All Our Yesterdays

by Natalia Ginzburg

  Anna knew from Giustino that at school they detested him, they turned their backs at once if he came up to speak to them. At first he had bored them to tears with his rugby matches and his letters from all parts of the world, he irritated everyone with his letters, he insisted on translating parts of them which seemed to him immensely funny, he explained how funny they were and told long tales about drinks and football matches, laughing on his own account. Now, on the other hand, he could talk of nothing but the poems of Montale, he was as vehement about Montale’s poems as if he had written them himself, he dragged in Montale every time the teacher asked him a question. He suggested meeting once a week to read and discuss Montale. And probably he didn’t understand anything at all about Montale. Emanuele asked Giustino why they did not punch his head, perhaps it would have done him a great deal of good. But Giustino said they hadn’t even any desire to punch him, nor even to make fun of him, he was too tiresome, they preferred just to turn their backs when he came up to them. Nobody except Anna could manage to endure him, and they went about together because Anna was silly and ingenuous and took all the nonsense he told her seriously. Anna was listening, and she tried to curl her lips in scorn as Giuma did. But she felt mortified, she thought of how he went up to speak to them and of how they turned their backs, and she felt deeply mortified, just as though they had turned their backs on her. And at times she was seized by a suspicion that in reality Giuma knew no more about the falòtico or about Cumerlotti than she did, that he had to pretend he knew in order to feel powerful and proud, in order to curl his lips in scorn and walk proudly about the town, without looking too closely at his own intimate self, which was perhaps mortified and suffering and lonely. After a long time perhaps it would be discovered that he knew absolutely nothing about the falòtico. Once upon a time he had boasted perpetually about Cingalesi, bringing him into every conversation, and she had thought of Cingalesi as of some terrible, disdainful force. Then the old Cingalesi had gone up in smoke and all that was left in his place was a harmless orange-seller.

  His face, when he kissed her, always lost all sign of scorn and of arrogance. His face became gentle, tender, brotherly, as he started removing, one by one, the chestnut-shells from her coat. Then they would laugh about these shells, and it seemed there were so many things they could laugh about together, it seemed they could laugh together even about the falòtico, that they could say to each other that they did not quite know what it was. But they did not say this, they never got as far as saying it, it was only for one moment that Giuma continued to be so tender and gentle, the next moment he curled his lips and looked round him in disgust, how squalid these public gardens were, how squalid the town was, you ought to see what the public gardens in Geneva and Lausanne were like. Then he pressed the spring of the black shell and buttoned up his overcoat, Mammina was expecting him as usual to make a fourth at bridge.

  In the end Anna told him about the time when they burned the newspapers, herself and Concettina and Ippolito and Emanuele. Giuma did not show much surprise, he said he had suspected for some time that Emanuele was getting mixed up in politics, he was really an idiot. He didn’t like Fascism himself, but it was better to put up with it and it wasn’t worth the trouble of running risks, besides Emanuele ought to think of Mammina, if they put him in prison Mammina would go mad. He didn’t hold with Fascism himself, above all it was a provincial thing, it made Italy provincial, it prevented people from arranging exhibitions with fine pictures from abroad. Fascism was certainly an ugly, provincial, ignorant thing. But it wasn’t worth the trouble of getting oneself put in prison for such an ugly, clumsy thing, getting oneself put in prison was taking it too seriously. But there must be a revolution, Anna said. He started to laugh a great deal, he bent back and laughed, displaying all his wolf-like teeth. A revolution, he said, Anna wanted to start a revolution. No, he said, there was no need for that, because Fascism would gradually fizzle out by itself, like those rubber balloons that deflate themselves with a whistling noise. No, there was no revolution to be started and in any case even if a revolution did have to be started Emanuele and Anna would not be the people to do it. “And not Danilo either ? ” asked Anna. Not Danilo either, Giuma answered, not Danilo either, because he had married a wife who was too twisted and pinched.

  10

  Concettina came back from her honeymoon, and went to live with her parents-in-law in their villa outside the town. Concettina was going to have a baby and all she could do was vomit and spit. She did not come to the house. Anna and Giustino went to see her a few days after she had arrived, she was lying in a big double bed, wearing a yellow embroidered bed-jacket and spitting into a chamber-pot of flower-patterned china. Her mother-in-law was fussing round her, and also a number of grandmothers and old aunts and servant-maids, one of them bringing her soup and another lemons to suck and another putting a hot-water bottle at her feet. Concettina spoke very slowly, with her teeth clenched to prevent her from vomiting. She had been to Naples and to Capri, and had bathed in the sea before the time when she started vomiting. At Capri she had bought a box all made of shells and some shoes of plaited straw. There were old men there dressed as fishermen who were really marquises or princes, there were women who looked like men and men who looked like women. There was a lady sitting in a café with a parrot on her shoulder and three cats on a lead. Then when she had shown them the shoes and the box they found nothing more to say to each other, Anna and Giustino were standing waiting for the moment to go away, there was nothing more to say to this new Concettina who was going to have a baby, in this house full of grandmothers and servants. Old Signora Sbrancagna told them they must not tire Concettina. So they went away, they had a long way to go to get home, it took at least an hour to walk the distance between them and Concettina. The house in which Concettina lived was right out in the country, and it had round it a small damp garden, surrounded by a wall with pieces of glass stuck on top of it. “Che ha in cima cocci aguzzi di bottiglia ”, said Anna. But Giustino told her to stop quoting Montale at once, he knew that Giuma read her Montale’s poems and goodness knows what they thought about them, he himself had read Montale too and had not understood much of it, he was a poet who wasn’t very easy to understand. The poem about the pieces of broken bottle was the only one that could be understood a little. He told her to be careful with Giuma, perhaps he wanted to kiss her and she must take care not to let herself be kissed, she must not let herself become like Concettina, who before she got married had allowed herself to be kissed by almost everybody. Concettina had got married all the same because she was rather attractive, she wasn’t in the least attractive and she would never get married if she went about too much with boys and let herself be kissed. They were both in a bad temper and they quarrelled all the way home, Giustino said she was treading on his toes, couldn’t she keep a little to one side ? He didn’t at all care about her being seen every day with Giuma, goodness knows how many times she had let him kiss her, and tills Giuma was an impossible kind of person, at school they turned their backs on him if he came up to speak to them. Anna told him that the girl she had seen him with was an Impossible kind of person, that very tall, thin girl who went out for walks with him in the evening. In any case he liked pinched-looking women, he liked Danilo’s wife who was so terribly pinched-looking, he liked women who were all twisted and dried up. Giustino said that the girl whom he took out for walks in the evening meant nothing to him, she was not his girl, she was a girl who was useful to him because she was very good at doing Italian exercises, whenever he had a difficult exercise he went to this girl and got her to do it for him, and then as a reward he took her out for a walk. They got back home and Emanuele hurried to meet them in order to ask if there was a portrait of Mussolini in Concettina’s bedroom, they answered that there wasn’t and Emanuele was displeased, he said that perhaps Concettina had taken it down in a great hurry when she heard them arrive. Signora Maria began imploring them for goodness’ sake to leave Concettina o
ut of their politics, she was not feeling well because she was expecting a baby. Emanuele said that Concettina would have a dozen babies all for love of the Duce, so as to provide soldiers for Italy as the Duce wished. Anna and Giustino felt rather sad, it seemed strange but they felt lost without Concettina in the house, it seemed strange because she had never taken any notice of anyone and always stayed shut up in her room mending her stockings or filing her nails or nibbling her pencil while she thought about Racine. And now it seemed as if Concettina no longer existed in any part of the world ; this woman who was going to have a baby, this woman who spat into a flowered chamber-pot did not seem to be the real Concettina at all. Concettina had now got rid of Racine for ever, but, to make up for it, she suffered from nausea and would have to bring into the world a dozen babies, all of them tiresome to wash and to put to sleep.

  Giuma told Anna that he and Danilo had been to a café together. He was all excited but did not want to show it. They had met on the road beside the river, and Danilo had come up and started talking to him. Anna had known for some time that this was bound to happen, because Danilo had told Emanuele several times that he wanted to get to know his brother and find out what he was like. Emanuele begged him not to bother about it, his brother was an impossible kind of person, an impossible person and that was that. But Danilo replied that it was a good thing to find out even what impossible people were like. Giuma told Anna that he and Danilo had talked and talked, and in the end they had gone to a little café on the outskirts of the town, where there was a gramophone with a horn which played old songs. He and Danilo had talked about all sorts of things, it had got dark and they didn’t notice it. They had even talked about Montale, Danilo had wanted to know all about Montale and Giuma had explained to him. On the way home they had also discussed politics a little : Giuma had spoken of his ideas, saying that Fascism would gradually fizzle out of its own accord. Danilo had invited him to come and see him one evening, seeing that they had had such an interesting conversation. Anna was sad, she wanted to tell him about her visit to Concettina and about the things Giustino had said to her on the way home, she wanted to ask if it was true that she was not at all attractive and that she would never get married. But it was impossible for her to say anything, Giuma went on and on talking about Danilo and Danilo and Danilo, he did not even think of kissing her.

  Giuma went to see Danilo every evening for a week. During that week he did nothing but talk of Danilo and Danilo and Danilo, even Danilo’s wife no longer seemed to him so pinched-looking, her hair had got into that state because she went to cheap hairdressers, if she had had the money to put herself in order and to dress herself she would have been rather attractive. During that time they kissed very seldom, Giuma had too much to say, he was continually pressing the spring of the black shell to see if it was getting near the time to go to Danilo’s, he had given Mammina to understand that he was going to a friend’s house to study. Danilo and his wife were of the opinion that he read poetry very well. Then things between him and Danilo began to go not so well, Anna was immediately aware of it, he began saying that there was a bad smell in Danilo’s room, and then, that set of bottles and glasses displayed on the chest-of-drawers, that set of bottles and glasses was a wonder, it was the most provincial thing you could imagine. Danilo wanted to draw him into politics but he wasn’t having any, he wasn’t a clumsy fool like Emanuele, he didn’t want to run idiotic risks. At first they had read Montale but then Danilo had asked him whether he knew about Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, yes, he knew about it, but he had told Danilo clearly that he didn’t want to hear any mention of things like that. Later on he would have to be a director of the soap factory, and Emanuele also would have to be a director, and so they could not possibly be on the side of Karl Marx, they were the owners of a factory and they could not be on the side of those who wished to hand over the factories to the workers. It was perfectly clear and if Emanuele did not understand it he was a complete idiot, if he let his head be turned by Danilo and read Karl Marx. Anna said that perhaps it was not right that they two should possess a soap factory and other people nothing, not even enough to clothe and feed themselves. Giuma got very angry and said it was perfectly right, it was right because his father had built up the soap factory out of nothing at all, before that it had been just a ridiculous kind of shanty and his father had worked all his life to turn it into something big and important. In any case justice is not of this earth, said Giuma, justice is of the kingdom of heaven. And he said that he as a child had believed in the kingdom of heaven, but now he had ceased to believe in it, now it was a thing that only babies believed in. Then Anna asked where justice could be found, if the kingdom of heaven, where it could have been found, did not exist. Giuma said it certainly was a pity not to be able to find it anywhere. However he did not believe in the justice of Karl Marx. And he did not want to go to Danilo’s again, he did not want ever to smell the smell of that room again, he smelt it upon himself, in his clothes, he had them kept out in the air all night long but the smell did not go away. Anna suddenly remembered what Cenzo Rena had said about the peasants in the South, that they ate nothing but beans, and she said that all the same something ought to be done about the peasants in the South. But Giuma told her not to think now about the peasants in the South, he drew her into a quiet corner of the public gardens and they stayed there kissing for a while. Then Giuma wanted to go back to the café where he had been with Danilo, a café on the other side of the river, smoky and dark, Giuma said it was like certain cafés in Paris, if you hid yourself away in there with that old gramophone with a horn and those old prints on the walls you could really believe you were in a café on the Seine.

  At home Anna found Danilo, He was telling how he had lost patience, the evening before, with Giuma, because of all the nonsense he talked about justice and about Marx. Danilo had been partly laughing and partly angry, and finally he had lost patience and sent him away. For several evenings he had been patient, out of kindness he had tried to make him talk about one thing and another and gradually Giuma had thawed, he read Montale’s poems and they never managed to send him to sleep. But the nonsense he had talked about Marx ! Danilo had been unable to keep calm, all of a sudden he had thrown his hat and coat at him and had told him never to show his face there again if he was going to talk like that. Emanuele was rather mortified, he told Danilo he had warned him that it was useless to waste his time with Giuma, everyone knew what sort of a person Giuma was, after all he was only seventeen and Mammina had spoilt him terribly, and then he had been at that school in Switzerland, a school for rich, spoilt little boys, in any case Switzerland was a country that ought to be consigned to the flames. What a mania Danilo had for wasting his time with everybody, what a mania he had for knowing what everybody was like inside. And Danilo said that this was politics too, to try and find out what people were like inside, to find out the thoughts and reasonings of a boy of about seventeen, coming of a bourgeois family, spoilt, educated in Switzerland. But Ippolito then said that Danilo was not acting rightly, because he set himself the abstract proposition of finding out what people were like inside, and in each one he saw a political problem, and he had an inquisitorial, offensive way of asking questions. And perhaps without meaning to he had done Giuma harm, perhaps he had wounded him deeply, inviting him to his house in a way that was perhaps human and friendly and then suddenly starting to question him in that inquisitorial, offensive way, that cruel way, Danilo did not know it but at times he could be very cruel. Danilo asked him why he himself did not try and discuss things with Giuma, it was an interesting experiment. Ippolito answered that he did not make experiments, he despised everything that was in the nature of mere experiment, all of a sudden he seemed very angry, the had become pale and breathless. He did not make experiments, he left people alone and was indifferent to them, but Danilo who loved to have disciples must learn to control his temper, you don’t invite a boy to your house to have confidential talks and discussions and t
hen laugh in his face and throw him out. Danilo compressed his lips and tapped gently with a pencil on the table, from time to time he raised his eyes and fixed Ippolito with a cold, attentive stare, Emanuele limped restlessly up and down. But in the meantime Giustino had come in and was asking why they never tried to study him to find out what he was like, he also was seventeen and came of a bourgeois family and why didn’t anyone ever think of studying him ? Then they all burst out laughing together and Danilo put the pencil in his pocket and said he was going home to bed, there had been so many evenings when he and his wife had sat up till the small hours reading Montale with Giuma.

  11

  Anna told Giuma nothing of what she had heard. She was careful to say nothing to him that might displease or provoke him. She pretended to believe all he said to her, she pretended to believe it was because of the smell that he had given up going to see Danilo. She pretended to believe that he did not like the company of his school-fellows because they did not wash properly and were silly, she pretended not to know that they turned their backs on him when he approached. She felt cowardly in relation to Giuma, she had a great fear that he might suddenly get tired of being with her and of kissing her, if she contradicted him over something and they started quarrelling. So she tried never to contradict him and never to quarrel. They no longer talked about justice, they no longer talked about the revolution. But Anna still thought about the revolution when she was alone in her room, she saw a Giuma who had suddenly become different, who mounted the barricades with her and fired shots and sang. These were thoughts that she allowed to grow in secret within her, every day she added a new adventure, the flight of herself and Giuma with guns over the roofs, Fascists whom Danilo and Ippolito had not succeeded in capturing and whom she and Giuma led in chains in front of the people’s tribunal. And she and Giuma, after the barricades, would get married, and they would give the soap factory to the poor. While she was with Giuma these thoughts would dissolve in smoke, she would be deeply ashamed of them and it would seem to her that she would never think them again, but she always thought them again when she got back home and shut herself up in her room, as soon as she sat down at the little table in her room these thoughts blossomed joyous and arrogant inside her.