A Life by Italo Svevo

Author:Italo Svevo [Italo Svevo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: nepalifiction
ISBN: a_life
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Published: 2012-08-22T07:00:00+00:00

XIV

ONE EVENING Annetta announced to Alfonso that her brother Federico was to arrive a few days later. She was warning him beforehand so that he should be ready to behave as prudently as possible. Federico was devoted to her and while he was in town would be unlikely ever to leave her side. So Alfonso was to be very careful, because to arouse the slightest suspicion in Federico would mean their having to stop seeing each other.

Alfonso promised all that she asked him. That evening she had allowed him much, and he wanted to be equally yielding; he even asked if she would prefer him to suspend his visits during that time and declared himself ready to agree. She did not ask as much as that, because such a sudden interruption might itself arouse suspicions. She did not find it necessary to say that she would be sorry not to see him all that time.

In a way Alfonso and Annetta’s relations had become less affectionate. She had never told him that she loved him. He had let himself say so, but even he no longer felt a need to repeat it, nor did she notice the lack. It seemed because of this that their bearing had become more frank and that they were in a tacit agreement which did not really exist—for Alfonso was still hoping for something else and had realized, regretfully, that the road he was taking could lead to the conquest of a concubine but not of a mistress or a wife.

In other people’s presence he had the air of a suitor, shooting glances, paying compliments or asking to be alone with her for a second to say a word. When they were alone at last, she would tell him with a smile that he sometimes thought faintly ironical, that he could speak. Without opening his mouth he would draw her to him and kiss her frantically. She defended herself at a certain point, but with the calm energy of self-confidence. After Alfonso became more prudent in the presence of those whose suspicions Annetta feared, they never had a dispute. She almost seemed readier to become his mistress than his wife; his behaviour angered her in public, not when they were alone.

When Alfonso was told in the office of Federico’s arrival, the news produced a strange impression of alarm in him. Gradually he had won the friendship of all those who frequented the Mallers. It had been a slow and difficult conquest which seemed to have succeeded mainly by luck, by Macario’s gift of his esteem, rather than by the respect accorded him by that little ignoramus Annetta. Now someone new intervened, a person used to making decisions according to unknown criteria. He was to be feared since Annetta feared him on Alfonso’s account. Federico was certainly a man of ambition who would start by despising him.

That evening he did not go to Annetta’s; he did not want to show himself too soon. By next evening it

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