Found in Translation

by Frank Wynne

  She sat again in the same chair by the range. With the heat of the fire and the weariness her husband was asleep and snoring—a dull measured snore, peaceful and passionless. The gentle ripple of a languid sea on the shingle in a summer calm. She studied him for the first time as she might some insignificant item of her new life. Long limbs, angular shoulders. Centuries of sun and shower, soil and drudgery, had shaped and marked that robust body, the sinewy neck, the sallow features. A black head of hair edged with grey, sign of strength. Lids shut on those slow dull eyes in which she could imagine neither smile of pleasure nor flash of anger nor the soft haze of desire. Flaring nostrils that wouldn’t be too squeamish of smells. A sootblack moustache—she had caught it out of the comer of her eye a few times previously and felt it needed badly to be cut. And now particularly, realising that those thick seal’s bristles weren’t hiding a hare-lip.

  SEVEN FLOORS

  Dino Buzzati

  Translated from the Italian by Judith Landry and Cynthia Jolly

  Dino Buzzati (1906–1972). An Italian author, painter and poet, Dino Buzzati was born in San Pellegrino to an aristocratic family. After studying law at the University of Milan, he joined the newspaper Corriere della Sera where he would continue to work throughout his life. He served as a war correspondent attached to the Italian navy during the Second World War. He published his first novel in 1933, but it was his third novel The Tartar Steppe, that brought him critical acclaim in Italy and fame throughout the world. An acclaimed artist, Buzzati’s work was often exhibited. In 1971, he was diagnosed with cancer and, as he left his hospital room, knowing he would not come back, he took a sheet of paper and made a pencil sketch of his armchair. Empty.

  One morning in March, after a night’s train journey, Giuseppe Corte arrived in the town where the famous nursing home was. He was a little feverish, but he was still determined to walk from the station to the hospital, carrying his small bag.

  Although his was an extremely slight case, in the very earliest stages, Giuseppe Corte had been advised to go to the well-known sanatorium, which existed solely for the care of the particular illness from which he was suffering. This meant that the doctors were particularly competent and the equipment particularly pertinent and efficient.

  Catching sight of it from a distance—he recognised it from having seen photos in some brochure—Giuseppe Corte was most favourably impressed. The building was white, seven storeys high; its mass was broken up by a series of recesses which gave it a vague resemblance to a hotel. It was surrounded by tall trees.

  Following a brief medical visit, the preliminary to a more accurate and complete examination, Giuseppe Corte was put in a cheerful room on the seventh and uppermost floor. The furniture and upholstery were bright and shining like the wall paper; the armchairs were made of wood, the pillows covered with multicolored fabrics, and the view from the window swept out over one of the most beautiful areas of the city. Everything was peaceful, hospitable, and reassuring. Giuseppe Corte put himself right to bed, turned on the over-head light, and began to read a book he had brought with him. Shortly, the nurse came in to inquire if there was anything he needed.

  Giuseppe Corte didn’t need anything, but he began to chat freely with the young woman, asking for information about the clinic. In this way, he learned about the hospital’s unique practice of assigning its patients to different floors in accordance with the gravity of their illness. On the seventh floor, the top floor, only the very mildest cases were treated. Those whose forms of the illness weren’t grave, but who certainly couldn’t be neglected, were assigned to the sixth floor. More serious infections were treated on the fifth floor, and so on and so forth. Gravely ill patients were housed on the second floor; and on the first floor, those for whom all hope had been abandoned.

  Not only did this unique system speed up service, it made it unlikely that mildly ill patients would be upset by the unnecessary proximity of other patients who might be suffering agonies, and it guaranteed a homogenous atmosphere on every floor. In addition, treatment could be perfectly graded to offer the best possible results.

  Each floor was like a small self-contained world with its own particular rules and special traditions that had no validity on other floors. And since each ward was under the direction of a different doctor, there were precise differences, some absolutely minimal, in methods of treatment: this, despite the fact that the institution’s General Director had engraved a single address on the building.

  After the nurse left, Giuseppe Corte felt as though his fever had disappeared, and he went to look out the window. He had no interest in the city’s panorama, which was completely new to him; instead, he was hoping to catch sight of other patients through the windows on the lower levels. The building’s structure of large recesses allowed this type of observation. Giuseppe Corte concentrated most of his attention on the first-floor windows, which seemed very far away and could only be perceived laterally. But he couldn’t see anything of interest. Most of the windows were hermetically sealed by gray metal shades, completely lowered.

  Corte noticed a man looking out of the window next to his. The two patients eyed each other for a time with growing sympathy, but neither knew how to break the silence. Finally, Giuseppe Corte plucked up his courage and asked, “You too have only just arrived?”

  “Oh, no. I’ve already been here for two months.” He was silent for a few moments and then, not knowing how to continue the conversation, he added, “I was looking down at my brother.”

  “Your brother?”

  “Yes,” explained the stranger, “we came here together. It’s really odd, but he kept getting worse, and, just imagine, now he’s already on the fourth.”

  “The fourth what?”

  “On the fourth floor,” the man explained, and he pronounced his words with such an expression of commiseration and horror that Giuseppe Corte was almost frightened.

  “Are the illnesses so grave on the fourth floor?” he asked cautiously.

  “Oh, God,” remarked the man, slowly shaking his head. “They’re not desperate yet, but there isn’t much to be happy about.”

  With the quizzical ease of people who hear about tragedies that don’t concern them, Corte asked, “Well, if they’re so grave on the fourth floor, then who gets put on the first?”

  “Oh,” he said, “the dying are on the first floor. There’s nothing for the doctors to do down there. The priest is the only one who works. And of course…”

  “But there’s hardly anyone on the first floor. Almost all the rooms down there are closed up,” Giuseppe Corte interrupted, as though expecting confirmation.

  “There’s hardly anyone, now. But this morning there were many,” answered the stranger with a faint smile. “Where you see the shades lowered, it means someone has just died in there. Don’t you see that all the shutters are open on the other floors? But, you’ll have to excuse me,” he added, withdrawing slowly, “I think it’s beginning to get cold. I’m going back to bed. Good luck, good luck.”

  The man disappeared inside and the window was shut with some force. He saw a light switch on inside the room. Giuseppe Corte remained immobile at the window, staring at the lowered shades on the first floor. He stared at them with morbid intensity, trying to imagine the secret funerals of that terrible first floor where patients were interred before their death; and he felt a sense of relief knowing that it was so far away.

  Shadows of night descended on the city. One by one, the thousand windows of the sanitorium were illuminated. From the distance, it must have looked as though there were a party underway in a great palace. Only on the first floor, down there at the bottom of the precipice, dozens and dozens of windows remained blind and dark.

  Giuseppe Corte was reassured by his general check-up. Usually inclined to expect the worst, he had been prepared for a severe verdict and wouldn’t have been surprised if the doctor had recommended that he be put on the floor below. In fact, despite his overall good condition, the f
ever had shown no sign of abating. Instead, the doctor spoke to him with polite, encouraging words. The illness was lingering, he said, but it was only very mild; everything would probably be over in two or three weeks.

  “And then I’ll stay on the seventh floor?” Giuseppe Corte had asked him anxiously at this point.

  “But, of course!” the doctor answered, amicably patting him on the shoulder. “And where did you think you should have gone? To the fourth, perhaps?” he asked laughing, as if to indicate the absurdity of the idea.

  “All the better, all the better,” said Corte. “You know, when you’re ill, you always imagine the worst.”

  In fact, Giuseppe Corte stayed in the room that he had originally been assigned. On those rare afternoons when he was allowed to get up, he met some of his fellow patients. He scrupulously followed his treatment and did his best to recover rapidly, although his condition seemed to remain stationary.

  About ten days had gone by when the head nurse came in to see Giuseppe Corte. He wanted to ask a kindness, in a purely amicable way: a lady with two children would be arriving at the hospital on the following day; the two rooms right next to his were free, but they needed a third. Would Mr. Corte agree to be transferred to another room, just as comfortable? Giuseppe Corte, of course, didn’t cause any difficulty. One room or the other was all the same to him. And, who knows, perhaps a different, more gracious nurse would be assigned to him.

  “A heart-felt thank you,” said the head nurse with a slight bow. “I confess that I’m not at all surprised by your kindness and gallantry. If you have no objection, we’ll proceed with the transfer in an hour.” In a mollifying tone, as though he were mentioning an absolutely negligible detail, he added, “By the way, it’ll be necessary to go to the floor below. Unfortunately, there are no other rooms free on this floor. But it’s a temporary arrangement,” he stipulated, seeing that Corte, suddenly sitting up, had started to open his mouth in protest. “It’s an absolutely temporary arrangement. As soon as a room becomes free, and I believe that will be in two or three days, you can come back up.”

  “I confess,” said Giuseppe Corte, smiling to show that he was no baby, “I confess that I don’t like this move at all.”

  “But there’s no medical reason for the move. I understand very well what you mean. This is only being done as a courtesy to this woman who prefers not to be separated from her children. For heaven’s sake,” he added, laughing openly, “don’t think that there are other reasons!”

  “I’ll do it,” said Giuseppe Corte, “but it feels like a bad omen.”

  Thus, Corte moved to the sixth floor. And even though he was convinced that the move had nothing whatsoever to do with the deterioration of his condition, he felt discomfited at the thought that an undeniable obstacle had arisen between him and the normal world of healthy people. On the seventh floor, the port of entry, one still had, in a certain way, contact with the society of people; it could almost be considered an extension of the normal world. But on the sixth floor, one had already entered the real core of the hospital; here, the doctors, nurses, and patients already exhibited a slightly different mentality. It was already understood that those who were indeed ill, although not gravely so, were put on that floor. From the first conversations with his neighbors, the general staff and physicians, Giuseppe Corte became aware that, in that ward, the seventh floor was considered a joke, reserved for dilettante patients who were affected by mere fancy more than anything else. Only on the sixth floor did one, so to speak, begin in earnest.

  Nevertheless, Giuseppe Corte understood that in order to return upstairs, to the place where the nature of his illness indicated that he should be, he would certainly encounter some difficulties. In order to return to the seventh floor, he would have to do some complicated maneuvering, even if he made the smallest effort. There was no doubt that if he didn’t open his mouth, no one would think to return him to the upper floor of the “pseudo ill.”

  For this reason, Giuseppe Corte made up his mind not to compromise his rights or allow himself to be enticed by habit. He took great care to assure his fellow patients that he would be visiting them for only a few days, that it had been he who had wanted to come downstairs for a few days as a courtesy to a lady, and as soon as a room became free he would be returning upstairs. The others nodded, hardly persuaded.

  Giuseppe Corte’s conviction was fully confirmed by the new doctor. Even he admitted that Giuseppe Corte could very well be assigned to the seventh floor. His illness was ab-so-lut-ly ne-gli-gi-ble—and he enunciated this in order to underscore its importance.

  But, come to think of it, perhaps Giuseppe Corte might be served just as well on the sixth floor.

  “Let’s not start that again,” the patient interjected at this point. “You told me that I belonged on the seventh floor, and I want to go back there.”

  “No one has said anything to the contrary,” responded the doctor. “I offer you this advice, purely and simply, not as a doc-tor, but as an au-then-tic friend! Your illness, I’ll say it again, is extremely mild. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that you’re not even ill! But, in my opinion, it distinguishes itself from similar forms of illness because of a certain expansion. I’ll explain myself: the intensity of the illness is minimal, but its magnitude is considerable; the destructive process of your cells is absolutely just beginning. Perhaps it hasn’t even begun, but it tends, I only say tends, to strike vast portions of the organism simultaneously. For this reason alone, it’s my professional opinion that you could be cured more efficiently here, on the sixth floor, where the therapeutic methods are more exemplary and intense.” For the first time, Giuseppe Corte felt the horror of that sinister expression—the destructive process of his cells.

  One day Corte found out that after lengthy consultations with his colleagues, the hospital’s General Director had decided to change the way that patients were subdivided. Everyone’s level—so to speak—would be downgraded by a half a point. Patients on each floor would be divided into two categories depending on the gravity of their illness. This subdivision would be done essentially by their respective doctors and would be strictly confidential. The inferior of the two groups would be officially transferred to a lower floor. For example, half the patients on the sixth floor—those whose illnesses were slightly more advanced—would pass down to the fifth floor; and the more indisposed residents of the seventh floor would pass to the sixth. The news pleased Giuseppe Corte because such a large number of transfers would make his return to the seventh floor much easier.

  When he mentioned his hope to the nurse, however, he was in for a bitter surprise. That is, she knew that he was to be transferred, but not to the seventh floor, rather, to the floor below. For reasons the nurse couldn’t explain, Corte had been included in the group of sixth-floor guests whose illness was “grave” and, for this reason, he had to descend to the fifth floor.

  As the initial shock wore off, Giuseppe Corte flew into a rage. He screamed that they had swindled him despicably, that he didn’t want to hear any talk about other transfers to the floor below, that he was going to go home, that rights were rights, and the hospital administration could not so openly neglect the physicians’ diagnoses.

  While he was still screaming, the doctor arrived, out of breath, to calm him. He advised Corte to compose himself if he didn’t want to see his fever go up. He explained that there had been a misunderstanding, at least, in part. Once again, he admitted that Giuseppe Corte would be in his proper place if they had put him on the seventh floor; but he added that he had a slightly different, if only a very personal, concept of the case.

  When one comes to think of it, given the pathological manifestations of his illness, it could—in a certain sense, you understand—also be attended on the sixth level. He himself couldn’t begin to explain how Corte had been catalogued with the lower half of the sixth floor. More likely than not, the secretary in management—who had telephoned him only this morning requesting Giuse
ppe Corte’s precise clinical position—made an error in writing. Or perhaps management had slightly “darkened” the prognosis of an expert, but overly concerned, physician. Finally, the doctor advised Corte not to upset himself, to submit to the transfer without protest. After all, the most important thing was the treatment of the illness, not the placement of the patient.

  In regard to his treatment, the doctor added that Giuseppe Corte would have nothing to complain about. The physician on the floor below certainly had more experience; he was almost dogmatic in his insistence that the abilities of the doctors continued to increase, at least in the area of management, the lower one descended. The room was just as elegant and comfortable; the panorama was equally grand. It was only from the third floor down was the view cut off by the belt of trees.

  Giuseppe Corte, in the grip of a heightening fever, listened and listened with increasing exhaustion to the doctor’s meticulous justifications. At last, he realized that he lacked the strength and, above all, the desire to react further to the unjust transfer. And he allowed himself to be taken to the floor below.

  Once he was on the fifth floor, Giuseppe Corte’s only consolation, although small, was that, in the judgment of the doctors, nurses, and fellow patients, his illness was the least grave in that ward. In short, he could consider himself, for the most part, the most fortunate individual on the fifth floor. But, he was tormented by the thought that two barriers had now arisen between him and the world of normal people.

  Spring was advancing, the air becoming warm. But Giuseppe Corte no longer enjoyed leaning from his window as he had during the first days. Even though his fear was pure foolishness, he was stunned by a strange shiver at the sight of the first-floor windows, the majority of which were always shut and whose proximity was much too close.