The Oil Jar and Other Stories (2 page)

And the kind old lady, who had gone on talking, instinctively, to keep Micuccio from having time to think, finally smiled and rubbed her hands together, looking at him compassionately.

Dorina came to set the table hastily, because there, in the salon, the meal had already begun.

“Will she come?” Micuccio asked gloomily, with a troubled voice. “I mean, at least to see her.”

“Of course she'll come,” the old lady immediately replied, making an effort to get out of her awkward situation. “Just as soon as she has a minute free: she's already told me so.”

They looked at each other and smiled at each other, as if they had finally recognized each other. Despite the embarrassment and the excitement, their souls had found the way to greet each other with that smile. “You're Aunt Marta,” Micuccio's eyes said. “And you're Micuccio, my dear, good son, still the same, poor boy!” said Aunt Marta's. But suddenly the kind old lady lowered her own eyes, so that Micuccio might not read anything else in them. Again she rubbed her hands together and said:

“Let's eat, all right?”

“I'm good and hungry!” exclaimed Micuccio, quite happy and reassured.

“Let's cross ourselves first: here, in front of you, 1 can do it,” added the old lady in a mischievous manner, winking an eye, and she made the sign of the cross.

The manservant came, bringing their first course. Micuccio observed with close attention the way that Aunt Marta transferred her helping from the serving platter. But when his turn came, as he raised his hands, it occurred to him that they were dirty from the long trip; he blushed, he got confused, he raised his eyes to steal a glance at the servant, who, now the height of good manners, nodded slightly to him and smiled, as if inviting him to serve himself. Fortunately Aunt Marta helped him out of his predicament.

“Here, here, Micuccio, I'll serve you.”

He could have kissed her out of gratitude! Once he received his helping, as soon as the servant had withdrawn, he too crossed himself hurriedly.

“Good boy!” Aunt Marta said to him.

And he felt carefree, contented, and started eating as he had never eaten in his life, no longer thinking about his hands or the servant.

Nevertheless, each and every time the latter, entering or leaving the salon, opened the glass double door, and a sort of wave of mingled words or some burst of laughter came from that direction, he turned around uneasily and then looked at the old lady's sorrowful, loving eyes, as if to read an explanation there. But what he read there instead was an urgent request to ask no more for the moment, to put off explanations till a later time. And again they both smiled at each other and resumed eating and talking about their far-off hometown, friends and acquaintances, concerning whom Aunt Marta asked him for news endlessly.

“Aren't you drinking?”

Micuccio put out his hand to take the bottle; but, just at that moment, the double door to the ballroom opened again; a rustle of silk, amid hurried steps: a flash, as if the little room had all at once been violently illuminated, in order to blind him.

“Teresina ...”

And his voice died away on his lips, out of amazement. Ah, what a queen!

With face flushed, eyes bulging and mouth open, he stopped to gaze at her, dumbfounded. How could she ever ... like that! Her bosom bare, her shoulders bare, her arms bare ... all ablaze with jewels and rich fabrics ... He didn't see her, he no longer saw her as a living, real person in front of him ... What was she saying to him? ... Not her voice, nor her eyes, nor her laugh: nothing, nothing of hers did he recognize any more in that dream apparition.

“How are things? Are you getting along all right now, Micuccio? Good, good ... You were sick if I'm not mistaken ... We'll get together again in a little while. In the meantime, you have Mother with you here ... Is that a deal? ...”

And Teresina ran off again into the salon, all a-rustle.

“You're not eating any more?” Aunt Marta asked timorously after a brief pause, to cut short Micuccio's silent astonishment.

He looked at her in bewilderment.

“Eat,” the old lady insisted, showing him his plate.

Micuccio raised two fingers to his smoke-blackened, crumpled collar and tugged at it, trying to draw a deep breath.

“Eat?”

And several times he wiggled his fingers near his chin as if waving goodbye, to indicate: I don't feel like it any more, I can't. For another while he remained silent, dejected, absorbed in the vision he had just seen, then he murmured:

“How she's turned out ...”

And he saw that Aunt Marta was shaking her head bitterly and that she too had stopped eating, as if in expectation.

“It's not even to be thought of ... ,” he then added, as if to himself, closing his eyes.

Now he saw, in that darkness of his, the gulf that had opened between the two of them. No, she—that woman—was no longer his Teresina. It was all over ... for some time, for some time, and he, the fool, he, the imbecile, was realizing it only now. They had told him so back home, and he had stubbornly refused to believe it ... And now, how would he look staying on in that house? If all those gentlemen, if even that servant had known that he, Micuccio Bonavino, had worn himself out coming such a distance, thirty-six hours by train, seriously believing he was still the fiance of that queen, what laughs they would raise, those gentlemen and that servant and the cook and the scullery boy and Dorina! What laughs, if Teresina had dragged him into their presence, in the salon there, saying: “Look, this pauper, this flute player, says he wants to become my husband!” She, yes, she had promised him this; but how could she herself suppose at that time that one day she would become what she now was? And it was also true, yes, that he had opened that path for her and had given her the means to travel it; but, there! by this time she had come so very far, how could he, who had stayed where he was, always the same, playing the flute on Sundays in the town square, catch up to her any more? It wasn't even to be thought of! And, then, what were those few paltry cents spent on her back then, now that she had become a great lady? He was ashamed merely to think that someone might suspect that he, with his coming, wanted to assert some rights in exchange for those few miserable pennies ...—But at that moment he remembered that he had in his pocket the money sent him by Teresina during his illness. He blushed: he felt a twinge of shame, and he plunged one hand into the breast pocket of his jacket, where his wallet was.

“I've come, Aunt Marta,” he said hastily, “also to return to you this money you sent me. Is it meant as a payment? As repayment of a loan? What would that have to do with anything? I see that Teresina has become a ... she looks like a queen to me! I see that ... never mind! It's not even to be thought of any longer! But as for this money, no: I didn't deserve such treatment from her ... Where does that come in? It's all over, and we won't talk about it any more ... but money, no way! I'm only sorry that it's not all here ... ”

“What are you saying, son?” Aunt Marta tried to interrupt him, trembling, pained and with tears in her eyes.

Micuccio signaled to her to be silent.

“It wasn't I who spent it: my family spent it, during my illness, without my knowledge. But let's say it makes up for that trifle I spent back then ... you remember? It doesn't matter ... Let's think no more about it. Here is the difference. And I'm leaving.”

“What! Like that, all of a sudden?” exclaimed Aunt Marta, trying to hold him back. “At least wait until I tell Teresina. Didn't you hear that she wanted to see you again? I'm going over to tell her ... ”

“No, it's no use,” Micuccio replied, with determination. “Let her stay there with those gentlemen; it suits her there, she belongs there. I, poor fool ... I got to see her; that was enough for me ... No, now that I think of it, do go over there ... you go there, too ... Do you hear how they're laughing? I don't want the laugh to be on me ... I'm leaving.”

Aunt Marta interpreted that sudden determination of Micuccio's in the worst possible light: as an act of anger, a jealous reaction. By now it seemed to her, the poor woman, as if everybody—seeing her daughter—ought immediately to conceive the meanest of suspicions, that very one which caused her to weep inconsolably as, without a moment's rest, she bore the burden of her secret heartbreak amid the hubbub of that life of detestable luxury which ignominiously dishonored her old age.

“But I,” the words escaped her, “by this time there's no way for me to stand guard over her, son ...”

“Why?” asked Micuccio, suddenly reading in her eyes the suspicion he had not yet formulated; and his face turned dark.

The old lady became bewildered in her sorrow and hid her face in her trembling hands, but failed to check the onrush of the tears that now gushed forth.

“Yes, yes, go, son, go ...,” she said, strangled by sobs. “She's not for you any more, you're right ... If the two of you had listened tome...”

“And so,” Micuccio burst out, bending over her and violently pulling one hand away from her face. But so afflicted and wretched was the look with which she begged him for mercy, as she put a finger to her lips, that he restrained himself and added in a different tone of voice, making an effort to speak softly: “And so she, she ... she is no longer worthy of me. Enough, enough, I'm leaving just the same ... in fact, all the more, now ... What a dumbbell, Aunt Marta: I hadn't understood! Don't cry ... Anyway, what does it matter? Fate ... fate ...”

He took his little suitcase and little sack from under the table and was on his way out when he recalled that there, in the sack, were the beautiful citrons he had brought for Teresina from their hometown.

“Oh, look, Aunt Marta,” he continued. He opened the top of the sack and, creating a barrier with one arm, he emptied that fresh, aromatic fruit onto the table. “And what if I started tossing all these citrons I brought for her at the heads of those honorable gentlemen?”

“For mercy's sake,” the old lady groaned amid her tears, once more making a beseeching sign to him to be silent.

“No, of course I won't,” added Micuccio, smiling sourly and putting the empty sack in his pocket. “I'm leaving them for you alone, Aunt Marta. And to think that I even paid duty on them ... Enough. For you alone, mind me now. As for her, tell her ‘Good luck!' from me.”

He picked up the valise again and left. But on the stairs, a sense of anguished bewilderment overpowered him: alone, deserted, at night, in a big city he didn't know, far from his home; disappointed, dejected, put to shame. He made it to the street door, saw that there was a downpour of rain. He didn't have the courage to venture onto those unfamiliar streets in a rain like that. He went back in very quietly, walked back up one flight of stairs, then sat down on the first step and, leaning his elbows on his knees and his head on his hands, began to weep silently.

When the supper was finished, Sina Marnis made another appearance in the little room; but she found her mother alone crying, while back there the gentlemen were clamoring and laughing.

“He left?” she asked in surprise.

Aunt Marta nodded affirmatively, without looking at her. Sina stared into space, lost in thoughts, then sighed:

“Poor guy ...”

“Look,” her mother said to her, no longer stemming her tears with the tablecloth. “He had brought citrons for you ...”

“Oh, what beauties!” exclaimed Sina, cheering up. She clutched one arm to her waist and with the other hand gathered up as many as she could carry.

“No, not in there!” her mother vigorously protested.

But Sina shrugged her bare shoulders and ran into the salon shouting:

“Citrons from Sicily! Citrons from Sicily!”

Through the large window that opened onto the house's little hanging garden, the pure, fresh morning air made the pretty little room cheerful. An almond branch, which seemed to be all a-blossom with butterflies, projected toward the window; and, mingled with the hoarse, muffled gurgle of the small basin in the center of the garden, was heard the festive peal of faraway churchbells and the chirping of the swallows intoxicated with the air and the sunshine.

As she stepped away from the window, sighing, Anna noticed that her husband that morning had forgotten to rumple his bed, as he used to do each time, so that the servants couldn't tell that he hadn't slept in his room. She rested her elbows on the untouched bed, then stretched out on it with her whole torso, bending her pretty blonde head over the pillows and half-closing her eyes, as if to savor, in the freshness of the linens, the slumbers he was accustomed to enjoy there. A flock of swallows flashed headlong past the window, shrieking.

“You would have done better to sleep here ... ,” she murmured languidly after a moment, and got up again wearily.

Her husband was to set out that very evening, and Anna had come into his room to prepare for him the things he needed for the trip.

As she opened the wardrobe, she heard what seemed to be a squeak in the inner drawer and quickly drew back, startled. From a corner of the room she picked up a walking stick with a curved handle and, holding her dress tight against her legs, took the stick by the tip and, standing that way at a distance, tried to open the drawer with it. But as she pulled, instead of the drawer coming out, an insidious gleaming blade emerged smoothly from inside the stick. Anna, who hadn't expected this, felt an extreme repulsion and let the scabbard of the swordstick drop from her hand.

At that moment, a second squeak made her turn abruptly toward the window, uncertain whether the first one as well had come from some rapidly passing swallow.

With one foot she pushed aside the unsheathed weapon and pulled out, between the two open doors of the wardrobe, the drawer full of her husband's old suits that he no longer wore. Out of sudden curiosity she began to rummage around in it and, as she was putting back a worn-out, faded jacket, she happened to feel, in the hem under the lining, a sort of small paper, which had slipped down there through the torn bottom of the breast pocket; she wanted to see what that paper was which had gone astray and been forgotten there who knows how many years ago; and so by accident Anna discovered the portrait of her husband's first wife.

At first she had a start and turned pale; she quickly ran a hand through her hair, which was shaken by a shudder and, with her vision blurred and her heart stopped, she ran to the window, where she remained in astonishment gazing at the unfamiliar image, almost with a feeling of panic.

The bulky hair style and the old-fashioned dress kept her from noticing at first the beauty of that face; but as soon as she was able to concentrate on the features, separating them from the attire, which now, after so many years, looked ludicrous, and to pay special attention to the eyes, she felt wounded by them and, together with her blood, a flush of hatred leaped from her heart to her brain; a hatred as if caused by posthumous jealousy; that hatred singled with contempt which she had felt for that other woman when she fell in love with Vittore Brivio, eleven years after the marital tragedy that had at one blow destroyed his first household.

Anna had hated that woman, unable to comprehend how she had been capable of betraying the man whom she now worshiped, and in the second place, because her family had objected to her marriage with Brivio, as if
he
had been responsible for the disgrace and violent death of his unfaithful wife.—It was she, yes, it was she beyond a doubt! Vittore's first wife: the one who had killed herself!

She found the proof in the dedication written on the back of the portrait: “To my Vittore, his Almira—November 11, 1873.”

Anna had very vague information about the dead woman: she knew only that Vittore, when the betrayal was discovered, had, with the impassivity of a judge, forced her to take her own life.

Now with satisfaction she recalled that terrible sentence issued by her husband, and was irritated by that “my” and “his” of the dedication, as if the other woman had wished to flaunt the closeness of the mutual ties that had bound her and Vittore, solely to spite her.

That first flare-up of hatred, ignited, like a will-o'-the-wisp, by a rivalry which by now existed only for her, was succeeded in Anna's mind by feminine curiosity: she desired to examine the features of that face, although she was partially restrained by the odd sorrow one feels at the sight of an object that belonged to a person who died tragically—a sorrow that was sharper now, but not unfamiliar to her, because it permeated her love for her husband, who had formerly belonged to that other woman.

Examining her face, Anna immediately noticed how entirely dissimilar it was to hers, and at the same time there arose in her heart the question of how the husband who had loved that woman, that girl, whom he must have found beautiful, could ever have later fallen in love with
her,
who was so different.

It seemed beautiful, even to her it seemed much more beautiful than hers—that face which, from the portrait, looked swarthy. There!—those lips had joined in a kiss with his lips; but why that sorrowful crease at the corners of the mouth? And why was the gaze in those intense eyes so sad? The entire face spoke of deep suffering; and Anna was moved and almost vexed by the humble and genuine kindness expressed by those features, and after that she felt a twinge of repulsion and disgust, when all at once she believed she had observed in the gaze of those eyes the same expression her own eyes had, whenever, thinking of her husband, she looked at herself in the mirror, in the morning, after arranging her hair.

She had barely enough time to thrust the portrait into her pocket: her husband appeared, fuming, on the threshold to the room.

“What have you been doing? The usual thing? Every time you come into this room to straighten up, you rearrange everything ... ”

Then, seeing the unsheathed swordstick on the floor:

“Have you been fencing with the suits in the wardrobe?”

And he laughed that laugh of his which came only from the throat, as if someone had tickled him there; and, laughing in that fashion, he looked at his wife, as if asking
her
why he himself was laughing. As he looked, his eyelids constantly blinked with extreme rapidity against his sharp, black, restless little eyes.

Vittore Brivio treated his wife like a child capable of nothing but that ingenuous, exclusive and almost childish love with which he felt himself surrounded, frequently to his annoyance, and to which he had determined to pay attention only on due occasion, and even at those times displaying an indulgence partially mixed with light irony, as if he meant to say: “All right, have it your way! For a while I too will become a child along with you: this, too, must be done, but let's not waste too much time!”

Anna had let the old jacket in which she had found the portrait drop to her feet. He picked it up, piercing it with the point of the swordstick; then, through the garden window he called the young servant who also doubled as a coachman and was at that moment harnessing the horse to the cabriolet. As soon as the boy showed up, in his shirt sleeves, in the garden in front of the window, Brivio rudely threw the dangling jacket in his face, accompanying the handout with a: “Take it, it's yours.”

“This way, you'll have less to brush,” he added, turning toward his wife, “and to straighten up, I hope!”

And again, blinking, he uttered that stentorean laugh of his.

 

On other occasions her husband had traveled out of the city, and not merely for a few days, also leaving at night like this time; but Anna, still extremely shaken by the discovery of the portrait on that very day, felt a strange fear of being left alone and wept when she said goodbye to him.

Vittore Brivio, in a great rush from fear of being late and evidently preoccupied with his business, reacted ill-manneredly to those uncustomary tears of his wife.

“What! Why? Come on now, come on now, that's so childish!”

And he left in hot haste, without even saying goodbye.

Anna jumped at the sound of the door that he closed behind him with force; she remained in the little room with the lamp in her hand and felt her tears growing cold in her eyes. Then she roused herself and hurriedly withdrew to her room, intending to go to bed at once.

In the room, which was already prepared, the little night light was burning.

“Go to bed,” Anna said to the maid who was waiting for her. “I'll take care of things myself. Good night.”

She extinguished the lamp, but instead of putting it on the shelf, as she usually did, she put it on the night table, with the feeling—actually against her will—that she might need it later. She started to undress hastily, gazing fixedly at the floor in front of her. When her dress fell around her feet, it occurred to her that the portrait was there, and with acute vexation she felt herself being looked at and pitied by those sorrowful eyes, which had made such an impression on her. With determination she stooped down to pick up the dress from the carpet and, without folding it, she placed it on the armchair at the foot of the bed, as if the pocket that hid the portrait and the tangle of the fabric should and could prevent her from reconstructing the image of that dead woman.

As soon as she lay down, she closed her eyes and forced herself to follow her husband mentally along the road leading to the railroad station. She forced this upon herself as a spiteful rebellion against the feeling that had kept her alert all day long observing and studying her husband. She knew where that feeling had come from and she wanted to get rid of it.

In this effort of her will, which caused her an acute nervous agitation, she pictured to herself with an extraordinary second sight the long road, deserted at night, illuminated by the streetlamps projecting their wavering light onto the pavement, which seemed to palpitate because of it; at the foot of every lamp, a circle of shadow; the shops, all closed; and there was the carriage in which Vittore was riding: as if she had been lying in wait for it, she started following it all the way to the station: she saw the gloomy train beneath the glass shed; a great many people milling about in that vast, smoky, poorly lit, mournfully echoing interior: now the train was pulling out; and, as if she were really watching it move away and disappear into the darkness, she suddenly came back to herself, opened her eyes in the silent room and felt an anguished feeling of emptiness, as if something were missing inside her. She then felt confusedly, in a flash, becoming bewildered, that for three years perhaps, from the moment in which she had left her parents' home, she had been in that void of which she was only now becoming conscious. She had been unaware of it before, because she had filled that void with herself alone, with her love; she was becoming aware of it now, because all day long she had, as it were, suspended her love in order to look and to observe.

“He didn't even say goodbye to me,” she thought; and she started to cry again, as if that thought were the definite reason for her tears.

She sat up in bed: but she suddenly held back the hand she had stretched out, while sitting up, to get her handkerchief from her dress. No, it was no longer any use to forbid herself to take another look at that portrait, to reexamine it! She took it. She put the light back on.

How differently she had pictured that woman! Now, contemplating her real likeness, she felt remorse for the feelings that the imaginary woman had aroused in her. She had pictured a woman rather fat and ruddy, with flashing, smiling eyes, always ready to laugh, enjoying common amusements ... And instead, now, there she was: a young woman whose cleancut features expressed a profound, sorrowful soul; whose eyes expressed a sort of all-absorbing silence; yes, different from herself, but not in that earlier vulgar sense: just the opposite; no, that mouth looked as if it had never smiled, whereas her own had laughed so often and so gaily; and surely, if that face was swarthy (as it seemed to be from the portrait), it had a less smiling air than her own blonde and rosy face.

Why, why so sad?

A hateful thought flashed across her mind, and all at once with violent repulsion she tore her eyes away from that woman's picture, suddenly discovering in it a snare threatening not only to her peace of mind, to her love, which, as it was, had received more than one wound that day, but also to her proud dignity as an honest woman who had never allowed herself even the remotest thought hostile to her husband.

That woman had had a lover! And perhaps it was because of him she was so sad, because of that adulterous love, and not because of her husband!

She tossed the portrait onto the bedside table and put out the light again, hoping to fall asleep this time without thinking any more about that woman, with whom she could have nothing in common. But, closing her eyes, she suddenly saw, in spite of herself, the dead woman's eyes, and sought in vain to dispel that sight.

“Not because of him, not because of him!” she then murmured with frenzied persistence, as if by insulting her she hoped to be rid of her.

And she made an effort to recall everything she knew about that other man, the lover, as if compelling the gaze and the sadness of those eyes to look no longer at her but at the former lover, whom she knew only by name: Arturo Valli. She knew that he had married a few years later as if to prove his innocence of the blame that Vittore wanted to ascribe to him, that he had vigorously declined Vittore's challenge to a duel, protesting that he would never fight with a mad killer. After this refusal, Vittore had threatened to kill him wherever he came across him, even in church; and then he had left the town with his wife, returning later as soon as Vittore, remarried, had departed.