Darkness was coming on when he returned to the house. I was still lying on the sofa while the baby played with the cat and Gemma set the dining-room table. Alberto went into his study and called out to me to follow. When I looked at his face I knew that he had seen me too. He looked as if he had been through a wringer, and he had hardly any voice at all.
“We can’t go on living together,” he said.
“No,” I replied.
“It’s not your fault,” he said. “You’ve done everything a woman could do. You’ve been a perfect dear and given me a great deal. But perhaps you were right to say that I was too old to get used to having a wife and child. I’m still tied to my past. And I can’t go on.” He looked at me and waited for me to speak. Then, when I said nothing, he continued: “It’s not just what you think. I shan’t go and live with anyone else. I need to be alone. That’s the way I want to live from now on. I hate this perpetual lying to you. I have too much respect for you to tell you lies. It makes me feel oppressed and guilty. I want to be alone and at peace.”
“You’re not going to live with Giovanna?” I asked.
“No,” he said, “I swear to that.”
“Not that I care,” I added. “What can it matter to me if we’re not together? Why don’t you want to live with her, though?”
“I don’t, that’s all. She has a husband and son. We met too late. That’s the way it always happens. But I’m very much attached to her, and it disgusts me to live with another woman.”
“It disgusts you?”
“Yes.”
“It disgusts you to live with me? I disgust you?”
“No,” he said. “That’s not it. It disgusts me to tell so many lies.”
“ ‘It disgusts me to live with another woman,’ that’s what you said, isn’t it?”
“Don’t plague me. Don’t plague me that way, I beg of you. I don’t remember what I said. I only meant that I don’t think it’s fair for me to tie you down. You’re still young and you might find happiness with another man.”
“But there’s the baby. You remember that, don’t you?”
“I’ll come to see you often. You must stay here and I’ll take a room outside. I’ll come, never fear. We’ll always be friends.”
“We shan’t be friends at all. We never have been. You’ve never been even a friend to me or a husband either. But I shouldn’t be happy with another man. If I were to make love with another man I’d always see your face. I shall never be able to get away from that. It’s not so simple as you think.”
“I never said it was simple. You’ll have to be very brave. But you’re honest and courageous, too. That’s what attracted me to you. Because I’m neither one nor the other. Oh, I know myself very well.”
“And Giovanna?” I asked. “What’s she like?”
“Don’t plague me,” he said. “If you knew how difficult it is for me to speak of her to you. It’s something that’s been going on for years and years, and I don’t really know what it’s about. Eleven years it’s lasted and we’ve become very close to one another. We’ve felt very unhappy and suffered together and made each other suffer. She’s been unfaithful and lied to me, and we’ve said all sorts of cruel things to each other and given up the affair completely. Then we’ve come together again, and every time, even after so many years, it’s like something brand new. She suffered a lot when I married you. I was glad to know that she was suffering on my account. God knows I’d suffered often enough on hers. I thought it would go smoothly and then I could forget her. But when we two started living together it was terribly painful for me to be with you instead of with her. I wanted to have a child with you just as she had one with another man. I wanted to talk about ‘my child’ when she talked about hers and to have a private life of my own which should be just as mysterious to her as hers was to me. We’ve said good-bye so many times, only to start all over again. Now I just can’t live with you any longer. I’ll take a room somewhere and live by myself. Then I’ll come often to see the baby. Who knows, we may really be better friends than we are now. Perhaps it won’t be so hard for me to talk with you about a lot of things.”
“Very well,” I said. “As you like.”
“You’re a fine girl,” he murmured. He looked exhausted, and his voice was worn out from having talked for so long about himself. He didn’t want any supper and neither did I, so we had a cup of tea in the study.
Then I had to put the baby to sleep by singing her the song of Le bon roi Dagobert. It took her a long time to fall off. Finally I laid her in her crib, covered her up, and stood there looking down at her for a while. Alberto came in to look at her, too, for a minute and then went away.
I got undressed and looked in the mirror at my naked body, which now belonged to no man. I was free to do what I wanted. I could go for a trip with Francesca and the baby, for instance. I could make love with any man who happened to catch my fancy. I could read books and see new places and discover how other people lived. In fact, I ought to do all of these things. I had made a mess of my life, but there was still time to set it straight. If I made enough of an effort I could turn into quite a different woman. After I had gone to bed I lay for a long time staring into the darkness, and I felt the growth of a new cold-blooded resolution inside me.
The next day I wrote to ask my mother if she would keep the baby at Maona for a while, as she had said for some time that she wanted to do. My father came to the city and took Gemma and the baby away with him. The baby struggled in Gemma’s arms and called for me. I went away from the window and stuck my fingers in my ears in order not to hear her cries. I had to have a rest and to get away from Le bon roi Dagobert. I went to see Francesca and found Augusto there. This wasn’t the first time I had come upon them together and I began to think they might be lovers. Francesca was painting with an expression of concentration on her face while Augusto sat reading and smoking his pipe at the table.
“I’ve seen the cauliflower, do you know?” I announced.
Francesca looked at me in a puzzled way; then she caught on and burst out laughing.
“She doesn’t dress well, does she?” she said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “She had on a mouton fur piece.”
Augusto knit his brows because he didn’t understand.
“Alberto and I are breaking up,” I added.
“At last!” Francesca exclaimed. She took me into the bathroom and laid her hands on my shoulders. “See that you’re smart now and get every penny out of him you can,” she said. “Always be smart, remember. That ratty little man.”
Augusto went out with me when I left. It was a clear, windy afternoon and heavy, white cloud scudded across the sky. He asked me if I felt like walking and I said I did. We walked haphazardly along the river and then up a weedy alley to a large square overlooking the city. We could hear distant train and factory whistles, and trams went by below us, ringing their bells and raising sparks on the overhead wire among the leaves of the trees. The wind ruffled my hair and whipped up Augusto’s scarf across his distracted and indifferent face. In the middle of the square there was a bronze statue of a woman holding a sheaf of wheat, and we sat down on the stone pedestal. I asked Augusto if he was in love with Francesca and he said no, but I didn’t believe it. It floated into my mind that when it was all over between them I might make love with Augusto, and for some reason this prospect left me very calm. Looking at his black moustache, his nose reddened from the cold, and his hard, lonely face, I hadn’t the slightest desire to make love with him. But there was plenty of time ahead and I might change my mind.