Her Husband (20 page)

“Now, then,” he would suddenly realize, “if I say such and such, my words will assume another meaning for her.”

He was never wrong, because he knew perfectly well that the other self that lived in her and for her was as alive as he himself was alive. Perhaps it was even more alive, because whereas he lived only to suffer, that other lived in her mind to enjoy itself, to deceive, to pretend, to do all sorts of things, each more despicable than the other. He repressed every action, stifled even the most innocent desires, forbade himself everything, even smiling at a vision of art that might pass through his mind, even speaking or looking. But the other one (who knows how or when) found a way, with the insane inconsistency of an illusory phantom, to escape from that jail and run around the world making all kinds of trouble.

Maurizio Gueli could do no more than he already had done to keep the peace: he had retired from life and had even renounced his art, not writing a line in more than ten years. But his sacrifice had been made for nothing. She couldn’t appreciate it. To her, art was a dishonest game, no activity for a responsible man. She hadn’t read even one page of his books, and she bragged about it. She was totally unaware of his mind’s life or his finer attributes. In him she only saw the man, a man so violated, so excluded from any other life, so deprived of any other satisfaction–because of all his renunciations, deprivations, and sacrifices–he was forced to seek in her that single compensation, that single outlet she alone could give. And this was the reason for that unhappy concept she had formed of him, that phantom that she had created out of him and that only she saw, not realizing in the least that he was that way just for her, because it was the only way he had found to be with her. Nor could Gueli point this out to her for fear of offending her by his too meticulous honesty. Often besieged and made indignant by her own continual suspicions, she denied him even that compensation; and then he would become even more exasperated at the cowardice of his slavery. At other times, when she became more pliable and he took advantage of it, a greater irritation would seize him, a shiver of indignation would shake him from the grim weariness of satiated sensual pleasure. He would see at what cost he obtained those sensual satisfactions from a woman who opposed all sensuality, and who brutalized him besides, not allowing him to live the life of the mind, and
who condemned him to the perversity of that lascivious union. And if at those times she was so obtuse as to begin her mockery again, a fierce rebellion would break out.

It was precisely in these moments of weariness that the temporary separations would take place. Either he would go to Monteporzia and she would remain in Rome, or the other way around, both of them very resolved never to get back together again. But in Rome or away from it, he always provided for her, as she had no other means of support. Even though no longer as wealthy as his father had left him (he had been a senior partner in one of the biggest transoceanic travel agencies), Maurizio Gueli was still very well off.

Nevertheless, as soon as he was alone he felt disoriented in the life he had been excluded from for such a long time. He immediately felt his lack of roots and could in no way replant them, and not just because of his age. The idea that others had formed of him after so many years of Spartan seclusion weighed on him heavily, and vigilantly affected his behavior and habitual reserve. It condemned him to be what others believed and wanted him to be. The surprise he read in so many faces whenever he appeared in a place unusual for him, the sight of other people accustomed to living freely, and the notice covertly taken of his embarrassment and discomfort in facing the insolence of those fortunate people who never had to give an accounting of their time and actions, bothered him, disheartened and exasperated him. And he observed something else with a shudder, something downright monstrous: as soon as he was alone, he seemed to discover the other
him
in himself, truly alive in every step, every glance, every smile, every gesture, the one who lived in Livia Frezzi’s morbid imagination, that miserable, detested phantom making fun of him, saying:

“Look at you. Now you go where you want, now you look where you please, even at women. Now you smile and move and you think you are doing it innocently? Don’t you know that all of this is wicked, wicked, wicked? If she only knew! If she could see you now! You who have always denied it, you who have always told her you didn’t want to go anywhere, to any public gathering, you didn’t want to look at
women, to smile. . . . But even if you don’t do it, she’ll always think you did. Well, then, you might as well do it. Go ahead and do it. It’s all the same!”

No, he couldn’t do it anymore; he didn’t know how, he felt blocked, exasperated, by the unfairness of that woman’s judgment. He saw the wrong in what he did–not for itself, but for her because she had for so many years accustomed him to thinking it wrong, things he had attributed to that other
him
, who, according to her, did it continually, even when he didn’t do it, even when he forbade himself to do it in order to keep peace, as though it were truly wrong.

All this profusion of private admonitions generated such disgust and revulsion, such spiteful cowardice, and such dull, sour, black sadness that he immediately withdrew from the contact and sight of others and, again excluded and insignificant, terribly alone, he fell into thinking that his misery was both tragic and ridiculous, with no hope of relief. He didn’t have the strength to lose himself in his work, the only thing that could save him. And then all those pretenses he used to rationalize his slavery would begin to resurface. They would come forward primarily because of instinctive need, made more and more urgent by his still strong virility, by the bewitching memory of her embraces.

And he would return to his chains.

He was just on the point of returning to her when Giustino Boggiolo came to invite him to their home, where Silvia–according to him–was anxiously waiting.

Maurizio Gueli lived in an old building on Via Ripetta, with a view of the river that he remembered flowing along its natural, steep banks, between oak trees; he also remembered the old wooden bridge thundering with every passing vehicle and, near the house, the wide stairs of the port and the Sicilian fishing boats full of wine that came to moor, and the songs that rose in the evenings from the floating taverns with lowered sails, the reflections of their long, red lights snaking through the black water. Now the steps and the wooden bridge, the
natural banks, and those majestic oaks had disappeared: a large new neighborhood stood there alongside the river enclosed within gray embankments. And like the river within those embankments, like the area itself with those straight, long streets, still unhallowed by time, over twenty years his life had become constricted, colorless, impoverished, and turbid.

Through the two large windows of his spartan study, which seemed like a room in a library, without pictures or artifacts, the walls covered with tall bookshelves crammed with books, came the last dazzling violet of twilight, flaming behind the cypresses on Monte Mario.

Sunk into a large leather armchair next to the large, heavy old desk, Maurizio Gueli frowned glumly for some time as he studied the little man who nearly evaporated before him in the violet splendor, the little man who came so smiling and confident to hound the destiny of two lives.

Already on two occasions Gueli had shown Silvia Roncella his esteem and his interest in her work and talent, by participating in the banquet in her honor soon after her arrival in Rome and going to greet her at the station after the success of her play. He had written to her the first time at Cargiore and had visited her recently at her home on Via Plinio. All these displays of esteem and interest had to take place during one separation or another from Livia Frezzi, and because of these expressions of regard he had more strongly felt his anxiety and impression of transgression and wrongdoing, for he had glimpsed in that young woman’s spirit (so like his, though still wild and uncultivated), something that could free him from Livia Frezzi’s influence. That is, if the wide age difference and her sense of duty–if not toward that unworthy husband, then certainly toward her son–hadn’t made him consider it a crime just to think about it. And yet, in that letter sent to her at Cargiore, he had allowed himself to say more than he should have, and recently, during his visit to her home, he had let her know more than he had said. He had read in her eyes the same horror that he had of his own situation, along with the same terror of getting away from it, and he had admired the strength with which she had suddenly managed to get a hold of herself in his presence, almost turning him
out. Should he now believe what her husband was saying–that she was anxiously waiting for him? That meant, without a doubt, that she had made a violent, desperate resolution that she couldn’t go back on. And had she really sent her husband to invite him? No. That was too out of character. The invitation undoubtedly followed the note of congratulations that he had written after reading her story in
Vita Italiana;
and that impatience to see him was perhaps her husband’s invention.

Maurizio Gueli didn’t want to admit it, but he clearly recognized that he had been the initiator, twice: the first time with his visit and then with that note. And as she had dismissed the first encouragement, almost offending him, it was natural that now, after the note, she would invite him.

Should he go? He could refuse. He could make up an excuse. Oh, the continuous violence that gripped his life for twenty years and the continuous exasperation of his soul urged him, as soon as he was left on his own, to commit excessive, heedless acts, to compromise–and to compromise himself.

In fact, what was for him an excessive and heedless act, a serious compromise, would have been an innocuous, a very ordinary and inconsequential act for anyone else: a visit, a note of congratulations. He had to consider them crimes and, as such, to keep them deep in the monstrous conscience that that woman had made for him, for which even the simplest and most innocent acts weighed like lead: a look, a smile, a word. . . .

Maurizio Gueli felt himself overcome by a rebellious impulse, a powerful rush of pride. At that moment his irritation focused on Livia Frezzi, the irritation for the wrong he believed he really had committed–first by his visit and then by the note. To get rid of that man waiting for an answer, he promised he would come.

“You have to encourage her!” Giustino now said to him as he was leaving. “Urge her, urge her, even force her… This blessed play! She’s finished the second act; she just needs to finish the third, but she has it all thought out, and, believe me, it seems good. Even … even Baldani heard it and says it’s. …”

“Baldani?”

By the tone in which Gueli asked this Giustino realized he had touched a nerve. Giustino didn’t know that Paolo Baldani had recently unleashed a scathing series of articles in a Florentine newspaper about Gueli’s entire literary and philosophical works, from the
Demented Socrates
to the
Roman Fables
.

“Yes . . . Yes, he came to see Silvia, and . ..” he acknowledged awkwardly, hesitantly, “Silvia really didn’t want to see him. It was my idea, you know? To … to give her a nudge.”

“Tell Signora Roncella that I will come this evening,” Gueli broke in, seeing him out the door with a hard look.

Giustino was lavish with his bows and thanks.

“Because I’m leaving tomorrow for Paris,” he wanted to add, already on the first landing, “to attend the . . .”

But Gueli didn’t give him time to finish. He bowed his head slightly and closed the door.

That evening he went to Villa Silvia. He returned the next day after Giustino Boggiolo had left for Paris, and after that every day, either in the morning or afternoon.

They were both aware that the slightest act, the slightest concession, the slightest relaxation of scruple would turn their lives upside down.

But how long could they keep their resolve if they both felt so exasperated in their souls and each observed it so clearly in the other? If their eyes locked on contact, and their hands trembled at the thought of a fortuitous touch? If restraint kept them in such a state of anxious, unbearable suspense as to make them consider what they most feared and most wanted to avoid as a relief and liberation?

The mere fact that he came and she received him, and that they both stayed there together alone, though almost without looking at each other and without ever touching, was already a sinful concession for both of them, a compromise they came to feel was without remedy.

They both realized they were gradually, inevitably, giving in not to the passion they had for each other, but to a united effort to resist it and to keep each other at a distance, both feeling that their union would not really be what either wanted.

Oh, to be able to release one another from the odious conditions without having to do what struck her with disgust and horror and him with fear and remorse!

These emotional upheavals were caused by their having to commit a serious transgression more powerful than they, but essential, unavoidable, if they wanted to free each other. And they were put there to do it, trembling, ready, and reluctant.

Looming over him was the fierce shadow of that stiff, angry, harsh woman. Her words were already ringing in his ears: he “could never return to her, could never again lie or deny he had taken advantage of his freedom to get close to another woman: that woman there! Honest, isn’t she? As honest as he, like him in every way. Oh, yes, that woman! That one, by taking his hand, could lead him back to art, to live in poetry, and his sluggish blood would be rekindled with the fire of youth. Well, then, why so timid? Come on! Ah, perhaps love … Yes! Love had stunned him. . . . Isn’Isn’t that a lovely little hand, with those little blue veins branching outt that a lovely little hand, with those little blue veins branching out…. To put it on his forehead, to pass that little hand over his eyes … and kiss it, kiss it there on her pink nails … Those nails don’t scratch, no. Nice little kitten, nice little kitten … Go on, just try to stroke her! Mew or bleat? Poor little lamb that a dreadful husband wanted to shear …” How could he face such mockery again? He heard those words as if Livia were standing behind him.

And behind her, nudging her on, Silvia felt her husband who had left her alone with Gueli and had gone off to Paris to make a spectacle of himself there, too, to turn into money the entertainment he offered the French actors, actresses, writers, and journalists there, too–certain that she would be writing a new play with Gueli’s help. She wanted to write it! She wanted nothing more! And just as he was impervious to all the laughter, so he didn’t care now if the gossips were suspicious of his wife, whom they would see Gueli visit during his absence. Gueli, now free of Livia Frezzi, Gueli whose interest in Silvia had already been such a topic of discussion.

Sticking to the task at hand, they both kept their tempest pent up inside, keeping a prudent distance from each other, concentrating on
that new play whose title seemed to mock and goad them:
If Not This Way
. . . .

Was that why he suggested a change of title? The act of the protagonist, Ersilia Arciani, when she went to the house of her husband’s lover to get his little girl, made him think of a hawk swooping down on a nest of baby birds. So perhaps the play could be called
The Hawk
.

But did the image of cruel greed that the hawk invoked suit the character of Ersilia Arciani, or the reasons and feelings that motivated her action? It wasn’t suitable, according to Silvia. But she understood why he, with his suggestion for changing the title, wanted to alter the protagonist’s character to suggest vengeance and an aggressive purpose in her action: he undoubtedly saw in the closed, austere character of Ersilia Arciani something of Livia Frezzi, and since he couldn’t stand her having noble, blameless motives, he wanted to change her nature. However, if her entire nature were transformed, wouldn’t that be another play? She would have to rewrite it, rethink it from the beginning.

He paid close attention to those sage explanations she made in a tone that clearly let him know she understood and didn’t want to touch a still painful wound.

Newspapers from Rome, Milan, Turin had already published her husband’s long conversations with correspondents from Paris, who, though commenting seriously on the play and on the Parisian public’s avid interest in seeing it, worded it in a way that left no doubt as to the underlying mockery; they reveled in the prodigious activity, the zeal, the admirable fervor of that little man “who considered his wife’s work so much his that it was only proper he receive some of her glory.” Finally, Giustino’s telegram came announcing the triumph, and following the telegram he sent one newspaper after another with the most influential critics’ judgments, which were for the most part favorable.

Silvia kept Gueli from reading those newspapers in her presence, for both their sakes.

“No, no, please! I can’t stand to hear any more about it! I swear I would give … I don’t know, it all seems like such a small thing. I would give anything not to have written that play!”

In the meanwhile, Èmere came almost every hour to announce a new visitor. Silvia would have liked to have him tell everyone she wasn’t home. But Gueli convinced her that would not look good. She would go down to the living room, and he would stay there, hidden in the study waiting for her, scanning those newspapers, or rather, thinking. In the meanwhile she would be downstairs with Baldani or Luni or Betti.

“Ah, youth!” Gueli once sighed at seeing her return to the study with a flushed face.

“No! What are you saying?” she erupted promptly and fiercely. “I’m fed up! I’m fed up! This has to stop. If you only knew how I treat them!”

Already enormous, heavy silences in which they felt their blood tremble and tingle and their souls fret in anxious expectation had fallen on their tired, forced conversation. He only needed to put a hand on hers: she would have left it there and leaned her head on his chest, hiding her face, and their destiny, by now inevitable, would have been sealed. So why delay it any longer? Ah, why indeed! Because each one could still think him- or herself to blame. The self-restraint continued, although privately they had hopelessly surrendered to each other.

The unthinkable moment had yet to arrive!

They could see themselves coming up to the outer edge of an act that would signal the end of their former life without having spoken a word of love, merely while discussing art like a student with her teacher. They would suddenly be at the beginning of a new life, lost, anxious, bewildered, not knowing which road to take at once so she, at least, could get far away from there.

They felt such an absolute need to get away, more out of self-pity than love, that their disgust with the dillydallying over details constrained them even more.

Of course, he too would have to leave a house that was chock-full of memories of that woman. Where to go? Some refuge had to be found, at least in the beginning, a haven in which to hide from the explosion of the inevitable scandal. The situation disheartened and disgusted them profoundly.

Didn’t they have the right to live in peace, humanely, in the uncorrupted
fullness of their dignity? Why lose heart? Why hide? Because neither her husband nor that woman would have accepted in silence the reasons they could have flung in their faces even before the betrayal, the assertion of their rights trampled on so long and in so many ways. Giustino and Livia would have argued, tried to stop them. . . . Another revulsion, stronger than before.

They were suspended and tethered in these thoughts, when Gueli–on the eve of Giustino’s return from Paris–began a discussion that Silvia at once understood as a scheme to end their painful state.