Numbers in the Dark and Other Stories by Italo Calvino Page B
Authors: Italo Calvino
Tags: General Fiction
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shirt puffs out all round his belt. He picks up his jacket from the back of his seat and puts it on. ‘Come with me.’
Paolino and the accountant walk past the cubicles. The accountant takes big steps and Paolino has to trot to keep up. They go the whole length of the corridor; at the bottom the accountant lifts a curtain: there is a spiral staircase going down. It’s dark, but the accountant knows where there’s a switch and turns on a dim bulb down below. Now they go down the spiral staircase, down into the company vaults. In the vaults there’s a little door closed with a chain: the accountant has the key and he opens the door. There can’t be any electricity because the accountant strikes a match and immediately finds a candle and lights it. Paolino can’t see very much, but he realizes he’s in a tight space in a sort of little cell, and piled right up to the ceiling are stacks of notebooks, registers, dusty papers, and clearly this is where the mouldy smell is coming from.
‘They’re all the company’s old ledgers,’ says the accountant, ‘in the hundred years of its existence.’ Pulling himself up on to a stool, he opens a long, narrow ledger on a high bench that’s angled for reading. ‘See? This is the handwriting of Annibale De Canis, the company’s first accountant, the most conscientious accountant there’s ever been: look how he kept the registers.’
Paolino’s eye runs down columns of numbers written in a fine oblong hand with little flourishes.
‘You’re the only person I’ve shown this to: the others wouldn’t understand. And somebody has to see: I’m old.’
‘Yes, sir,’ says Paolino in a whisper.
‘There never was another like Annibale De Canis,’ and the man with the green visor moves the candle, to show, above a pile of registers and beside an old abacus with rickety rods, the photograph of a man with a moustache and goatee beard posing with a Pomeranian dog. ‘Yet this infallible man, this genius, see here, 16 November 1884’—and the accountant turns the pages of the ledger to open it where a dried up goose-feather has been left as a bookmark—‘yes, here, a mistake, a stupid mistake of four hundred and ten lire in an addition.’ At the bottom of the page the total is ringed in red pen. ‘And nobody realized, only I know about it, and you’re the first person I’ve told: keep it to yourself and don’t forget! And then, even if you did go round telling people, you’re only a boy and no one would believe you… But now you know that everything’s wrong. Over all these years, you know what that mistake of four hundred and ten lire has become? Billions! Billions! The calculating machines and electronic brains and whatnot can grind out numbers all they like. The mistake is right at the core, beneath all their numbers, and it’s growing bigger and bigger and bigger!’ They had shut up the little room now and were climbing the spiral staircase, walking back down the corridor. ‘The company has grown big, huge, with thousands of shareholders, hundreds of subsidiaries, endless overseas agencies, and all of them grinding out nothing but wrong figures, there’s not a grain of truth in any of their accounts. Half the city is built on these mistakes! No, not half the city, what am I saying? Half the country! And the exports and imports? All wrong, the whole world is distorted by this mistake, the only mistake in the life of Annibale De Canis, that master of book-keeping, that giant of accountancy, that genius!’
The man goes over to get his coat from a peg and puts it on. Without his green visor, his face seems even sadder and paler for a moment, then it’s in the shadow again as he pulls his hat brim down over his eyes. ‘And you know what I think?’ he says, leaning down, voice hushed, ‘I’m sure he did it on purpose!’
He stands up, thrusts his hands in his pockets. ‘We two have never met, never known each other,’ he mutters to Paolino.
He turns and
Paolino and the accountant walk past the cubicles. The accountant takes big steps and Paolino has to trot to keep up. They go the whole length of the corridor; at the bottom the accountant lifts a curtain: there is a spiral staircase going down. It’s dark, but the accountant knows where there’s a switch and turns on a dim bulb down below. Now they go down the spiral staircase, down into the company vaults. In the vaults there’s a little door closed with a chain: the accountant has the key and he opens the door. There can’t be any electricity because the accountant strikes a match and immediately finds a candle and lights it. Paolino can’t see very much, but he realizes he’s in a tight space in a sort of little cell, and piled right up to the ceiling are stacks of notebooks, registers, dusty papers, and clearly this is where the mouldy smell is coming from.
‘They’re all the company’s old ledgers,’ says the accountant, ‘in the hundred years of its existence.’ Pulling himself up on to a stool, he opens a long, narrow ledger on a high bench that’s angled for reading. ‘See? This is the handwriting of Annibale De Canis, the company’s first accountant, the most conscientious accountant there’s ever been: look how he kept the registers.’
Paolino’s eye runs down columns of numbers written in a fine oblong hand with little flourishes.
‘You’re the only person I’ve shown this to: the others wouldn’t understand. And somebody has to see: I’m old.’
‘Yes, sir,’ says Paolino in a whisper.
‘There never was another like Annibale De Canis,’ and the man with the green visor moves the candle, to show, above a pile of registers and beside an old abacus with rickety rods, the photograph of a man with a moustache and goatee beard posing with a Pomeranian dog. ‘Yet this infallible man, this genius, see here, 16 November 1884’—and the accountant turns the pages of the ledger to open it where a dried up goose-feather has been left as a bookmark—‘yes, here, a mistake, a stupid mistake of four hundred and ten lire in an addition.’ At the bottom of the page the total is ringed in red pen. ‘And nobody realized, only I know about it, and you’re the first person I’ve told: keep it to yourself and don’t forget! And then, even if you did go round telling people, you’re only a boy and no one would believe you… But now you know that everything’s wrong. Over all these years, you know what that mistake of four hundred and ten lire has become? Billions! Billions! The calculating machines and electronic brains and whatnot can grind out numbers all they like. The mistake is right at the core, beneath all their numbers, and it’s growing bigger and bigger and bigger!’ They had shut up the little room now and were climbing the spiral staircase, walking back down the corridor. ‘The company has grown big, huge, with thousands of shareholders, hundreds of subsidiaries, endless overseas agencies, and all of them grinding out nothing but wrong figures, there’s not a grain of truth in any of their accounts. Half the city is built on these mistakes! No, not half the city, what am I saying? Half the country! And the exports and imports? All wrong, the whole world is distorted by this mistake, the only mistake in the life of Annibale De Canis, that master of book-keeping, that giant of accountancy, that genius!’
The man goes over to get his coat from a peg and puts it on. Without his green visor, his face seems even sadder and paler for a moment, then it’s in the shadow again as he pulls his hat brim down over his eyes. ‘And you know what I think?’ he says, leaning down, voice hushed, ‘I’m sure he did it on purpose!’
He stands up, thrusts his hands in his pockets. ‘We two have never met, never known each other,’ he mutters to Paolino.
He turns and
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