by Dino Buzzati
“There, Liselore, don’t upset yourself,” said her husband. He was smiling, with closed eyes, and getting as much of a kick out of the situation as if it were a new kind of sporting attraction.
“And Donna Clara?” asked Cottes, feeling confused.
“Oh, the little cripple is never at a loss! . . . She’s thought of the best way out, even though it’s the most tiring. . . . Donna Clara is on the move. On the move, you understand? She walks up and down . . . a word here, and a word there, she’ll be all right however things go . . . uncommitted . . . unresting . . . uncommenting . . . a little bit here and a little bit there . . . to and fro . . . our incomparable Lady President!”
It was true. Clara Passalacqua had returned from escorting Grossgemuth to his hotel, and was still in command, dividing her attention impartially between the two groups. To do this she pretended not to know what the secret party was about, as if it were a private game of the guests. But this meant she could never stop, because stopping implied a definite choice. She came and went, trying to comfort the most dispirited of the women, provided more chairs and very shrewdly ordered a second abundant round of drinks. She hobbled around with trays and bottles, earning a personal success in both camps.
“Pss, pss . . . ,” one of the sentries posted behind the shutters called out suddenly, and pointed toward the piazza.
Six or seven people rushed to look. A dog, evidently a stray, came slinking along from the direction of Via Case Rotte, with its head down. It kept close to the wall, and disappeared down Via Manzoni.
“What do you think we’ve come to look at, a dog?”
“Er . . . I thought that behind the dog . . .”
The state of the besieged was becoming grotesque. Outside, the silent, empty streets had at least a semblance of peacefulness. Inside, on the other hand, there was a vision of total defeat: dozens of rich and highly respected, influential people were resignedly putting up with a humiliating situation for a danger that had still to be demonstrated.
Though people got more and more tired as the hours went on, and their limbs stiffer, the heads of a few grew clearer. If the Morzi had really opened attack, it was odd that not so much as a courier had arrived in Piazza della Scala. And it would be bitter folly to endure so much fear for nothing. So in the flickering candlelight the barrister Cosenz went up to a group which included the chief ladies, a glass of champagne in his right hand. In the past, he had been celebrated for his conquests, and some old ladies still considered him dangerous.
“May I have your attention, dear friends,” he announced in a persuasive tone of voice, “it may be that many of us present here this evening find ourselves, to use a euphemism, in a critical condition . . .” (here he paused). “But it is equally likely, nor do we know which of the two hypotheses will prove correct, that tomorrow evening the whole of Milan will shake with laughter at the thought of us. One moment. Don’t interrupt me, please. . . . Let us evaluate the facts calmly. What makes us think that the danger is so imminent? Let us enumerate the suspicious symptoms. First: the fact that by the third act the Morzi, the Prefect, the Chief of Police and representatives of the armed forced had all disappeared. I hope you will pardon the blasphemy, but what is there to prevent their having been bored by the music? Secondly: the rumors from various quarters that a revolt was about to break out. Thirdly, and this is the most alarming: the news which was reportedly brought, I repeat reportedly, by my much-respected colleague Frigerio: but he left immediately, and must in fact have put in a very brief appearance if hardly any of us saw him. It is not important: let us concede the point. Frigerio said that the Morzi had begun occupying the city, that the Prefecture had been surrounded, etc. . . . I put the question to you: Who can have given Frigerio this information at one o’clock at night? Is it likely he would have been told anything so confidential at such a late hour? And by whom? And for what motive? In the meantime, nothing of a suspicious nature has been observed in this locality, and it is now past three. There have been no noises of any kind. There is at least an element of doubt about the whole business.”
“And why has nobody managed to get information through the telephone?”
“True,” said Cosenz, swallowing another mouthful of champagne. “Fourth factor of concern is, as it were, the deafness of the telephone. Those who have tried to contact the Prefecture or the Police say they haven’t succeeded, or at any rate that they have been unable to get information. Yet what would you reply if you were an official, and an unknown or inadequately identified voice asked you for information about municipal matters at one o’clock at night? And this, let us note, during a phase of extreme political delicacy? It is also a fact that the papers have been reticent . . . those with friends on editorial staffs have been soliciting their opinion. One, Bertini by name, of the Corriere, answered me in these words: ‘So far we don’t know anything for sure.’ ‘And what does that mean?’ I asked. He answered: ‘It means we don’t know what’s going on.’ I insisted: ‘But are you worried about the situation?’ He answered: ‘I wouldn’t say so, at least so far.’”
He took a breath. They all heard him with an intense longing to be able to believe in his optimism. A confused mixture of human sweat and perfume was concentrated in the cigarette smoke. The sound of excited voices reached the door of the Museum.
“Summing up our telephonic information,” said Cosenz, “or rather the lack of it, I think there is no excessive cause for alarm. Probably the newspapers themselves know very little. This means that the dreaded revolution, if it exists, is still not clearly defined. Do you think that the Morzi would allow the Corriere della Sera to be printed if they were in control of the city?”
Two or three people laughed, amid general silence.
“That is not all. The fifth cause for alarm could be the secession of those over there,” and he pointed to the Museum. “Is it likely they would be foolish enough openly to compromise themselves without a mathematical certainty of Morzi success? But I have had second thoughts: supposing the revolt is abortive, assuming that it exists, there will be no lack of good reasons to justify that hole-in-a-corner plotting. Just think of the choice they have: adapting themselves to circumstances, for instance, the strategy of the double game, concern for the welfare of the Scala and so forth. Mark my words: those men, tomorrow . . .”
He hesitated a moment, and stopped, with his left arm raised in an uncompleted gesture. In that brief silence, from a distance that was difficult to assess, came the noise of an explosion which stunned the entire assembly.
“Dear God,” groaned Mariú Gabrielli, throwing herself on her knees. “My children!”
“They’ve begun!” shouted another woman hysterically.
“Be quiet, calm yourselves, nothing has happened! Don’t act like serving maids!” interposed Liselore Bini.
Then Maestro Cottes came forward. Distraught, with his coat thrown over his shoulders, and his hands grasping the lapels of his tailcoat, he stared fixedly at the barrister Cosenz, and solemnly announced, “I’m off.”
“Off where?” said several voices together, full of vague hopes.
“I’m going home. Where else should I be going? I can’t endure it any longer.” And he moved toward the exit. But he was swaying, as though he were quite drunk.
“Now? But no, wait, wait! It’ll be morning soon!” they shouted at his back. It was useless. Two of them showed him downstairs with candles, where a drowsy porter opened the door to him unprotestingly. “Phone,” was the last piece of advice. Cottes began walking, and did not answer.
Upstairs, they rushed to the windows, looking out from the slats in the shutters. What was going to happen? They saw the old man cross the tram tracks; with clumsy steps, almost stumbling, he aimed at the piazza’s central flower bed. He passed the first row of stationary cars and continued into the clear space beyond. All of a sudden he fell heavily forward, as if he had been given a push. But there was not another living soul to be seen in the piazza. There was
an audible thud. He stayed stretched out on the asphalt with his arms splayed, and his face down. At a distance he seemed like a huge squashed beetle.
The onlookers caught their breath. They were speechless and rigid with horror. Then a horrible female scream broke the silence: “They’ve murdered him!”
Not a movement in the piazza. Nobody came out of the stationary car to help the old man. The place seemed dead, weighed down by an immense incubus.
“They fired at him. I heard the shot,” somebody said.
“What nonsense, it was the noise of his fall.”
“I swear I heard a shot. An automatic pistol, I know them.”
Nobody contradicted him. They stayed as they were, some smoking from desperation, some forlornly on the floor, others riveted to the shutters, on the lookout. They felt destiny coming toward them in a concentric fashion, from the gates of the city.
Till at last a faint gleam of gray light fell on the sleeping buildings. A solitary cyclist went creaking by. There was a noise of distant trams. Then a little bent man came into the piazza, pushing a small cart. Very calmly, starting from the entrance to Via Marino, he began to sweep. Wonderful! A few strokes of the broom sufficed. Sweeping away the dirt and the wastepaper, he swept fear away too. Later came another cyclist, a workman on foot and a van. Little by little, Milan was waking up.
Nothing had happened. Roused by the street sweeper, Maestro Cottes breathlessly got himself onto his feet. He looked around in amazement, picked his coat up off the ground and tottered hastily in the direction of his house.
As dawn filtered through the shutters, an old flower woman noiselessly entered the foyer. An apparition! She seemed decked out for a first performance, for night had passed over her without touching her: she had a long black tulle dress draped to the ground, a black veil, black shadows around her eyes and a basket full of flowers. She passed through the midst of the liverish-looking assembly, and with a melancholy smile offered Liselore Bini a perfect gardenia.
Humility
A MONK NAMED CELESTINO BECAME A HERMIT AND went to live in the heart of the city where the human heart is loneliest and temptation strongest. For as powerful as is the impact of the eastern deserts with their stones, sand and sun, where even the most unimaginative man realizes his insignificance when face-to-face with creation and the abyss of eternity, even more powerful is the desert of the city with its crowds, vehicles, asphalt, electric light and clocks which all strike in the selfsame instant the selfsame condemnation.
Well, in the most desolate part of this arid land lived Father Celestino, spending most of his time in ecstatic adoration of the eternal, but as soon as it became known how enlightened he was, there came to him even from the most distant countries a confused throng of people to seek advice and make their confessions. At the back of a metal workshop he had found, goodness knows how, the remains of an antique truck whose cramped driving cab, minus, alas, plate glass, served as a confessional.
One evening when it was already dark, after he had spent long hours hearing numerous lists of sins, more or less genuine, Father Celestino was about to climb down from his perch when from the shadows a small figure approached in penitential attitude.
Only when the stranger was kneeling on the footboard did the hermit notice that he was a priest.
“What can I do for you, my little priest?” asked the hermit with gentle patience.
“I have come to confess,” replied the man, and without delay began to recite his sins.
Now, Celestino was accustomed to suffer the confidences of people, especially women, who came to confess in a kind of mania, boring him with detailed accounts of the most innocent actions. But never before had he come across a Christian so stripped of evil. The failings of which the little priest accused himself were simply ludicrous, so trivial, so feeble, so small. Nevertheless, from his knowledge of men, the hermit realized that the great sin was still to come and that the little priest was circling around it.
“Come, my son, it’s late and, to tell the truth, growing cold. Come to the point.”
“Father, I haven’t the courage,” stammered the little priest.
“Whatever have you done? On the whole you seem a good fellow. You haven’t killed anyone, I imagine. Have you been defiled by pride?”
“Even so,” said the other in a scarcely audible voice.
“A murderer?”
“No, the other.”
“You are proud? Impossible!”
Contrite, the priest nodded.
“Well, speak, explain, my good soul. Although in these days we make exaggerated demands on God’s mercy, it is without limit. The amount disposable and uninvested should be enough for you, I imagine.”
The other made up his mind at last.
“Well, Father, it’s very simple as well as serious. I have been a priest for a few days only. I have only just assumed my office in the parish assigned to me. Well . . .”
“Well, speak up, my son, speak up. I swear I won’t eat you.”
“Well, when I hear myself called ‘Your Reverence,’ what do you think? It will seem silly to you, but I experience a feeling of joy, of something which warms me through and through.”
Truly it was not a great sin, for the majority of faithful, including priests, the idea of confessing it would never have entered their minds. Therefore the anchorite, although an expert in the phenomenon known as man, was not expecting it, and at first did not know what to say (something which had never happened to him before).
“Hm . . . hm . . . I understand. It’s not a pretty thing. If it’s not the Devil himself who is warming you within . . . he’s not far off. But all this luckily you have understood yourself and your shame makes one seriously hope that you will not fall again. Ego te absolvo.”
Three or four years passed and Father Celestino had almost completely forgotten the incident when the anonymous priest returned to him to confess.
“But haven’t I seen you before, or am I mistaken?”
“You have.”
“Let me look at you. But yes, but yes, you are he, you who enjoyed hearing yourself called ‘Reverence.’ Or am I wrong?”
“That is so,” replied the priest, who seemed perhaps not such a little priest now through a kind of greater dignity in his expression. But for the rest he was as young-looking and thin as before. And he seemed to shine with an inward flame.
“Oh, oh,” diagnosed Celestino drily with a resigned smile. “In all this time, you have not been able to reform?”
“Worse than that.”
“You almost frighten me, my son, explain.”
“Well,” said the priest, making a tremendous effort to master himself, “it is much worse than before . . . I . . . I . . .”
“Out with it!” exhorted Celestino, seizing both his hands, “don’t keep me in suspense.”
“It happens that . . . there are some who call me ‘Monsignor.’ I . . . I . . .”
“It gratifies you, you mean?”
“Unhappily, yes.”
“A sensation of well-being, of warmth?”
“Exactly.”
But Father Celestino dispatched him with a few words. The first time the case had seemed quite interesting as a human singularity. But not now. Evidently, he thought, it’s a question of a poor fool, a holy man maybe, whom people take delight in teasing. Was it a case of withholding absolution? In a couple of minutes Father Celestino commended him to God.
Another ten years passed and the hermit was almost old when the little priest returned. He had grown old too, naturally, more dried up, paler and with gray hair. At first Father Celestino did not recognize him. But as soon as he began to speak, the tone of his voice reawakened his memory.
“Ah, you are he of the ‘Reverence’ and the ‘Monsignor’—or am I wrong?” asked Celestino with his disarming smile.
“You have a good memory, Father.”
“And how long ago was that?”
“About ten years.”
> “And after ten years . . . at what point have you arrived?”
“Worse, worse.”
“That is to say?”
“You see, Father, now, if someone happens to call me ‘Excellency,’ I . . .”
“Don’t say any more, my son,” said Celestino with his bomb-proof patience, “already I understand everything. Ego te absolvo.”
And meanwhile he was thinking, Unhappily over the years this poor priest is becoming more and more ingenuous and simple: and people amuse themselves more than ever by pulling his leg. And he falls for it and even enjoys it, poor beggar. In five or six years I wager I shall see him here again to confess that when they call him “Eminence,” etc., etc.
Which is precisely what happened. Except that it was a year earlier than he predicted.
There passed, with the terrifying swiftness that we all know, another large slice of time. And Father Celestino was now such a decrepit old man that they had to hoist him up to his confessional every morning and down again to his den when evening fell.
And now must we tell in full detail how the anonymous priest reappeared one day? And how he too had grown old, white-haired, bent and more dried up than ever. And how he was still tormented by the same remorse. No, of course it’s not necessary.
“My poor little priest,” the old anchorite greeted him lovingly, “you are still here with your old sin of pride?”
“You read my very soul, Father.”
“And now how do people flatter you? Now they call you ‘Your Holiness,’ I imagine?”
“Even so,” admitted the priest in a tone of the most bitter mortification.
“And every time they call you this, a sense of joy, of well-being, of life, pervades you, almost of happiness.”
“Unhappily yes, unhappily yes. Is God able to forgive me?”
Father Celestino smiled to himself. Such obstinate frankness seemed somehow moving. And in a flash his imagination reconstructed the obscure life of this poor little humble, not very intelligent, priest in a remote mountain parish among bucolic, insensitive or malignant people. And his monotonous days, one just like the other, the monotonous seasons and the monotonous years causing him to become more and more melancholy and his parishioners more and more cruel. “Monsignor,” “Excellency,” “Eminence” and now “Your Holiness.” There was no limit to their rustic jesting. Yet he was not angry with them, on the contrary, those great glittering words aroused in his heart a childish resonance of joy. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” were the hermit’s concluding thoughts. “Ego te absolvo.”