Tales of Madness Read online

  And, rubbing together the forefinger and thumb of his right hand, he contracted his face into a grimace, intending to signify with that gesture: I don’t have any money.

  I looked at him, stupefied. Was I dreaming? And this foolish question came to my lips:

  “Oh, of course! And how do you get by?”

  He smiled and then, placing a hand on my shoulder, answered:

  “If you only knew!… The very day after my burial, I began by selling back the beautiful porcelain plaque that my wife had ordered placed on my tomb. In the center it bore the inscription ‘To my adored spouse.’ Now, we, the dead, cannot stand certain lies, so I sold it back for a few lire. In that way I managed to get along for a week. There’s no danger that my wife might come to pay me a visit and notice that the plaque is no longer there. Now I play cards with the customers, and since I win, I drink at the loser’s expense. In short… it’s an enterprise. And what do you do?”

  I was unable to answer him. I looked at him for a moment, then, in an outburst of madness, I seized him by the arm.

  “Tell me the truth! Who are you? How is it that you’re here?”

  He didn’t lose his composure, but smiled and said:

  “But if it was you yourself who recognized me!… How is it that I’m here? I’ll tell you, but first let’s go in. Can’t you see? It’s raining.”

  And he coaxed me into the tavern. There, he forced me to drink and drink again, certainly with the intention of getting me drunk. I was so astonished and dismayed that I was unable to put up a struggle. I don’t drink wine, and yet I drank I no longer recall how much of it. I remember a suffocating cloud of smoke, the acrid stench of wine, the dull clatter of dishes, the hot and heavy smell of the kitchen, and the subdued mumbling of hoarse voices. Hunched over— almost as if wanting to steal each other’s breath, two old men were playing cards nearby, amid the angry or approving grunts of the spectators who crowded at their backs, absorbed in the game. A lamp, hanging from the low ceiling, diffused its yellow light through the dense cloud. But what astonished me more was seeing that, among the many people there, no one suspected that someone no longer living was in there. And looking now at one person, now at another, I felt the temptation to point to my companion and say: “This fellow is a dead man!” But then, almost as if he had read this temptation on my lips, Jacopo Sturzi, his shoulders propped against the wall and his chin on his breast, smiled without taking his eyes off me. His eyes were inflamed and full of tears! He continued looking at me, even as he drank. All of a sudden he stirred and began to speak to me in a low voice. My head was already spinning from the effect of the wine, but those strange words of his about matters of life and death made it spin even more. He noticed that and, laughing, concluded:

  “They’re not matters for you. Let’s talk about something else. Tuda?”

  “Tuda?” I uttered. “Don’t you know? It’s all over…”

  He nodded his head affirmatively several times but then instead said:

  “I didn’t know that, but you did well in breaking off the relationship. Tell me, it was on account of her mother, right? My wife, Amalia Noce, is the worst sort of creature! She’s like all the Noces! Listen, I…”

  He took off his hat and put it on the little table. Then, slapping his high forehead with his hand, and winking, he exclaimed:

  “Twice, the first time in 1860, and then in ‘75. And you must realize that she was no longer fresh, though still quite beautiful. But I can’t complain about this any longer. I forgave her and that’s that. My son — may I call you that? — my son, believe me, I began to breathe only the moment after I had died. In fact, do you think I still look after them? No, neither the mother nor the daughter. I don’t even look after the daughter, because of her mother. I want to tell you everything. I know how they live. Listen, I could do as many others do in my state. From time to time I could go to their home, unseen by them, and secretly pilfer a little money. But I don’t. I won’t steal any of that money! Do you know, do you know how they live?”

  “How?” I answered. “I’ve stopped asking about them.”

  “Come on, you know,” he continued. “They told you last night.”

  Hesitating, I made an inquisitive gesture with my eyes.

  “Yes, where you wanted to go before you saw me!”

  I jumped to my feet, but couldn’t stand, and falling onto the little table with my elbows, I shouted at him:

  “Is it they? Tuda? Tuda and her mother?”

  He seized me by the arm and brought his forefinger to his lips.

  “Quiet! Quiet! Pay and then come with me. Hurry and pay.”

  We left the tavern. It was raining even harder. The wind which had grown in intensity slung water in our faces almost prevented us from walking. But the man dragged me away, away, against the wind, against the rain. Staggering, drunk, my head burning and heavier than lead, I moaned, “Tuda? Tuda and her mother?” In the violent shadow his cloaked figure became confused with the umbrella he carried high against the rain, and to my eyes it became huge. It was like a ghost in a nightmare, dragging me towards a precipice. And there, with a powerful shove, he thrust me into the small dark doorway, shouting into my ear, “Go, go visit my daughter!”

  Now I have here, here in my head, only the screams of Tuda as she clung to my neck, screams that had pierced my brain… Oh, it was he, I swear it again, it was he, Jacopo SturziL. He, he strangled that witch who was passing herself off as an aunt… But if he had not done it, I would have. But he choked her, because he had more of a reason to do so than I.

  If…

  Is it departing or arriving? Valdoggi wondered as he heard a train whistle, and looked towards the train station from his table outside the chalet-style cafe in Piazza delle Terme.

  He had fixed his attention on the train’s whistle, as he would have fixed his attention on the continuous, dull buzzing of the electric light bulbs, in an effort to divert his eyes from a customer sitting at an adjacent table who stared at him with irritating stillness.

  For some minutes he managed to distract himself. In his mind he pictured the interior of the train station, where the opaline brilliance of the electric light contrasts with the dismal and gloomily resounding emptiness under the immense, sooty skylight. And he began to imagine all the nuisances that a traveler encounters when he is departing or arriving.

  Unwittingly, however, he again found himself gazing at that customer at the adjacent table.

  The man, dressed in black, was about 40 years old. His thin, drooping hair and small moustache were reddish, his face was pale, and his green-gray eyes were cloudy and had rings around them.

  Sitting beside the man was a little old woman who was half asleep. Contrasting strangely with her peaceful air was her hazel-colored dress, neatly trimmed with black rickrack. Moreover, covering her wooly hair was a small hat, worn and faded, with two large black ribbons tied voluminously under her chin. Oddly enough, these ribbons ended in silver tassels, making them seem as if they were ribbons taken from a funeral wreath.

  Valdoggi again immediately took his eyes off the man, but this time he did so in a fit of great exasperation that made him turn rudely in his chair and blow forcefully through his nostrils.

  What on earth did that stranger want? Why was that man looking at him that way? Valdoggi again turned around. He, too, wanted to look at that man in order to make him lower his eyes. At that point the stranger whispered: “Valdoggi.” He did so as if speaking to himself, shaking his head slightly without moving his eyes.

  Valdoggi frowned and bent a little forward to better make out the face of the man who had muttered his name. Or had he just imagined it? And yet, that voice…

  The stranger smiled sadly and repeated:

  “Valdoggi, right?”

  “Yes…,” answered Valdoggi, bewildered and trying to smile at him, although with some hesitation. And he stammered: “But I… pardon me… you, sir…”

  “Sir? I’m Griffi!”

/>   “Griffi? Ah…,” uttered Valdoggi, confused, continually more perplexed, and searching his memory for an image that would bring that name back to life.

  “Lao Griffi… 13th Infantry Regiment… Potenza.”

  “Griffi! You?” Valdoggi suddenly exclaimed, flabbergasted. “You… like that?”

  Griffi accompanied the exclamations of astonishment of his newly found friend with sorrowful noddings of his head, and every nod was perhaps both an allusion and a tearful salute to the memories of the good old days.

  “It’s really me. Like this! Unrecognizable, right?”

  “I wouldn’t say that… but I pictured you…”

  “Tell me, tell me, how did you picture me?” Griffi suddenly broke in. And, almost impelled by a strange feeling of anxiety, he drew close to Valdoggi with a sudden motion, blinking his eyes repeatedly and wringing his hands as if to repress his agitation.

  “You pictured me? Oh, of course… but tell me, tell me how?”

  “How should I know!” answered Valdoggi. “You, in Rome? Did you resign?”

  “No, but tell me how you pictured me, I beg you!” insisted Griffi forcefully, “I beg you…”

  “Well… I pictured you as still being an officer, I guess,” Valdoggi continued, shrugging his shoulders. “At least a captain… Remember? Oh, and what about ‘Artaserse’? Do you remember ‘Artaserse,’ the young lieutenant?”

  “Yes, yes,” answered Lao Griffi, almost crying. “‘Artaserse’… Yes, certainly.”

  “I wonder what became of him.”

  “I wonder,” repeated the other with grave and gloomy seriousness as he opened his eyes wide.

  “I thought you were in Udine,” continued Valdoggi in an effort to change the subject.”

  But Griffi, absorbed in thought, sighed absent mindedly:

  “Artaserse…”

  Then he roused himself suddenly and asked:

  “And you? You resigned too, right? What happened to you?”

  “Nothing,” answered Valdoggi. “I finished my service in Rome…”

  “Ah yes! You were a cadet officer… I remember very well. Rest assured, I remember, I remember.”

  The conversation waned. Griffi looked at the little old woman dozing beside him.

  “My mother,” he said, pointing to her with an expression of deep sadness both in his voice as well as in his gesture.

  Valdoggi unwittingly sighed.

  “She’s sleeping, poor thing.”

  Griffi looked at his mother silently for a while. The warm-up notes of a violin concert about to be performed by blind men in the cafe roused him, and he turned to Valdoggi.

  “Ah, yes, speaking of Udine. Remember? I had asked to be assigned either to the Udine regiment, because I counted on getting some month-long furloughs to cross the border (without deserting) and visit a bit of Austria — Vienna, they say, is quite beautiful! — as well as a bit of Germany; or to the Bologna regiment to visit central Italy: Florence, Rome… At worst I would remain in Potenza… at worst, mind you! Well, the government left me in Potenza, understand? In Potenza! In Potenza! To save money… to save money… And that’s how they ruin a poor man, how they do him in!”

  He pronounced these last words with a voice so altered and shaky, and with such unusual gestures, that many of the customers in the cafe turned around to look at him from the nearby tables, and some of them hissed.

  His mother awoke with a start and, adjusting the large knot under her chin, quietly said to him:

  “Lao, Lao, please control yourself…”

  Valdoggi, somewhat dazed and astonished, looked him up and down, not knowing how to act.

  “Come now, Valdoggi,” continued Griffi, casting grim looks at the people who were turning around… “Come… Get up, Mama. Valdoggi, I want to tell you… Either you pay, or I will… I’ll pay, don’t bother…”

  Valdoggi tried to object, but Griffi insisted on paying. They got up, and all three of them set out towards Piazza dell’Indi-pendenza.

  “It’s just as if,” continued Griffi as soon as they had left the cafe, “it’s just as if I’ve really been to Vienna. Yes…I’ve read guidebooks, brochures… I’ve asked travelers who have been there for news and information… I’ve seen photographs, pictures showing views of the town, everything… In short, I can speak of that town very well, almost from good knowledge of the case, as one says. And the same goes for all those towns in Germany that I could have visited by simply crossing the border during my month-long furloughs. Yes… not to mention Udine which I actually did visit. I decided to go there for three days, and I saw everything; I examined everything. In three days I tried to live the life I could have lived if the abominable government had not left me in Potenza. I did the same in Bologna. You don’t know what it means to live the life that you could have lived, if an event over which you have no control, an unforeseeable circumstance, had not distracted and diverted you, and at times crushed you, as has happened to me. Understand? To me!”

  “Destiny!” sighed the old mother at this point, her eyes lowered.

  “Destiny!” echoed her son, turning to her angrily. “You always repeat this word which irks me terribly, you know! If you would only say ‘lack of foresight, predisposition’… Although, yes, foresight! What good is it? One is always exposed to the whims of fate — always. But look, Valdoggi, what man’s life depends on… Perhaps not even you can understand me well. But picture, for example, a man who is forced to live chained to another person for whom he has been nursing a feeling of intense hatred which is stifled hour after hour by the most bitter reflections. Imagine! Yes, one fine day, while you’re at dinner, conversing — you sitting here, she there — she tells you that when she was a child, her father was on the verge of leaving, let’s say, for America, and of taking all his family with him, never to return; or else that she nearly became blind because one day she stuck her nose in certain chemical apparatuses belonging to her father. Well then, since this person is making you suffer the torments of hell, can you help reflecting that, if one or the other of these events had occurred (both quite possible), your life would not be what it is? Whether it would be better or worse matters little now. You would exclaim to yourself: ‘Oh, if only it had happened! You would be blind, my dear; I would certainly not be your husband!’ And, perhaps pitying her, you would imagine her life as a blind woman and yours as a bachelor, or yourself in the company of some other woman…”

  “That’s why I tell you—that it’s all destiny,” said the old woman once again and with great conviction. She spoke these words without getting upset, all the while keeping her eyes lowered as she walked along with a heavy step.

  “You get on my nerves!” screamed Lao Griffi this time, his words resounding in the deserted square. “Then everything that happens was destined to have happened? Wrong! It might not have happened if… and here, in this if I always lose myself. A stubborn fly that is bothering you, a gesture you make to shoo it away, can become the cause of who knows what misfortune in six, ten, or fifteen years. I’m not exaggerating, I’m not exaggerating! It’s certain that as we live, mind you, we develop —like this, on the side — un-thought of, rash forces — oh, that you’ve got to grant. On their own, then, these forces develop and unfold secretly, and they lay a net before you, a snare that you can’t perceive, but that finally envelops you; squeezes you; and then you find yourself caught, without knowing how and why. That’s how it is! Momentary pleasures, sudden desires that dominate you, it’s useless! Man’s own nature, all your senses demand them spontaneously and with such compulsion that you can’t resist them. The damage, the sufferings that can result from them don’t come to mind very clearly, nor can your imagination foresee this damage, these sufferings with enough force and clarity to hold in check your irresistible inclination to satisfy these desires, to take up those pleasures. So much so that sometimes, good God, not even the awareness of immediate evils is sufficient to check these desires! We are weak creatures… The lessons
one learns from the experiences of others, you say? They’re useless. Each of us can think that experience is the fruit that grows according to the plant which produces it and the soil in which the plant has taken root. And if I consider myself to be, for instance, a rosebush whose nature it is to produce roses, why should I poison myself with the toxic fruit picked from the sad tree of someone else’s life? No, no. We are weak creatures… Therefore, it’s neither destiny nor fate. You can always find the cause of your fortunes or misfortunes. Often perhaps you do not perceive it, but nevertheless there is a cause. It’s either you or others, this or that. That’s exactly how it is, Valdoggi. And listen, my mother maintains that I’m out of my mind, that I don’t reason…”

  “It seems to me that you reason too much…” asserted Valdoggi, already half dazed.

  “Yes! And that’s my problem!” Lao Griffi exclaimed with deep sincerity, as he opened his light eyes wide. “But I’d like to say to my mother: ‘Listen, I’ve been improvident. Yes! as much as you care to believe… I was even predestined, quite predestined to get married — that I’ll grant! But is it necessarily the case that in Udine or in Bologna I would have found another Margherita?’ Margherita, you understand, was my wife’s name.”

  “Oh,” said Valdoggi. “Did she die?”

  “Lao Griffi’s face changed and he thrust his hands in his pockets, shrugging his shoulders.

  The old woman lowered her head and coughed slightly.

  “I killed her!” answered Lao Griffi flatly. Then he asked: “Haven’t you read about it in the newspapers? I thought you knew…”

  “No… I don’t know anything about it,” answered Valdoggi, surprised, embarrassed, and distressed for having hit on a delicate matter, but nevertheless curious to know all about it.

  “I’ll tell you,” continued Griffi. “I’ve just come out of jail. I spent five months there. But it was only preventive detention, mind you! They acquitted me. Naturally! But if they had left me in, don’t think that I would have minded! Inside or out, at this point it’s jail in either case. So I told the jurors: ‘Do with me what you will: sentence me, acquit me, anyhow for me it’s all the same. I’m sorry for what I’ve done, but in that terrible instant I didn’t know how, nor was I able to do otherwise. Whoever is not guilty, whoever has no reason to be sorry, is always a free man. Even if you chain me, I’ll always be free internally. At this point, I don’t care what happens to me externally.’ I didn’t want to say anything more, and I didn’t want a lawyer to defend me. But everyone in town knew quite well that I, temperance and moderation personified, had incurred a mountain of debts for her, that I had been forced to quit my job… And then… ah, yes, and then… Can you tell me how a woman, after having cost a man so much, can do what she did to me? That wicked woman! But you know? With these hands… I swear to you that I didn’t want to kill her. I wanted to know how she could do it, and I asked her, shaking her after having seized her by the throat… like this… I squeezed too hard. He had jumped out the window into the garden… Her former sweetheart… Yes, previously she had dropped him, as one says, for me; for the nice young officer… And look, Valdoggi! If that fool had not gone away for a year, thereby giving me the opportunity to fall in love with Margherita (unfortunately for me), by now those two no doubt would be man and wife, and probably happy. Yes, I knew them both well. They were made to get along marvelously. Look, I can picture quite well the life they would have lived together. Actually, I do picture it. Whenever I want, I can picture them both alive down in Potenza in their house. I even know the house where they would have gone to live, as soon as they were married. All I have to do is place Margherita, alive, in the various events of life as I have seen her so often. I shut my eyes and see her in those rooms with windows open to the sun. She’s in there singing with her pretty voice, all trills and modulation. How she sang! She held her little hands interlocked on top of her blond hair, like this. ‘Good morning, happy bride!’ They would not have had children, you know? Margherita couldn’t have any. See? If there is madness in all of this, this is my madness… I can see everything that would have been, if what had happened had not happened. I see it, I live in it; actually, I live only in it… The if, in a word, the if, understand?”