I told Alberto that I never wanted to see the camel or the ball again, and Francesca and he made a bundle of all the baby’s things and gave them away. Francesca left San Remo several days before us and removed from the house the baby’s carriage, crib, and all the rest of her belongings. At the same time she told Gemma to go and pay a visit to her family at Maona. Gemma left in tears, taking the cat with her. I couldn’t bear to see her because I should have been reminded of the stye in her eye when she bent over me the day the baby was born. Alberto wrote to my mother and father that I didn’t want to see them but preferred to be alone with him for a while. I didn’t want anyone else, and they must be patient and let me fill my own needs as I thought best. Everyone reacts to sorrow in his own particular way, he told them, and throws up the best defences he can. And in such cases the family and friends must hold their peace and stand by quietly until it is over.
We went back to the city, and for a while I didn’t leave the house because I didn’t want to see any children. At first a woman came to do the cleaning, but it was so hard for me to talk to her that finally I told her not to come and did the work myself. Still I didn’t have very much to do. I stayed in bed late in the morning, watching my arms lie empty and free on the bedcover. Then I slowly got dressed and let the empty hours of the day drag by. I tried not to think of the song about Le bon roi Dagobert, but it rang continually in my ears. And I still saw in front of me the doctor’s mouth, like that of an animal drinking, the long halls and red-carpeted stairways of the Hotel Bellevue and the wicker chairs and palm trees on the terrace below.
Alberto stayed at home a great deal. He was extremely kind, and I was amazed by his efforts to help me. We never mentioned the baby, and I noticed that he had taken away the oatmeal and the rest of her food that Francesca had forgotten. He read Rilke’s poems out loud and also some of the notes he had written on the margins of various books. He said that some day or other he wanted to put all these notes together in a volume which he would call Variations on a Minor Scale. I think he was slightly envious of Augusto for the books he had published. Anyhow, he said I was to help put the notes in order, and sometimes he had me work over them on the typewriter until late at night. I didn’t type fast enough to keep up with his dictation, but he never lost his temper. He even told me that I should make comments on anything that didn’t seem clear to me.
One day I asked him if he was going away and he said no. Sooner or later, he said, he’d empty the zinc case where he’d begun to pack his books. Meanwhile it sat there in his study, half filled with his things. When he wanted one particular book he had quite a time digging it out, but still he didn’t get around to putting everything back on the shelves. We spent most of the time in the study, and he never said a word about wanting to go out. At first we didn’t talk about the baby, but later we did, and he said perhaps it was good for me to unburden myself to him. He said that we’d have another child and that even if now this prospect gave me no pleasure, I would love the new one just as well, and all my peace of mind would come back to me when I saw it lying at my side. We made love together and gradually I began to imagine the time when I would have another baby. I thought of how I would nurse it and rock it, and of all my thoughts this was the only one from which I got any satisfaction.
Then I began to fall in love again with Alberto, and the realization of it frightened me. I trembled now at the idea of his going away, and the sight of the zinc case became painful. When I typed to his dictation I was afraid of going too slowly, and when he looked at me I imagined that he didn’t like my face. I reflected how easy everything was for other women — Francesca and Giovanna, for instance, who never seemed to have known even the shadow of my great fear. How easy life is, I thought, for women who are not afraid of a man. I stared for a long time at my face in the mirror. It had never been very pretty, and now it seemed to me that every trace of youth and freshness was gone.
Alberto and I were always at home, and I understood now how a man and woman live together. He never went out, and I saw him from one end of the day to the other. I saw him get up in the morning and drink the cup of coffee I had made for him; I saw him bend over and dig into the zinc case and make notes on the margins of his books. We made love on his couch in the study and lay awake in the darkness while I felt him breathing calmly beside me. Before going to sleep he always told me to wake him up if I felt sad. I didn’t dare actually wake him, but the thought that I could if I wanted to was a great consolation. He was so very kind that now I knew what a man’s tenderness could be. It was my own fault, I realized, if even now I wasn’t altogether happy with him. I was always worried about my face and body, and when we made love I was afraid he might be bored. Every time I had something to say to him I thought it over to make sure it wasn’t boring. When he read me the notes he wanted to make into a book occasional comments came into my mind. But when one day I finally said something he seemed displeased and explained to me at length why I was wrong. I could have bitten off my tongue for having spoken. I remembered the time before we were married when we sat endlessly in cafés and I babbled on without stopping. Then it was easy enough for me to talk. I said whatever came into my head and moved before him with all the confidence of youth. Now that I had had the baby and the baby was dead I couldn’t bear the idea of his leaving me.
“Why don’t you go away?” I said. “I know it’s just that you’re sorry for me. Why don’t you go?”
“I don’t like the idea of your being here alone,” he replied.
“I never expected you to be so kind,” I went on. “I didn’t dream you’d try to help me as much as you’ve done. I didn’t think you cared much for the baby or for me either. I thought you cared only for Giovanna.”
He chuckled quietly, as if to himself. “Sometimes I think I don’t care for anyone,” he said.
“Not even for Giovanna?”
“No, not even for Giovanna,” he said. “She and her husband have gone to their country house near the lakes, and I don’t know when she’ll be back. When I don’t see her I hardly ever think of her at all. Queer, isn’t it?”
We were silent for a few minutes. He lay at my side breathing quietly, toying with my hand on the bedcover. He opened my fingers and closed them suddenly; he tickled my palm, then put my hand down and drew away.
“It’s difficult to know what we have inside of us. We’re here today and gone today. I’ve never understood myself properly. I was very fond of my mother, for instance, and terribly sad to see her go. Then one morning I walked out of the house with a cigarette in my mouth, and just as I was striking a match to light it I had a sudden feeling of relief. I was almost glad that she was dead, that I would never have to play draughts with her again or hear her irritated tone of voice when I put too much sugar in her coffee. That’s how it is that I don’t really know how much I care for Giovanna. I haven’t seen her for several months now, and I can’t say I’ve thought very much about her. I’m lazy, when you come down to it, and I don’t want to suffer.”
“And when she comes back,” I said, “do you think you’ll want to go away?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I might, at that.”
As I lay awake I remembered that he had told me to call him whenever I felt too sad. But I didn’t have the nerve to do it, and besides I was beginning to realize that there was no use counting on him for anything. It was absurd to expect anything from a man like Alberto. Even Giovanna couldn’t really count on him. I looked at his sleeping face, with the immobile lips that gave no answer. Would he stay or go? Did he really want to have another child? I lay there with my eyes wide open and said to myself: “I’ll never know what he really wants. I’ll never know.”