It was the same tale every evening. To justify himself to his wife he would describe how much he had canvassed for business. That day he had earned, all told, a big packet of needles sent by a small factory as agent’s fee for some business he had arranged for them. In the morning with a letter of recommendation from a friend who was a merchant and whom he considered to have influence in the town, he had called at a few private houses trying to sell Cognac, but without result. The sample made a show on the table. At midday he had got some mail, comprising that packet of needles and a letter from an insurance company making him their representative. That very afternoon the old man had set off in search of people willing to be insured, going round town with a list of acquaintances, which he always carried with him. Friends had explained that they did not want to be, already were or could not afford to be insured: others either did not see him—Lanucci liked calling on people who kept servants to open their front doors—or sent him off with a few dry words as to a beggar.

This comment was not Lanucci’s, who told his tale with the calm of perseverance, ready to begin all over again the next day. But later that day Lanucci had written to the insurance company telling them that, though he had not actually fixed anything yet, he still had high hopes, and that meanwhile the agent’s fee was too low in view of the difficulty of conducting business.

“Oh dear, that postage!” murmured Signora Lanucci with a wink at Alfonso, to whom she had already spoken of her husband’s hopes and manias.

But she had followed the account with close attention, and her eyes shone with indignation at all his vain efforts. Signor Lanucci spoke slowly, talking continually as he ate, putting his fork down after every mouthful and emphasizing each syllable to make his own activity and astuteness clearer. He repeated all the arguments he had used. To one person he had talked of the advantages of insurance in general and how wrong it was not to insure oneself, to another—some friend or known philanthropist—of his own need for encouragement. To all he had praised the company he represented. Signora Lanucci listened to him, sitting slightly back from the table, chewing little bits of bread very fast with her front teeth.

Any remark by his family was apt to provoke Signor Lanucci to argument.

“‘Oh dear, the postage,’ did you say? Why? You’ve an odd way of looking at things! Why, I couldn’t do any business at all …”

Resentment accumulated during the day now burst loose. He sat stock still in his chair, but his lips were trembling. Gustavo grinned into his plate.

Alfonso soothed the old man; he understood his anguish since he too found himself in financial straits from time to time. He told him that his wife was only joking and he must not take offence, and that she really longed to see his affairs prosper more than anyone.

Alfonso’s words started Lanucci on a completely different train of thought: for it now occurred to him that the comforter might become a client, and he began asking if Alfonso had ever had any idea of insuring himself—against accidents say?

Signora Lanucci protested.

“Oh! Can’t you leave him in peace with your business?”

Lanucci looked very put out: Alfonso was both embarrassed himself and distressed at the embarrassment of Lanucci, whom he supposed already regretted his tactless question.

“Do let him go on talking,” he said to Signora Lanucci. “He’s so interesting, and after all it costs nothing.”

He thus managed to reduce the matter to something purely academic.

“Yes, indeed!” emphasized Lanucci. “I’ll make him insure himself either through me or through somewhere else! He can do it wherever he likes. But anyone in a position to be insured does wrong not to be. Suppose a tile falls on his head? If he’s not insured, he earns nothing while in bed, but if he is, he’s in clover.”

To get out of it Alfonso now gave a frank account of his own finances. Signora Lanucci protested, and the old man calmly put up objections while still denying that a refusal needed any explanation.

Every evening the Lanuccis went out after supper to take some air. This was not the sole aim of the outing. Signora Lanucci had introduced the custom to compensate Lucia for the hour’s parade on the Corso with other young dressmakers, which she had made her give up. Gustavo accompanied them but did not come home with them. Sometimes Alfonso went, too, bored but making such a good pretence of being amused that in the end he believed it himself.

Signora Lanucci got up from table, put on a threadbare but heavy cloak, and stood waiting for Lucia to finish her far more complicated toilet. The old man, in an overcoat too small for him which his wife had helped him don, went on talking, still hoping to do some business before the day ended. But Alfonso, who had been on the point of giving way for an instant, now gave his exact salary and expenses in a slightly irritated tone, concluding that he could not dream of spending more. He expressed himself crisply to avoid finding himself in even worse financial straits; and, distrusting his own firmness, refused to hear any more argument. It seemed to him that Signor and even Signora Lanucci then said goodbye more coldly than usual, although the Signora did not omit wishing him good luck.