A Life

ITALO SVEVO

A LIFE

Translated from the Italian by
Archibald Colquhoun

Contents

Title Page

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

Also Available from Pushkin Press

About the Publisher

Copyright

A LIFE

I

Mother dear,

Your sweet letter only reached me last night.

Don’t worry about your handwriting; it has no secrets for me. Even when there’s some word that’s unclear, I can make out what you mean when your pen runs on, or think I do. I re-read your letters again and again; they are so simple, so good; just like you.

I even love that paper you use! I recognize it; it’s sold by old Creglingi, and brings back to mind the main street of our village back home, twisty but clean. I can picture where it broadens into an open space with, in the middle Creglingi’s shop, a low little place with a roof like a Calabrian hat. He is inside, busy selling papers, nails, grog, cigars or stamps, slow but flustered, like a man in a hurry, serving ten customers or really only serving one while keeping a wary eye on the other nine.

Do give him my regards, please. Whoever’d have thought I’d ever want to see that crusty old miser again?

Now, Mother, you mustn’t think it’s bad here; I just feel bad myself! I can’t get used to being away from you so long. What makes it worse is the thought of you being lonely in that big place so far out of the village where you will insist on staying just because it belongs to us. And I feel such a need to breathe some of our good pure air coming straight from its Maker. Here the air is thick and smoky. On my arrival I saw it hanging over the city like a huge cone, like winter smoke in our fireplace at home, but we know it’s purer there at least. The other men here are all or nearly all quite content, not realizing one can live so much better elsewhere.

I felt happier here as a student, because my father was still alive and made much better arrangements for me than I ever realized! Of course he had more money. My room is so tiny it makes me miserable. At home it could be a goose-run.

Mother, wouldn’t I do better at home? I can’t send money because I have none. On the first of the month I was given a hundred francs; that may seem a lot to you, but here it goes nowhere. I try as hard as I can, but the money won’t do.

I’m beginning to realize, too, how hard it is to get on in business, just as hard as to study, as our notary Mascotti says. Very hard indeed! My pay may be envied, and I realize I don’t earn it. My fellow lodger gets one hundred and twenty francs a month; he’s been at Maller’s for about four years and does work which I could only take on in a year or two. I’ve no hope or chance of a rise in pay before.

Wouldn’t I do better at home? I could help you, work in the fields myself even, and get a chance to read poetry in peace under an oak tree, breathing that good undefiled air of ours.

I want to tell you all about everything here! My troubles are made worse by the way my colleagues and superiors treat me. Maybe they look down on me because I don’t dress well. They’re just coxcombs, the lot of them, who spend half their day in front of their mirrors. An ignorant lot! Why, if someone handed me any Latin classic, I could comment on it all; but they wouldn’t even know its name.

There, those are my troubles, and one word from you can cancel them all. Say the word, and I’ll be with you in a few hours.

After writing this letter I feel calmer, as if you’d already given me permission to leave and I were about to pack.

A hug from your affectionate son,

Alfonso

II

AS SIX O’CLOCK FINISHED STRIKING, Luigi Miceni put down his pen and slipped on his overcoat, short and smart. On his desk something seemed out of order. He arranged the edges of a pile of papers exactly in line with it. Then he glanced at the order again and found it perfect. Papers were arranged so neatly in every pigeon-hole that they looked like booklets; pens were all at the same level alongside the ink pots.

Alfonso had done nothing but sit at his place for half-an-hour and gaze at Miceni with admiration. He could not manage to get his own papers in order. There were a few obvious attempts at arranging them in piles, but the pigeon-holes were in disorder; one was too full and untidy, the other empty. Miceni had explained how to divide papers by content or destination, and Alfonso had understood, but, from inertia after the day’s work, he was incapable of making any more effort than was absolutely necessary.

Miceni, when just about to go, asked him, “Haven’t you been invited round by Signor Maller yet?”

Alfonso shook his head; after his outburst in that letter to his mother such an invitation would have been a nuisance, nothing more.

Miceni was the reason Alfonso had alluded in his letter to the haughtiness of his superiors, for this invitation was often mentioned by Miceni. It was customary for every new employee to be invited home to the Mallers, and Miceni was sorry Alfonso had not been asked, as this first omission might mean the end of a custom to which he was attached.

Miceni was a frail young man with an unusually small head covered with very short curly black hair.