She drew the fur across her chest once more, as if cold or embarrassed, hesitated, then continued in a fainter, more tremulous voice. “Why can’t I have what I want?…” she asked. Her voice was perfectly quiet now, and she was taking deep gulps in an attempt to hold back her tears, speaking humbly, without a trace of Tuscan pride. “What should I have done?… I gave him everything a woman can give a man, passion and patience, children, excitement, peace, security, tenderness, freedom from care… everything. People tell me that you understand love the way a goldsmith understands gold and silver: question me then, stranger, examine my heart, make your judgment, and give me your advice! What should I have done? I have humbled myself. I was my husband’s lover and accomplice. I understood that there had to be other women in his life, because such was his nature. I know he desired in secret and that he came running back to me to escape the pressures of the world, to escape his own passions and adventures, and that he still escapes because he is frightened, because he is no longer young, because death is breathing down his neck. Sometimes I have willed him to grow old and to be plagued by gout, so that he should be mine again, so I could bathe his aching feet…. Yes, I have longed for old age and for sickness, may Our Lady forgive me and may God pardon my sins. I gave everything. Tell me what else I should have given….”
She was abjectly begging for an answer, her voice faint, her eyes full of tears. The man thought about it. He stood before her, his arms crossed over his chest, and his verdict was courteous but final.
“You should have given happiness, signora.”
The woman bent her head and raised her handkerchief to her eyes. She stood dumbly weeping. Then she gave a great sigh and answered subserviently in a cracked voice.
“Yes, you are right. It was only happiness I couldn’t give him.”
She stood, head bowed, fondling the gold brooch with her delicate fingers, as if distracted. Still staring at the floor, she added, “Don’t you think, stranger, that there are certain men to whom you cannot give happiness? There is a kind of man whose whole attraction, every virtue, every charm, emanates from his incapacity for happiness. The entire faculty for happiness is absent; he is stone deaf to happiness, and, just as the deaf cannot hear the sweet sound of music, so he is insensible to the sweet sound of happiness…. Because you are right, he never was happy. But, you see, this is the man that heaven and earth have chosen for me, and it was not as if he found happiness anywhere else, either, however he looked for it, in over fifty years. He is like the man who buries his treasure in a field then forgets where he has buried it. He digs up everything in sight, he turns his whole life over…. I sold my rings and pendants so that he could travel further afield to seek it, because, believe me, there was nothing I wanted more than to see him happy. Let him seek happiness on voyages across seas, in strange cities, in the arms of black women and yellow women, if that is his fate…. But he always came back to me, sat down beside me, called for wine or read his books, then spent a week with some slut with dyed hair, usually an actress. That’s the kind of man he is. What should I do? Throw him out? Kill him? Should I go away myself? Should I kill myself?… Every morning after mass I have knelt before the Savior in our small church, and, believe me, I searched my heart carefully before coming to you with my grief and wounded pride. Now I will go home and my pride will no longer be wounded. You are right: I did not give him happiness. From now on I shall only want to serve him. But please tell me, for I am desperate to know: seeing that there are men incapable of happiness, do you think the fault is entirely mine? He is restless and melancholy and seeks happiness at every turn: in the arms of women, in ambition, in worldly affairs, in murderous affrays, in the clinking of gold coins; he seeks it everywhere, all the while knowing that life can give him everything but happiness. Is there anyone else like this?…”
She spoke the last words challengingly, as if she were demanding something or accusing him. Now it was he who bowed his head.
“Yes,” he said. “Take comfort. I do know such a man. He stands before you.”
He spread his arms and bowed deeply, as if to signal that the consultation was over. The woman gazed at him for some time. Her fingers trembling, she clasped her fur coat together and the two of them moved toward the door. Then as if talking to herself, by way of good-bye, she said:
“Yes, I felt that…. I felt as soon as I stepped into the room, that you too were that kind of man. Perhaps I felt it even before I set off in the snow. But he is so terribly lonely and sad…. There is a kind of sadness that may not be consoled: it is as if someone had missed some divine appointment, and had found nothing to interest him since. You have more self-knowledge than he does, I can tell that from your voice, see it in your eyes, feel it in your very being. What is the trouble with these people? Is it because God has punished them with too much intelligence, so they experience every feeling, every human passion, with the mind rather than the heart?… The thought had occurred to me. I am a simple woman, Giacomo, and there is no need for you to shake your head or to be polite. I know why I say these things. I make no apology for my simplicity. I know there are forms of intelligence beyond those admired by the vainly intellectual, that the heart has its own knowledge, and that it too is important, very important…. You see, I came to you for advice, but now that it is time to go it is I who am feeling sorry for you. How much do I owe you?”