B007HXL46C EBOK

by Orelli, Giovanni

  p. 43Dimitrijević: Vladimir Dimitrijević, editor and founder of L’ge d’Homme publishing house.

  p. 43Artimovics: Josef.

  p. 44Mazzini: Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872), Italian revolutionary who helped unify the country and who spent time exiled in Grenchen in 1834. He was elected a citizen by the residents but eventually deported anyway.

  p. 44“Our horizon has been darkly clouded . . .”: Psychoanalysis and Faith: The Letters of Sigmund Freud and Oskar Pfister, p. 140.

  p. 44Mr. Vuilleumier: Marc Vuilleumier, contemporary Swiss historian, author of Immigrants and Refugees In Switzerland.

  p. 45“. . . no country would allow him to enter . . .”: Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, p. 501.

  p. 45Joseph Roth: Joseph Roth (1894–1939), Austrian journalist and novelist.

  p. 46She stood at the entrance, her eyes full of tears . . .: Nina Nikolaevna Berberova, The Italics Are Mine, p. 356.

  p. 46“Each socket seemed a ring without a gem”: Dante, Purgatory XXIII.31, Trans. Dorothy Sayers.

  p. 47“And behold, one shade . . .”: Dante, Purgatory XXIII.40–1, Trans. Robert Durling.

  p. 48synderesis: a term from medieval scholastic philosophy signifying the innate principle in the moral consciousness of all people that directs the agent to good and restrains him from evil.

  p. 48“unbind for the hero the fair girdle of her virginity”: The Extant Odes of Pindar, Trans. Ernest Myers, p. 168.

  p. 48“one mustn’t forget that all poets of the world have loved soldiers”: cf. “Since time immemorial, the Russian poet has left glory to the military and paid homage to this glory.” Earthly Signs: Moscow Diaries 1917–1922, p. 178.

  p. 49they were incinerated some five years later: Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, Vol. III, p. 521.

  p. 49the federal Foreigners’ Police: in 1917, an ordinance of the Federal Council of Switzerland established the Foreigners’ Police as a branch of the Federal Department of Justice and Police to coordinate the cantons’ surveillance of foreigners in wartime.

  p. 50“. . . Do you really think the Germans are unkind to the Jews?”: Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, Volume III, p. 515.

  p. 51“The more horrible . . .”: The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898–1918, pp. 313, 315.

  p. 51o, long and hoarse: Dante, Purgatory V.27, Trans. Arthur John Butler.

  p. 51I have long been of the opinion . . .: Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, Vol. 2, pp. 199, 198.

  p. 55Lei and Voi: of the two possible formal forms of address, the Fascists required the use of Voi over Lei, which was the standard at the time and has been since the end of the Fascist era.

  p. 57Three times it turned her round with all the waters: Dante, Inferno XXVI.139, Trans. Allen Mandelbaum.

  p. 57“God is an intelligible sphere . . .”: “Sermo de sphaera intelligibili” (Discourse on the Intelligible Sphere).

  p. 58Cheer up! . . .: Paul Klee, “Creative Credo.”

  p. 60Manfredi in Purgatory: Dante, Purgatory III.112.

  p. 62half a million lire: about €250 or $340.

  p. 62Pierino Selmoni: contemporary Swiss sculptor.

  p. 63as Gide says about Poussin: “It was by retaining and restoring tradition, when it was slipping away, that Poussin was able to seem to Delacroix healthily revolutionary.” André Gide, Autumn Leaves, p. 177.

  p. 63“immense horrible abyss”: Giacomo Leopardi, “Canto Notturno,” line 35.

  p. 65Madamina! Il catalogo è questo: Mozart, Don Giovanni.

  p. 67Sir Bertrand of Wales: alias Bertrand Russell.

  p. 69Cantor’s aleph-0: Georg Cantor (1845–1918), German mathematician, who invented set theory, which demonstrates the “infinity of infinities.” This was also seen as a challenge to God’s role as the ultimate infinity. The Hebrew aleph was Cantor’s designation for cardinal numbers, and omega for ordinals.

  p. 71Père Jean-Pierre: Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675–1751), French Jesuit priest, known for his belief that the present moment is a sacrament from God.

  p. 71Nuntio vobis gaudium magnum: “I announce a great joy to you,” a centuries-old locution used in the announcement of a new Pope (usually followed by: “Habemus Papam”—we have a Pope).

  p. 74Fontana: village in Ticino near Gotthard.

  p. 75the Sicilian bull: Ancient Greek torture device.

  p. 76Sulla: Lucius Cornelius Sulla (c. 138 BCE–78 BCE), Roman dictator notorious for executing presumed enemies of the state.

  p. 77Zwingli: Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531), leader of the Reformation in Switzerland.

  p. 79Major Davel: Major Jean Daniel Abraham Davel (1670–1723), soldier and patriot who led a rebellion to free Canton Vaud from the rule of Bern, for which he was executed.

  p. 79Winkelried: Arnold von Winkelried, legendary hero who brought about the victory of the Old Swiss Confederacy against the Hapsburg Army (in the 1386 Battle of Sempach) by throwing himself upon (or “embracing”) the Austrian pikes and thus creating an opening through which the Swiss could attack.

  p. 79“By gathering with a wide embrace . . .”: William Wordsworth, “The Church of San Salvador, Seen from the Lake of Lugano.”

  p. 79More grace than we asked for, St. Anthony!: from an expression indicating one has received more than was requested.

  p. 80parva si licet: “Si parva licet componere magnis” (if one may compare the small with the great), Virgil, Georgics 4.176.

  p. 80“Johnny of the Vine . . .”: Swiss and Northern Italian proverb.

  p. 81Ambrosiana to Internazionale: Milan’s team, Football Club Internazionale Milano, or “Inter,” was renamed Ambrosiana after the patron saint of Milan, Ambrose, during the Fascist era.

  p. 83“Alcina drew the fishes to the shore . . .”: Orlando furioso., VI. 38, Trans. John Hoole.

  p. 85It is the same everywhere . . .: The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, pp. 322–3.

  p. 86You called, you shouted, you shattered my deafness!: St. Augustine, Confessions X.27, Trans. Carolinne White.

  p. 86“accident in substance”: Dante, Vita Nuova XXV.

  p. 89libido dominandi: “lust for domination,” St. Augustine, City of God.

  p. 90Bedoleto: Bedretto, a municipality in the Ticino.

  p. 91Ite missa est: the dismissal formula that concludes the Roman Mass: “Go, the dismissal has been made.”

  p. 92St. Nicholas: patron saint of Switzerland.

  p. 92“Anyway . . . the color range . . .”: Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, p. 317.

  p. 95Chi ha paura dell’uomo nero?: who’s afraid of the boogeyman? (literally: “black man”).

  p. 96. . . It is sweet, Helvetia, to die for you: Swiss national anthem until 1961, known as “Ci chiami, o Patria” (Call Us, O Country) in Italian.

  p. 100. . . you will still live, for all time, in my verse: Ovid, Tristia VI.21–2, 35–6, Trans. A. S. Kline.

  p. 100For if a man takes delight in toil and expenditure . . .: Pindar, The Complete Odes, Trans. Anthony Verity.

  p. 102the sound of his sighs: Giorgio Orelli (b. 1921), Il suono dei sospiri (The Sound of Sighs, a monograph on Petrarch).

  p. 102Susanna Orelli: Swiss social worker and temperance activist (1845–1939).

  p. 105Mortal aims befit mortal men: Pindar, Isthmian V, Trans. John Sandys.

  p. 105slapping his thigh like Dante’s farmer: Inferno XXIV.7–9.

  p. 105But the ancient splendor sleeps: Pindar, Isthmian VII, Trans. William Race.

  p. 107Io tengo una pistola . . .: “I’ve got a loaded gun . . . ” “I’ve got six brothers, their eyes are black and white, I’ve got six brothers, they’ll murder you. From “La mamma di Rosina,”
Italian folk song.

  p. 107dixit Caesar, in Rome after the Rubicon: Plutarch, Life of Caesar, 35.

  p. 108I am a man; nothing human is foreign to me: Terence, The Self-Tormentor, Trans. Palmer Bovie (modified).

  p. 109With humors dank and rank . . .: Giuseppe Parini, “La salubrità dell’aria” (The Salubriousness of the Air).

  p. 110Bigio: the popular name of a Fascist-era marble colossus: a young, athletic man, meant to represent the ideals of the regime.

  p. 112“But is it really possible not to doff your hat . . . ?”: asked Pietro Mandré, Italian poet.

  p. 114Zenga: Walter.

  p. 114O purity . . .: a prayer of Jean-Pierre de Caussade (modified).

  p. 116complement of circumscribed motion, etc.: Italian grammatical terms for adverbial complements.

  p. 116ornament and splendor of our age: Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, I.3.

  p. 117Diesseitig bin ich gar nicht fassbar: “I cannot be grasped in the here and now.” The beginning of a statement by Klee in a 1920 exhibition catalogue, which would later become his epitaph.

  p. 119“the dark days are passed”: Giosuè Carducci, “At the Sources of the Clitumnus,” Trans. William Fletcher Smith.

  p. 120patria est ubicumque est bene: “One’s country is wherever one is well,” Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes.

  p. 120Lausberg: Heinrich, German rhetorician.

  p. 127Kranker im Boot: Sick Man in a Boat.

  p. 129Lepontian: in reference to the ancient Celtic tribe of Switzerland, the Lepontii.

  p. 131Italo Balbo: Italo Balbo (1896–1940) was an Italian Blackshirt, Air Force Marshal, Governor-General of Libya, Commander-in-Chief of Italian North Africa, and “heir apparent” to Mussolini.

  p. 131Tarascon at the death of Tartarin: The city of Tarascon at the death of the hero Tartarin in Alphonse Daudet’s adventure novel Tartarin de Tarascon (1872).

  p. 138“à la guerre comme à la guerre!”: French proverb, meaning “All’s fair in war,” or, “make the best of what you’ve got.”

  p. 140“like the blackbird with a little good weather”: Purgatory XIII.123, Trans. W.S. Merwin.

  p. 148the water-tower bird: as in Klee’s painting of the same name, 1937.

  p. 148fetch Medusa, turn him into stone!: Dante, Inferno IX.52, Trans. Ciaran Carson.

  p. 150the great Francesco: Francesco Guicciardini (1483–1540), author of the Storia dell’Italia (1537–40); Italian historian and statesman; one of the major Italian political writers of the Renaissance; a contemporary of Machiavelli’s.

  p. 150pinta trahit . . .: “Pinta trahit pintam trahit altera pintula pintam et sic per pintas nascitur ebrietas.” Medieval Latin drinking rhyme: “One pint leads to another, one little pint draws the next, and so pint by pint drunkenness is born.”

  p. 151as one great master of technique (de Caussade) says . . .: Jean Pierre de Caussade, Abandonment to Divine Providence, Trans. Ignatius Strickland.

  p. 153that actor was right: i.e., Carmelo Bene.

  p. 155Überschach: Paul Klee, 1937.

  p. 155Then he turned: Dante, Inferno XV.121.

  p. 157People are coming with whom I must not be: Dante, Inferno, XV.118, Trans. Robert Durling.

  p. 157and off he raced . . .: Dante, Inferno, XV.121–124, Trans. Ciaran Carson (translation slightly modified).

  GIOVANNI ORELLI (1928–) is a central figure in Swiss-Italian letters. He is the author of more than a dozen novels, as well as several books of poetry, and he has long been active in the cultural sphere of the Ticino. In 1997, he was awarded the Gottfried Keller Prize. Walaschek’s Dream is his first novel to appear in English.

  JAMIE RICHARDS is the translator of Nicolai Lilin’s Free Fall, Serena Vitale’s interviews with Viktor Shklovsky, Witness to an Era, and Giancarlo Pastore’s Jellyfish, as well as short works by Ermanno Cavazzoni, Igort, and Giacomo Leopardi, among others.