VIII
I
On his return Gian-Luca went to Millo and tendered his resignation. This he did very simply, giving no excuse, for indeed he had none to offer. “I cannot come back to the Doric,” he told Millo. “I cannot any longer be a waiter—all I can do is to thank you from my heart for your very great kindness and patience.”
Millo, who had long since ceased to be surprised at any queer happening in this queerest of worlds, said: “Allora—and what then?”
And Gian-Luca answered: “I myself am waiting to know.” Then he handed Millo those four months’ wages that had been his retaining fee, but at this Millo made a sound of impatience: “Do not be such an imbecile, Gian-Luca! You can give the money to Maddalena—at all events I do not want it.”
“I have not earned it,” Gian-Luca persisted, “for I cannot return to your service.”
“Well, never mind all that—” grunted Millo; then he added curiously: “You have left my service—whose service will you be in next, I wonder?” And he stared with interest at Gian-Luca.
Gian-Luca shook his head, and his strange, pale eyes looked past Millo and out beyond. “That I cannot tell you—” he said very gravely. “I must try to find myself first, signore—I am utterly lost—I must find myself again—and something else that I need.”
Millo sighed; he was going to sustain a great loss, he was losing his finest headwaiter. He had hoped against hope that Gian-Luca would come home quite cured of his curious condition. And then he was genuinely fond of this man who had served him faithfully for years, genuinely worried regarding his future—for Millo knew life even as Teresa knew it, a ruthless, intolerant business this life, in which there was no room for dreamers; so he said:
“You must do what you think best, Gian-Luca, but for God’s sake get rid of your illusions! Remember that the world is a very greedy place—it is only an extension of the Doric. To keep pace with the world one must wink at its follies and if necessary pander a little; there is no room for those who want to dig beneath the surface, we are too overcrowded, we are too civilized, we object to the disturbance and the dirt of excavations—and in any case, no one has time for much spade work, our everyday needs are too numerous.” Then he suddenly held out his hand to Gian-Luca, for he himself was very busy: “Well—I think that is all—take care of yourself, and remember I am here, if you need me.”
Gian-Luca grasped the strong, friendly hand: “I cannot find anything to say—” he faltered.
“No need,” Millo told him. “We part as good friends—and I hope you will prosper, Gian-Luca.”
Gian-Luca left him and went to the restaurant, where the early morning work was in progress; and there he found little Roberto and Giovanni and Daniele, and several of the others. He said to them all:
“I am leaving the Doric, I have come here to say goodbye.” And the words sounded ominous and sad to his ears, so that his heart misgave him.
But now they all gathered round talking at once: “Ma, Signor Gian-Luca! you are leaving the Doric? No, no, it cannot be possible!”
And seeing their surprised and incredulous faces, he realized that his faults had been forgotten, and only his virtues remembered. Then it was that he knew that he was fond of these men, especially of little Roberto; and he let his gaze rest on each of them in turn as though he wanted to remember their features—as though they were worthy of being remembered, these patient, uncomplaining servers. After he had drawn them all into his mind, his eyes wandered round the room, the room in which he too had patiently served—and the room seemed full of his own past emotions, of his longing for money, his restless ambition, his ruthless will to succeed. And all these things came at him gibing, deriding, tormenting, so that he trembled a little; for now they were striking as enemies, whereas once he had thought of them as friends. A shaft of pallid February sunshine was touching a table that stood just through the archway—the table at which Ugo Doria had feasted beside the little Milady. But all that seemed a long time ago, and the pain and the anger of it—and there near the door was Jane Coram’s table; someone had decked it with large hothouse roses, while the table itself had been widened and extended—perhaps she was giving a party.
Roberto was speaking: “We shall miss you, signore, it will not be the same here without you.” And his eyes of a skylark looking through bars were dim with something very like tears.
Gian-Luca pressed the little man’s hand: “I must thank you all—” he said slowly. “I must thank you for what you did when I was ill—and if I have sometimes been over-severe, I must ask you all to forgive me.”
But at this there arose a great hubbub of protest: “Ma no, ma no, Signor Gian-Luca!”
“You have always been perfectly just,” said Daniele.
“Davvero, that is true!” they agreed.
When at last he had said goodbye to his waiters, he made his way to the basement; for he wished to seek out the good-natured Henri and the dignified Monsieur Pierre Martin. As he went down the tortuous steel-rimmed staircase, he was met by a blast of hot air, for the great, greedy monster was stirring to action, and its breath was already heavy with the food that fumed on its tables of fire. He found the culinary King very quickly, but the King seemed preoccupied; he glanced up from a sizzling copper saucepan as though impatient of distraction. His eyes held the brooding, inward expression of a poet pregnant with song, and his white linen crown, which was slightly awry, had slipped to the back of his head. For Monsieur Pierre Martin was in the throes of a very real inspiration, he was busily inventing a dish of his own that would some day be called: “⸻ à la Martin.”
However, the French are proverbially polite, so he bowed as he greeted Gian-Luca: “Ah, Monsieur Gian-Luca, you are better, I hope?” But his gaze returned to the saucepan. “Encore de la crème, vite, vite!” he called sharply. “Bon Dieu! must I stand here all day?” And now he was frowning, and breathing quite hard, as a man breathes in moments of peril.
“I am leaving the Doric for good,” said Gian-Luca. “I have come to wish you goodbye.”
“Tiens—” murmured Monsieur Martin; and then again: “Tiens!” as he stirred with a delicate motion.
But now a young chef had returned with the cream, and the air was heavy with portent. “Excuse if I do not offer my hand—” said the great man, seizing the cream.
Henri was in his pantry as usual, and today he was cutting up veal. “Blanquette de Veau” would appear on the menu as one of the plats du jour.
“Ah! so you have returned,” he said, smiling at Gian-Luca, and he offered a greasy paw; then he tried the blade of his knife on his thumb and continued to cut up the veal.
“Yes,” said Gian-Luca, “I have returned—but only to say goodbye.” And he told the good Henri that he was leaving, that he was no longer a waiter.
But at that Henri laughed and looked very wise. “Once a waiter always a waiter,” said Henri, “and once a chef always a chef, mon ami—we can never get away from food. By the way,” he added, “our storeman leaves too, he is going back to Como to run a hotel. I for one am not sorry, a disagreeable fellow—I never could support Agostino!”
They talked on for a little about Agostino, then Gian-Luca bade Henri goodbye.
“This is only au revoir,” said Henri, smiling. “We shall soon have you back at the Doric.”
Gian-Luca went thoughtfully up the stone staircase and passed through the wide entrance hall. He pushed the swing door that led out into the street, and the door closed noiselessly behind him. He stood quite still on the pavement for a moment, staring down at his shoes; then he raised bewildered eyes to the Doric, sighed, and turned towards home.
II
That evening Gian-Luca told Maddalena that he could not go back to the Doric. She accepted his decision quite quietly, uttering no word of complaint.
“You are good to me, Maddalena,” he said. “You do not reproach me for what I have done.”
“Why should I reproach you?” said Maddalena. “All I want is that you should be happy.”
He gave her the money that Millo had refused, and together they went into accounts, while he tried to explain their simple finances in a way that she could understand. All this he did with great care and patience, making her answer questions like a schoolgirl, making her add up long rows of figures, then pointing out her mistakes.
“You will soon understand about it,” he told her, “for you have the sound money-sense of our peasants. I shall never buy that restaurant now, Maddalena, so my savings had better be invested.”
At the back of his mind an idea had been forming, but as yet it was nebulous and vague; it had come to him first that day in the train when he had tried to console Maddalena. And because of this vague and nebulous idea he was thinking now of her future.
“Are you listening, piccina?” he said almost sharply when he thought her attention was straying.
“But why should I know all about these things?” she asked him. “It is you who decide such matters.”
“One can never be certain, Maddalena,” he answered. “I prefer you to understand.”
So to please him she tried to be more attentive, frowning and biting her pencil.
He stared at her thoughtfully; she was not looking well, and her eyes had grown dull and weary, and all this he knew was because of his burdens—too heavy for her to bear. He pictured her back on the wide Campagna in the sunshine among her own people.
He muttered: “Where the sheep all wear little bells—”
And half hearing, she looked up and smiled. Then he said: “if you go home again, Maddalena, it is you who must help the poor beasts, for the peasants do not look upon you as a stranger, they will listen to you who are one of themselves—you will try to help, Maddalena?”
She put down her pencil and looked at him closely: “Why do you speak so, Gian-Luca?”
“I was thinking of your Campagna,” he told her, “that is where you seem to belong.”
“I belong to you,” she said gently but firmly, “wherever you are is home.”
But he shook his head: “I belong nowhere, piccina—”
“You belong in my heart,” said Maddalena.
After that they were silent for quite a long time, while she went on doing her sums; and all the while he was staring at her thoughtfully, thinking of the wide Campagna. Presently he made her put away the books, and they drew their chairs close to the fire.
“I must get work,” he told her.
And she asked him what work, but he seemed at a loss how to answer.
Then he said: “I have such a strange feeling lately—as though something were calling me away, as though something were waiting for me to find it, something very splendid, Maddalena.”
She did not understand, and her eyes looked frightened. “Calling you, Gian-Luca?” she said slowly.
He nodded: “It is something that is waiting to be found—” Then because he could see that her eyes were frightened he tried to reassure her: “It is nothing, cara mia, it is only my fancy—Now come, go to bed, it must be getting late.” And he kissed her and patted her arm. But as she turned away his heart ached with pity. “Do not be afraid,” he comforted.
III
But Maddalena felt terribly afraid, and now she would never leave her husband; when he went out she must always go with him. He had not the heart to oppose her in this, yet he knew that he needed solitude, for he who had always so feared loneliness now craved it with all his being. He tried to make some sort of plans for their future, but somehow he could not think clearly. The noise of the traffic, the presence of people, the constant presence of Maddalena, these things bewildered; so the weeks slipped by and still he had come to no decision. He would walk about the streets with his wife at his side, or sit gazing out of the window; and a great urge would rise in him, filling him with longing—an urge so insistent that he wanted to cry out—
“I am coming!” he would mutter, and then grow afraid, not understanding his own words.
He was filled with an intolerable, homeless feeling—he felt like an atom cast into space—he wanted to stretch out his hand and grasp something that was infinitely stronger than he was.
He would think: “There is something greater than life—perhaps even greater than death—”
And then he would wonder if this thing might be God, and then he would wonder how a man might find God who was greater than life and death. But when he tried to think of God in this way, he would always grow appalled by God’s vastness, for his heart was aching for simple things; yet the simple things were terribly finite, or so it seemed to Gian-Luca.
There were days when his mind would be clouded and numbed by a deep sense of personal failure; when he saw his past life as a road that had led nowhere, when he saw his present as a kind of chaos in which he was involving Maddalena; and even more hopeless did he feel about the future, for when he looked forward he could not find the future, and this made him terribly afraid.
“What must I do?” he would sometimes mutter; and then again: “What must I do?”
He grew anxious about money and would sit for hours poring over his account books; yet all the while he would feel strangely detached, as though none of this mattered to him. Maddalena, it was, that was always in his mind, and how best he could provide for her; even his savings were not his, he felt, nothing was his any more. His clothes were growing shabby, the time had arrived when he usually ordered a new suit, but nothing would induce him to go to his tailor’s, for in all sorts of personal ways he was saving, depriving himself of the small luxuries to which he had been accustomed. And seeing this, Maddalena protested almost crossly.
“You cannot wear that suit, Gian-Luca!” For she took a great pride in her husband’s appearance, and she felt like weeping to see him these days, so disheartened and hopeless and shabby.
Gian-Luca would be thinking: “It is Maddalena’s money, I must spend as little as I can.” But to her he would pretend to take the thing lightly: “Ma guarda, mia donna, this suit is almost new—there are years of wear in it yet.”
But quite apart from the question of money, he felt bored when he thought of his tailor; bored too when he looked at his personal possessions—quite a number they were, he found to his surprise—for such barnacles collect on the keels of most ships as they plough through the sea of life.
“Too many useless trifles,” he would think. And one day he started giving them away to beggars that he met in the street, avoiding Maddalena and slipping out alone, intent on this unusual proceeding.
Maddalena might exclaim: “Your silver cigarette case—I cannot find it, Gian-Luca!” Or: “Those little gold cufflinks, where have they gone? I see that you are wearing your mother-of-pearl ones.”
And then he would look sheepish and would have to confess this new folly that he had committed, wondering as he did so why he had not sold the things and given the money to his wife.
She would say: “But, amore, what are you doing?”
And he would not know how to answer, for when he saw the surprise on her face he would suddenly grow very shy.
One possession, however, he still clung to firmly, and that was his collection of books; for he felt that his books should be able to help him—they were so wise, his books, and their range of subjects was so varied, so wide and so learned. He began to turn more and more to these friends, asking them to solve his problems, yet somehow the problems remained unsolved—a new cause for fear in Gian-Luca.
“I cannot find it—” he would say, bewildered, staring up at Maddalena.
“Find what?” she would ask sharply, and then she would sigh, knowing that he could not answer.
He said that he must see the Librarian again, because he would tell him what to read; so one day they walked to the public library, but when they got there Maddalena stayed outside.
“I do not want to come in,” she remarked firmly; “you will talk about things that I cannot understand—I would only be in the way!”
The Librarian was sitting with his arms on his desk; the library was quiet and empty.
“So you have come,” he said rather gravely. “I have waited a long time, Gian-Luca.”
And Gian-Luca remembered that he had not been near him or written for more than two years.
They talked for a little, then Gian-Luca said: “I want you to tell me what to read—there must be some books that explain our existence, that explain all the sorrow and the suffering around us—I cannot be the only creature who sees it, others must have seen it before me.”
“So you have seen it at last!” said his friend.
“Too much I have seen it,” frowned Gian-Luca.
“It was bound to happen,” the Librarian told him. “I have known that for a long time past. Why, I knew it when you were quite a little boy—” Then he smiled at his recollections. “You were rather a greedy little boy, I remember—Swiss roll with apricot jam—” Then he said more gravely: “You ask me for books that will help you to face your life; well, the world is literally snowed under with books, and nearly all books are written about life—but not one of them can help you with your life, Gian-Luca; that book you’ll have to write for yourself.” He saw something very like terror in the eyes that were eagerly searching his face. “Why are you so much afraid?” he inquired.
And Gian-Luca answered irrelevantly: “Because I am feeling so terribly lonely—and yet I want to be alone.”
“No one is ever alone,” said the Librarian, “but of course it needs solitude to prove it.” He got up stiffly, for now he was old, and he found a few well-worn volumes. “Take these,” he said; and Gian-Luca stared at them—he had given him fairy tales. The Librarian laughed softly: “The wisdom of belief—the wisdom of children—” he murmured, “learn to believe in a fairy tale and the rest will certainly follow.”
But Gian-Luca had laid the books down on the desk and was turning slowly away.
“You don’t believe me?” the Librarian said gently.
“No,” answered Gian-Luca. “I do not believe you.”
“Oh, well,” sighed the Librarian, “perhaps you’re too young—or not yet young enough, Gian-Luca.”
Then Gian-Luca held out his hand with a smile, for he thought that his friend might really be in earnest; but he could not help wondering whether the Librarian was approaching his second childhood.