The Nice Old Man and the Pretty Girl by Italo Svevo Read Free Book Online Page A

eat, even when nothing is wanted of them. He, on the other hand, had allowed her to work on the trams, in order to earn her daily bread; and yet he had paid her in a way which had seemed to him princely, because it had not occurredto him that he owed her more than the hire of a few hours. That his how he had managed this adventure which, in his desire to gloze over its shady aspects, he had insisted on calling “real”.
    And this seemed to him to be the real cause for remorse, not the fact that he, an old man, had had an affair with a young girl. Why should he have felt remorse if he had taken the girl to live with him and had given her the place of his hateful nurse? The old man smiled, a little bitterly it is true, but he smiled. The girl always at his side! The great attack of angina would have occurred much sooner. Not now, because he was sure that he could live in the closest contact with the girl without fearing any temptation. He was annoyed that she still put on her siren airs with him, and that was why he could not have endured her near him.
    But in the past, since he had loved her, it was his duty to have kept her with him and then she would have been better educated. That is what young men did, whereas old men loved and ran away or drove away the loved object from them.
    How absurd he must have been, when he forced her to help count over the large sum he was offering her. But that he could make good. He immediately told his clerk to let him have a really considerable sum of money for the next day.
    In other ways, too, he might make reparation. Since he felt for her nothing but a paternal affection,he might attempt to educate her. He felt up to it. Only he must prepare himself carefully before meeting her. Now he had no further desire to remind her of the silly words with which he used to accompany the manifestations of his own corruptness. He had been weak with her, because he was still always possessed by the mad desire to appear pure.
    For some time longer he sat thinking in the arm-chair. It would have been so nice to explain his intentions to someone else before putting them into practice. Even in business he was in the habit of talking matters over with his solicitor so as to get a clear idea of what he intended to do. But in this matter, which he was managing alone, he could not ask anyone’s advice. Certainly he could not speak of it to his nurse.
    And that is how, late in life, my nice old man became an author. That evening he wrote only notes for the lecture he meant to give the girl. They were sufficiently short. He described his own faults without trying to attenuate them. He had meant to make use of her and slip out of all responsibility towards her. These were his two faults. It was so easy to write them. Would he have the pluck to repeat it all to the girl? Why not, when he was ready to pay? Pay in money and pay in himself, that is, to educate her and act as her guardian. That young rake would not find his game quite so easy. Thus, as he wrote, there swam into his ken one who also ought to have had his share in the pain and remorse of the old man.
    These notes were first written in pencil, then copied carefully in ink. There was no risk for manuscripts in that room, because his nurse could not read. When he wrote them out in ink, he added a moral of more general application, rather dull and rhetorical. He believed himself that he had improved and completed his work, whereas he had spoilt it. But this was inevitable in a novice. In the past the old man had been a sceptic. Now that his illness had thrown his organism out of gear, he was aware of a proclivity towards protecting the weak, and at the same time an inclination for propaganda. He believed all of a sudden that he had a message to give, and not to the girl alone.
    He read over his manuscript and, truth to tell, he was disillusioned. Not altogether, however, because he thought that his ideas were good, but that he had expressed them badly.