Her Husband (18 page)

The play could begin here, with the arrival of her father. Ersilia, who has not spoken a word to her husband in three years, goes to find him at the daily newspaper where he works as arts editor, to warn him that her father, from whom she has hidden everything, is suspicious and will come that very morning looking for an explanation. She wants him to put on an act in order to save her father from this unhappiness. It’s an excuse. She is really afraid that her father, in an effort to reach an impossible solution, might forever break that tacit rapprochement that she has worked so hard to establish between her and her husband, which for her is the cause of indescribable secret pain as well as indescribable secret sweetness. Ersilia doesn’t find her husband in the editorial office and leaves him a note, promising she’ll soon return to help him with the pretense when her father, who has gone to attend a morning session of the Chamber, comes there to talk to him. Leonardo finds his wife’s note and learns from the receptionist that another woman had just been looking for him. She is Signora Orgera, whom he has not seen in a week while feeling the suspicious eyes of his father-in-law spying on him. In fact, soon afterward she returns at that particularly inopportune moment, and Leonardo unsuccessfully tries to explain why he hasn’t come and lets her read his wife’s note as proof. She ridicules Ersilia’s sacrificing herself to save her husband trouble and suffering, while she . . . yes, she represents the need, the rawness, of a no longer tenable reality: suppliers who want to be paid, landlords who threaten eviction. Better to end it! Everything is already over between them. He loves his wife, that sublime silent woman: well, then, go back to her, that’s enough! Leonardo tells her that if the answer were so simple, he would have gone long ago, but unfortunately that can’t be the solution, tied as they are to one another. He asks her to please leave, promising he’ll visit her as soon as he can. To add to Leonardo’s miseries, his father-in-law, bored with the parliamentary proceedings, chooses this moment to turn up. Guglielmo Groa doesn’t know he is confronting another father in his son-in-law, who, like him, must protect his daughter. He believes his son-in-law has gone down a wrong path and can be steered back with a little tact and cash, and he offers
to help and invites his confidence. Leonardo is tired of lying and confesses his guilt but says he has already been punished enough and refuses as unnecessary his father-in-law’s help, as well as his preaching. Groa believes the punishment Leonardo speaks of is the work he is condemned to, and he rebukes him harshly. When Ersilia arrives, too late, her husband and father are about to come to blows. At Ersilia’s appearance, Leonardo, overexcited and trembling, hurriedly gathers up papers from his desk and takes off. Groa is about to leap on him, roaring: “Well, now, you don’t want to be reasonable?” But Ersilia stops him with the cry: “He has a daughter, Papa, he has a daughter! How can he be reasonable?”

The first act could end with this cry. At the beginning of the second act, a scene between the father and daughter. Both have been waiting in vain for Leonardo to come home that evening. Ersilia then reveals to her father all she has suffered and how she was deceived, how and why she silently adjusted to that pain. She almost defends her husband because, when he had to choose between her and his daughter, he ran to his daughter. Home is where the children are! Her father becomes indignant; he rages; he wants to leave at once, and when Leonardo turns up to get his books and papers, he asks him to stay; he himself will go away at once. Leonardo is confused, not knowing how to interpret his father-in-law’s sudden invitation to stay. Ersilia comes in to say she has nothing to do with that invitation and he can leave if he wants. Then Leonardo cries and tells his wife about his torment and regret and his admiration and gratitude for her. Ersilia asks why he is suffering when he is with his daughter, and Leonardo answers that that woman wants to take her from him because he doesn’t earn enough and she doesn’t want to see him anymore in that upset condition. “Oh, yes?” shouts Ersilia. “She would like that? Well, then . . .” Her plan takes shape. She understands that she can have her husband back
only this way
, that is, on the condition that he can have his daughter with him. She keeps quiet about it, and when he begs her forgiveness, she assents, but at the same time pulls free of his grasp and makes him leave. “No, no,” she says to him. “You can’t stay here now! Two houses, no. With me here
and your daughter there, no! Go, go! I know what you want. Go!” And she makes him leave, and as he goes out she breaks into tears of joy.

The third act should take place in the nest of thorns, in Elena Orgera’s house. Leonardo has come to visit his daughter, but has forgotten to bring the present he promised her. The little girl, Dinuccia, has cried herself to sleep waiting for him. Leonardo says he will come back soon with the toy and goes away. The girl, now five years old, wakes up; she comes onstage and asks about her papa and wants her mother to tell her about the present he will bring: a farm with little trees, sheep, a dog, and shepherd. The doorbell rings. “Here he is!” her mother says. And the little girl runs to open the door. She soon returns in confusion with a veiled signora. It is Ersilia Arciani, who saw her husband leave the house and doesn’t realize he will be back shortly. Elena, however, suspects a plot between the two to nab the girl. She shouts, threatens to call for help, curses, becomes frantic. In vain Ersilia tries to calm her, to show her that her suspicion is unfounded, and that she neither wants nor is capable of violence; that she came to have a heart-to-heart talk, for the good of her child who, if adopted, would be free of the shadow of guilt and would become rich and happy. Therefore it was pointless for her to pretend he would abandon his child if she didn’t want to give her up. The little girl left the door open in her confusion at seeing a woman standing there instead of her father, and at that point Leonardo enters, stunned by the sight of his wife there, and finds himself in the midst of the quarrel between the two women. The child hears her father’s voice and knocks on the door of the bedroom where Elena had run as soon as Ersilia Arciani took off her veil. Now Elena furiously throws open the door, takes the little one in her arms, and screams at the two to get out immediately, get out! At this outburst, a shaken Leonardo turns to his wife and urges her to forget that inhuman attempt and leave. Ersilia goes away. By this time Elena, who has seen him chase his wife out, is overcome by confusion and dismay and would like Leonardo to run after his wife at once and stay with her forever. But Leonardo, at the end of his rope, yells “No!” and takes the little one on his lap, gives her the gift, and begins to set up in the box
the farm, the little trees, the sheep, the shepherd, the dog, amid Dinuccia’s laughter, shouts of joy, and happy, childish questions. Hearing the child’s questions and the anguished father’s answers, Elena thinks over everything the woman had said about the future of her little girl, and in tears begins to ask Leonardo, absorbed in his daughter’s joy, some questions: “She talked about adoption… but is it possible?” Leonardo doesn’t answer but continues to talk to the child about the sheep and dog. After a few minutes Elena asks another question, or makes a bitter reflection about herself or Dinuccia, if ever she … Leonardo can’t take anymore. He jumps to his feet, snatches up his daughter, and shouts: “You’re giving her to me?”

“No! No! No!” Elena cries abruptly, tearing her from him and falling on her knees before the child: “It’s impossible, no! I can’t now. I can’t now! Get out! Get out! Maybe later . . . who knows! If I have the strength. For her sake! But now get out! Get out! Get out!”

Yes, this could be the play. She saw everything clearly, every detail in the construction of the scenes. But it irked her that it was at Baldani’s suggestion. And she didn’t feel the least bit drawn to it.

She had never worked like this, constructing her work by will. Instead, barely intuited, the work had always imposed its will on her, without her having to provoke her spirit to move. Each work had always moved of its own accord, because it wanted to, and all she had ever done was docilely obey and lovingly follow this will of life at its every spontaneous turn. Now that she wanted to do it, and had to get it to move, she didn’t know where to begin. She felt dry and empty, and in that aridity and emptiness she was miserable.

Every time she looked at Giustino (who didn’t dare ask how her work was going, pretending he knew she was back at it and doing everything possible to make her think he was certain of it, keeping out of her way, keeping Èmere quiet, keeping her free of household concerns) she became so exasperated that she would have blown her top if her nausea over his other vulgar ways hadn’t prevented it. She would have liked to tell him off:

“Stop it! Stop all this pretending! I’m not doing a thing and you
know it! I can’t do it, and I don’t know how to do it. I’ve already told you! Èmere can whistle in his shirtsleeves while he works, overturn the chairs, and break all this famous Ducrot furniture: that would suit me fine, my dear boy! If I could, I would break up everything, everything, everything in this house and even tear down the walls!”

So many years ago in Taranto she had noticed something when her father had wanted to have her first short stories published. For a much less serious reason–that is, the thought of the praise she would receive for those stories–had blocked her from writing anything new, upsetting her so much that for nearly a year she couldn’t put pen to paper. Now she sensed the same confusion, the same anxiety, the same consternation, but a hundred times worse. Instead of spurring her on, the recent success had numbed her; instead of raising her spirits, it had crushed and prostrated her. And when she tried to work up some enthusiasm, she immediately felt that the warmth generated was artificial, and when she tried to get rid of that sense of discouragement and prostration, she felt herself grow stiff with the effort, shallow and ineffectual. As could be expected, that success had encouraged her to redouble her efforts. But now, so as not to overdo it, its opposite appears: the arid grind, the skeletal bareness and rigidity.

And so, like a skeleton, with that arid, forced exertion, the new play came out painfully stiff and lifeless.

“But you’re wrong. It’s going beautifully!” Baldani told her when she read him the first act and part of the second, just to keep her husband quiet. “It’s the character of this stupendous creature of yours, of Ersilia Arciani. It’s her austere reserve that makes the play seem stiff to you. It’s going very well, believe me. Ersilia Arciani’s personality and ways have to control every aspect of a work like that. You’re on the right track. Keep it up.”

To make up for her lack of inspiration, Silvia felt she needed another guide and other advice.

Everyone had noticed the absence of Maurizio Gueli that inaugural
evening. Many–and certainly not without malicious intent–had asked Giustino that evening: “And Gueli? Isn’t he coming?”

Giustino in reply: “Oh, is he in Rome? I heard he was at his villa in Monteporzio.”

Silvia was asked about Gueli, too, particularly by a few women feigning nonchalance. Silvia knew that out of jealously or envy, or, in any event, to wound her, the women and literati would sooner or later begin to speak ill of her. Besides, her own husband was the first to give them the excuse and material for malicious talk. She realized by now that with such a husband it would be nearly impossible to remain free of suspicion. Her own pride would eventually cause her to arouse suspicion, because she could no longer submit to the ridicule he heaped on her in front of everyone and keep pretending not to notice it. Somehow she had to show she felt either pain or spite (which perhaps might even make things worse because it would be too disheartening, and then everyone would take the opportunity to make her feel even worse). Or she had to show the same pleasure as the others, but then, even if she were partially saved from humiliation, she couldn’t expect to be free from their harshest criticism. Can a woman openly mock her husband with impunity? Anyway, she couldn’t do it intentionally or hypocritically. But she was afraid her own pride might make her do it against her will, by some unavoidable reaction. No, no. Really, there was no way she could go on being frank and honest under these conditions.

She was happy about Gueli’s absence that evening of the inauguration. Happy–not because it gave the backbiters less to talk about, everyone having already noticed Gueli’s interest in her, but because she didn’t want to see him after that letter he had sent her in Cargiore. She still wasn’t sure why. But the thought that Gueli’s interest, obvious even to her and for a reason that had angered her from the beginning, had given rise to the gossip wounded her more than any other suspicion about Betti or Luna or Baldani, or anyone else.

She would never deceive her husband with anyone. As much as her composure had been shattered by the tumult of so many new thoughts and feelings, and as angry as she was, her disrespect for her husband’s
behavior could never incite her to revenge. This she could still believe of herself: that no passion, no rebellious impulse, would ever overwhelm her to the point of being unfaithful. If tomorrow she could not continue living with her husband under these conditions; if, not defenseless, but almost goaded and pushed into it, with her heart not only void of affection for him but disgusted and drowning in nausea and sorrow; if she felt overcome by some desperate passion, she would not deceive him, ever. She would tell her husband and preserve her loyalty at whatever cost.

Unfortunately nothing in that house had the power to hold her with the murmur of old memories. The house had almost nothing to do with her and would be easy to leave. Everything around her constantly aroused images of a false, artificial, vacuous, fatuous life to which, unpersuaded by any affectionate feelings, she had not become accustomed, and which the absolute necessity of her work made odious. She was not even allowed the satisfaction of having her hard work at least serve to please someone else, if not her, who would be grateful. But on top of that, it was she who had to be grateful to her husband, who treated her as a farmer treats his ox that pulls the plow, as the driver treats the horse that pulls the wagon, both taking credit for the good plowing and the nice trip and then wanting to be thanked for the hay and stall.

Now she could take no notice of or worry about the more or less sincere interest that Baldani, Luna, and even Betti showed her–all those long-haired, ultramodish young writers and journalists; however, she was afraid of the interest shown by Gueli, who like herself was wrapped in a misery that was tragic and ridiculous at the same time, that took his breath away (so he had written). She was afraid of Gueli because more than the others he could read what was in her heart, and because in this woeful time, offended by Baldani’s cold and arrogant conceit, she felt such acute and urgent need for his presence and advice.

Closed there in her study, wide-eyed and in a state of agitation, she caught herself following thoughts that made her shudder with horror.
These thoughts were like an easy staircase on which she could descend to her ruin; they were a sequence of justifications to calm her old conscience, to hide what her old conscience still represented to her as guilt, and to attenuate the condemnation of others.

Gueli’s austere gravity and age wouldn’t arouse suspicions that she, out of some perversion, saw a lover in him instead of a worthy and almost paternal guide, a noble, ideal companion. And perhaps Gueli looked for the same in her, and through her would find the strength to break the sorry bond with that woman who had oppressed him for years.

And her son?

This word intruding itself on her turbid musings scattered them for a moment. But the thought of her son anxiously brought back memories of an orderly life, chaste duties, a holy intimacy that not she but others had wanted to shatter violently.

If she could have clung to her son who had been torn away from her, and not think about or expect anything else, she would undoubtedly have found in her child the strength to involve herself entirely in her maternal role and be nothing but a mother. Then she would have found the strength to resist the temptation of art, and her husband would have had no excuse to offend her and reduce her to desperation with that passion for making money and that show of bravura.

She could continue to live with her husband only under one condition, that is, by giving up her writing. But was that possible now? Not any longer. Since he had no other employment except as agent for her work, she was forced to work, but she couldn’t go on like this. She could be neither a mother nor work anymore. Work was mandatory? Well, then, get away from there! Get away from him! He could have the house and all the rest. She couldn’t go on like this. But what would become of her?

This question threw her into confusion, and she drew back in horror. But what joy could come from realizing it was all in her imagination? Soon after, she fell back into those turbid thoughts, but, unfortunately, with less guilt because of her husband’s stupid arrogance, which continued
to importune her whenever he saw her restlessly slacking off work.

That is why, when finally Maurizio Gueli appeared suddenly and unexpectedly at the little villa with a strange, resolute expression and behaving strangely, looking into her eyes and treating Giustino’s bows, ceremony, and hearty welcome with obvious disdain, she suddenly saw she was lost. Fortunately, while listening to her husband chatter on with Gueli without understanding a thing, she, at a certain point, had the strong and vivid impression of almost being pushed and shoved and pulled by her hair to do something mad. She was so ashamed of her state of mind, and felt so dishonored by it, that she was able to react fiercely against Gueli, who, emboldened by her disturbed manner, turned bitterly against her husband and in her presence nearly treated him like a common exploiter.

After his unexpected outburst, Gueli seemed dazed.

“I understand … I understand … I understand …” he said, closing his eyes, with a tone and air of such intense, profound, desperate bitterness that it suddenly became clear to Silvia what he had understood without scorn or offense.

And then he abruptly left.

Giustino, on the one hand confused and resentful, and on the other mortified by the way Gueli had gone away, and unwilling to defend himself or criticize Gueli, decided to rid himself of this perplexity by scolding his wife for the violent manner in which . . . But before he could reproach her, Silvia faced up to him, trembling and profoundly disturbed, shouting: “Go away! Shut up! Or I’ll jump out the window!”

The order and threat were so ferocious and peremptory, her expression and voice so changed, that Giustino hunched his shoulders and slunk out of the study.

He thought his wife had gone insane. What in the world had happened to her? He didn’t know her anymore! “
I’ll jump out the window…. Shut up!
… go
away!”
She had never talked to him like that. … Women! Do too much for them . . . And look what happens! “
Go away! Shut up!…”
As if she didn’t get where she was because of him! If it wasn’t insanity, it was something much worse–ingratitude.

With his narrow, turned-up nose, Giustino, wounded to the quick, tried to make sense of it all. But yes, of course, yes! Now she selfishly wanted to make him feel the necessity of her work, when for her–he –without ever complaining, without ever giving himself a moment’s rest, had taken on so much, and for her, so he could devote himself entirely to her, he had given up his job without hesitation! That was it: she no longer thought she owed everything to him. The way she saw it, he was unemployed and waiting for her work, and she took advantage of it by treating him like a servant: “
Go away! Shut up!
”

Well, for less than a year … no, what was he saying? He’d like to see her without him for less than a month, with a play to produce or with a contract to settle with some publisher! Then she’d find out if she needed him.. . .

But no! She had to know this. … It must be something else! The change since she came back from Cargiore, the discontent, the restlessness, the tantrums, all that bitterness toward him … Or did she perhaps seriously entertain the thought that he and Signora Barmis . .. ?

Giustino stretched his neck and screwed the corners of his mouth down to express his amazement at that doubt, shrugged, and continued thinking.

The fact was that just after she returned from Cargiore and saw those two damned twin bedrooms Signora Barmis had wanted, she seemed to turn away from him, as if she had suspected it was Signora Barmis’s idea to keep them separated. Maybe her pride and jealousy wouldn’t let her show this rancorous feeling openly, and that was the way she vented her feelings.

But good heavens, how could she imagine him capable of such a thing? If at the table he had seemed displeased by Signora Barmis’s brusque departure, this displeasure–she should have understood–was only because she would be missing the wise advice and useful instruction a woman of such taste and experience could have given her. Because he understood that she couldn’t remain so stubbornly withdrawn, so alone, without friends. She didn’t want to work, she didn’t like the house, she probably had unworthy suspicions about him: she didn’t want to see anyone or go out for a little fun…. What kind of life
was that? The other day when a letter came from Cargiore in which his mother spoke of her grandchild with such tenderness, she had burst into tears, into tears. . . .

After several days of his wife’s sulking, Giustino mulled over the idea of bringing the baby to Rome with a wet nurse. It was hard on him, too, to keep the baby so far away, but not for the baby, who couldn’t be in better hands. He thought that her child would certainly fill the emptiness she was feeling in that house and even in her soul at that moment. But he also had other things to think about, other compelling necessities, many undertakings contracted in view of the new works that she would have to do. Now, if it was so hard for her to work with her hands free, imagine how it would be with the baby there, who would absorb all her time with maternal cares. . . .

Suddenly a long-awaited notice came to distract Giustino from this and every other thought. In Paris
The New Colony
, translated by Desroches, would be performed early next month. In Paris! In Paris! He had to go.

Giving himself over to the frenzy of preparation, armed with that telegram from Desroches calling him to Paris, he started off on his rounds from one newspaper office to the other. And every morning on the desk in the study and at noon on the dining room table and at night on the nightstand in the bedroom Silvia found three or four newspapers at a time, not only from Rome, but also from Milan, Turin, Naples, Florence, Bologna, where those Parisian performances were announced as a new and grand event, a new triumph for Italian creativity.

Silvia pretended not to notice them. But he didn’t have the slightest doubt that this new preparatory work of his had had a big effect on her when one night he heard his wife in the next room suddenly get out of bed and dress to go shut herself in the study. At first, to tell the truth, he was a bit apprehensive. But after peeking through the keyhole and seeing that she was sitting at the desk in the attitude she usually struck when she was inspired to start writing, he managed, by some miracle, to contain his overwhelming joy, just as he was in his nightshirt and
barefoot in the dark. There she was! There she was! Back to work! As before! At work! At work!

And in his fever of anticipation he didn’t sleep that night either; and when day came he ran with outstretched hands to Èmere to keep him absolutely quiet, and immediately sent him to the kitchen to order the cook to prepare coffee and breakfast for the signora, immediately! As soon as it was ready: “Pst! Listen … Knock, but softly, softly, and ask if she wants . . . but softly, eh? Softly, please!”

Èmere returned shortly with the tray in hand, saying the signora didn’t want anything.

“Well, all right! Quiet… let… the signora work … quiet everyone!”

He was a little concerned when even at noon Èmere, sent with the same orders to announce that it was time to eat, returned to say the signora didn’t want anything.

“What’s she doing? Writing?”

“She’s writing, yes, sir.”

“What did she say to you?”

“I don’t want anything, go away!”

“And she’s still writing?”

“She’s writing, yes, sir.”

“All right, all right; we’ll let her write. . . . Quiet everyone!”

“Will the signore have something at the table in the meanwhile?” Èmere asked in a whisper.

Giustino was very hungry after a sleepless night, but to sit at the table alone while his wife was working on an empty stomach didn’t seem right. He was dying to know what she was working on with such fervor. On the play? Certainly on the play. But did she want to finish it all in one sitting? Did she want to wait until she was finished to eat? Even this was crazy. . . .