After some performances of Shakespeare there in 1880, he published a first article, “Shylock,” in an Italian-language paper, L’Indipendente, an irredentist organ with which he was to be associated for several decades.

In that same year, after the failure of his father’s business, Schmitz abandoned formal study and found a position in the Trieste branch of the Unionbank of Vienna, assigned to deal with its French and German correspondence. He remained, unhappily, at the bank for almost twenty years.

He continued to write (but rarely complete) plays, as his contributions to L’Indipendente became more frequent. Finally, in December of 1887, he began a novel. Its working title was characteristic: Un inetto. This could be translated literally as “an inept man,” but perhaps Svevo meant something more like our modern term “a loser.” The story is set in a bank; Svevo later admitted the work was largely autobiographical.

After an unhappy love affair a decade earlier, Schmitz’s life seemed dully divided between home and office, but then he began meeting other young artists—notably the painter Umberto Veruda, who introduced him to Trieste’s bohemian circles. In the winter of 1891 he had a serious affair with a working-class woman, whom he later portrayed in his second novel.

He completed the first novel, now retitled Una vita {A Life; Svevo was unaware of the Maupassant novel of the same title). In December of 1892 (after the manuscript had been rejected by the prestigious Milanese firm of Treves), Una vita was published—at the author’s expense—by the firm of Vram in Trieste. The Trieste papers reviewed it benevolently; the critic of Milan’s Corriere della sera, Domenico Oliva, a sustaining pillar of the Italian literary establishment, offered it mild praise. But the book made no real impression.

Svevo’s father had died in 1892, a few months before the publication of Una vita. In October of 1895 Svevo’s mother died. At thirty-four he felt adrift. His brother Ottavio suggested that the two of them move to Vienna and go into business, but there were economic obstacles, and Schmitz was reluctant to leave his part-time job with Il Piccolo, a leading Italian daily paper, where he was responsible for scanning the foreign press.

And there was another reason to stay in Trieste. During his mother’s last illness, he had come to admire his young cousin, Livia Veneziani, who had impressed him with her gentle manner and her thoughtfulness. He began giving her books; at her insistence, he even promised to conquer his entrenched habit of smoking (a promise often repeated, but never kept). On 20 December 1895, despite strong objections from Livia’s parents, who considered the much older Schmitz a poor prospect, Livia and Ettore became officially engaged. As a festive gift, Livia presented him with a diary, a “keepsake” album entitled Blüthen und Ranken edler Dichtung (Blossoms and Tendrils of Noble Poetry), handsomely bound and illustrated with watercolor reproductions of flowers, each day’s page headed by a sentimental poem. The pages for January and February are dutifully filled in; a few March entries are written up, then the writing peters out. Published posthumously under the title Diario per la fidanzata, the diary offers many engaging insights into the character not only of Svevo but also of his fictional alter ego, Zeno Cosini. For instead of recording his day-today events, the diarist examines his conscience, analyzes his love of his fiancée, and describes his often wild fancies.

On the page for 3 January, under a soppy little poem by Georg Ebers, he wrote:

A man can have only two strokes of good luck in this world. That of loving greatly or that of combating victoriously in the battle for life. He is happy either way, but it is not often that fate grants both these happinesses. It seems to me therefore that… the happy are those who either renounce love or withdraw from the battle. Most unhappy are those who divide themselves according to desire or activity between these two fields, so opposed. Strange: thinking of my Livia I see both love and victory.

A few days later, on 7 January, he wrote:

At the moment of waking I surely do not remember either the face or the love of Livia. Sometimes to recall one and the other in their entirety I need to see the photograph that has remained calmly watching me sleep. And then the serenity of waking is broken all at once by the recollection of life, of all life, and I am assailed simultaneously by all the joy of possession and the uneasiness that has always accompanied and will always accompany my love. Then I recall all the discussions of the day before in your company or else my just being silent, beside you. I am then calmed, and when I get up, I am whistling Wagner, the musician of love and of pain but I feel only the former, I leave the house with my hat at a jaunty angle and … a cigarette in my mouth. Poor Livia! Every pleasure and every displeasure that you give me increase my pharyngitis.

The frankness of the diary—which was submitted to Livia as he was writing it—did not diminish her love for her quirky future husband. She had developed a maternal fondness for his weaknesses, and she could smile at his many jokes and fancies.

Though she was one-quarter Jewish by birth, Livia had been brought up a Catholic and regularly attended Mass. So the prospective marriage involved a central conflict. Livia, after much debate, unhappily agreed to a civil ceremony.