cracked his whip, assent.

Marta thought that she, the wife, was the stranger between the master, the servant, and the mare. Her husband and Gerolamo could understand each other with a glance over a multitude of events unknown to her; and the mare herself, how many caresses had she received from Alberto before, long before she met him! An entire past divided them, then, while she longed to merge with him, identify with him, become one. What else could love be if not this?

“Is there much to go before we get there?” she asked, almost mortified at not knowing.

—We've gone about three kilometers, with five to go. We'll be home in half an hour. The Apollonia will be waiting for us.

At least she knew that Appollonia was the servant. They had already spoken about her; her husband had portrayed her as a good, affectionate, and faithful country girl. But now she wanted to know if Appollonia was beautiful and asked aloud; to which Alberto responded with a roar of laughter, echoed by a kind of joyful sob from Gerolamo, so much so that Marta herself burst into childish laughter, much to the delight of her husband, who loved cheerful people.

"You'll see," Alberto added to his wife, touching her shoulder like a good comrade, "you'll immediately get along with everyone, good people, excellent people. The big doctor, already curious, will want to see you first."

—Is there a curious doctor?

—Not really curious, but in this case it will be curious, because he's known me since I was a child and has already warned me that he wants to court you. Do you know anything about poetry? And cooking? If you know those two subjects, the doctor is yours.

—And do you talk about poetry with the sick?

He doesn't visit any sick people; he doesn't even know what a pulse is. He must have studied medicine thirty years ago, and that's why they call him a doctor; but he's been a bit of everything: a gentleman, a poet, a conspirator, a pleasure-seeker, a soldier—everything but a doctor. He's an oddball, an unbalanced being. Sometimes he talks too much, sometimes he keeps silent for days. But if you have to teach him some delicious dish, he'll talk.

While Alberto sketched his friend's profile, Marta, who in twenty or twenty-five days of marriage still hadn't had enough of gazing at him, followed the movements of his mouth, his eyes, the charming little dip his smile carved in his left cheek. She gazed at each hair on his mustache and the soft curl of his beard, through which he often ran his hand, following that hand, clinging to him with every sense, always feeling too far away. Little by little, she had drawn closer to him, silent, her chest heaving slightly. Alberto then gently retreated to the corner of the carriage to make room for her.

“Mr. Merelli is passing by,” said Gerolamo without turning around, in his ventriloquist voice.

But Alberto heard him. He leaned briskly out of the carriage, waving toward two men walking along the main road. The two men took off their hats.

—Are you going up?

—No, thanks. Welcome.

Greetings again to the lady.

—Anything new?

-None.

—See you again.

Third greeting.

—Ah! dear—exclaimed Alberto, leaning back on the cushions of the carriage—that charming boss Merelli, that charming pharmacist!

Just to say something, to also take an interest in what her husband was interested in, Marta asked:

—Are they your friends?

—Merelli, yes, Merelli since high school; we were in fourth and fifth grade together. It was him who on the teacher's name day… Ah! But you don't know, you don't know, how crazy he is!

—And the other one?

—The other is the pharmacist, Toniolo: the one who always told me: get married, at our age it's still the best you can do.

The pleasure of seeing his friends again, of resuming his old habits, colored Alberto's face and made his small, kind eyes sparkle. He rubbed his knees with his hands, looking at the mare's tail.

Marta reproached herself for not sharing in that joy, for feeling instead a sense of sadness, almost envy. Her mother came to mind, the mother she had somewhat forgotten during the trip, who had told her as a child and repeated to her as an adult: "Marta, you're too impressionable, too exclusive, you feel too much, you think too much. This doesn't lead to happiness." Words she had thought of as barrel-organ music, but now they came back to her, clearer, with the sudden brightness of a light being turned on. Wanting to overcome herself, wanting to escape that exclusivity that, her mother said, wouldn't make her happy, she looked around at the beautiful countryside, the trees, the hedges where butterflies fluttered.

—Do you like these places? asked Alberto.

-Yes a lot.

—I can't see myself anywhere else. I'm fine in the city for a week, then I miss my fields.

—It seems to me that I would be fine anywhere with you.

—Dear!

He said, "Dear." Wasn't that a sweet word? Why didn't Marta rejoice? Why did she remain seemingly cold and silent? She still heard, echoing in the air and in her ear, the same sound, identical to the one a moment before, when she had said, "Dear!" And it seemed to her a discordant note, a false note that altered the value of the word. She leaned toward him, her mouth against his neck, murmuring into his thick hair, "Dear! Dear! Dear!"

He rebuffed her sharply, pointing to Jerome. Martha shrugged.

It would have been so beautiful to kiss, there, under the bright sky, while the carriage sped by! Who would see them? And even then! He looked back at the fast-moving road, at the trees; from a farmhouse courtyard, the clucking of chickens rose sharply into the air. The blossoming almond trees spread their arms, peach buds dotted, in the rosy freshness of parted lips, their still-leafless branches; and scattered drops, dew, gum, nature's mysterious tears, glistened on the tender greenery, mingled with the silver threads that arachnids suspended from branch to branch.

Marta's heart swelled, full of tenderness, with a need to expand, to embrace, with the secret desire for those wounds through which the soul overflows and floods into passion, delirium, abandonment, sobs, all the locked up strength, the intimate essence of feminine feeling.

Thirsting for love, she said to herself, hugging her cloak to feel the caress of his warmth. "He loves me, I'm sure of it. Why would he take me? He loves me above all women; he's mine, all mine!" And, relieved, she smiled at her husband.

Albert, who for his part had no qualms about anything, was very pleased to see that his bride had a good temperament; this convinced him even more that he had been lucky in his choice.

Meanwhile, the mare, sensing the stable was near, broke into a cheerful trot. The rooftops of the village, dominated by the bell tower, could already be seen in the distance, and, as the carriage progressed, a few scattered farmhouses, a few barking dogs, and a young girl herding geese.

—They are Gavazzini's geese—said Gerolamo, directing his observation to the lady.

—Who is Gavazzini?

—He is the richest landowner in the country—replied Alberto.

—Your friend?

—Not the closest, but we're all friends here. Besides, he lives a secluded life, and his wife is never seen. Oh! A romance! She was a governess, they ran away together, went to the top of a mountain for their honeymoon, wrote their love stories on the bark of trees. Imagine, once they deliberately pricked each other's fingers to drink each other's blood... I say romance!

Marta was interested, she would have liked to ask more, but Gerolamo's face, which seemed that of a stoic philosopher in the midst of the follies of the world, made her a little afraid.

The first houses began to line up, their doors open, revealing verdant courtyards, clusters of potted plants, and long, cool hallways shaded by striped awnings. A skirt fluttered between two doorways, a curious little face peered out from a window, cats wagged their tails on straw chairs, yawning, squinting. Further on, in the center of town, a few shops opened: the baker, the grocer, the merchant, the tobacconist, the shoemaker, the barber.

—Here is the pharmacy—said Alberto.

Marta looked. There was no one in the doorway; a green curtain, rubbed and twisted like a rope, revealed a section of shelf with blue and white earthenware jars inside.

—Does the pharmacist have a wife?

—He's a widower; but he'll take her back. What should he do?

“Of course,” said Marta, repeating mechanically to herself: what must he do!

—Look at Merelli's house; on the corner of the square, painted yellow; have you seen it?

—No, I haven't seen it.

—There was the maid in front of the door.

—No, I haven't seen her. Does Merelli have a wife?

—Yes, he has a wife.

—And the house of…. of that gentleman…. the one who drank the blood….

—Gavazzini? Ah! It's not here; it's outside the village, isolated; even more isolated than ours.

—Ours is the last one, isn't it? Is this one perhaps?

The mare slowed, Gerolamo turned like an expert coachman, and, passing through an open gate, stopped suddenly in the middle of a courtyard covered with fine grass, with high walls darkened by time, on which a luxuriant wisteria, laden with flowers, was playing in arabesques.

The general appearance of the building and the courtyard was that of an old, comfortable bourgeois house, where a succession of wealthy and peaceful generations had succeeded one another without upheavals, without changes.

Appollonia ran out, all wobbly in her roundness of buffet bread, her shiny face beaming with simplicity, her mouth open, her hands dirty with flour.

Marta, looking at her, couldn't help but smile, and jumping quickly from the carriage she shouted:

—Good morning, Apollonia.

These were the first words the new mistress uttered upon entering her domain. Gerolamo winked secretly at Appollonia, with a narrowing of his eyelids that meant: All right, all right! And the fat servant, opening her mouth to her ears, showed that she had understood the meaning of this statement.

Marta was never to forget that moment of her arrival, on a bright April day: the lilac bunches blooming on the walls, the grass in the courtyard, a peace, a serenity pervading the air, a secure well-being that seemed to emanate from the walls of the old house; even Appollonia's good-natured face and the neighing of the mare as she shook her delicate muzzle under Gerolamo's caresses.

Alberto, without waiting for her to take off her hat, put his arm under his wife's and immediately took her to visit the house.

Nothing opulent or ostentatious. Great comfort throughout, from the layout of the rooms to the furniture, from the large high chairs to the abundantly scattered sofas; a certain traditional yet tranquil opulence; fine paintings, inlaid cabinets, meticulously selected linens, and some old family-owned majolica tiles.

—My mother embroidered these chairs—said Alberto.

There were eight chairs of light wood with gold profiles, covered in beautiful half-stitch embroidery, each one different from the other.

Marta admired them religiously, moved.

—This is my portrait as a child.

Marta rushed over to it, covering it with kisses and exclamations, carrying it under the window to examine it better.

—How cute he is! Those bare shoulders! And what little eyes! And those little hands, God, what little hands… were your hands so small back then?

—Wow, the kids!…

They both laughed, holding each other's arms, happy. They then climbed the stairs to the upper floor.

—But everything's beautiful here, you know?

—Yes, not bad. It's comfortable.

They entered the bedroom. Three large windows illuminated it, letting the sun's rays penetrate a rich curtain of flowered fabric against a pale blue background. The bedcloth was made of the same fabric, very high and wide, half covered with a pale blue silk duvet, over the edge of which fell the carefully ironed lace of the sheet. On the dressing table, another lace, in the festoon of which a pale blue ribbon snaked, supported a dazzling crystal service. Not a speck of dust could be seen on the mirrors or frames.

—Was it Apollonia who prepared these beautiful things?

—She, certainly. It must have taken her as long as it took us to travel across Italy; but in the end, everyone does what they can.

Marta, taking off her hat and duster, sat on the sofa at the foot of the bed, finally feeling at home.

—Oh how good it is here!

She held out her hands to her husband, inviting him to sit on the sofa as well.
Now he no longer doubted that she was Mrs. Oriani.

Her happiness was meant to begin from that moment; before, it had been a dizzying ride, contrary to love. Love needs a nest.

Marta raised her eyes, rolling them around as if to take in everything; and when she had carefully surveyed the room, the bed, the flowered curtains, she gazed at Alberto with such ecstasy of gratitude, of shy and ardent tenderness, that he, somewhat surprised, kissed her, not knowing what to say. She was all startled, hoping for a revelation.

—Oh my Alberto, will you always love me, always?

—What a question!

—Say it!

—So you doubt it!

—Say it…—Marta repeated, squeezing herself, clinging to him, trembling all over, with her mouth half open.

A wave of blood colored Alberto's forehead, and he responded briefly to his wife's embrace. Then he gently released her, smoothing his hair back.

—Come on—he said—let's not play pranks.

* * *

The first visit was for the Merellis; he, the husband, had solemnly made Alberto promise her to him, when he was still engaged.

As soon as Marta set foot in the yellow house, on the corner of the square, she bumped into a basket where a baby was taking his first steps. While she bent down to caress the child, a young girl of about twenty-five, dark and bold, with little eyes like peppercorns, burst out of a side door like a rocket. Without waiting for Marta or Alberto to speak, she quickly invited them in, saying that the owner was waiting for them and that she would be delighted to see them.

Saying this, he cleared the way for them through a barricade of overturned chairs, toys, and piled-up clothes, repeating at each object he removed: "Excuse me, it's just children, you can never keep things in order, excuse me."

Merelli appeared tall and complex, with a lush moustache, full, shiny skin, and a bright gaze; a certain rustic elegance in his clothes, which his limbs filled to the point of stretching the seams; all in all, the appearance of a healthy, untroubled man; and the voice of a bull.

“Juliet! Juliet!” he began to shout, as he helped the servant clear the path, smiling at the visitors at the same time.

A mischievous little face, slightly smeared with ink, curiously poked out from behind a screen.

—Go call your mother—Merelli shouted again—you dirty bastard!

The maid had meanwhile managed to open first the door and then the windows of the living room, carefully passing a hand over the most visible chairs, and with a ceremonious gesture invited Marta to take a seat on the sofa.

“Here is my wife,” said Merelli, walking towards a little woman who was neither beautiful nor ugly, with a smooth chest and a protruding belly, the profile of a Madonna who has aged too quickly.

Mrs. Merelli greeted, a little awkwardly, inexperienced, holding the hand of a little brat who was gnawing on a crust of bread.

“Is the whole family here?” Alberto asked, rolling his eyes.

—This is Adelina: stop eating, come on! Battistino was there when you came in, behind the screen, messing around; you saw the little one, didn't you? And three. Pina's in bed, a little sick, the fifth one's away…

After this enumeration, a painful silence fell for five minutes.

“She’ll be bored in the countryside,” said Mrs. Merelli, in a tired voice, “if she’s used to the city…”

—No, no, isn't our life as women within the family?

Mrs. Merelli nodded, making a slight attempt to take the piece of bread out of little Adelina's mouth.

—This country is nice, the location is beautiful… Were you born there?

—Not here, but nearby. I've been in this house for ten years.

—Ten years already?

—Many, right? — and—added Mrs. Merelli with a resigned smile—five children and four abortions in ten years…

Marta blushed. She wasn't yet accustomed to these married woman's confidences. Involuntarily, she looked at Mr. Merelli, then at the little girl, then began buttoning her glove.

The breathing of the four people and the little person could be heard.

—It seems to me that you're not keeping the bride happy!—thundered Merelli—and where did Ninetta go? Ninetta!

As quickly as a flash the servant appeared.

—Make the coffee.

Alberto wanted to protest, Marta too.

—What? said Ninetta. It's done right away.

—I never drink coffee—added Alberto—and my wife…

Ninetta intervened quickly:

—A glass of white wine then?

—Well done!—said Merelli.—Well thought out; go get the white wine.

During the little discussion, Mrs. Merelli hadn't moved, her hands folded gently in her lap. The little girl beside her was nibbling her bread with the charming sound of a mouse under a door.

Ninetta returned, holding the tray full of glasses with one hand, and the bottle with the other.

—Take Adelina away—Mr. Merelli said to her softly—she doesn't want to obey.

The servant responded with an intelligent look, but first she uncorked the bottle, poured the white wine and served it, and since Marta hesitated, she encouraged her, assuring her that it was pure, home-made wine.

Then he took Adelina by the arm, shaking her a little, whispering in her ear that she was a bad girl, and dragged her into the kitchen.

Marta, who was somewhat socially savvy, couldn't find a word to say. She looked at that unusual family, searching in vain for her husband's gaze, who seemed under Merelli's spell.

—He has a mother, doesn't he?— Mrs. Merelli's hoarse voice suddenly asked.

—Yes, I have a mother.

—The father, no?

—No, unfortunately.

—It's a real misfortune when the head of the house dies!

Mrs. Merelli, who had remained with her gaze wandering, almost following the fading of her own words in the air, continued, resigned under the weight of her duties as mistress:

—And brothers?

—No one. I was alone with Mom; now I'm alone with Alberto.

—But she won't be alone for long!— added Mr. Merelli with a big laugh.

Marta blushed again.

“I’d like to go and see Pina for a moment,” murmured Mrs.
Merelli, who had exhausted all her topics of conversation.

—Go and bring the lady.

—Oh!… it's no fun…

Marta protested that she would have liked to meet the other girl too.

They set off up a modest staircase, with tiled steps, and entered a large room that served as a wardrobe, a dormitory, and a storage room for the head of the house's boots: red leather boots, long boots with gaiters, gaiters, and cufflinks, all lined up along one wall, with a rifle barrel glinting in one corner and the corduroy jacket with copper buttons, thrown over the back of a chair, still taut and almost warm from the vigorous plasticity of whoever had dressed it. Standing in front of the little girl's bed, while Marta praised her intelligent face, her mother sighed:

—She is now on her honeymoon… I hope it lasts a long time.

—Oh! always—exclaimed Marta vivaciously.

An expression of wonder passed into Mrs. Merelli's eyes, who shortly after added:

—At least he didn't have too many children… because it takes some, but too many! I didn't wait even a day; exactly nine months after my wedding day, Battistino was born.

—Really?—said Marta.—Is it possible?

—What do I say? And I suffered so much that time!

He moved away from the bed, turning his back on the little girl;

—Three whole days of pain and then a pain, a pain…

Marta listened, terrified, feeling a shiver run across her skin.

After a while of silence he ventured to ask:

—And the others?

—Less; however, it's a very bad portion that the Lord has given to us women. Men have everything good, they do!

How many questions were on Marta's lips! That woman, married for ten years, could have solved a multitude of problems for her, but she didn't dare. She timidly glanced at the army of boots and that bold jacket, pondering the words: they have everything that's good about them! And she seemed to hear the echo of loud laughter, of heavy footsteps, of loud and brutal words, all the skeptical selfishness of masters and conquerors.

Returning to the living room, she felt a sense of relief when she saw
Alberto.

“Are we leaving?” she said to him.

He replied kindly:—As you wish.

Ninetta emerged from the hallway, offering compliments, adding her
own greetings to those her masters were extending to the newlyweds.
The two ladies embraced, promising to see each other often.
Ninetta added:

—But yes, come!

When the door of the yellow house was closed, Marta clung to her husband's arm.

“Are you a little bored?” he asked, laughing.

—No, but I wanted to be alone with you. It seems to me that everyone else is taking something of my Alberto away from me, because you are mine, aren't you?

—Now, even if I didn't want to, it's done.

—And is that Mr. Merelli also completely devoted to your wife?— Marta asked insidiously.

—Oh! You'll understand, I can't know…

—I wouldn't like him as a husband.

—I'm very happy about that.

—It's crude.

—A little bit.

—And too fat.

—You'll agree that he's not to blame for this. What do you think of his wife?

—A good woman, with little wit if you like, oh! but she suffered a lot.

—Did he tell you?…

—Yes, her first birth…

—Ah! just that?

“Certainly,” Marta said, giving herself the importance of a matron initiated into secret mysteries.

They remained silent until they got home. They found the doctor standing upright on the doorstep. He, who had already been introduced to Marta, greeted her by asking her what she thought of the Merellis.

—But… kind.

—And the maid?

The doctor asked this question with such malice in his eyes that
Marta was surprised.

“Come on,” said Alberto, taking the doctor by the arm. “Come and have dinner with us.”

—I can't. I have a hare galantine at home with some wonderful truffles. My maid isn't as skilled as Ninetta... but for the galantine!

He kissed the tips of his fingers, still with his mischievous eyes, and after tipping his hat to the lady, and saying that he had stopped on purpose to wish her a good lunch, he went away, very slowly, his big body badly fitted in his black suit, his snail-colored trousers too short, his top hat perched precariously above his ear.

Marta undressed quickly; she had to prepare a sauce whose recipe was hers alone, and which, in her eagerness as a novice, she thought Alberto would be more comfortable with if she made it.

She appeared at the table, all red, eager to hear the outcome. When Alberto declared the sauce tasty, she calmed down; she ate and drank in a very cheerful mood; she listed her favorite dishes, combining them with Alberto's, and noted with satisfaction that they matched in taste.

—And, tell me—he exclaimed suddenly—what did the doctor mean by his allusions to the Merellis' servant?

Alberto was the least likely man in the world to hide anything; he replied, a little embarrassed, that the doctor was only joking.

—That's not it—interrupted Marta, her thoughts wonderfully clearing up—if there was nothing positive, the joke would have had no reason to exist.

—Well, said Alberto, thinking that, after all, it didn't concern him at all and that Marta would have known about it anyway—Merelli makes love to Ninetta.

—Like this?—Marta exclaimed, her eyes widening.

—What, like this?

—In the presence of his wife…

-But!…

—With lots of children?

—The children have nothing to do with it.

—But it's horrible!

—I certainly don't approve of it.

—You wouldn't have that courage, would you?

—I never liked maids.

—Ah!—Marta began again with a sigh of relief, while Appollonia's honest face crossed her mind.

And after a while he muttered again:

—It's a disgrace, it's a disgrace. But why are you friends with that man?

—Oh! My dear, should I stop greeting him because of his taste for servants? It's a weakness in him, he can't correct it. Ninetta isn't the first.

—But what about your wife? Poor thing, I want to warn her…

—Of course not!

—At least advise her to keep old servants…

—They can't fit in that house, with all those children, think about it.

—Oh! poor woman, poor woman!

"Listen," Alberto continued, taking his wife's hands to calm her, "in all likelihood, Mrs. Merelli doesn't suspect anything; and if she does, perhaps she's not thinking about it; maybe she does suspect it, thinks about it, but doesn't give a damn. In that case, is it our job to make a fuss about it?"

Marta was silent for a moment.

—It's impossible—he then snapped—that she remains indifferent!

—And why impossible?—after ten years of marriage…

—Alberto, what are you saying? Shouldn't the love between husband and wife be eternal?

—My dear, if only all the things that should be, were!

—So in ten years you won't love me anymore? And you'll flirt?…

Apollonia returned to Marta's mind, bringing such a joyful ray that, in the midst of her indignation, she had to smile; which Alberto, noticing, said:

—But yes, I will make love to Appollonia.

She was laughing now; her forehead resting on her husband's shoulder, excited by a new set of ideas that had appeared before her.

—But listen, I don't understand how an educated person, a man who has studied, and who isn't a total boor, can get lost with servants.

—Even a polite man doesn't always find duchesses, my dear Marta, and besides, if I tell you that's his weakness! Do you want to go for a walk in the garden?

-No.

She returned to her subject, becoming passionate about it with a furious and cruel voluptuousness.

—But he doesn't think about the consequences, about the girl's dishonor, about…

—What do you expect me to think!… Let's finish this, if you don't mind, with the
Merellis.

Alberto had stood up, not hiding a certain annoyance, and was pacing back and forth, stopping every now and then to look out of the window.

Marta felt a pang in her heart. She didn't change position, she didn't move. The plate still lay before her, a jumble of cherry stalks on it; she picked them up two by two, tying them together to see which one would break; in fact, the broken stalks were the vast majority. She carefully gathered them into a small pile.

—Did you tell Apollonia not to make so much noise with her hooves in the morning?

—Yes, I told him.

—And will you be so good as to sew those buttons on my velvet jacket tomorrow?

—They're already sewn.

—Oh! What a sweet little woman.

She still hoped he would look her in the face; but Alberto stopped behind his wife's chair, stroking her neck with the tip of his forefinger.

—Goodbye, I'm going out for a bit.

He bent down, kissing her on the cheeks, soundly.

Marta replied: goodbye—and shrugged, feeling as if the room was growing cold.

* * *

Alberto Oriani's friends couldn't understand why the little bride wasn't blossoming with the full and expansive bloom that generally accompanies the transition from girl to woman.

Yet Marta was happy; she told everyone, she wrote to her mother, she was absolutely convinced of it herself. If melancholy sometimes assailed her, it was a vague melancholy, a discouragement for which she blamed herself, not Alberto.

She constantly compared her husband to other husbands, finding that Alberto surpassed them all in kindness and gentleness; he certainly wasn't very effusive, but was that necessary? He often said that love, as poets describe it, is a madman's dream; and Marta repeated this phrase in the long evening hours, the hours Alberto spent at the pharmacy with his friends. True love was what Alberto had offered her: his name, his home, his servants; the meals they shared, the nights they slept together in the beautiful room with the flowered wallpaper; and then, the kiss he gave her every morning, regularly, at the same time he reached out from under the covers to reach for the glass of water on the bedside table.

Previously, her name had been Oldofredi, now she was Oriani; she had moved from the city to a village; she could wear feathers in her hat and diamonds in her ears; at her mother's house, she ate at a small round table, with a white German earthenware service; in the new house, the table was square and the service antique with red and blue flowers. For twenty-three years, she had been called Signorina, now she was called Signora, and some even Madame. All this made a huge difference, and the sudden change stunned her; even more so because all the faces around her had changed, as had their names, so that she still occasionally found herself pronouncing Matilde instead of Appollonia.

Perhaps Marta had dreamed of a change of a different kind. In her opinion, it was her very being that was about to rise to new life, touched by a mysterious and powerful force. What had her heart, her soul, her senses imagined, what were they waiting for? She felt completely unchanged; she marveled and almost blamed herself for having discovered no new exhilaration, and none, absolutely none, of the transport that, as a young girl, the mere word—Love—aroused in her.

When she threw herself into Alberto's arms, asking him breathlessly if he loved her, and he smilingly assured her that he did, a sensation of cold ran through her from head to foot, the painful anguish of an unsuccessful effort, the dejection of a prisoner who throws himself against the prison door and finds it locked.

At those moments Marta became pale.

If this was love, there must have been something else, more sublime or sadder, virtue or guilt, but something else, another intoxication, another transport; a vision of heaven or vertigo of the abyss, the sensation, unknown to her, of the rapture for which Francesca had damned herself eternally, for which the great souls of the whole world wept, created, died.

She remembered a distant evening, when she was fifteen and her heart had opened to love for the first time, irresistibly drawn to a young man she barely knew, but for whom she spent sleepless nights.

They had finally found themselves alone, for a few moments, in the freedom of the countryside, and no one had spoken, but he had taken her hand and squeezed it so gently that thinking about it, after so many years, he felt invaded by an unknown pleasure.

What was that, then? Love? And why didn't Alberto's hand give her the same feeling? Was it possible that she loved Alberto less than a stranger? Or was it perhaps Alberto who didn't love her? Yes, he loved her, he had told her so and married her. Otherwise, why would he have married her?

Marta always returned to this dilemma, wanting to know about the other marriages with interest, with a morbid curiosity. From Mrs. Merelli, who had returned her visit, she anxiously and confusedly awaited an outburst of marital unhappiness; but Mrs. Merelli complained only about her frequent pregnancies, speaking of her husband with an odalisque fetishism, extolling his beauty and strength.

"In the early days of our marriage," she added, her dull eyes momentarily brightening, "he never let me go up the stairs; he carried me in his arms. And I was heavy then, I was fat."

Marta was envious of Mrs. Merelli. She was slimmer, and Alberto wouldn't have had much trouble carrying her in his arms...

—Doesn't he wear it anymore?—he asked.

—Oh! Honeymoon follies can't go on forever.

All that day, Marta's thoughts wandered back to the crazy things of her honeymoon. At lunch, suddenly, as she usually asked her questions, the fruit of long, solitary thoughts, she asked Alberto:

—Have you never done anything crazy for any woman?

Alberto, who was beginning to get used to his wife's questions, even though he found them bizarre, answered calmly:

—Never crazy; it's stuff for a madhouse, I already told you.

—And you've never loved any woman more than me?

Alberto looked at the ceiling, rocking in his chair, his hands resting on the table.

—I don't think so… no, no, I'm sure of it.

—And… but…

Marta, driven by her terrible curiosity, wanted to know more; but she hesitated in front of this man she had known only a few months, with whom she felt she was not yet one, who did not yet belong entirely to her. Nevertheless, she dared to murmur softly, with her eyes lowered:

—Have you met many women?

—Why not? The world is full of them.

—I mean… you know… those women you other men approach when you don't have a wife.

—You're so nice with your questions; but why are you interested in these things?

—Because I don't know them, and because it seems to me that your past, so different from mine, keeps us apart. Perhaps it's what I don't know that's keeping me from being your ideal woman…

—Let's not digress—interrupted Alberto.—You are the woman I was looking for, I love you, you love me and that's it.

Marta shook her head, sighing, unconvinced.

"Be patient," he said again, returning to the attack with calm but determined tenacity. "There are some things I just don't understand. Tell me this much, at least. Did you love those women?"

—What! It's absurd just to think so.

—So…

He stopped, searching for the word in vain, and repeated, blushing:

—So… how could you?

“What the hell!” Alberto exclaimed, throwing away the napkin. “Does this require love?”

Marta remained petrified, and said nothing else that day, becoming more and more immersed in her abstractions, concentrating all of herself on that unknown that always eluded her, asking herself anguishedly: But what is love, then?

After her husband and Mrs. Merelli, the big doctor was the one who offered the most nourishment to her thirst for knowledge.

He came to see her almost every day, now perched on the perch of poetry, now wallowing in coarse prose, but always original in his opinions; a curious mixture of his character that found a perfect reflection in his face with its vulgar, sensual features, bisected by a fleshy nose, on which his spectacles had left a furrow, and illuminated at the top by a broad forehead, where the eyes shone with all the fire of intelligence.

"For honest women," he had once said, taking Marta's arm in his, "love can only be a duty or a sin; a contract stipulated, signed, made a sacrament, made a civil duty, equated with extreme unction and the sale of a farm; or a breach of propriety, of law, of religion, of honor... In the first case, the crafty man idealizes it. He says to his victims: "You are the joy of the domestic hearth, the custodians of our name and our future, the queens of our home; you are peace, you are security." He might add: You are the lesser evil we choose after having known all the others, you are the panacea for our infirmities, the bed of rest after the bed of the field, the sinecure of our old days. In exchange for your youth, your candor, the ideal of your entire life, we who no longer have youth, candor, or ideals, offer you something so common, so easy, something you would find on every street corner, if we hadn't monopolized it, increasing its value by denying you freedom, substituting decorum, modesty, and human virtue for the divine laws of nature. And from childhood, at the age of sugary treats, this other sugary treat is dangled before your eyes, admonishing you, "if you earn it with docility, modesty, patience, and self-denial..."

Marta laughed, but when the doctor left she pondered his philosophical outbursts and a slight sadness, which was not yet skepticism, but which undermined her faith, settled in her soul.

Completely astonished, she heard an internal voice saying: Did you choose this one from the crowd, or is it rather the one they presented to you, the only one they were able to choose and who you, because you are good and docile, because you have been waiting so long, persuade yourself is truly the one who is to create your happiness?

She then despaired, running restlessly through the house, always bumping into Alberto's cold, sweet demeanor, who understood nothing of these troubles, but who pitied them, thus arousing a thousand remorse in Marta's conscience; so she threw herself again into her husband's arms, sobbing.

A desire, born from the first day of her arrival, had remained unfulfilled and grew stronger every day. She longed to see those two model spouses, those Gavazzali who had wounded each other to drink each other's blood. They never went out into the village; some evenings, late, on the deserted country lanes, two shadows would appear in the distance and disappear into the thick trees.

Mrs. Merelli, who had never met the unusual couple herself, suggested that Marta go together to collect money for the nursery schools. They hit it off immediately, and in early June, on a warm afternoon that filled the air with a festive cheer, they knocked on the Gavazzinis' door.

A servant with a foreign appearance and accent, after a few minutes' hesitation, ushered the visitors into a very elegant living room. And they waited.

They waited a good quarter of an hour, giving them plenty of time to admire the new and well-appointed furniture, the armchairs that seemed untouched, the pyramids of albums gleaming with their friezes and gilded edges. Not a flower, not a single embroidery, not a forgotten book, not a stool out of place; none of the comfortable, happy well-being Marta enjoyed at home; none of the vibrant disorder that, in the Merelli household, four healthy children were responsible for maintaining.

A four-year-old boy, blond, slender, with an anemic face, was the first to appear. Mrs. Merelli wanted to pet him, but he silently retreated against the doorframe.

And another ten minutes passed.

Then came Mr. Gavazzini, hiding, under a ceremonious manner, the alteration of his features, excited as if after an argument.

—I beg these ladies to excuse me, and my wife; she is a little indisposed…

At the same moment, a tall, very thin woman, with the same anemic face as the child, burst into the living room. She was wearing a light blue dress, her hair loose, halfway down her shoulders, in a melodramatic updo. Without even looking at the two visitors, she turned abruptly to Gavazzini.

—You know very well that I have forbidden my son to enter the living room.

Gavazzini's confusion became contagious; even Marta and Mrs. Merelli were surprised. He, with a brief, imperious tone, also using the second-person pronoun, replied that the child had come into the living room on his own; then, turning to the ladies, he stammered:

—My wife… sorry… was… is indisposed. She wanted to show up anyway.

Mrs. Gavazzini, standing, was nervously tugging at the ribbons of her dress, while the child looked from her to his father with melancholy eyes.

When Mrs. Merelli timidly explained the purpose of her visit, Gavazzini reached for his wallet and with perfect courtesy handed her twenty lire, looking at Marta insistently, so much so that she felt her easy bride's blush immediately rise to her cheeks.

"My dear," he said, turning to his wife with regained composure, "here are two good and courteous ladies you could pay such a lovely visit to. What do you say?"

—You don't have visits when you live in a cloister like I have for five years.

Mrs. Gavazzini's harsh voice still echoed in the living room, where the visitors had already bid farewell, followed by Gavazzini, who accompanied them to the door, justifying his wife's behavior by claiming she was having a nervous breakdown. As he said this, he cast tender eyes at Marta, feeling the palm of her hand.

Martha went out of there scandalized, unable to speak.

Mrs. Merelli calmly asked her what that nest of turtledoves had seemed to her, and, with her resigned knowledge of humanity, added that there was nothing to be surprised about, that it happens so often, so often, much more than one might think.

—What did I once tell her? Honeymoon follies! They don't last.

—And when— Marta asked, her voice shaking a little—is there no crazy things about the honeymoon?

Mrs. Merelli thought for a moment, shook her head and answered slowly:

—Who knows! Maybe it's better.

* * *

Toniolo was enjoying the cool air on the doorstep of his pharmacy, his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, following every woman who passed by with long, deep glances—glances that cost him no effort, which were natural to his well-shaped, intensely colored eyes, which suggested a depth of thought and had garnered his sentimental bourgeois charms a fair number of female sympathies.

Standing there on the shop doorstep, completely cold, thinking of nothing, showing only his pale face illuminated by his gaze, Toniolo had inspired the fantasies of many of the village girls who, since his widowhood, had felt more than ever the need to frequently take magnesium or bicarbonate of soda. He, enigmatic as an empty, locked chest, had discouraged no one, selling his wares to all with the same romantic, misunderstood expression, revealing, as he crumpled the parcels, his soft, long, slender hands, familiar with ointments, adorned on the little finger with a small diamond, and the vague smile of a man chasing dreams.

When it became known that he was marrying a girl from the neighboring village, magnesium and bicarbonate of soda became truly necessary for many cases of gastritis and stomach aches caused by repressed worry; nor did he seem to notice, handling the jars and spatulas with the same gentleness, enjoying the cool air every evening on the pharmacy doorstep, gazing alternately at the women and the stars.

Alberto Oriani passed by arm in arm with his wife.

“What a miracle!” said Toniolo.

They stopped. They had gone to see some vases of flowers that the doctor wanted to give to Marta. They talked about flowers for a moment, all three of them standing in the doorway; then about the weather, which was about to cloud over, and finally:

“Do you want to come in?” Tomolo asked Marta very kindly, and added, encouragingly, “I’ll show you the room I’m preparing for the bride; you can give me some advice.”

Marta saw the same joy on her husband's face as when, in the wheelchair, she'd spotted his friends. He definitely loves them very much, she thought. Another thought was about to develop in her mind, this one: and he's better off in their company than... but she didn't want to finish it. She quickly climbed the steps of the pharmacy, followed by the two men.

“Is this wedding far away?” Alberto asked as they crossed the living room.

—It will be towards the end of autumn.

—Show Marta the photograph of your girlfriend.

Toniolo put his hand in the inside pocket of his suit, then in the outside one, murmuring:

—That's strange, where the hell did I put it?

“You must have left it under your pillow last night,” Alberto said, laughing.

Marta looked with interest into Toniolo's velvet eyes, accepting the supposition that he slept with the image of the woman he loved: but Toniolo immediately pointed with his hand to the photograph, leaning on the mantelpiece, against the clock.

“Does she look like you?” asked Marta.

—I think so.

She was a ruddy young woman, with a pronounced figure and a naive face. Marta wanted to ask again: "Does he love her very much?" but she didn't dare.

"And what will Giuditta say?" exclaimed Alberto, patting his friend on the shoulder.

—Oh, she will console herself with me, as she consoled herself with you…

Marta shuddered as the two men exchanged intelligent glances. Toniolo added:

—The successor is already here; he's been doing his apprenticeship these last few months, you know. I'm not jealous, and Giuditta thinks two are better than one. But I've already warned her that my subscription expires at the end of the fall and that I won't renew it. I don't want any trouble.

“You’re doing well,” Alberto said with conviction.

They entered the room where there was already the walnut bed, the bedside tables and the chests of drawers.

—These are the ones I had; I had them polished and refurbished; but I want to completely redo the chairs and upholstery. How about a nice yellow?

The question was addressed to Marta.

—It's perhaps a little out of fashion and easily stained…

—I had thought of blue, but it fades in the sun, in the air, in the dust, it even fades in the dark.

—What if you took a mixed fabric, striped or floral?

Toniolo was reflecting, his beautiful eyes lowered, fixed on the joint of two bricks.

Meanwhile, Marta was looking at the bed where her first wife had slept, where her second would collect the still-warm kisses Giuditta had left over, and the words "how she consoled herself with you" danced before her. Alberto too, then? Him too?

The two friends had leaned out the window; their heads, in the twilight, looked young, almost alike. Alberto was more rosy, more buxom, but equally sweet and charming in appearance. They were laughing. Giuditta's kisses had flowed on those mouths, without rivalry, rather tightening their bonds, placing something common between them, relating them. They could both think, at the same time, of the same object: Giuditta's shoulders or arms; they could understand each other without words, through gestures.

Her Alberto! Why hers? Hers and everyone's. Hadn't those hands embraced, held, caressed Giuditta? And how many others! Now she knew; and this Giuditta was in town. When she passed by on her husband's arm, Giuditta could see her, scrutinize her face, and discover the secrets of their intimacy. She would have said to herself: There's Alberto, he looks like he did in his good days; or: he doesn't look like he did in his good days.

"Will they give me the thirty thousand lire, you know?" Toniolo said, leaning out the window. "If they didn't give it to me, I'd leave the girl to them too; not that I'm interested, but what it takes is what it takes, and since I'm making this sacrifice of putting the chain around my neck for the second time, some compensation is fair."

He turned, turning his back to the light, so interesting in his paleness of a young lymphatic man, that Marta couldn't put those words together with that face, and this time the question, repressed before, escaped her:

—Is he very much in love with his wife?

—Oh! In love…—said Toniolo, whose face suddenly revealed the weariness and vanity of his numerous conquests—it's not necessary.

—For her, perhaps—Marta interrupted, marveling at her own boldness.

“You see,” said Alberto in a conciliatory tone, “my wife imagines that when a man is about to receive the seventh sacrament he must prepare himself with mortifications, ecstasies, prayers, withdrawal from the world, abstinence…

"Yes, yes," the pharmacist exclaimed, laughing, "they're all the same. I don't mean to offend you, you know? I apologize, not to offend you, but even my girlfriend is always asking me if I love her, if I love her alone, if I'll always love her…"

—And isn't that natural?—Marta said with fire.

Alberto replied:

—So natural that there is no need to ask.

Marta was now familiar with that firm tone, that kind of wall her husband erected when the conversation wasn't to his liking. She also felt her weakness, her loneliness between those two natural allies, and then more than ever she saw Alberto's intimacy with his friends, that great portion of life from which she was excluded, she who had believed, by marrying him, she was merging two lives. An abyss separated her from the man to whom she had given herself, who was a stranger to her, who didn't share her blood, nor the same thoughts, nor the same soul, who had lived thirty years without her, whom she had never seen cry, who found it useless to say, "I love you"... and an irresistible urge assailed her, the urge to throw herself into her mother's arms.

The two friends had left the room, heading down the stairs into the living room.

—Mind you, there's a nail next to the door, Toniolo said kindly. —I'm warning you about your clothes.

On the table in the living room, the bride's portrait still lay.
Marta gazed at it for a long time, with a melancholy sympathy, and unable
to contain the tenderness that overflowed her heart, she approached
Alberto and furtively squeezed his hand.

“Yes, yes,” he said, in the tone of someone trying to calm down a rebellious child.

Merelli and the doctor entered at that moment.

—What a lovely meeting!

Alberto's face beamed:

“Nest of turtledoves!” exclaimed the doctor. “Lucky mortal who is granted to embellish his home with the presence of a woman! Oh, woman!”

    You who with angel's wings
    Descend into our life
    And in your eyes you have tears
    And roses between your fingers…

Marta observed, amazed, that the doctor's eyes were full of tears.

The pharmacist lit the lamp and had his guests sit around the table.

—Good weather—said Merelli—the corn is growing visibly, the grapes are a marvel.

The doctor added:

—Today I bought a breed of Styrian turkey, the most beautiful you can see, the kind that appear on the tables of princes under the name: dinde truffée . However, I prefer the females boiled, garnished with macaroni and sauce.

“What bad cigars!” said Alberto, trying to light a
Sella. “You can’t smoke them anymore.”

Toniolo got up, went to get a small box, and, after asking the lady's permission, offered her some virginias.

—You're not too bored, are you?

So Alberto asked his wife in a low voice; she, who knew how much Alberto enjoyed being with his friends, replied:

—Not at all.

But she thought to herself: Our house is much more comfortable, more elegant, we lack nothing; I would adore him, I would like to explain to him only my beauty, my intelligence; I can talk too, I'm not stupid, but, apparently, Toniolo, Merelli, and the others are worth more than me. But I left my mother, my friends, everything for him; and he would be enough for me!…

"Is the lady thoughtful?" asked the doctor, leaning over Marta's chair, presenting her with his broad, sensual face, where the psychic part had entirely taken refuge in the pupils.

Marta shook her head, and after a pause asked in turn:

—Why didn't she get married?

—Out of humility, not believing myself worthy.

—The reason is specious.

—Tell me true. How can I be sure that the woman I choose will be happy with me?

—But if it is good, if it is virtuous, if it has principles…

—Here are many beautiful things that have nothing to do with happiness.

—If they love each other…

—Another unknown. I think I've already told you that for honest women, love can only be a duty or a sin. Raised with the fixed idea of ​​marriage, which, with today's morality, is their only escape, knowing neither love nor man, each accepts the husband that chance, interests, mother, or friends place before her; it's a lottery , a roulette , a draw, and whoever gets them keeps them.

“Oh!” said Marta.

"Woman is not always a victim," the doctor continued, growing animated. "She takes revenge, as she can, when she can. She responds to the monstrous injustice of civil love with her millions of hysterics, her billions of adulteresses. Struck, she strikes; deceived, she deceives; nothing could be more logical. You see, dear lady, that I do full justice to your sex, but since I do not recognize myself as a legislator, nor as an apostle..."

Alberto, from the other side of the table, shouted to his wife:

—If you listen to that chatterbox, you'll be left dazed.

—Excuse me, Alberto, I was defending the women's cause.

“It’s a crazy cause,” Merelli shouted, making the chair he was sitting on creak. “Women are all clever, they pluck the chicken without making it cry.”

—This is all the more wonderful—added Toniolo—that in their case the hen is a rooster.

—Woman—repeated the doctor, with the same inspired tone with which he had, a moment before, recited Prati's verses—is the poetry of life, is beauty…

—Yes, tell me about the beauty of women!—interrupted Merelli.—It takes baboons like us to allow ourselves to be peddled in theaters, at dances, in the dim light of closed alcoves, all the cotton wool, elastic rubber, bismuth white, and kool-oil that constitutes our bliss, fools that we are!

Alberto whispered softly in Toniolo's ear:

—It is to protect himself against the kool and the bismuth that he attaches himself to the maids…

—What are you guys saying?

—Eh! Nothing. It was approved.

—The woman—continued the doctor as if nothing had happened—a delicate, gentle creature, a sensitive soul brought into contact with our brutality…..

"Oh! As a sensitive soul," Merelli exclaimed, "I have no objection. When I was at university, I met a professor's wife, a delightful little woman, a nuance, an ideal, the kind that has wings and roses. A friend of mine courted her... finally, the sweet creature begged him to give her a sofa, because on the same sofa where they spun perfect love, her husband smoked his pipe every day, and that didn't seem delicate to her...

Everyone was up in arms. The big doctor abandoned his praise of the woman, overwhelmed by his competitor's bull-like voice; but Alberto, taking advantage of the first pause, asked:

—Can you be so pessimistic? Aren't there women who don't paint themselves and who are as content with one sofa as they are with one husband?

—Dear Oriani, once, in a Natural History Museum, I saw a sparrow with four legs. I saw it, I tell you! That's the pure truth. I still believe, however, that sparrows are bipedal.

Every now and then they gave him a standing ovation. Merelli triumphed, as always, standing tall, dominating the group of friends, his face flushed and glowing, feeling admired.

Alberto had the delicate thought of approaching his wife for a moment to ask her in a low voice:

-Are you OK?

-Yes please.

But Alberto was good! She followed him with her eyes as he returned to his seat, drawn by his friendly face, touched by his kindness, and while the conversation turned to politics, she remained silent, somewhat languid on the leather chair in the pharmacy, longing for her armchair and her crochet hook, which would at least pass the time.

They heated up about politics, some more, some less, depending on their temperaments. The bloated Merelli shouted like a madman; the nervous and enthusiastic doctor followed him; Alberto was calmer, though very cheerful, and Toniolo was almost indifferent, nodding in agreement with what the others were saying, thumbs in their pockets, eyes wandering. But all together they filled the room, with their massive figures, their loud voices, their boots rattling under the table, the cigar smoke rising, thickening ever more.

Alberto's face, on which Marta always kept her gaze, disappeared between Merelli's powerful shoulders and the doctor's broad, unbalanced chest; she glimpsed him like a luminous point, lightly veiled by smoke, and she caught his every word, followed his every gesture, feasting on a glance that fell her way, gathering the crumbs of wit and cordiality that Alberto shared with his friends.

It had long since struck eleven and she, in silent contemplation, was growing weary, overcome by boredom and the onset of sleep, with the distant vision of her bed, of her sweet home.

But they had started talking about the African colonies, and midnight came. Merelli was ranting in the exuberance of his fiery temperament, so Toniolo murmured softly, smiling:

—We'd need two of the Ninettes a day for that one!

Marta felt relieved when Alberto, standing up, announced that they were leaving.

She didn't want anyone's arm; as soon as she left, she clung to her husband, caressing, loving, with the jerks of a chilly child, keeping her face turned away so she could brush her lips against Alberto's sleeve.

Merelli and the doctor let the couple go home alone.

Halfway down a street, a woman, rushing out of a small door, crossed their path, passing so close to Alberto that she bumped into him. Marta felt the recoil of that impact, saw the woman who had stopped boldly beside them for half a minute, and Alberto who had moved back, and then the woman who had quickly disappeared, breaking the darkness of the night with the light stripe of her dress.

All of Marta's blood rushed to her heart.

“It’s Giuditta!” she exclaimed, violently squeezing her husband’s arm.

Alberto didn't answer immediately.

—Tell me the truth, is it her?

—What the hell!

—You know her too…

—No, I tell you. I haven't even looked at it.

—But could it be her?

-I don't know…

Why insist? He fell silent.

But as she followed the woman's footsteps, it seemed to Marta that the stranger had left something behind, in the air broken by her person, on the stones crushed by her foot; a rising, nauseating miasma that enveloped her completely, gripping her by the throat with a wave of impurity, suffocating her, strangling her; and in the acuteness of the sensation, she seemed to hear down there, in the darkness of the night, the mocking grin of the one who had possessed her husband, because it was her, she felt it!

* * *

The letters Marta sent to her mother all spoke of happiness. She exulted in writing about Alberto's love for her, calling herself his treasure, his life; words Alberto had never uttered himself, but which intoxicated her to the point that when she wrote, pouring out onto paper the love that filled her, she was relieved, imagining that Alberto felt everything she herself felt. She wrote: "his passionate kisses, his tender caresses," and then reread those adjectives that stirred in her a sweet emotion, a kind of imaginary pleasure experienced by opium drinkers.

And like opium, this excitement of the brain really prostrated her and weakened her nerves.

Many times after writing to his mother that they "adored each other," Alberto would come in and they wouldn't even exchange a kiss; he was serenely cold, she was distracted, paralyzed in reality by the false sensations she had previously experienced.

Marta's entire body was affected by this pathological condition. She was thin, her eyes dull; she suffered long periods of melancholy; several times, for no apparent reason, she had run to hide in her room to cry. What would Alberto have said if he saw her crying?

Her husband's unalterable and kind goodness, his cheerful humor, his boundless trust, his reserved demeanor with women, convinced her that he was the model of husbands, and that inner discontent, that sadness that assailed her, she took out on herself, on her bad temperament. What else could it be?

For several weeks, she had been consumed by jealousy and had done nothing but observe Alberto's every move, every move; she had returned several times to the street where the unknown woman had appeared, questioning, searching, spying; expanding the boundaries of her jealous suspicion, she had begun to monitor all the women Alberto saw, including Signora Merelli. But from these inquiries, Alberto's innocence had emerged so triumphant that that same day she wrote to her mother: "I am happy, happy, happy."

The days, however, seemed longer and emptier. Her husband rose early to go visit the countryside; she, lazy, her bones aching, remained under the covers until Appollonia brought her coffee. She sipped it slowly, looking at her hands, her arms, touching the tiny embroidery on her shirt, her work, from her childhood days.

One in particular, a beautiful, fine chemise with a gathered, round neckline, reminded her of an engraving that had struck her so much as a girl, one she had looked at secretly from her mother, in an old Christmas present. It depicted Diane de Poitiers , half-dressed, with a round, gathered, and irresistible neckline, wrapping her arms around the head of her royal lover prostrate at her feet. Perhaps—she thought then—one must be very, very beautiful to inspire love.

But that's not true—he added a moment later—no, that must not be the reason.

From recent experience, from observing men who no longer appeared as reserved toward her as they did toward girls, and from Mrs. Merelli's confidences, she had reached a conclusion, still unclear, but one that completely destroyed the edifice of her beliefs about love. The conclusion was this: Men give themselves to any woman, beautiful or ugly, with or without affection, with sympathy or indifference. A monstrous but true thing!

From her husband's own lips, after persistent inquiries, she learned that, at the age of sixteen, Alberto had had the revelation of love for an old, ugly woman who came to the house to do the laundry.

Alberto told her this naturally, adding that this happens to almost all men, not even suspecting the profound impression such words would make on Marta. She cried with pain and shame.

Thinking about it further, it seemed to her that the difference in feeling that existed between her and her husband had to be attributed to that remote cause.

Measuring for the first time the demands of a man who had given his blooming youth to an ignoble woman, at the same age when she still believed in angels and sought love in heaven, she was assailed by a far more terrible jealousy, the impotent jealousy of the past, the kind that cannot be destroyed, that clashes with the irrevocable sentence of the accomplished fact.

With a painful effort of imagination, she dreamed of her beautiful, pure Alberto; she saw his supple figure, his shining eyes, his mouth fresh as a blossoming flower; and his noble soul, his trusting, affectionate heart, all the generous impulses of youth… Oh, to have known him then, to have both been so pure, one in the other, forever, that must have been love!

And he couldn't have it like this anymore! The old woman, Giuditta, all the others, who knows how many, who knows which, had taken away his spontaneity of enthusiasm. She had arrived last, inexperienced, unprepared to fight against an entire past.

Because that was truly her anguish: Alberto's past, indestructible.

She remade herself, with cruel refinement, the portrait of all those women; she imagined them beautiful, provocative, full of unknown seductions, of occult love potions.

He groped among absurd suppositions, among strange hypotheses, with the anxiety of someone who has lost his way and tries everything to find his bearings.

He put together his most distant memories, remembering certain school pranks, wanting to explain them.

He hadn't forgotten a girl, Collini, in third grade; a pale face, with black eyes and red lips, her complexion speckled with lenses, who always had mysterious stories to tell in secret; stories that were never heard in full, whose strange, distorted, displaced words flew from mouth to mouth, exciting curiosity without satisfying it.

These were forbidden conversations and for this reason alone they were interesting, because of the rest nobody understood anything, at least Marta who was not at all malicious.

Once, Collini had brought up a new, bizarre word that none of the girls had ever heard. When they looked it up in the dictionary, they found it meant "bad woman," so they all looked at each other, amazed that they understood even less. Then, another day, Collini explained to them that the word meant "woman who sells herself," causing further confusion, which the young minds each resolved in their own way, leaving Marta with the idea of ​​a dirty, smelly woman.

Nor was she able to free herself from this concept later, when, beginning to tear away the veils of life, she learned that there are women in the world who give themselves to all men; and even without knowing precisely what the verb "to give" implied in this case, these women remained a myth for her, something phenomenal like sirens, and she always imagined them as dirty and smelly; so distant from her, so out of her orbit, that they didn't even arouse her curiosity.

Living with her mother in an honest environment, no circumstance removed the stench of society around her, so that her nobly feminine soul had gradually risen, without shock, without obstacles, to the vague idea of ​​love; an idea that rests between ignorance and desire, describing the iridescent curve of the rainbow, where all colors are gathered for the eye that looks at them from afar, where the hand holds nothing.

Her virginal ignorance meant that she did not admit any other strata than clouds or abysses, and so the earth disappeared from under her feet, and at the new revelation of life she stopped, dismayed and uncertain.

How many loves are there, then? The one Collini secretly explained, ignoble, shameful, and linked by a monstrous chain to Alberto's first love? Or the ethereal love celebrated by poets, dreamed of in the intoxication of a moonlit night, sung to the notes of the harpsichord? Or the voluptuous and ardent love of Diane de Poitiers, clasping her adored head to her breast?

But why had no one, not Collini, nor the poets, the painters, her friends, nor even her mother, spoken to her about love as she had found it? Why hadn't they told her: You will enter, unknown, into the bed of a stranger; your contact will be without delirium and your hearts will draw closer without melting?

The futility of her amorous outbursts in the face of Alberto's coldness gave rise to a doubt. She had therefore been completely deceived! To please men, to win them over, neither sentiment, nor devotion, nor grace were needed; what was needed, then?

Left to its own devices, her imagination went astray. Determined to do anything to see her husband fall in love, she longed to learn what books call the arts of courtesans. Even in history, even in her own textbooks, she had found examples of those bewitching women who fascinate. The death of Holofernes, the defeat of Caesar, were they not the work of a woman?

He had recently read of a sultan who fell in love with an ignoble black woman assigned to the lowest services of the palace, married her and made her Sultana Validé , preferring her to all the odalisques of the harem .

It wasn't the frailty of her limbs and her flawed profile that prevented Alberto from venting his love affairs. Certainly not, because Alberto had told her so many times, in his gentle accent, that he liked her just the way she was, he liked her completely, and he found her immensely charming, with her wavy chestnut hair, her white forehead, her laughing eyes, and her serious mouth, which formed a charming contrast.

But that wasn't all. The darkest, most incomprehensible point for her was that she herself didn't find the slightest thrill in her husband's arms, loving him as she did. And this convinced her that she was an imperfect creature, incapable of giving and receiving love.

Her discouragements would have been pitiful if Alberto had observed them, if he had been able to understand them, if, in his superficial goodness, he had not been satisfied with Marta's melancholic smile and her sweet eyes that looked at him lovingly.

She was losing weight, it's true, and this visible fact sparked comments from friends and the indifferent alike, with the most disparate, often malicious, suppositions. He suspected she was pregnant, and without looking further, he redoubled his polite manners, smiling at the future.

They didn't spend much time together; at breakfast and dinner, rarely in between. Every time Alberto went out on business, he kissed his wife on both cheeks. She followed him across the courtyard to the street door; when he reached the end of the street, she turned back.

Marta returned home momentarily happy, feeling her dignity as a wife and mistress, determined to take care of her duties as a housewife.

She had provided herself with a modern cook and explained a number of delicacies to Apollonia about this; taking care of a matter that greatly interested Alberto, she filled the cupboard with preserves and fruit in spirits; she went down to the cellar and, with Gerolamo's help, reorganized it; she went up to the attic, airing out furniture that had been stacked for years and years, putting out disused crockery.

In the large wardrobe, which Alberto's mother had enriched with every good thing, he spent entire days rummaging through, unfolding, folding, and arranging dozens of sheets.

Her womanly instincts found a pasture in the comfortable house, in the old house where the rooms were so cheerful, where everything smiled in well-being, in peace, where even Gerolamo's ventriloquist's voice had festive intonations, and the ruddy face of Appollonia stood out on the kitchen threshold, in its naive honesty, like the coat of arms of the patriarchal house.

At the table, Marta would recount everything she had done during the day, with vivacity, with nervous mobility, asking for her husband's approval, which was always granted in full.

Afterward, Alberto, who was a great eater, would spend the night chatting about his interests, smoking a long pipe that had belonged to his father. These were Marta's happy moments, as she listened and watched him, all to herself, with silent adoration, feeling the beginnings of that warm intimacy she had always longed for, sensing something unusual awakening within her, a new ardour longing to expand, an attraction that, emanating from Alberto's entire body, enveloped her in a sweetly sensual wave.

But Alberto stood up, restraining, for convenience's sake, a slight stretching of his arms.

“I need to move,” he said.

He took his hat, his cane, kissed it and went to the pharmacy to join his friends.

With her arms limp and listless, Marta spent the evening on the same chair where she had lunch, often taking a cup of chamomile tea that Appollonia forced to bring her, seeing her pale, assuring her that it would do her good.

She scored a few stitches, read the newspaper, yawned. The hours were long, endless. Finally, Appollonia, after asking if she needed anything, came to say goodnight. She heard the sound of the good woman's clogs clattering on the brick pavement as she walked away, the last din of the day; and the house fell silent again.

Marta was sleepy, but she waited for Alberto. When she thought the time for his return was near, she would lean out the window, straining her ears. The red August moon shone against the cloudless sky, in a soft, vapor-filled air, and the sultry heat, tempered by the cool night air, took on the appearance of a caress, passing over her face with the scent of the meadows and the nearby sleeping countryside.

What was Alberto doing down there? Why was he taking so long?

The wait, at first calm and resigned, turned, as the hours passed, into a general restlessness. She could no longer sit still; the window, the chair, the sofa, the door, and then the window again, and then nothing. Standing in the middle of the room, she seemed a statue; her sensations concentrated in an immense, unbridled desire to see Alberto.

Time passed, and from her agonizing immobility, Marta entered a state of sensual hallucination. With an unconscious hand, she undid the clasps of her dress, loosened the ribbons, giving in to a mysterious sensation of abandonment, shivers running down her skin, her mouth parched and thirsty, her arms desperately open.

Unable to support herself, she leaned her head on a pillow, on the back of a chair, on anything that could give her the illusion of a caress. Lost in images of love, she untangled her hair and, twisting it around her face, inhaled its youthful scent, moaning her own name, "Marta, Marta!", which the night gathered and, to the deserted echoes of the countryside, repeated, "Marta, Marta!"

Time passed, until the excitement wore off, leaving her exhausted, her limbs broken, her eyes bruised and wavering. However, she didn't go to bed. She waited.

Alberto almost always found her stretched out on the couch, pale as wax, inert. And he scolded her; he said, "You should have gone to bed, you should have slept."

She didn't answer. Unsteadily, she finished undressing, shivers running through her bones, and crawled under the sheets. But when her husband approached her and murmured, "Come on, let's go..." her whole body tensed, and she threw herself back.

—You never get to understand women— Alberto concluded, turning away.

And Martha was crying under the covers.

* * *

Apollonia was rummaging through a pile of junk, her broad back bent over the ground, and her face, due to that awkward position, was redder than usual.

—What are you looking for, Apollonia?

—I'm looking for that key, you know, the key to the old chest up there in the attic; it occurred to me that it might be here.

Marta, from the kitchen threshold where she had looked out, entered and sat down on a low straw chair.

She often came to visit Appollonia now; sitting on that little chair, she would follow the good woman's movements for hours on end, calming her spirit in the contemplation of that undisturbed placidity, often wondering how Appollonia managed to stay so plump, so rosy, so fresh and serene.

Instead, he asked her about the house, about Alberto's mother, about Alberto himself. She had come to work when Alberto was already in his twenties, but she knew a lot. She knew that as a child he had almost died from swallowing a plum stone; that he had been so naughty on his way to school that Gerolamo had to forcefully carry him in his arms and drag him before the teacher. Gerolamo, when questioned about it, confirmed the assertion, resuming the deep voice he used to command respect from the young master.

Everything related to her husband interested Marta immensely; she felt as if she were becoming more attached to him, entering into his life not only with the present and the future, but also with memories of the past.

Once when Alberto complained of pain in his knee, Marta told him: It must be the wound you got when you fell from the tree you climbed to look into the neighbors' garden.

"How do you know this?" Alberto asked in amazement; and Marta felt very happy at this glimpse into her husband's previous existence.

Some of Alberto's clothes as a child, his papers, his worn textbooks, with Alberto Oriani written at the top , were so many relics that Marta preserved, questioning them, as if she could absorb from them what Alberto had left there of himself, of his childhood games, of his happy adolescence as an only child.

He discovered that he had received his first communion at the age of twelve; this was based on the images kept with the date of that day; and that he had been gluttonous, imprudent, disobedient; never a liar.

She had attempted to obtain, from Appollonia, an exact description of the washerwoman who came to the house when Alberto was sixteen; but this attempt failed, because by the time Appollonia began working, Mrs. Oriani had long since decided to have the laundry done outside the house. She learned, however, that few women frequented the house, as Mrs. Oriani was extremely strict about morals, and that if Mr. Alberto had any pastries, he had to think about cooking them elsewhere.

Precisely—Marta reflected while Appollonia was looking for the key—why did my mother-in-law, who was so shrewd and far-sighted, agree to take on a young servant such as she must have been at the time?

—Appollonia, how old were you the day you came to this house?

—Twenty-four, twenty-five, or twenty-six, I don't even know.

—But you were young.

—Oh yes, ma'am, I was young.

Martha did not want to express her entire thoughts, scrutinizing the servant's features, which seemed above suspicion; and yet doubtful, because of that excess of zeal that novices demonstrate in everything.

—And you've never thought about getting married?

This question was uttered so suddenly that Apollonia raised her eyes and took her hands from the pile of junk, remaining open-mouthed, somewhere between shame and amazement: until calmly, calmly, shaking her head and getting back on all fours, she replied:

—Who would want him to take me!

There was in these words not even the shadow of regret, anger, or envy; no flash of dormant desires, no sting of vanity, nothing but the simple, serene acceptance of the accomplished fact.

Marta admired her this time, not as mistress to servant, but as woman to woman.

"First of all," she said softly, feeling the need for this spiritual caress, "you are neither hunchbacked nor lame, nor even ugly; you could have married like any other..."

—Ah! It's true, not lame, not hunchbacked; but still…

—And even if no one had looked for you, you could well have had the desire to place yourself.

Apollonia shook her head, still bowed, but from her cheekbones protruding above her cheeks it was clear that she was laughing with all her heart.

—Say, Apollonia?

—No ma'am, no ma'am, it takes two to have this wish.

—One can, however, have the desire to find the second one alone.

—But it would be a futile wish.

Martha was struck by such a display of sound judgment in such a humble creature.

“You’re a strong mind,” he said, laughing.

—Loud, loud—Appollonia confirmed, punching herself on the head to reinforce her words.

—So you find yourself happy?

—I do.

—But happy about what?

It seemed that Apollonia did not understand immediately, because she hesitated for a moment; then she said resolutely:

—Happy to be healthy and able to work.

Marta looked at her in amazement.

"Finally, this key can't be found," exclaimed the servant, rising to her feet. "I think if you want to look in the chest, you'll have to have the locksmith open it. Shall I go and call him?"

—It's not pressing. Sit down for a moment and rest. What did you do before coming here? Did you serve in other families?

Apollonia ran her hand over her forehead, as if to gather scattered, distant thoughts. It was Marta who continued:

—Yes, my mother-in-law must have known you very well, otherwise she wouldn't have taken you.

—He certainly knew me and had also known my mother. I didn't.

—You didn't know your mother?

—No, ma'am.

—And who did you live with?

—With my father.

—Just the two of you?

—Just the two of us.

—What job did your father do?

—He was a farmer.

—Did you work the countryside too?

—Why! When I was very little I went to school, but I only went two winters because a neighbor sent me with her daughters, and when I came home she gave me some of her soup and I made the bed as best I could.

—Where was your father?

—He worked as a day laborer, here and there. Sometimes he'd come to sleep at my house, but not always; in the summer he was away for weeks at a time; I only saw him on Saturdays.

—And on Sunday.

—Not much on Sundays; you know, he preferred to go to the tavern.

—So you were alone? Weren't you bored?

—I didn't have time. The year my neighbor moved and I had to give up school, I was left with chores to do: bed, soup; then, just to earn a little, I also went out on day labor for light work. In the evenings, I sewed what little we had, mended my father's trousers; on holidays, I read.

—Overall you lived a quiet life.

—-Oh! yes, for a while.

Marta didn't hear these last words, intent on imagining Appollonia, small, round, round, rolling like a ball from the bed to the hearth, from the hearth to the washhouse, peaceful, with her beautiful full-moon face.

—And when your father was out at night, did you sleep alone?

—Alone.

—Without being afraid?

—What about? We were so poor that our house couldn't tempt burglars; I'd go to bed half asleep and sometimes I didn't even remember to lock the door. One night a terrible storm broke out and blew the door wide open; the water came in torrents, and in the flashes of lightning I could see it rising and rising, carrying my father's new shoes around the room. They were so soaked that they couldn't be moved, and it took a week to dry them. It was the only time I was afraid.

—Were you afraid then?

—Good heavens, it was like hell! I hid myself under the sheets so I wouldn't see or hear, but I could still see and hear; and I thought the souls of the dead were coming to carry me away with lightning bolts. My father, the next day, beat me badly because I hadn't come down to lock the door. He was right.

—Reason to fight you?

—But yes.

—And leaving a child alone at home?

—It wasn't his fault. He had to go to work. The lords are lords and the poor are poor.

Marta felt the urge to embrace her, and would have done so if the motive for that feeling had been solely kindness; but she realized that, in a subtle nuance of kindness, her heart was exulting, relieved from its own ills, and she was ashamed of displaying a sensitivity that was ultimately nothing but selfishness. Promising herself to compensate for Appollonia's modest virtues in other ways, she abandoned herself for the moment to the pleasure that this sort of autobiography afforded her, where her soul, thirsting for ideals, found unexpected nourishment.

—And you continued like this until…

—Always, as long as my father lived.

—Did you love your father very much?

—Yes; it's a duty.

—But one doesn't only love what is one's duty—Marta insinuated.

—One loves what one must love—Appollonia answered candidly.

—Was your father at least good?

—Yes, as a man.

These concise words made Marta laugh. Appollonia added:

—In the early years, things went fairly well. My father, as everyone knows, had his own vice: he drank; but he drank only on Sundays. He'd come back from the tavern like a child, laughing and laughing, and uttering meaningless words. I'd call him, "Dad, dear Dad." He'd hug me and then fall onto the bed. There was nothing wrong with that, was there? But when work became scarce and he couldn't go to work every day, I saw him stuck in the house from morning till night, grumbling, taking it out on everyone, even me, for being a useless mouth and that if I were a man, I could at least help him. I, of course, didn't answer, and, later, if he went out to "drive away his troubles," as he put it, I couldn't stop him. So he started drinking every day, precisely when money was scarce!

—I don't think he was a model father! Marta exclaimed.

—You have to pity him. Men, when they don't have work, all act like that. He wasn't bad before; when his business went badly, his blood went bad. I would sometimes tell him, "Daddy, don't drink, you're wasting your money and your health." But he would reply that women should hold their tongues at home. That's also true. So, the more my father drank, the less the employers wanted to hire him by the day; the less he worked by the day, the more he drank. I'll leave you to think about it! I had to work for two then; luckily I was healthy. I went out during the day to mow, weed, thresh wheat, card flax, and spent many hours of the night sewing clothes for the women and children, which I was quite good at, and I even enjoyed it. Overall, I didn't complain; except for a few holidays when I saw my friends going to the fair all dressed up, and I couldn't accompany them; First, because I had no clothes, no shoes, nothing; then, who would take care of the house and my father? This was my destiny.

—And didn't it happen to you then that you got married?

—How was that possible? I had two shirts in total!

—Has anyone ever courted you?

—If I didn't even go out!

—They had to know you were a good girl and would make a great wife.

—But I had nothing. And who would take care of my father? You marry one person, not two. Besides, I swear I had no desire to get married at all; my father was enough for me.

—Oh!—said Marta—it's not the same thing.

Appollonia shrugged; the difference, in her opinion, was not worth discussing.

—Finally, how far did your father get?

My father got to the point where he wouldn't leave the inn. He'd stay there all day, sometimes running errands, unloading stuff, or even riding a horse, just to earn a few pennies.

—And then he brought them to you?

—Oh! No, ma'am, he drank them to ease the pain of not being able to earn more. For my part, I was happy he found a way to ease his pain; but when he came to my house staggering, so that I couldn't get him to understand a reason, and I had to pick him up, undress him, put him to bed without getting a single thing out of him, just like a newborn baby, I confess that I felt a pang in my heart and a longing to be in his place; in his place so I could do things differently, you understand?

—Yes, yes, I understand.

—But everyone has their part and no one can change it. Lately I didn't even go to Mass anymore; he would come home at any hour, in that state, and if I wasn't there he would break everything, swearing, so that all the proceeds of the Mass would go to waste. The priest knew it and said I was right. Finally, when his time came, he really felt ill. The innkeeper and the neighbors said: He's drunk! I knew he wasn't drunk this time. I had called him "Daddy, Daddy" and he no longer answered. So I ran, it was night, to call the doctor. The snow was so deep! The doctor grumbled that it was no time to disturb the Christians. Poor thing! But what were we supposed to do? A little each. And we went back together, in the snow, with a cold that we couldn't even feel. When we got home, my father was breathing his last!

After a pause, Marta said:

—Was it on that occasion that you decided to go into service?

—I really hadn't thought about it. Mrs. Oriani came to see me on the
day of the funeral and said, "What do you want to do here alone? Come to me."
I had no reason to refuse. Then I found myself happy.
Mrs. Oriani died early: this too was fate. And so it goes!

“How old are you now?” asked Marta.

Apollonia replied philosophically:

—Thirty-eight, thirty-nine or forty, who knows!

* * *

The old chest had finally been opened. Marta had been asking her husband for a long time what it contained, but he couldn't tell her.

Now, when the lid was overturned, a jumble of disparate objects appeared: pieces of curtains, pieces of fringe, a bag of nails, two or three books, letters, used gloves and two epaulettes of the National Guard.

It was clear that all that stuff had been thrown there haphazardly, to be disposed of, abandoned to rats, moths and mould.

The books were: two mismatched volumes by Walter Scott, a French grammar, and a Christmas gift, the kind they used to have, bound in gold-lined cardboard, with a preface to the gentle reader and the vignettes protected by tissue paper. Marta loved these old Christmas gifts; she had looked at them as a child, on winter evenings, opening them slowly, carefully, blowing on the tissue paper so she could turn it over without ruining it, and letting out little cries of admiration at each illustrated page. Later, she had sought the forms of love in romantic sonnets, in the legends of chatelaines and blond pages, in certain passionate and obscure phrases. Diane de Poitiers had appeared before her, as beautiful and poetic as Juliet, as Desdemona, as Marguerite. Just seeing a Christmas present brought back to her memory the verses she had learned more willingly than all the others, the ones that had made her cry with tenderness when she was eighteen.

    Oh! girl, you do not know what sad happiness
    descends into my soul.
    If you reveal your angelic voice,
    If you gaze at me or hold my hand…
    Ah! if you love me, you will still feel
    What I feel like expressing to you in vain!

    When at night the empire of heaven
    Extends over all creation,
    And shrouded in white veil
    Your dear likeness appears to me,
    And hears my name with joy,
    And I feel my mouth being kissed…

    Then the desire arises more boldly,
    More vigorous in the solitary soul;
    And to my lips, my beautiful angel,
    This voice comes from my heart:
    Ah! if only I could spend my whole life,
    Blessed am I, at your breast!

It still seemed to her the most beautiful poem in the world; she had recited it one day to the doctor, hoping to move him, but he had replied: Don't believe poets; they sing of love in the same way that gravediggers bury the dead, as a profession.

In the pages of the gift was a small piece of paper, torn, as could be seen, from a long letter. The paper was thin and smooth; the handwriting was feminine, it read: "Never, never will I forget it, never! It is here on my lips, even more than it is in my heart; because you put it on my lips, and when I kiss them again, I feel it again." The rest was torn.

That passage of the letter burned in Marta's hands. Although there was nothing positive in it, she already knew to whom it had been addressed, and the few or many years that had passed had not altered the violent impression she felt upon reading the words of love written by another to her husband. Another!

The same tiny, uneven handwriting, the same thin, slightly blue paper, crisscrossed with little lines where the words jumped now above and now below, almost nervously and untamed, reappeared as Marta removed the objects from the box; crumpled, torn sheets of paper, in whose folds nestled the tiny insects that live on paper, on which unknown stains had fallen, dilating the ink, swelling the words; sheets of paper that had the appearance of lepers, exuding a stale odor of dried roses and mold.

Here—thought Marta—here is Alberto's youth, his enthusiasms, his heartbeats, his ardour, the kisses that I await in vain.

She grabbed the letters feverishly, wanting to read them immediately, struggling to put the pages together, growing impatient with the frequent gaps. She didn't even think about taking them to her husband; instead, she closed the door so as not to be disturbed, and sitting on a pile of laundry, she began sorting through them in order—a relative order, because almost all the dates were missing. The signature, however, was there in its entirety: Elvira. There was no longer even any doubt as to who they were addressed to: from the second letter onward, Alberto's name was written and repeated with a refined complacency, in a superior handwriting, almost as if her restless hand had paused on that name to prolong the sweetness of writing it.

Another letter, fresher, still in its envelope, its seal broken, but still intelligible in the arabesques of a small coat of arms; the paper sturdy, pearly, dotted with little stars; the handwriting perfectly even: "If everything you've told me is true, if I'm still the most adorable of women to you, come today at five o'clock. I'll be alone."

No signature.

After a moment of annoyance, he tossed the letter aside. His interest lay in the former, in that passionate Elvira who did not hide her name, but instead flaunted it with the overbearing frankness of true love.

Slowly, patiently, she managed to put them together, her hands were shaking and her head was on fire.

She was distracted again by a badly folded, poorly written note with a few spelling errors: "I waited for you in the square and you didn't come. I'm not coming anymore."

This hurt her. The fact that a woman had been on first-name terms with her Alberto, and that he had looked at her, favored her, perhaps loved her—and perhaps loved her in the way men love—this fact, which she was generally aware of, plunged her back into her bitter reflections, her eternal doubts. How could he understand her if she couldn't understand him?

Placed one on top of the other, Elvira's letters formed a small parcel.

The first one, the only one that had a half date, was this one:

THE.

February 22nd.

Dear sir, or my friend? My friend is sweeter; my heart immediately suggests it, and my pen willingly writes it. But is it really true? Are you, will you be my friend forever? I'm so troubled, so moved, that I dare not tell you everything I feel. Perhaps I'm wrong to love you, but God is my witness, I'm sincere, and I believe you share my feelings. Tell me, tell me!

=Elvira=.

II.

My friend,

Yes, I call you my friend; I could never take back this heart that is yours, but do you respond to my affection? Your letter was cold, and from a distracted man... forgive me, Alberto; dear Alberto, I wouldn't want to displease you with my demands. It is he who makes me so happy, the thought of being loved by you!

The family that keeps me in retirement can't stop praising you; if you knew how proud I am! Couldn't you connect with these guests of mine? Then we'd see each other more often...

I know I'm not worthy of you, that you deserve far more than the love of a poor teacher, but I give you everything I have, everything, everything, oh my dream!

The second sheet of this letter was missing.

III.

Dear Alberto,

Why don't you write to me? I spent a very restless night, without a wink of sleep. At eleven thirty I heard you and your friends passing under my windows; you were laughing loudly, and, I don't know why, that laughter hit me like a hammer blow.

Are you even thinking of me? Drop me a line, a word right away.

=Elvira.=

I beg you, immediately , immediately .

IV.

Wednesday.

I'm going crazy, Alberto! Not a word for eight whole days. I know you're in town; I saw you yesterday on my way to Mass; you were far away, I recognized you anyway, and you didn't hear me?

I have spent these eight days running from door to window, always waiting for a letter from you, living on nothing else!

Maybe you're angry because I haven't given you the meeting you asked for yet? But what can I do? If we met on the street, everyone would know, and in the villages they're so gossipy! Why don't you come home? But I'll think about it, I'll think about it so hard that I'll even find a way to spend at least a moment with you.

The end of this letter was also missing.

V.

My Alberto ,

What unexpected joy! To see you, to hold your hand, to hear you speak, to breathe the very air you breathed… oh! What a beautiful day yesterday! I think of it constantly, without rest, while I work, while I teach, while I eat or speak or remain silent, while I walk or sleep, especially when I sleep, because my sleep is nothing but a long conversation with you.

Don't call me exaggerated anymore , because it makes me sad. I love you as I feel, but I love you sincerely, passionately, without restraint. You have promised me nothing, and I expect nothing, and ask nothing of you except this: let me love you! I have faith that my love will shake the coldness of your soul. For you, I have the courage to face any obstacle; show me a goal, and let time, people, or fate keep me from it, I will move toward it against all odds, for you!

Alberto, take these two little violets that I tied together with one of my hairs, that I kissed, that I held on my heart and that I send you so that you can put them on yours; just as yours would like to be there, all yours.

=Elvira=.

The two violets were still in the middle of the sheet, secured by a small cut in the paper. The hair was gone.

Not knowing exactly where to place the fragment that began with the words "never, I will never forget it!", Marta placed it immediately after this letter, arguing from the more intimate tone of the following ones that the lovers must have become closer.

YOU.

My life ,

I have only you! I think of nothing else, I want nothing else. You say you can't marry now, what does that matter to me? I defy the hypocrisies of the world, I want your love, not your name, not your house, not your possessions, not the peace and safety that would come from you, but you alone, you, you, you!

I await your letters with the thirst of Hagar in the desert. Thousands and thousands of kisses.

VII.

Alberto ,

I thought I no longer had tears, but just writing your beloved name brings them to my heart, to the marrow of my bones. I don't know exactly where they come from, but with them my whole body frays; and it seems to me that not water, but blood is falling from my poor eyes.

You don't believe it, do you? Oh! If you did, you couldn't leave me in this anguish! My love, my life, you are so good, and why do you make me suffer so much? When I think that I was in your arms, that my heart beat against yours, that our lips met, that for an instant the universe and God no longer existed for us, for me… I wonder if I'm still alive, Alberto!

How empty my arms are! And how cold my lips! Oh, if only I could die…

=Elvira= yours.

In the margin of this letter, written in pencil, was a little restaurant bill.

VIII.

( Fragment ).

…eternally yours.

Did you receive the photograph? I waited in vain for a note from you. When I sent it to you, I couldn't write anything but my name, hastily, in a fold of my dress; look for it.

But the name isn't enough for me; I'll write the words I wanted to add to the photograph here; cut them out and stick them to the back of the card with a little eraser.

    To my only love Alberto Oriani
    I give all of myself in this portrait.

Remember, you know? I care.

I made a little silk bag for your portrait, I added the red carnation you gave me the first time we met and I carry this with me, on me

=Elvira=.

Marta had eagerly searched for Elvira's portrait. It wasn't with the letters, just as it wasn't attached to the ardent words of the dedication; nor was there anything else in the box that could have any connection with Elvira.

She read and reread the letters two or three times, torturing herself with all those love phrases, feeling a pang in her heart for every kiss Elvira had given Alberto, oppressed by the desperate conviction that no matter how much she did or said, she could not erase those memories from her husband's mind. And with other memories, was the full, boundless love she had imagined possible? If her kisses followed kisses, if she could not find new caresses, if the words she thought she had for him were but a repetition of hundreds of others spoken before, what was she then if not the last to arrive, the wretched traveler who finds every place taken?

And alongside these reflections, another arose, deeper, one that might have superficially consoled her, but instead added bitterness to bitterness. This was the conviction that Alberto had not reciprocated Elvira's love. Everything spoke volumes: her sweet complaints about his coldness, the rare replies, the forgotten flowers, that passionate dedication he hadn't bothered to add to the portrait, and the accusation of "exaggeration ," in which word Marta saw Alberto entirely. He hadn't loved Elvira either; he remembered nothing, he understood nothing.

And if Elvira's delirious love hadn't inflamed him, one must believe that he was, like the salamander, insensitive to any flame. It wasn't, then, exhaustion of passion that made him hostile to amorous transports; it wasn't a question of curing an illness, nor rekindling a feeling; she was faced with absolute nothingness.

But this nothingness, perceptible to her subtle analysis, escaped the synthesis that any honest person could have made of Alberto. He had everything that men believe sufficient for a woman, and that many women believe equally; moreover, he had the frankness of his character and the honesty of his principles. He loved Marta in the only way he was capable of loving.

Could she complain about it?

No, no, she would have been a vile and ungrateful creature. She wept, still holding Elvira's letters in her hands, torn by sadness, feeling the cold of those dead ashes, feeling, along with her own, the anguish rising from all those shattered illusions, from that irreparable past.

A leaden blanket seemed to have fallen over her shoulders, banishing the dreams and fleeting fantasies of youth. She felt old, aged by all Alberto's years, by everything he had seen and felt, by the loves he had touched, by those unwitting tears he had caused to shed; and she felt neither anger nor envy; only a great, infinite weariness, as of broken wings.

* * *

Alberto had gone out for his usual visit to the farms and wouldn't be back until dinner time, around five. How could Marta disappoint the craving that was consuming her?

Having initially decided to remain silent, she was then forced to compromise her own pride; she would speak, but she would speak out of surprise, wanting to gain control of her husband's innermost thoughts, skillfully playing the card that fate had placed in her hands.

Meanwhile, she had remembered a certain little basket filled with photographs of all kinds; she went to get it and, having emptied the photographs onto the table, began to examine them minutely, eliminating all the men and a poodle solemnly depicted in the middle of an armchair.

She then hastily discarded a slew of old aunts, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, children portrayed in the arms of their nurses, little girls grouped together, until she had reduced the photographs to a dozen or so passable women.

And it still took a great deal of imagination to picture those faded figures against a reddish background as capable of any kind of seduction, old as photographs only get old in their merciless realism: hair flat, or perked up in the precise shape of stuffed meatballs; eyes grim, terrifying, or dazed by the preoccupation with the pose; generally sullen faces. And the clothes? Wide sleeves, ham-shaped, clog-shaped, bell-shaped, peasant-style; angular waists, ruffled ruffles , buttons out of proportion.

What monsters!—thought Marta—and probably in ten or fifteen years the same will be said of me.

She searched meticulously, peering into every fold of her robes to discover Elvira's name. She thought she'd found it in a young woman, leaning languidly against the trunk of a column, her right index finger buried in her cheek, her left hand hanging down her dress; but Elvira's name was nowhere to be found. Then she was assailed by the doubt that Alberto kept that portrait somewhere, hidden away, in his casket, in a jealously guarded sanctuary, perhaps over his heart. It flared up. Certainly, this was no ordinary love; Elvira could not be confused with Giuditta; he, though more coldly, must have loved that girl and retained an indelible memory of her.

Anguished by this suspicion, she no longer remembered having agonized earlier over the impossibility of Alberto ever reciprocating Elvira's love. She wielded a double-edged blade; whichever way she turned it, she cut herself.

Apollonia, seeing her lady pacing anxiously around the rooms, asked her if she felt ill.

Hell was in his heart. To what extent had they loved each other? To what extent? Had Elvira succeeded in animating the statue? Had she given herself to him with the ardour that shone through in her letters?

And then? And where was he now?

The inaction of expectation was unbearable to her.

She took her umbrella and set off across the fields to meet her husband. Elvira, too, must have walked those paths at some point, thinking of him, confiding her passionate sighs to the air and the sky; and what was left of him? Where does love end, and why does it end? The end is death, but the worst death is the one you feel.

Oh! the horrible sadness!

She longed to see Alberto, to touch him, to convince herself that he was hers, that he would never escape her; and she wanted to tell him that she loved him, that she loved him like Elvira, more than Elvira.

She was crying, rolling the stones thrown from the tip of her umbrella, devouring the road.

Suddenly, the big doctor appeared before her, dominating the entire path with his tall, burly figure and his bulky top hat , the only top hat seen in town. He was reciting verses, but when he met Marta, he stopped. The young bride interested him; he had never missed an opportunity to befriend her.

“Where are you going?” he asked her bluntly.

—I'm going to meet Alberto.

—This way?

—Isn't he from here?

—Not really. She'd get there anyway, since all roads lead to Rome, but she might not meet her husband today. If you'll allow me, I'll put her on the right path.

Marta, embarrassed, opened her umbrella to hide her face a little while she regained her composure.

"September is the most beautiful month of the year," added the doctor, following the train of his thoughts. "Poets say April, but it's not true. In April it rains too much, the fields are without ears of corn, nor the trees bearing fruit, the vines are leafless, the sun doesn't warm, it snows sometimes! May is a little better; we have strawberries at least. I recommend June to you; everything is in bloom, everything is growing from the earth, the fields are splendid, peas and green beans are cheap. Let's draw a veil over July and August; it's the only thing we can do in a time when we'd even take off our shirts..."

—Do you know—Marta interrupted, taking advantage of the pause—the local teacher?

—That hunchback? Yes.

—Has he been here for many years?

—Seven or eight, I don't know.

—And the previous teacher?

—I knew that one too.

—Was her name Elvira?

—But!… Elvira, how?

—I don't know his relationship. Was he young?

-Enough.

-Pretty?

—A dark-haired girl, you know, one of those dark-haired girls with black eyes and white teeth, of whom one can never say that they are absolutely beautiful or absolutely ugly.

—Did you know her well?

—Oh! To say much would be too much. I spoke to her once or twice. She was nice.

—Why did she leave?

—Who knows! They probably changed its destination.

—So it's not possible to remember if her name was Elvira?

—I really don't remember.

Marta, having closed her umbrella, went back to rolling the stones in silence.

"September," continued the doctor, "is the triumph of the year! It's the month when cellars are filled and game is provided for the table; the threshing floors are stripped of their beautiful yellow carpet to fill the granaries; the earth rests in the tranquil majesty of a mother contemplating her offspring. And look, look at that clear, cloudless sky! What a splendor of vegetation! September," he added after a pause, "is perhaps also the best season of life. Don't you think so?"

Marta, distracted, responded with an insignificant exclamation.

—I am convinced of it. Youth is too immature, manhood too stormy.

He raised his graying head, on one side of which his top hat was balanced by a miracle of balance, with a sort of pride; his intelligent eyes sparkled, and his sensual nostrils breathed in deeply.

—Plants—said Marta—are luckier than us.

He did not know what Marta was referring to; he answered at random:

—For them too there is hail and the axe.

Then they fell silent, both obeying the tyranny of their own thoughts, under the influence of that sweet autumn afternoon.

They walked quickly, lightly, inhaling the scent of the meadows, listening peacefully to the wild chanterelles flying from tree to tree; their eyes wandering, their thoughts winged.

He stopped dead in his tracks.

“What are you looking at?” Marta asked after waiting a few moments.

—Brave little beast!

This exclamation not being an answer, Martha also began to look.

Between two acacia branches, a spider had thrown its threads down, evenly, to then begin spinning its web in the round; a caterpillar, falling from an upper branch, had broken one of the threads, and it was starting to spin it again.

—Isn't this courage?

Marta smiled.

—But that's not enough. Wait a moment, until it catches the thread. Great! Now here's a twist of fate.

He gave the new thread a pat with his forefinger and thumb.

“Bad!” said Marta.

"Look, look," the doctor exclaimed enthusiastically, "he's starting to scamper again, well done! Well done, I tell you. And so it goes for life, you know? This little creature never gives up; when one thread breaks, it throws out another; the second snaps, and a third comes along. Forward, ever forward! That's his family motto. Look how he's already climbed; he's at the pinnacle. Puff!

—Oh! cruel—Marta cried when she saw that he had torn the thin thread again—wicked man!

He looked into her eyes, which she immediately lowered, troubled.

—I apologize; I wanted to show you how brave you can be.

The spider was spinning its web again, climbing and climbing, while Marta watched it, not without keeping an eye on her brutal companion.

But he said simply:

—Let's go and find Alberto.—And she immediately moved in silence.

They met him not far away. He was walking slowly, slowly, with his handsome, open, serene face, the regular pace of a man without any trouble.

The three of them returned together to the village, to the door of the couple, where the doctor said goodbye.

Marta thought that Alberto was finally in her hands, and she devoured him with her eyes, while he calmly hung up his hat.

Seen from behind, the back of his neck had a particularly seductive quality, with soft, well-set ears and solid muscles; his cheeks offered a three-quarters full line, barely shadowed by down, which attracted kisses.

"I'm hungry, aren't you?" he said, sitting down at the prepared table.

—But yes, discreetly.

—Did Appollonia manage to find these blessed quails?

—Not today, there will be some tomorrow.

Marta had the letters in her pocket; she took them out and put them back on the work table; then she sat down next to her husband, apparently calm, but with her eyes fixed, her mind restless.

—Mrs. Merelli had a baby girl last night.

-Yes?

—You can go visit her tomorrow or the day after.

—I'll go.

—He seems to be doing very well.

After a long pause, while Alberto was pouring the drink, she asked:

—If I had a little girl, what would you name her?

—As you would like.

—But what?

—My mother's name, for example, or yours.

—This is certainly better; however, there are people who prefer fictitious names: Ida, Olimpia, Elvira… Do you like Elvira?

—No more, no less than the others; I give little importance to names. I never asked your name; I learned it from you yourself.

Marta watched him intently, trembling all over, hoping he would at least notice her uneasiness and ask him the reason. She had already prepared herself. If he asked her, "Are you feeling ill?" the answer should have been something like this: "Yes, it's an illness that only you can cure," etc., etc. But none of that happened.

Alberto was eating, and only, seeing Marta's plate almost always empty, urged her to eat too. At the end of dinner he asked:

—Hasn't your mother written yet?

-No.

—If it takes a long time to arrive, the cold will arrive.

She could have revealed the reasons for the delay, gone into the details of a rather comical setback, but that would have taken her away from her worries, and she didn't feel the strength to pretend or hold back. She preferred to remain silent, poking holes in the tablecloth with a toothpick.

Alberto said again:

—When she comes, you can set up the room at the end of the corridor for her; it will look better there than anywhere else, it's well-lit and very cheerful.

The mention of her mother touched Marta to the core; the memory of so many lost tendernesses made her throat constrict, so she stood up and walked around the room a few times. Passing by the worktable, she quickly opened the drawer, removed the letters, and tossed them in front of her husband:

—Look what I found today in the box, the old box up in the attic!

Alberto looked at the letters, first with indifference, then with surprise, finally reading one he exclaimed:

—But where did they come from?

—I told you; they were in the box.

-Sun?

—Oh! with fringe, used curtains, nails…

—To, to, to!

—You didn't know they were there?

—Not even in your dreams.

—Are you sorry I read them?

—You're welcome! Water under the bridge doesn't make water anymore.

He pushed the letters away gently, as he did everything gently, ready to talk about something else.

Marta had an unusual audacity; she went to sit on his knees and, putting her arms around his neck, she whispered with her mouth against his ear:

—Did you love her very much?

He had a moment of embarrassment; the situation called for one of those outbursts to which his temperament was resistant; a single kiss, but ardent, would have sufficed. Alberto, on the other hand, felt a movement of annoyance toward Marta, who was making him suffer this annoyance.

—What do these things have to do with anything now?

“I’m jealous of your past, you know,” Marta said without leaving him, sunk in the warmth of his neck, which she sucked with small, thick kisses.

Alberto slowly slipped out of his wife's arms, replying:

—And what can I do about it?

It was a typical Apollonian response, one of those cold, common-sense observations that leave no room for the sweet lies of sentiment. Yet Marta, in her case, would have found another word, without lying...

She moved off her husband's lap and sat on the chair, placing the letters in front of her.

“Is she dead?” he asked suddenly.

—I don't think so, but after he left the country I never heard anything more about him.

—Didn't you promise to marry her?

-Never.

Marta was taken back by one of her outbursts:

—Tell me the truth, Alberto, tell me! I understand so little about these human loves of yours…

—What do I have to tell you?

She realized that formulating her thoughts in a sentence was not so easy; she stammered:

—If you loved her very much… very much… and that she too…

—I don't know if he loved me very much.

Marta interrupted:

—How can we doubt it with these letters?

"Oh! The letters," Alberto exclaimed, laughing, "are the love of you other women, phrases!" For my part, I liked it.

—Nothing more?

—That's all it takes, I think, to make love to a girl. She then got excited, imagining a romantic passion, kidnappings, elopements, poison. I would have been very unlucky to marry her.

Marta was silent for a while, and then:

—Was she beautiful?

-Friendly.

—Blonde or black?

—Black.

—Tall?

-So so.

Another silence.

—Fat?

—Oh!… I don't know, I don't remember, I don't think so.

—Did he have small hands?

—But what you're asking me for is a passport. My word, you can think about it more in five minutes than I did in a whole year.

—That means you didn't love her the way she loved you!

—Maybe, so take heart and burn these papers right away. The past cannot be erased or renewed.

This was precisely what Marta thought, but without finding any consolation in it. Whether Alberto had loved Elvira a great deal, a little, or not at all, remained for her the fact of that fiery correspondence that also spoke of kisses given and received. If given for love, why forgotten? If given without, why given at all?

She tore the papers slowly under the table, listening to the little noise they made, torn between the remorse that excessive delicacy aroused in her and the material pleasure, unworthy of her, of that petty triumph; but the pleasure won her over.

When the pieces of letters could no longer be divided, she gathered the folds of her skirt together, holding them there as if in a sack, and stood up.

She glanced at Alberto, who had stuck the end of a cigar on a toothpick, the toothpick in the cork of a bottle, holding the cigar sideways, and, holding a candle to the other end of the cigar, was attentively watching the combustion, his hands in his pockets. She thought: I'll give him a cigarette lighter. And giving in to the selfish tenderness of her wifely affection, Marta pressed her lips to Alberto's neck as she passed.

Then she ran lightly into the kitchen, where, pushing Appollonia away from the fireplace, she poured the scraps of paper she kept in her skirt onto the fire.

* * *

Her face was attractive, somewhat elongated, with a white pallor that occasionally flared to a veiled flame, no further than that. Around her almost rectangular forehead, behind her ears, and far down the nape of her neck, was a rim of chestnut hair, dark in mass but luminous, shimmering here and there with silky streaks, speckled with burnished gold, parted modestly in the middle and pinned with two silver pins. Her calm eyes, of an indecisive color, frankly open and serene, gazed straight ahead, like a shot arrow; and their gaze was all sweetness, an invasive sweetness that absorbed attention and diverted it from the irregularity of her features. Her chin itself, characterless and poorly shaped, disappeared in the general light of that face to which her mouth, rarely smiling and even sad when smiling, gave a special expression of concentrated beauty. Beneath her elegant, proud neck, her shoulders seemed underdeveloped, and the delicateness of her breasts, which marked but did not accentuate her femininity, gave her a vague resemblance to classical statues of young Hebe. Her hand was small, where the veins bulged easily, and where, beneath the thin skin, one could feel the muscles twitch.

She wore a dress of a medium shade, which was partly reminiscent of the down of turtledoves, partly of the golden dust that covers trees in autumn; and it ended at each hem, around the neck, at the opening of the sleeves, with a stripe of pale pink.

"Mrs. Oriani is having one of her best days," thought the doctor, after glancing around and fixing his gaze complacently on Marta's face, who was sitting directly opposite him. "She's certainly not a beautiful woman, but she's one of those who have the potential to become so at a given moment; she's the woman who transforms herself, the woman par excellence."

Marta was perhaps aware of the effect she had produced, because a brighter ray shone in her eyes, which she turned to Alberto, as if to share her triumph with him and pay homage to him.

They sat at the wedding dinner given by Toniolo to introduce his bride. Everyone was there: the Orianis, the Merellis, the mayor, the big doctor, the real doctor who usually didn't frequent the company, but who on that occasion hadn't wanted to miss it. The Gavazzinis had also been told, but to no avail; they never appeared in public.

Toniolo's sisters had come from a nearby village, one married, the other single; two false, powdered blondes with flour on their cheekbones, awkward village flirts; and with them a couple of cousins ​​charged with playing the lady-love for them; plus her husband, a stout, peaceful man.

The lunch, presided over by the doctor in his capacity as consulting chef, promised to be exquisite, featuring a kind of homemade cappelletti, a mixture of breadcrumbs, cheese, sausage, and eggs; then cooked rare nantes in gurgite vasta in the rich broth of two capons married on the spot to a piece of real Lombard beef.

"Gentlemen," said the doctor, tucking his napkin under his chin, "I invite you to greater recollection, to a religious concentration before this table laden with every good thing. Eat, gentlemen; the table is the only true one."

Toniolo, at the head of the table, smiled, turning his beautiful velvet eyes to the shy bride who did not dare return his gaze.

Merelli's deep voice thundered through the clanking spoons:

—For a wedding lunch you could have said something else.

—Oh!—said the doctor with his nose in the bowl—“let's not start too soon.

The two powdered sisters half-smiled, torn between acting clever and naive. They both wore blue ribbons in their hair and imitation gold bracelets; they ate grimacingly, bringing the tip of their knives to their mouths, always leaving something on their plates, constantly adjusting their waists and belts.

The eldest, the married one, sat next to Alberto, whom she had known since childhood. Although they hadn't seen each other for several years, she spoke to him with great animation, and, having no one else to win over for the moment, she displayed all her resources with Alberto, developing the familiarity of a childhood friend, with a certain restlessness in her knees that made Marta shiver at the other end of the table.

Martha was now confident of her husband's fidelity, but she was still jealous of him; she would have been jealous of an old woman, of a child, just as she was jealous of his friends and of everything he loved.

She lacked the bold confidence of one who has seen a man delirious at her feet, that confidence that radiates a beam of light from the joy of domination, from the intoxication of satisfied senses, and that procession of memories that envelops one like a cloud, that lifts one above mortals, so that everything about her—her gait, her words, her gaze—reveals the beloved, the triumphant woman. No. Marta felt weak, unsure, she distrusted herself, she experienced the dejection of a soldier who, after preparing for a fierce battle, finds the field clear and the enemy sleeping beneath the unfurled white flag.

In this state of mind, every little thing irritated her, cast a shadow on her; finding herself discontented, she was no longer even kind; she no longer pitied and tolerated anything.

A dull antipathy welled up in her heart for Toniolo's sister, seeing how she dared help herself to Alberto's bread, touch him on the arm, speak to him so closely that their hair almost mingled; and call out to him at every moment: "Oriani! Say Oriani! Isn't that right, Oriani?"

She had a shrill, vulgar voice, a gossip's voice, to which she gave certain pretentious inflections, as false as the gold of her bracelets and the blond of her hair.

They evoked childhood memories: "Do you remember that evening of the lights? And when we threw an impromptu dance in the pharmacy? And when she sewed him the suit, as a joke?" Alberto laughed, excited, good-humored; in the fullness of his unalterable health, in the happiness of his mind entirely in the present moment, without doubts, without curiosity about either the past or the future.

Marta's restless mind, however, continued to torment itself. Before leaving the house, she had kissed Alberto in his favorite place, behind the ear, making him promise that at the table, when she looked at him, he would remember that kiss and it would be as if he were receiving another. But Alberto looked at her with a sense of forgetfulness, clearly drawn by his neighbor's chatter, cheered up by the excellent wine and the exquisite meal. And as her husband's good humor grew, her sadness grew.

He wondered if these were the joys of life: eating, drinking, talking to the indifferent, smiling at trivialities, enjoying childish things.

More or less veiled allusions were already being made, now to one spouse, now to the other, making the novice blush and plunging Toniolo into a state of vain bliss. Merelli was breaking down a wall with every word that came out of his mouth. The doctor, intent on his dishes, kept saying in vain, "It's too early, it's too early." The burning tuning fork continued to rise in a marvelous crescendo.

A kind of fog enveloped the table, the evaporation of food, the burning candles, breath, sweat, the smell of wine and hot pie, with a subtle hint of musk emanating from Toniolo's two sisters. The diners' ruddy faces blended with the pyramids of apples, halved from bottles, displaced by the growing excitement that made the younger ones move from their chairs, return to them, and leave again. Toniolo's unmarried sister had peeled a pomegranate and was circling around, offering it in her hand, flirtatiously and provocatively.

Marta saw all this in the lethargic impassivity of a dream, finding herself increasingly isolated and sad. Tragic things came to mind: her father's death, a boy she'd seen fall from a window, hospital crises, mental asylums; and then a heartache she'd felt as a young girl, which could have been an incurable heart condition. She looked at Alberto with a passion, a yearning of her entire being that sharpened her face, erasing every other sensation. Suddenly, amid the general hubbub, she caught the word "Elvira," which her husband's neighbor had uttered maliciously, hiding behind her fan.

For a good five minutes, the clashing of plates and glasses, the tumultuous cheers, prevented her from seeing Alberto; but when his face appeared beside that of the powdered blonde, the subject must have changed, and it was evident that they were exchanging compliments about precedence in tasting the currants.

Marta thought that on the rack, one could at least scream. Instead, she had to remain composed, with a certain smile of participation in the others' joy, and occasionally respond to the polite words addressed to her by her right-hand knight, and even put something in her mouth and pretend to drink.

Tears welled from her swollen heart, and she felt them forming on her eyelids. She was so convinced of being ugly, foolish, incapable of making herself loved, that at that moment she wished she were dead; but a bitter regret, an unsatisfied desire for earthly delights, drew her violently toward her husband, the only one from whom she could, from whom she wanted to ask her; and in this struggle she hated the whole world and herself.

It seems impossible—thought the doctor, resting his jaw and hands, his eyes shining, his chest prominent—how that woman suddenly changes. You wouldn't even think she was herself anymore.

A moment later, sitting next to her, still with the napkin on his chin but with a different ray in his pupils, almost as if his brain, suddenly detaching itself from his body, was flying into ethereal regions, he said to her:

—How mad it is to celebrate a wedding with invitations and toasts! It's the same madness that paints love as ruddy, plump, laughing and frolicking, when we should be looking for love in the most shattered skeleton of the danse macabre; one who no longer even has the bags under his eyes to hold back the tears, and whose chest is torn from top to bottom. That's how I'd like to paint love!

—Yes, yes—Marta said without understanding, only because those sad words responded to her sadness.

At the café, the queues broke. Alberto, always polite, came to ask his wife if she'd had a good lunch.

"She's lucky," said Mrs. Merelli, standing next to Marta. "I, in her condition, would feel horrible; except for this last pregnancy, which went a little better, everything is bad, everything is bad!"

"My wife doesn't want to hear about her condition ," Alberto added, smiling. "She's not used to it yet. You could give her a lesson, Mrs. Merelli!"

“Good God!” exclaimed the prolific lady, clasping her hands. “I just came out of the womb yesterday. But you’re really well, my dear, aren’t you? Aren’t you nauseous in the morning?”

—A little, almost nothing,— Marta replied, following her husband with her gaze as he walked away.

—It'll be a boy, then. And heartburn?

-No.

—A sign that he will have no hair.

—Will he have no hair?

—At birth, of course. Of my children, only Pina and Adelina were bald; the others came into the world hairy like Esau. But what heartburn, I tell you!… Besides, she's lucky in everything; she doesn't even notice… My word; she looks like a child.

Alberto was leaning against the fireplace with his friends. They had lit cigars, and in the sensual well-being of digestion, their human affections exploded with lively gestures, loud outbursts of voice and clapping of hands. Their faces shining, their eyes sparkling, they conversed among themselves in a special jargon, insinuating themselves, bumping elbows. Alberto, the more polite one, stood in front of Merelli when he spoke, to prevent his words from reaching the ladies' ears; Toniolo, on the other hand, basked in the selfish pleasure of a purring kitten.

—Sybarite!—murmured the doctor—“he prepares his stomach with stimulants.

Meanwhile, the bride, surrounded by the women, let herself be admired and envied, twirling the rings on her fingers, more dazed than happy, answering in monosyllables.

—What a beautiful wedding, right?

Marta turned around. The powdered blonde stood behind her, her manner coy, protective.

“Beautiful,” Marta replied.

—She's been married for a short time too, isn't she?

—Six months.

—I know your husband very well; we grew up together. He's a nice young man!

Obeying the laws of nature, Martha would have slapped her; but by restraining herself and controlling herself, she managed a smile.

The good Mrs. Merelli intervened, asking Toniolo's sister if she had recovered from a neuralgia she had suffered.

—Yes, yes, I've recovered completely. But wouldn't it be true that many girls would have been happy to marry Alberto Oriani?

—Without a doubt; and yet he preferred this bride, and I can't blame him—Mrs. Merelli returned to say very sweetly.

—Yes, the girls from the village don't have the charms of the city girls,— Toniolo's sister exclaimed emphatically. —By the way, has anything more been heard of Elvira, the teacher?

At this sudden and inappropriate question, Mrs. Merelli almost lost her temper, noticing that Marta was turning pale. She coughed, however, smoothed the frills of her dress, and said with her beautiful candor:

—And who thinks about it anymore? It's been missing for so many years!

—Oh! That's no use,— the other retorted maliciously,—when one has left certain memories behind… Didn't they say she had a son?

—How many slanders!

Mrs. Merelli, indignant, held out her hand as if to attest to the absent man's innocence. Marta grabbed that hand, and rising, and dragging the excellent creature with her, left the room, suffocated by sobs.

Alberto, who had seen her leave, followed her immediately.

"Don't be alarmed," said Mrs. Merelli. "It's a little warm in the room, and then all those cigars! No matter how nice it is, believe me, you always feel a little uncomfortable..."

“Are you feeling ill?” Alberto asked eagerly.

Marta clung to his arm, shaking her head; and when Mrs. Merelli, seeing her safe, returned to the dining room, she moved toward the courtyard, as if she felt a sense of suffocation.

The pharmacy courtyard was landscaped, with flowerbeds and climbing plants planted inside empty barrels. The moon shone brightly, illuminating every corner with its cold, even shower light.

Marta threw herself into her husband's arms, bursting into tears.

—But God, Marta, what's wrong?

—Tell me you love me, tell me you love me…

Alberto thought that if they caught him in the courtyard, hugging his wife, he would become the laughing stock of his friends.

"Come on," he said with a slight reproachful tone, "these are childish scenes. Come to your senses and be reasonable. We're here to have fun, not to cry."

She redoubled her tears, clinging to his neck, trembling, agonizing.

—Marta… well!

He then thought that they were nervous phenomena inherent in the first phase of gestation, and out of the respect that men profess for this mysterious female labor, he replied with bored sweetness:

—You know very well that I love you.

—Tell me again!

-I love you.

But she did not let go, still sighing, waiting for a flicker, a shiver to pass from his body to hers, giving her the sensation of a single soul, responding to what she herself felt, life, the awaited revelation… and he remained standing, resigned, and the moon illuminated them both coldly and serenely.

—Let's walk, it'll pass.

Marta didn't say anything else. Obediently, she let him slip her hand into her husband's arm, and they walked two or three times around the climbers' barrels.

He didn't know what to say to her. Would the evening humidity bother her? But she had to feel it too. It wasn't a pleasure, really, to have left a warm room, a group of friends, a good drink, and some chatter and jokes, to stroll around a courtyard.

“Are you feeling better?” he finally asked.

Marta made an imperceptible movement with her shoulders, opened her lips without being able to speak and rested her heart, which was beating violently, against his arm.

He remained uncertain for a moment longer, looked at the door of the hall from which a ray of cheerful light was coming out, looked at his wife, the barrels, the deserted courtyard, and:

—What if we went back?…

* * *

They had ordered her to go on long walks. Sometimes she accompanied Alberto to the farm, sometimes she went to meet him before dinner, but without enthusiasm.

She had become indifferent, almost apathetic; she no longer recognized herself. She had no desires, she was bothered by dressing, adorning herself; she rarely looked at herself in the mirror.

Her beautiful wedding chemises, the low-cut waists trimmed with lace, the embroidered stockings lay in the dresser, still tied with the pink ribbons, just as her mother had arranged them. She wore plain, simple linens, the ones that ironed most quickly, the ones that wouldn't cause her or Appollonia any unnecessary trouble.

It seemed to her that her youth was over and hearing about the bitterness and disappointments of existence, she recognized herself as wise and became more and more fervent in the serious concept that happiness is an illusion.

She took care of her household chores, worked, was thoughtful, and kind to Alberto. She followed the weather to dry the fruit and store the eggs; she often visited Appollonia in the kitchen, had her recount forgotten episodes from her childhood, and listened with interest.

Wasn't the house supposed to be her kingdom, her horizon, her everything? She tried to liven up the furniture and dishes, she started cooking some stew to see if she could finally satisfy herself, to find some support for her constant need for a reason. She had been fantastic, ideal, and she had been wrong; now she was seeking down-to-earth happiness, wasn't it supposed to be like this? Didn't everyone have it like this?

Alberto beamed. He paid her sincere compliments, called her the model of wives, and seeing him happy shouldn't be her share of happiness for herself? So she was completely happy.

But why did she never feel like laughing? Why did not a single note of song come to her lips? And no joyful impulse ever made her heart leap? Everything about her was colorless and monotonous, the beginning of a general anemia, the torpor that assails travelers lost in the snow, who suffer not, who complain not, who die sweetly in the quiet evanescence of a dream...

The doctor assured her that she was pregnant. A few months earlier, she had had mild digestive problems, which had disappeared, and no other physical sensation sufficiently sensitive to remind her of this fact, which left her as indifferent as everything else. The great things she had heard about motherhood must have been, like those she had heard about love, vastly exaggerated; or else she was a wretched creature without senses or viscera, a suspicion that was drawn from her and which made her horribly sad.

Why would she be a mother? If she had never trembled, never, at what the world calls love, if she did not understand this love, if a stranger had approached her without instilling in her the thrill of creation, why would she give her own blood and flesh, and risk touching the threshold of eternity without knowing the threshold of pleasure?

If children are the fruits of love, each fruit suggests the precedence of a flower; but she felt arid; nothing of her thinking self responded to the unconscious functions of her mechanical self. A profound dejection degraded her in her own eyes; the seed that fell into her womb could have fertilized any Judith, and would have been equally the fruit of love.

No, love doesn't exist!

She had come to this.

Father, brother, friend, partner, husband, all synonymous; one could be as good as the other, not the lover. For her, her lover was still the beardless youth who had sighed beneath her windows, who had stolen a flower from her and clasped her hand, for whom she had recited, yearning for pleasure, the verses of the old Christmas song:

    Oh girl, you do not know what sad happiness
    descends into my soul.

A vision, a fantasy that had no body, nothing.

Besides, what else did he see? Gavazzini, after having kidnapped the dear woman and drunk the sweet liquor of her veins, ogled the wives of others, between two intimate quarrels. Merelli, while giving annual fruits of love to his angelic wife, kept his servants young and beautiful. Toniolo, after the death of his first wife, took the second, with many consolations in between and the counterweight of a good dowry. Momentary passion, excitement, sensuality, greed, calculation; love, as she had dreamed it, never!

But Romeo, but Paul, but the daily occurrence of the coal braziers lit in a milliner's attic, but the corpses found on the beds, pressed together, mouth to mouth?

Novels.

But what about the criminals of love? But what about the heroes of love?

Crazy people.

And the stories of all the centuries?

Legends.

And the poems of all peoples?

Fantasy.

Thus she had come to cut off all aspiration; her soul, in the collapse, like a little plant bereft of its branches, no longer seemed a living thing.

She was thriving in the life of an old woman, already feeling the chills of November, covering herself up tightly, drawing closer to the fire. A slight rounding of her waist aside, her other limbs seemed to fade, her skin losing its youthful luster; a sad crease permanently appeared next to her lips, her eyes sunken, veiled, and her muscles seemed less elastic, less ready to respond to the call of a slumbering will; she resembled a lamp lacking oil, a machine broken in its most delicate mechanisms.

Appollonia had told her not to go out that day, as the weather threatened rain. Marta didn't believe her, or rather, she thought she could reach the farm before the weather worsened. These were the last beautiful days of autumn, so she should take advantage of them before shutting herself in for the winter; and besides, she had gotten into the habit of that little outing, and habit, in her almost monastic existence, already occupied an important place.

Modestly modest in her grey dress, with a cap of otter fur on her head and a shawl over her arm, Marta walked away along the path covered with dry leaves, disappearing and reappearing with her airy step, while her backdrop was sometimes a column of ivy leaning against the trunk of an oak tree, sometimes the undulating plume of acacia trees that were shedding their small yellow leaves into the air.

There were trees as golden as the tresses of an ideal daisy; others still that recalled the flashes of a dying flame; and some streaked with pink, with tender gradations of flesh, of pale coral, shaded, diaphanous, with a softness of veil and fallen angel's wings.

All the materiality of love and fertilization seemed to have disappeared from the harvested fields, from the plants that no longer bore flowers or fruit, which hung their leaves like empty thoughts, barren illusions; nor did the now distant swallows chirp from their nests; only the cold sparrow, hopping on the bare branches, sang the praises of the vanity of all things.

And Marta passed by with her light burden, an unaware creator in the midst of dying nature, feeling a sweet and tranquil melancholy penetrate her soul.

His gaze wandered across the edges of the sky, just as his mind wandered, lost in memories, rambling after the imaginative thread that unites a cloud with the color of a dress, the profile of a familiar face, an initial; through which disparate memories, scenes and sayings are suddenly reborn; and forgotten sounds of voices are heard again.

She remembered a small living room hung with a fabric patterned with large, blood-red flowers, with low sofas of a most unusual shape, and a curtain that masked the ceiling and seemed to protect that elegant nest from the common touch. Above all, she remembered a perch, placed in a corner, on which something fragrant was burning, evaporating little ashen clouds that rose mysteriously toward the folds of the curtain, leaving behind a subtle, warm scent of a living person. A woman lay, half-reclined, on one of the sofas; but she could only recall her very black eyes and a ring she wore on her little finger; a bizarre ring composed of seven pieces: a diamond, a ruby, an emerald, a topaz, a sapphire, a black pearl, and a tooth—a tiny baby's tooth, white and bright as an opal. Marta, who was then a young girl, had seen nothing else. He later learned that she was a schoolmate of his mother's, who had had great misfortunes and tragic loves, of whom the world spoke ill and whom his mother never mentioned without rolling her eyes and saying: Poor thing!

Poor thing! Marta repeated twenty years later. She knew nothing of her life or her mistakes, she remembered nothing of herself, except her eyes and a ring; perhaps she was dead by now! The secret of the little tooth strung together with the precious stones, that secret that had so captured her youthful imagination, lay safe in the modesty and oblivion of the tomb; yet it seemed to her that she had known her, that she understood her pain; and she ardently desired to absolve her, to see her again in the cold purity of that November day, rising among the clouds, and from there smiling down at her with her black eyes.

And still other visions, broken, fleeting; snatches of conversations, refrains of unknown songs, bars of waltzes ; and certain glances whose origins he no longer knew, and bursts of laughter from invisible mouths; his entire internal world stirring, emerging to become part of the external world, merging with the sky, the air, the falling leaves, the silence of the meadows, the inimitable palette of the masses of trees, the mysterious breath of the earth and the waters.

The laments of leafless trees and deserted nests came to her; the hidden voices of blades of grass, the timid voices of flowers plucked and forgotten; and to them returned the sighs of her youth, the dreams, the regrets, the darkened ghosts.

She walked without feeling the earth, as if carried by an embrace; and she hadn't even noticed that the weather was growing increasingly cloudy, so much so that by the time she reached the farm a few drops were already beginning to fall.

“My husband?” she asked immediately.

Alberto wasn't expecting her in that weather; he had already left half an hour earlier, taking shortcuts across the fields.

—And now?

—Now all she has to do is go into the house.

So said the farmer's wife cheerfully, a newlywed herself, but who had preceded Marta in filling a small wicker cradle, around which she was busily busy.

Marta barely knew the farmer; she usually met Alberto in the farmyard, took his arm, and looked at nothing else. She was surprised by the cheerfulness of his face, the strange light that shone in his eyes, his casual, self-possessed air.

Within.

The child was crying. The farmer's wife took him in her arms, rocking him, kissing him lightly on the forehead, murmuring broken, meaningless, yet very sweet words.

So would she have done the same? And was that maternal love?

—Do you love this little one very much?

—I love him! My dearest joy… He'll try, he'll try… I won't tell you anything else…

Marta looked at the little baby, red, red, with two round, sightless eyes and a perpetually moist mouth. He must have understood nothing.

—Does he sleep at night?

—Sometimes yes, sometimes no, second.

—And when he doesn't sleep, he cries?

-Safe!

—And what do you do then?

—I get up, pick him up, and carry him around the room. There's nothing else, my dear lady. It seems to you that he shouldn't understand because he's little, but instead he understands better than we do and makes himself understood. You'll have to see when his dad comes in!

—Your husband doesn't sleep at home every night, does he?

—Unfortunately! When he goes to the mill he also sleeps there; that was the case yesterday; but today I'm waiting for him, and the little one is waiting for him too. Are you waiting for Daddy, right?

Kissing her baby, the young mother became animated. She had fresh, mobile lips that must have known how to kiss; the pearly smile of a happy woman; her neck relaxed, her breasts throbbing, barely veiled; a softness in every movement, a warmth of satisfied limbs, of circulating, healthy blood, in the complete expansion of well-being.

Marta asked again:

—Does your husband love you?

To which the other did not respond except by blushing and bowing her head on her child's cheeks.

It continued to rain, and from the window overlooking the fields, the green mass of the trees shone, soft and vaporous, with pastel outlines. The farmer's wife, putting the baby back in the cradle, began stoking the fire:

—My man takes it all!

Marta wondered how she would get home.

—Luckily,—said the farmer, after glancing sideways at the sky,—it's not a water that will last long.

And he wandered from the fireplace to the cradle, and to the threshold of the door, from where he peered into the street with long, impatient glances.

Marta, crouched behind the chest of drawers on the first chair she found, followed all these movements, looking in turn at the fireplace, the cradle, the doorstep and the cheerful bride who trotted about her modest kingdom with a firm step.

Suddenly, a shadow blocked the doorway; a man, throwing aside his soaked hat, rushed into the room. In a leap, he had lifted his woman into his arms, holding her waist with one hand, seeking her heart with the other, moved by a surge of passionate sensuality, and with such a transfusion of his entire being that the mystery of the biblical words was torn through her: " You shall become one flesh and one spirit ." For a moment, the quivering of her joined lips, the rattle of voluptuousness, could be heard; then the woman broke away, shamefaced, pointing to Martha.

Marta had stifled a cry, as if struck to the heart; and at the same moment she had felt her insides heave, a being move in her womb, and through her veins, through her flesh, the long-awaited pulse coursed, the revelation of another life, bursting forth with the revelation of love itself.

Every veil was lifted, every doubt dissolved, her virginity fell at that point, she was become a woman. She understood, felt, desired everything. The impression had been so rapid and violent that the presence of that man, now, hurt her.

She stood up, pale, her eyes averted.

“Do you want to leave in this weather?” the woman stammered.

He wanted to leave.

The man offered to accompany her; she declined. Then the embarrassed couple gave her an umbrella, showing her the shortest route.

That leap, that embrace, that kiss, that gasp, Marta carried it all with her, she would carry it her entire life. And she ran through the rain, while large tears flowed from her eyes, flooded by the sky, flooded by her soul. She cried and shivered, with a distant consolation, a consolation that came from her very depths, still weak, confused, yet deliciously sweet.

Not far from home, she met Alberto, who gently scolded her, telling her she had been reckless. He was agitated, fearful for her; but under the umbrella that sheltered her, he didn't see her tears—no, he didn't see them. He had news to tell her, after all.

“What news?” Marta said, distracted.

—You'll see, you'll see!

Marta ran again, ahead of her husband, feverish, anxious, and soaked from the water she'd taken in. As soon as she entered the courtyard, her mother appeared before her.

“Ah!” he cried. And he fell into her arms.

* * *

The flowered curtains of the bed, veiling the light, spread around a cozy alcove atmosphere, a sweet air of intimacy, which Marta breathed voluptuously.

She had had a slight fever, but they wouldn't let her get up that day. It was still raining, and against the dull gray sky, the room seemed happier by comparison, with its new wallpaper, the dazzling white gauze on the dressing table, the blue bows so sweet to the eye, the gleaming, iridescent glass of the washstand, within which a wisp of vanilla, the last of the season, was prolonging its days.

“How nice this house is!” said Mom.

Mrs. Oldofredi was still young, rather small and plump, with a distinction that came from her smile, the same melancholy smile as Marta; except that the serene expression on her entire face, the calm of her person, announced a habit of philosophical indifference to the storms of life, a preconceived notion of optimism at all costs.

She had black hair, carefully styled, small, well-groomed hands, and a lace scarf tied in a large bow at her throat. When she turned her head, the diamonds in her ear sparkled.

She was sitting in the armchair next to the bed, and from there she was staring at a pair of shabby slippers, placed where Marta's clothes were.

—What are you looking at, Mom?

—Are these slippers yours?

—Yes, why?

—Didn't I buy them for you new, in white leather, with a navy blue satin lining that was supposed to go with the dressing gown? And by the way, where is the dressing gown?

—I used to wear it at first—Marta answered hesitantly—then I felt like I was wasting it for nothing.

Mrs. Oldofredi remained thoughtful about that useless thing.

—We women—she said then—must take great care of our person, of our clothes, of everything that indicates cleanliness and grace; especially when we have a young man as a husband.

—Oh!—Marta interrupted—Alberto doesn't pay attention to these things.

They fell silent, both carried away by their thoughts, so divided that after a while they looked at each other, disoriented. There was much to say on both sides; the desire to ask, to confide was immense, but a woman's modesty and pride held them back. Her mother contented herself with looking intently at Marta, studying her thin face, and Marta let herself be enchanted by that gaze, remaining sweet, melancholy, always a little distracted, with the air of someone witnessing visions.

To get her to talk, Mrs. Oldofredi inquired about her daughter's new relationships; she thus obtained descriptions of the Merellis, of Toniolo, of the big doctor. In turn, she told her about her friends in the city, of marriages already made or about to be made. She mentioned one of their cousins ​​who wanted to marry a lieutenant, but her relatives wouldn't consent, and that, on the other hand, there wasn't even a military dowry, that the love-mad young officer was threatening to take his own life, and that she, the young woman, was dreaming of incredible schemes to raise the money; her latest idea was to become an actress, go to America...

Marta listened in silence.

"Will you be so wild?" Mrs. Oldofredi concluded, adjusting her scarf. "Good marriages are those arranged by reason. You see, I was eighteen when I met your father. I wasn't in love with him at all. He came to our house twice a week to play seven-and-a-half; it was very common back then. I can almost see him: he would enter stiffly, a little angular, nearsighted, greeting us with that vague nod of people who can't see a hand's breadth beyond their noses; and he was far less handsome than Alberto, beyond comparison. He often lost at gambling. My father would tell him: lucky in love! I embroidered, I remember it as if it were yesterday, two rabbits on a red wool background; the embroidery dangled a little here, a little there; I wasn't then the terrible enemy of disorder that I am now... Well, he looked at my work with an interest, with an attention that couldn't have been greater if his life had depended on it. The fact is, when he ran out of rabbits, he asked for my hand in marriage. And that's all. You see, it's not a novel.

“But my father loved you,” Marta said in a deep voice that made Mrs. Oldofredi startle.

"Yes," she replied simply. "I loved him too; I appreciated his honesty, the kind care he showed me, his noble, trustworthy affection, and it was a great misfortune to lose him so soon."

“Did he love you with love?” Marta asked abruptly.

And since the mother hesitated, with her eyes wandering over Marta's slippers and with a thousand doubts in her heart, she pressed on with her passionate impetus:

—Tell me, mummy, little mummy, little mummy…

—Oh! Marta—said Mrs. Oldofredi, leaning down to kiss her—you're still the same.

And he began to smooth her hair on her forehead, the blankets around her neck, and the pillow, and the eiderdown, just like a little girl in her cradle, drinking in the rays of those dear, sad eyes, where an elusive thought was floating.

There are some words on which I believe we will never all agree, my dear child. Gender, age, temperament, education, environment, circumstances are so many factors that modify the meaning of the word love. We generally imagine it as the quintessence of mortal joys; it's natural, we see it from so far away as children! It's the flame that flickers on the damp clods, it's the golden phosphorescence of the butterfly, it's a gas, it's a powder to which we give the great names of passion, delirium, ecstasy...

Mrs. Oldofredi's voice trembled a little; however, she continued, trying to appear calm and self-possessed:

—And when the deception is discovered, instead of accusing the falsity of our imagination, we blame love which, poor thing, cannot be anything other than what it has always been, a dream, a mirage…

—No, mother, love exists.—Marta, who at first had listened quietly, sat up on the pillows, feverish, rosy, with that sudden beauty that came to her in fits and starts, her pupils burning and dilated.—Love exists!

For a moment the mother peered deeply into her daughter's thoughts.

"Let's suppose," Marta continued, leaning her elbow on the pillow, "let's imagine a girl who has spent eight or ten years of her life torn between these two thoughts that are the foundation of our education: honesty and love. She wants to love, first because it's her instinct, then because she finds written and hears repeated that love is the greatest happiness, that woman is created for love, etc. Religion itself, however, speaks to her more chastely of love and even makes love a sacrament. She wants to be honest, with that entirely feminine honesty that is modesty, reserve, submission; an honesty that man doesn't know, that was invented solely for woman and that leads her to flee in horror from anything that even seems sinful. What does the girl do? She brings together the two aspirations, the two main points of her catechism, and from the union of two very real things comes that something incorporeal, vaporous, sublime and ridiculous at the same time which is precisely called the ideal.

-But…

—Be patient, Mom. We're not even mentioned yet. It's just a guess, right? Let me tell you. If, as she enters life, that girl doesn't find those two aspirations united, if she sees that love isn't always the reward and companion of honesty, that, tied together barbarously like monstrous twins, they don't always get along, they don't always understand each other, and the time comes when one of the two...

Mrs. Oldofredi plumbed the abyss and did not let it finish; but carried away by the impetus that Marta held back in vain, she too felt like a woman, she too with her cheeks flushed, her eyes burning, her lips trembling as they clashed with her usual placid smile, she too illuminated by a mysterious beauty, exclaimed:

—Love is an illusion! Do you believe there would be so much activity in the world, that art would produce its masterpieces, that piety would erect its monuments, that patriotism would produce its heroes and religion its martyrs, if love as you understand it existed? Why do we grow so many flowers in pots and keep dogs in cages, why do we fill our homes with embroidery and crochet, why do we read novels and fashion magazines, why do we go to concerts, why are there so many philanthropic institutions where women are patrons, inspectors, visitors—if love were a reality, if love could at least suffice for one woman's life?

—And yet—Marta repeated, shaking her head—it is love that inspires art, it is love that warms charity…

—These are the disappointments of love, the impotence, the absolute impossibility of expressing in love, in love alone, that tendency toward the sublime that is within us. Oh! but the whole world would perish, there would be no room for anything, for nothing, do you understand, if the flash of love could last?

Marta was struck by the extraordinary light that shone in her mother's eyes, revealing to her a depth of ardour she would never have suspected; like the echo of distant battles, of struggles, of tears, of deaths, over which the great, beneficent wing of time had passed; and she felt she loved her doubly; she felt herself to be her equal, her companion.

Perhaps love is not for everyone, perhaps it is the greatest pain in life, perhaps it does not last, perhaps it is a mirage; but she had seen, she had seen!.. and with eyes swollen with tears, she murmured, almost speaking to herself:

-Exists.

In the collected silence of the alcove this single word fell with a solemn murmur of response.

"Listen," said Mrs. Oldofredi, taking her hands and lowering her voice in inverse proportion to her growing emotion, "let's make another assumption. Let's imagine a woman, a young, self-sufficient woman, and let's also suppose that she encounters love along the way."

—So there is.

"But God!" Mrs. Oldofredi moaned, her soul in her eyes. "There is desire, there is dream, there is illusion! There is the moment of delirium, there is the fever that makes one forget everything, the pang where pleasure borders on the cold of death; but since all this passes, since nothing remains of the most sincere transports, since lovers end up becoming strangers to each other and meet without anything further stirring in their hearts or their senses, we must deny love, we must say love does not exist! Believe me... believe, believe.

With hands clasped, they looked into each other's souls, measuring their despair; the mother, violated for not being able to say more, the daughter, afraid of guessing too much.

—So—said Marta, wiping her forehead as if a sudden sweat had wet it—there's nothing.

At that moment she stopped, listening. The same sensation that had startled her the day before in the two peasants' hut was recurring. She felt her insides stir under the impulse of a living person, with the strange revelation of another being within herself. It felt like a small hand beating against her breast, a small hand that wanted to say: Open to me, I am love and truth.

"Men," Mrs. Oldofredi continued, caught up in the dizzying heat of her own words, "are quick to recognize love, evaluate it for what it is, and move on, drawn by ambition, business, and public life. But we too cannot live in the constant illusion of love; that's why we have religion and motherhood. It's still love, but love that transforms; the ideal ascends to heaven, while the material part of us comes to life and lives in our own flesh…"

Marta heard only a whisper of her mother's words. With her hands folded in her lap, her eyelids half-closed, her body resting on the pillows, she seemed perfectly calm, but a shiver shook her inside, a thrill and a sting. She could still see that embrace, that kiss... how could she doubt it, if her entire being had been shaken by it, if in that sudden revelation she, already a woman, had understood the mystery of virginity, that mystery which is God's secret and which only love can communicate to men?

Light, burning tears escaped from her eyelids.

—Marta! Marta!—her mother called, leaning over her, a loving diviner of the battle that was being fought in her heart.

Marta, silently, repeated to herself: It may be the ray that flashes and dies, it may be the illusion that passes, it may be the dream, the delirium of an instant; yet it exists. A ray that does not warm all hearts, a dream that does not cheer every night...

But meanwhile the little hand repeated insistently: Open, I am love and truth.

And Marta saw, in a kind of magnetic vision, the beautiful summer countryside, the leafy trees branching against the blue backdrop, and a wretched insect stretching its silver threads. As one thread broke, another would be thrown out, and another, and another, and another, ever onward, the canvas taking on gigantic proportions, the threads embracing all creation, rising to dizzying heights, touching the sky.

It was the vast canvas of human life, the daily renewed labor of those who suffer and fight; the reckless labor that rests in the void, boldly gazing into the light; the immense effort of millions of beings, tortured minds, yearning hearts, tormented slaves, all emerging from their chains, all casting their silver thread into the mysterious Unknown. And the threads snap, and the canvas rips, and happiness forever swings suspended on the impalpable slime of an arachnid. What does it matter?

Everything dies, everything is born, everything changes, everything is renewed, uncovered tombs serve as cradles, bleeding and weeping hearts give new blood and new tears to life.

Come on, courage!

END.