The Nice Old Man and the Pretty Girl Page 3

  One night when he could not sleep he began to walk about the room and, in his desire to move and to find some distraction, he went to the window. The queue by the baker’s door was already there, so long that even at night it stained the pavement with black. Even then he did not really pity these people who were sleepy and could not go and sleep. He had a bed and could not sleep. Those waiting in the queue were certainly better off.

  These were the days of Caporetto. His doctor gave him the first news of the disaster. He had come to weep in the company of his old friend, whom he (poor doctor!) believed to be capable of feeling as he did. Instead the old man could see nothing but good in what had happened: the war was moving away from Trieste and therefore from him. The doctor wailed: “We shan’t see even their aeroplanes any longer.” The old man muttered: “True, probably we shan’t see them any more.” In his heart he rejoiced at the prospect of quiet nights, but he tried to copy the pain he saw in the doctor’s face in his own expression.

  In the afternoon, when he felt up to it, he interviewed his confidential manager, an old clerk who enjoyed his complete confidence. In business the old man was still sufficiently energetic and clear-headed, and the clerk came to the conclusion that the old man’s illness was not very serious and that he would come back to work sooner or later. But his energy in business was of the same kind as that which he displayed in looking after his health. The slightest indisposition was sufficient to make him put off business to the next day. And for the sake of his health he managed to forget business the moment his clerk was gone. He sat down by the stove into which he liked to throw bits of coal and watch them burn. Then he shut his dazzled eyes and opened them to go on with the same game. This is how he passed the evenings of days which had been quite as empty.

  But his life was not to end in this way. Some organisms are fated to leave nothing behind them for death, which merely succeeds in seizing an empty shell. All that he could burn, he burnt, and his last flame was the finest.

  VII

  The old man was at his window, looking out on to the road. It was a dull afternoon. The sky was covered with a greyish mist, and the pavement wet, though it had not rained for two days. The queue of hungry customers was forming in front of the baker’s door.

  As luck would have it, the girl went by at that very moment in front of the balcony he was occupying. She had no hat on, but the old man, who would not have known how to describe a single detail of her dress, thought her better dressed than in the days when he loved her. With her was a young man, fashionably dressed to the point of exaggeration. He wore gloves and carried a smart umbrella, which he raised two or three times with the arm with which he was gesticulating in accompaniment to his talk, which was clearly lively. The girl, too, was laughing and chatting.

  The old man looked and sighed. It was no longer the life of others that was passing along the street, it was his own. And the old man’s first instinct was one of jealousy. There was no question of love, only the most abject jealousy: “She is laughing and enjoying herself while I am ill.” They had done wrong together, and the resulting illness had come upon him; upon her, nothing. What was to be done? She was walking with her light step and would soon be at the corner, where she would disappear. That was why the old man sighed. There was not even time to disentangle his own thoughts, and he felt such a longing to speak to her and give her a moral lecture.

  When the girl and her companion disappeared the old man tried to check his excitement, as it might be bad for him, and said: “All the better. She is alive and enjoying herself.” There were two lies in those few words, which implied first of all that the old man had worried what had happened to the girl during his illness, then that it gave him satisfaction to see her running about the streets in that way enjoying herself. Therefore he could not get her out of his mind. He remained by the window and looked in the direction where the girl had disappeared. If she had come back, he would have called to her from the window. It was not very cold, and he felt that he must see her. And a voice within him asked him suspiciously: “Why? Do you want to begin all over again?” The old man began to laugh: “Desire? Not a thought of it!” Yet he continued looking in the same direction in an attitude of the most intense longing. “I should be quite happy,” he thought, convinced this time that he was speaking the truth, “if I knew that the young man loves her and means to marry her.”

  No one, not even himself, could have unravelled completely the old man’s mind, passionately dissatisfied as he was with the girl and with himself. He saw clearly that the girl’s behaviour involved responsibility of his own. This he tried to diminish by remembering that he had preached morality to her, and the rest he tried to forget. To recover his peace of mind he must impress upon her more clearly (that is, upon her, for he asked nothing for himself) the moral precepts she might have forgotten. And there was the further danger that she had forgotten his words and not his actions.

  He hurried to the desk to write to her, bidding her come and see him. Why not? He would receive her calmly, like his employees from the office, and urge her to think more seriously about her future.

  With the pen in his hand, he found himself in difficulties. He wanted to make it clear to her at once that this letter was not from a lover, but from a respectable old man who was inviting her to come and see him for her own good. He took a calling card and wrote a couple of words of invitation under his own name. He left the card on his desk and went back to the window. It would be better if she came down the street again. There was the risk that she would not accept this invitation, which would seem strange to her. But it was important that she should come, important for him.

  He went back to the desk and wrote her again the same note he had sent her so often. He blushed scarlet, because his fault was thus actually called up again in tangible form. But he need not stand on ceremony with that girl. It was enough to induce her to come in order to put her out of his life; and to wipe out from his destiny a presence so inconvenient, he considered that all that was necessary was to tell her distinctly (more distinctly than he had been able to do in the past): “For my part, I ask you to behave yourself with me and with all other men.” Then it would be easy to think no more about her.

  He tried to find peace in making his own resolution decisive. He found a way to send the note without letting it pass through the hands of his nurse. The appointment was for the morrow, in the late hours of the afternoon. The early hours were taken up with his cures.

  He returned to the window. In his desire to clear his conscience of all stain he went over in his mind the story of his relations with the girl. It would be strange to attach any importance to it. She had been too easy a conquest. A very commonplace adventure. Not in his own life, however, and important also for the youth and beauty of the girl. “Undoubtedly the others are worse than I am, and to-day I am superior to them all.” He felt that he could be proud of not feeling any desire and even more proud of sending for the girl to do her good.

  He would give her money. How much? Two, three, five hundred kronen. He must give her the money if only to acquire the right to educate her. Then he would put her on her guard against promiscuous loves. He had already preached to her against such loves in the past, but now he must make her forget that he had then tried to include his love among the permissible.

  A scene occurred in the street that riveted his whole attention. He had seen the actors a long way off, because they came from the quarter he was watching. A boy of about eight or ten, barefooted, was coming down the street, dragging after him by the hand a man who was evidently drunk. The child seemed to be aware of his responsibility. He was walking with small, but resolute steps. Every now and then he looked back at the full-grown man behind him, who appeared to realize that he must follow him, then he looked in front of him to see where he was going. Clearly he knew that he had to take command and lead the way. In this way they came under the old man’s window. There the child stepped off the pavement in order to get alo
ng better, but the man did not follow him at once. Thus it happened that their linked arms caught against a lamp-post. The child did not realise at once that he would have to go back to keep hold of the man. He was in a hurry, and probably he hurt the drunken man by pressing his arm against the lamp-post. The man was seized with a sudden fury. He broke loose from the boy and kicked him, knocking him down. Luckily he was too drunk to move quickly, because it was obvious that he was drawing back to strike again. The boy, on the ground, covered his face in childish fashion with his arm and cried, looking terror-stricken at the drunken man who was bending over him without being able to recover his balance.

  The old man at the window was filled with terror. He opened the window, forgetting for the moment the danger to his own health, and began to call for help in his harsh voice. A number of people ran over at once from the queue at the baker’s door, so many that very soon the old man could see neither the child nor the drunken man. He shut the window again, called for his nurse, and sank, gasping for breath, into an arm-chair. It was too much for him. His legs gave way under him.

  During his long solitude he had nursed a great ambition and had thought himself beneficent and superior to everyone else, but now for the first time he was experiencing a sensation, really new and surprising, one of genuine, instinctive goodness. For a short while he remained good and generous without any thought of himself obscuring this feeling. It is quite true that he took no step to bring the poor child in need of help and comfort nearer to him. The idea never crossed his mind; but in his thoughts he dwelt affectionately and with deep emotion upon the childish figure that had been knocked down. He even discovered in his own memory a detail that helped to increase his pity: he had seen the boy crying, but he had not heard a single sound. Perhaps the little boy was ashamed of being punished in public, and the shame, which prevented him from attracting the attention of others, was stronger than his terror. Poor little thing, thus made even more helpless.

  But very soon the old man returned to his regular occupation of looking after himself. Meanwhile his generous feelings had had such an expansive effect upon his heart that he immediately recognized the good result of his impulsive action. In order to keep it up he talked to the nurse about his great adventure. He said that he had saved the child. “If I had not shouted, that blackguard would have made an end of him.” As a matter of fact, it is quite likely that his hoarse cry never reached the street.

  In his thoughts he went back to the girl and set up in his mind a kind of association between the boy who was being ill-used and the young woman who, in the same street, was being dragged to her ruin by a smart young rake. His pity for the boy made him even blame himself for not having done more for him than open the window and shout.

  He put this thought from him by thinking: “I have one misfortune to think of, and that is enough for me.”

  That night he had no sleep till the morning. He had no pain, and he lay thinking. He was well aware that his conscience was not at ease, but he could not see why. He decided to give the girl an even larger sum. He thought that, if he could make her declare herself grateful, it would be enough to set his own conscience at rest.

  Towards morning he fell asleep and had a dream. He was walking in the sunlight, holding the pretty girl by the hand, exactly as the drunken man was holding the boy’s hand. She also was walking a little in front of him and he was thus able to see her better. She was very pretty, dressed in bright-coloured old clothes, as on the first day he had seen her. As she walked, she beat her little foot on the ground, and at each step the warning bell rang, as on that day on the Viale di Sant’Andrea. The old man, who had till then been walking with his usual slow step, forced himself to catch the girl up. She had become for him the woman of his desire, all of her, with her old clothes, her step and even the silver note of the bell that must have been fastened to her little foot. Then suddenly he became tired and wanted to let go the girl’s hand. But he did not succeed till he fell exhausted to the ground. The girl moved away from him like an automatic figure without even glancing at him, with the same step, which was musical with the ringing of the bell. Was she taking her sex to others? In the dream that was a matter of complete indifference to him. He woke up. He was bathed in perspiration, as on that night of the bad attack of angina. “Disgusting, disgusting!” he exclaimed, thoroughly frightened at his own dream. He tried to calm himself by remembering that a dream has nothing to do with the man who has it, but is sent him by mysterious powers. But the disgusting details were clearly his own. Undoubtedly he felt more remorse for his dream than for the recent reality in which he had played a part. While he was busy looking after his health, a duty which took up the whole morning, though he was unable to throw off the memory of the night’s adventure, he was seized with an inspiration: between the boy knocked down and beaten and the girl of his dream mechanically offering her beauty there was an analogy. “And between me and the drunken man?” queried the old man. He tried to smile at the impossible comparison. Then he thought: “However, I can make reparation by helping her and teaching her better.”

  During the day he was assailed by further doubts. Supposing he had really behaved as he behaved in the dream? It may be that dreams are sent by others and that we are not in any way responsible for them, but he was old enough to know that even in real life, sometimes, in certain actions, we cannot recognise ourselves. For instance, he had begun his adventure after that historical walk on the jetty, when his intentions had been very different. Now, if his present intentions were worth no more than those, there was an end of peace, an end of health and certainly also an end of life.

  Then the old man took a truly heroic decision. He determined to sacrifice his life rather than continue to live his present lonely existence in the midst of his chemist’s shop. To-day, especially after his dream, he felt even more desirous to live and act. To-day, if he had again been a spectator of the cruel treatment of the little boy, he would not have been able to sink down and rest, as on the day before. He even thought that, when he had cleared up his position with the girl, he might find the young man also and do him some good. Only just now matters were too involved and he would have to wait for the visit of some influential friend whom he could employ to make the needful inquiries. The old man gave no thought to all the other boys in similar circumstances who were within easy reach of him, and he soon forgot the one he loved because he had seen him beaten.

  He told the doctor something of his nocturnal adventure. His old friend, who managed every day to find some symptom of a speedy recovery, smiled: “Why, you are getting well; you are even getting young again.”

  “Is that how health and youth begin?” asked the old man, perplexed. He had no used for such youth. He wanted peace, quiet, real health. Above all he wanted to rid himself of all self-reproach for his behaviour towards the girl. The doctor could not guess that his patient had then decided to cure himself in his own way, especially as the old man would not have known how to tell him. He himself did not know that he was running after a new cure.

  In the afternoon the old man enjoyed a long, refreshing, dreamless sleep. He awoke smiling like a child from a sleep that was at last innocent, because untroubled by images.

  Then he prepared supper for the girl, exactly as he had done the first time he had waited for her. Before beginning his work he had a momentary hesitation. But then he thought that sooner or later the girl would have to listen to his hard words and to less amusing sermons and that therefore it was right to give her the reward by which she apparently set so much store. So he carefully opened the tins he had kept by him so long. He smiled as he emptied the contents on to the plates that were ready on the usual little table. It was a question of gilding a pill which the girl might find bitter.

  His nurse was alarmed at seeing all these preparations. Was it not her duty to warn the doctor? The old man reassured her with an air of superiority. His last sleep had been peaceful and he had forgotten the one before. Hence the nur
se’s suspicions could not even offend him. He told her that she might listen to the interview in the next room. For the first time he spoke openly of the past, confessing what she probably knew or had at least suspected. “Youthful transgressions must be forgotten. In any case they cannot be repeated.” But the nurse was not satisfied. Though she wanted for nothing in that house, she did not like to see all this good food prepared for someone else. She answered venomously: “Then five months ago you were young?”

  “Was it only five months ago?” asked the old man in amazement. To him it seemed a century since the girl’s last visit. He made the necessary calculations and discovered that it was even less than five months since it all happened. He made no answer to the nurse, but he could not believe that he was old when he had been so young five months ago. However, he had no doubt of his own sincere wish to be moral and good.

  VIII

  The girl was, as always, punctual. The old man had felt none of the nervousness in waiting for her he had experienced in the past. This comforted him. If his dream had presaged sexual excitement, the reality—he was now convinced of it—was something entirely different. But the violent emotion he experienced at seeing once again the girl’s dear face was a great surprise to him. Now he realized that it was out of the question for him to assume with her, as he had intended doing, the airs of the head of an office. He nearly fainted. How enchanting was that little face with the great eyes, every line of which he knew from having kissed it, and how musical was that voice he had heard while he was behaving in a way that now filled him with remorse. He could not find words to welcome her and for a long while he held the little gloved hand in his own. It was so good to love. Was a new, a last youth beginning for him? A new cure, more effective than all the others?