The Skin

by Curzio Malaparte

  In Naples, as I walked handcuffed between the carabinieri along Via Partenope, two ladies smilingly approached me. They were Benedetto Croce's wife and Minnie Casella, the wife of my dear friend Gaspare Casella. They greeted me in the motherly, kindly fashion that is characteristic of Italian women, thrusting flowers between the handcuffs and my wrists, and Signora Croce asked the carabinieri to take me to some place where I might get a drink and some refreshment. It was two days since I had eaten. "At least let him walk in the shade," said Signora Croce. It was June, and the sun beat down on one's head like a hammer. "Thank you, I don't need anything," I said. "I only ask you to give my dog something to drink."

  Febo had stopped a few yards from us and was looking into Signora Croce's eyes with an intensity that was almost painful. This was his first experience of the human kindness, the pity and the consideration of women. He sniffed the water for a long time before drinking it. When, a few months' later, I was transferred to Lucca, I was shut up in the prison, where I remained for many weeks. And when I came out, escorted by my guards, to my new place of banishment, Febo was waiting for me outside the door of the gaol. He was thin and mud-stained, and there was a horribly gentle expression in his eyes, which shone brilliantly.

  Two more years my exile lasted, and for two years we lived in a little house in the heart of a wood. One room was occupied by Febo and myself, the other by the carabinieri who were my warders. At last I regained my freedom, or what in those days passed for freedom, and to me it was like going from a room without windows into a narrow room without walls. We went to live in Rome; and Febo was sad—he seemed to be humiliated by the spectacle of my freedom. He knew that freedom is alien to humanity, that men cannot and perhaps do not know how to be free, and that in Italy and in Europe freedom is discredited no less than slavery.

  * * * *

  Throughout our stay in Pisa we used to remain indoors nearly all day. Not until noon or thereabouts did we go out for our walk by the river, the fair river of Pisa, the silver Arno, strolling along the beautiful Lungarni, so light and cold. Then we would go to the Piazza dei Miracoli, where stands the leaning tower for which Pisa is world-famous. We used to climb the tower, and from the top look out over the Pisan plain as far as Leghorn and Massa, gazing at the pine forests, and the sea below, the shining lid of the sea, and the Apuan Alps, white with snow and marble. This was my own soil, my own Tuscan soil, here were my own woods and my own sea, here were my own mountains and fields and rivers.

  Towards evening we would go and sit on the parapet overlooking the Arno (that narrow stone parapet along which Lord Byron, in the days when he was an exile in Pisa, used to gallop every morning on his beautiful alezan, amid the terrified shouts of the peaceful citizens). We used to watch the river as it flowed along, carrying with it in its bright career leaves blighted by the frosts of winter and mirroring the silver clouds that drift across the immemorial sky of Pisa.

  Febo used to spend long hours curled up at my feet, and every so often he would get up, walk over to the door, and turn and look at me. I would go and open the door for him, and he would go out, coming back after an hour or two, breathless, his coat smoothed by the wind, his eyes bright from the cold winter sunshine. At night he used to lift his head and listen to the voice of the river, to the voice of the rain beating down on the river; and sometimes I would wake up, and feel his warm eyes resting gently upon me, feel his vital, affectionate presence there in the dark room, and his sadness, his desolate foreboding of death.

  One day he went out and never came back. I waited for him until evening, and when night fell rushed through the streets, calling him by name. I returned home at dead of night and threw myself on my bed, facing the half-open door. Every so often I went to the window and called him again and again in a loud voice At daybreak I again rushed through the deserted streets, between the silent facades of the houses which, under the leaden sky, looked as though they were made of dirty paper.

  As soon as it was daylight I rushed to the municipal dog-prison. I went into a grey room where I found a number of whining dogs, shut up in stinking cages, their throats still bearing the marks of the noose. The caretaker told me that my dog might have been run over by a car, or stolen, or thrown into the river by a gang of young hooligans. He advised me to go the round of the dog-shops: who could say that Febo was not in some dog-shop?

  All the morning I rushed about from one dog-shop to another, and at last a canine barber in a dirty little shop near the Piazza dei Cavalieri asked me if I had been to the University Veterinary Clinic, to which dog-thieves were in the habit of selling cheaply the animals that were subsequently used for clinical experiments. I rushed to the University, but it was already past midday and the Veterinary Clinic was closed. I returned home. I felt as if there were something cold, hard and smooth in my eye-sockets: my eyes seemed to be made of glass.

  In the afternoon I returned to the University and went into the Veterinary Clinic. My heart was thumping, I was so weak and in such an agony of mind that I could hardly walk. I asked for the doctor on duty and told him my name. The doctor, a fair-haired, short-sighted young man with a tired smile received me courteously and gazed at me for a long time before replying that he would do everything possible to help me.

  He opened a door and we entered a large, clean, bright room, the floor of which was covered with blue linoleum. Along the walls, one beside the other, like beds in a children's clinic, were rows of strange cradles, shaped like 'cellos. In each of the cradles was a dog, lying on its back, with its stomach exposed, or its skull split, or its chest gaping open.

  The edges of those dreadful wounds were held apart by thin steel wires, wound round wooden pegs of the kind that in musical instruments serves to keep the strings taut. One could see the naked heart beating; the lungs, with the veins of the bronchial tubes looking like the branches of a tree, swelling exactly as the foliage of a tree does when the wind blows; the red, shining liver very slowly contracting; slight tremors running through the pink and white substance of the brain as in a steamy mirror; the coils of the intestines sluggishly disentangling themselves like a heap of snakes waking from their deep slumber. And not a moan came from the half-open mouths of the tortured dogs.

  As we entered all the dogs turned their eyes upon us. They gazed at us imploringly, and at the same time their expressions were full of a dread foreboding. They followed our every gesture with their eyes, watching us with trembling lips. Standing motionless in the middle of the room, I felt a chill spreading through my limbs; little by little I became as if turned to stone. I could not open my lips, I could not move a step. The doctor laid his hand on my arm. "Courage," he said. The word dispelled the chill that was in my bones; slowly I moved, and bent over the first cradle. As I proceeded from cradle to cradle the colour returned to my face, and my heart dared to hope. And suddenly I saw Febo.

  He was lying on his back, his stomach exposed and a sound buried in his liver. He was staring at me; his eyes were full of tears, and they had in them a wonderful tenderness. He was breathing gently, his mouth half-open, and his body was trembling horribly. He was staring at me, and an agonizing pain stabbed my heart. "Febo," I said in a low voice; and Febo looked at me with a wonderfully tender expression. In him I saw Christ, in him I saw Christ crucified, I saw Christ looking at me with eyes that were full of a wonderful tenderness. "Febo," I said in a low voice, bending over him and stroking his forehead. Febo kissed my hand, and not a moan escaped him.

  The doctor came up to me and touched my arm. "I can't interrupt the experiment," he said. "It's not allowed. But for your sake . . . I'll give him an injection. He won't suffer."

  I took the doctor's hand in mine. "Swear to me that he won't suffer," I said, while the tears rolled down my cheeks.

  "He'll fall asleep for ever," said the doctor. "I would like my death to be as peaceful as his."

  I said: "I'll close my eyes. I don't want to see him die. But be quick—be quick!"

  "It will
only take a moment," said the doctor, and he moved noiselessly away, gliding over the soft carpet of linoleum. He went to the end of the room and opened a cupboard.

  I remained standing before Febo. I was trembling horribly, the tears were running down my face. Febo was staring at me, and not the faintest moan escaped him. He was staring at me with a wonderfully tender expression. The other dogs, lying on their backs in their cradles, were also staring at me. They all had a wonderfully tender expression in their eyes, and not the faintest moan escaped them.

  Suddenly I uttered a cry of terror. "Why this silence?" I shouted. "What does this silence mean?"

  It was a horrible silence—a vast, chilling, deathly silence, the silence of snow.

  The doctor approached me with a syringe in his hand. "Before we operate on them," he said, "we cut their vocal cords."

  * * * *

  I awoke, dripping with sweat. I went to the window and looked at the houses, the sea, the sky above the hill of Posillipo, the island of Capri drifting on the horizon in the pink haze of dawn. I had recognized the voice—the black voice—of the wind. I dressed hastily, sat down on the edge of the bed, and waited. I knew that I was waiting for something sad and painful to happen: some sad and painful experience was coming to me, and I could not prevent it.

  At about six o'clock a jeep stopped under my window, and I heard a knock at the door. It was Lieutenant Campbell, of the P.B.S. During the night a telephone message had arrived from General Headquarters at Caserta instructing me to go and join Colonel Jack Hamilton outside Cassino. It was already late, and we had to start at once. I threw my haversack across my shoulder, put my arm through the sling of my tommy-gun, and leapt into the jeep.

  Campbell was a tall, fair-haired young man; he had blue eyes, flecked with white. I had accompanied him to the front on various occasions, and liked him for his smiling nonchalance and his noble bearing in the hour of danger. He was a sad boy, a native of Wisconsin, and perhaps he already knew that he would never return home, that he would be killed by a mine a few months later on the road between Bologna and Milan, two days before the end of the war. He talked little, he was shy, and he blushed when he spoke.

  Immediately after crossing the bridge at Capua we met the first convoys of wounded. These were the days of the futile, bloody assaults on the German defences at Cassino. Presently we entered the battle-zone. Heavy missiles were falling on Via Casilina, and the din was terrific. At the check-point two miles from the outskirts of Cassino a sergeant in the Military Police stopped us and made us shelter under an embankment while we waited for the storm of shells to subside.

  But time was passing, and it was getting late. In order to reach the artillery observation-post where Colonel Jack Hamilton was awaiting us we decided to leave Via Casilina and drive through the fields, where the hail of missiles was less concentrated. "Good luck!" said the M.P. sergeant.

  Campbell drove the jeep into the ditch and climbed the embankment at the side of the road. He then began to crawl up a stony slope, through the vast olive-plantation which sprawls among the barren knolls on the far side of the hills that face Cassino. Several other jeeps had passed that way before us, and the impressions of their wheels on the ground were still fresh. In some places, where the soil was of clay, the wheels of our jeep revolved furiously and ineffectually, and we had to thread our way very slowly between the large boulders that blocked our ascent.

  Suddenly, ahead of us, in a hollow between two bare ridges, we saw a fountain of earth and stones shoot into the air, and the dull crump of an explosion reverberated from hill to hill. "A mine," said Campbell, who was trying to follow the wheel-tracks so as to avoid the danger of mines, which were very numerous in that area. Presently we heard voices and groans, and through the olive trees, a hundred yards ahead, we distinguished a group of men gathered round an overturned jeep. Another jeep stood a little way away, its front wheels smashed by the blast from the mine.

  Two wounded American soldiers were sitting on the grass, while others were attending to a man who was lying face upwards on the ground. The soldiers looked contemptuously at my uniform, and one of them, a sergeant, said to Campbell: "What the hell's he doing here, this bastard?"

  "A.F.H.Q.," answered Campbell. "Italian liaison officer."

  "Get out," said the sergeant, turning brusquely in my direction. "Make room for the wounded man."

  "What's the matter with him?" I asked, jumping out of the jeep.

  "He's wounded in the stomach. He must be taken to hospital at once."

  "Let me see him," I said.

  "Are you a doctor?"

  "No, I'm not a doctor," I said, and I bent over the wounded man.

  He was a fair-haired, slim young man, almost a lad, with a boyish face. There was an enormous hole in his stomach, and from it protruded his intestines; they were slowly oozing down his legs and coiling themselves into a big bluish heap between his knees.

  "Give me a blanket," I said.

  A soldier brought me a blanket, and I spread it over the wounded man's stomach. Then I took the sergeant aside and told him that the wounded man could not be removed, that it was better not to touch him but to leave him where he was, and meanwhile to send Campbell in the jeep to fetch a doctor.

  "I was in the other war," I said. "I've seen dozens and dozens of wounds like this, and there's nothing one can do. They are mortal wounds. Our only concern must be not to let him suffer. If we take him to hospital he will die on the way in frightful agony. It's better to let him die where he is, without suffering. There's nothing else we can do."

  The soldiers had gathered round us and were gazing at me in silence.

  Campbell said: "The Captain is right. I'll go to Capua to fetch a doctor, and I'll take the two walking cases with me."

  "We can't leave him here," said the sergeant. "They may be able to operate on him at the hospital. We can do nothing for him here. It's a crime to let him die."

  "He'll suffer frightful agony, and he'll die before he reaches hospital," I said. "Do as I say—let him stay where he is and don't touch him."

  "You aren't a doctor," said the sergeant.

  "I'm not a doctor," I said, "but I know what the trouble is. I've seen dozens and dozens of soldiers with stomach-wounds. I know that they mustn't be touched and that they can't be removed. Let him die in peace. Why do you want to make him suffer?"

  The soldiers stared at me and were silent. The sergeant said: "We can't let him die like that—like a beast."

  "He won't die like a beast," I said. "He'll fall asleep like a child, painlessly. Why do you want to make him suffer? He'll die just the same, even if he reaches the hospital alive. Have confidence in me —let him stay where he is, don't make him suffer. The doctor will come, and he'll say that I was right."

  "Let's go," said Campbell, turning to the wounded men.

  "Wait a moment, Lieutenant," said the sergeant. "You're an American officer, it's up to you to decide. In any case you are a witness that if the boy dies it won't be our fault. It'll be the fault of this Italian officer."

  "I don't think it'll be his fault," said Campbell. "I'm not a doctor, I don't know anything about wounds, but I know this Italian Captain and I know he's an excellent fellow. How can it be to his advantage to advise us not to take this poor boy to hospital? If he advises us to leave him here I consider that we should have confidence in him and follow his advice. He isn't a doctor, but he has more experience of war and wounds than we have." And turning to me he added: "Are you prepared to accept the responsibility for not having this poor boy taken to hospital?"

  "Yes," I answered, "I assume the entire responsibility for not having him removed to hospital. Since he has to die, it's better that he should die without suffering."

  "That's all," said Campbell. "And now let's go."

  The two walking cases leapt into Campbell's jeep, which set off down the stony slope and very soon disappeared among the olive trees.

  The sergeant gazed at me in silence for so
me moments, his eyes half-closed. Then he said: "And now? What do we have to do?"

  "We must amuse that poor boy—entertain him, tell him some stories, leave him no time to reflect that he's mortally wounded or to realize that he's dying."

  "Tell him some stories?" said the sergeant.

  "Yes, tell him some funny stories, keep him happy. If you leave him time to reflect he'll realize that he's mortally wounded and he'll feel bad, he'll suffer."

  "I don't like play-acting," said the sergeant. "We aren't Italian bastards, we aren't comedians. If you want to act the buffoon, go ahead. But if Fred dies, you'll answer for it to me."

  "Why do you insult me?" I said. "It isn't my fault if I'm not a thoroughbred like all Americans ... or like all Germans. I've already told you the poor boy will die—but he won't suffer. I'll be responsible to you for his sufferings, but not for his death."

  "O.K.," said the sergeant. And turning to the others, who had listened to me in silence with their eyes glued upon me, he added. "You are all witnesses. This dirty Italian maintains . . ."

  "Shut up!" I cried. "That's enough of these stupid insults! Have you come to Europe to insult us or to fight the Germans?"

  "Instead of that poor American boy," said the sergeant, half-closing his eyes and clenching his fists, "it ought to be one of you. Why don't you chase the Germans out by yourselves?"

  "Why didn't you stay at home? No one asked you to come. You ought to have let us fight it out with the Germans ourselves."

  "Take it easy," said the sergeant with an unpleasant laugh. "You Europeans are no good, the only thing you're good for is to die of hunger."

  All the others began to laugh, and they looked at me.

  "We certainly aren't well enough to be heroes like you," I said. "But I'm here with you, I'm running the same risks as you. Why do you insult me?"