The Skin

by Curzio Malaparte

  I averted my face and contemplated that strange rustic carnival, that miniature Watteau painted by Goya. It was a lively, exquisite scene, with the wounded man lying on the ground, the negro leaning against the trunk of an olive tree playing the mouth-organ, the ragged, pale, thin girls in the arms of the handsome pink-faced American soldiers, in the silver olive-grove; and all around the bare hills, whose green grass was strewn with red stones, and, above, the grey, immemorial sky, ribbed with narrow blue streaks, a sky that was flabby and puckered like the skin of an old woman. And little by little I felt the hand of the dying man turning cold in mine; little by little I felt it going limp.

  Then I raised my arm and gave a shout. They all stopped dancing and looked at me, then approached and bent over the wounded man. Fred lay inert on his back; he had closed his eyes, and a white mask covered his face.

  "He is dying," said the sergeant in a low voice.

  "He is sleeping. He has fallen asleep without suffering," I said, stroking the dead boy's brow.

  "Don't touch him!" cried the sergeant, seizing my arm and roughly pulling me back.

  "He's dead," I said in a low voice. "Don't shout."

  "It's your fault if he's dead!" cried the sergeant. "It was you who let him die, you killed him! It's your fault that he's died in the mud, like a beast. You bastard!" And he struck me in the face with his first.

  "You bastard!" cried the others, closing upon me menacingly.

  "He died without suffering," I said. "He died without realizing that he was dying."

  "Shut up, you son of a bitch!" cried the sergeant, hitting me in the face.

  I fell to my knees, and a stream of blood spurted from my mouth. They all threw themselves upon me, punching and kicking me. I let them knock me about without defending myself, I did not cry out, I did not utter a word. Fred had died without suffering. I would have given my life to help that poor boy to die a painless death. I had fallen to my knees, and they were all punching and kicking me. And I was thinking that Fred had died without suffering.

  Suddenly we heard the sound of a car and a screeching of brakes.

  "What's happening?" shouted the voice of Campbell. -

  They all retreated from me and were silent. I remained on my knees beside the dead man, my face streaming with blood, and said nothing.

  "What has this man done?" said Captain Schwarz, a doctor from the American hospital at Caserta, coming up to us.

  "It's this Italian bastard," said the sergeant, looking at me with hatred in his eyes, while the tears rolled down his face. "It's this dirty Italian who let him die. He didn't want us to take him to hospital. He let him die like a dog."

  I rose with difficulty and remained standing in silence.

  "Why did you stop them taking him to hospital?" said Schwartz. He was a small, pale man, with dark eyes.

  "He would have died just the same," I said. "He would have died on the way in the most terrible agony. I didn't want him to suffer. He was wounded in the stomach. He died without suffering. He didn't even realize he was dying. He died like a child."

  Schwarz gazed at me in silence, then went over to the dead man, lifted the blanket and took a long look at the fearful wound. He let the blanket fall, turned to me and silently gripped my hand.

  "Thank you for his mother's sake," he said.

  CHAPTER VI - GENERAL CORK'S BANQUET

  "EXANTHEMATOUS typhus," said General Cork, "is becoming disturbingly prevalent in Naples. Unless the violence of the outbreak diminishes I shall be forced to ban the city to American troops."

  "Why worry so much?" I said. "It's obvious that you don't know Naples."

  "It's possible that I don't know Naples," said General Cork, "but my medical service is familiar with the bug that spread exanthematous typhus."

  "It isn't an Italian bug," I said.

  "It isn't American either," said General Cork. "As a matter of fact it's a Russian bug. It was brought to Naples by Italian soldiers returning from Russia."

  "In a few days," I said, "there won't be a single Russian bug left in Naples."

  "I hope not," said General Cork.

  "I'm sure you don't think the bugs of Naples, the bugs of the alleys of Forcella and Pallonetto, will let themselves be fooled by those three or four miserable Russian bugs."

  "Please don't talk like that about Russian bugs," said General Cork.

  "My words carried no political implication," I said. "What I meant was that the Neapolitan bugs will swallow those poor Russian bugs alive, and exanthematous typhus will disappear. You'll see. I know Naples."

  All the guests began to laugh, and Colonel Eliot said: "We shall all end up like the Russian bugs if we stay in Europe for long."

  A decorous laugh rippled down the table.

  "Why?" said General Cork. "Everyone in Europe likes the Americans."

  "Yes, but they don't like Russian bugs," said Colonel Eliot.

  "I don't get your meaning," said General Cork. "We aren't Russians, we're Americans."

  "Of course we are Americans, thank God!" said Colonel Eliot. "But once the European bugs have eaten the Russian bugs they'll eat us."

  "What?" exclaimed Mrs. Flat.

  "But we aren't . . . hm ... I mean ... we aren't . . ." said General Cork, pretending to cough into his table-napkin.

  "Of course we aren't ... hm ... I mean ... of course we aren't bugs," said Colonel Eliot, blushing and looking around him with a triumphant air.

  They all burst out laughing and, goodness knows why, looked at me. I felt more like a bug than I had ever felt in my life. General Cork turned to me with a gracious smile. "I like Italians," he said, "but . . ."

  General Cork was a real gentleman—a real American gentleman, I mean. He had the naivety, the artlessness and the moral transparency that make American gentlemen so lovable and so humam He was not a cultivated man, he did not possess that humanistic culture which gives such a noble and poetic tone to the manners of European gentlemen, but he was a "man," he had that human quality which European men lack: he knew how to blush. He had a most refined sense of decorum, and a precise and virile awareness of his own limitations. Like all good Americans, he was convinced that America was the leading nation of the world, and that the Americans were the most civilized and the most honourable people on earth; and naturally he despised Europe. But he did not despise the conquered peoples merely because they were conquered peoples.

  Once I had recited to him that verse from the Agamemnon of Aeschylus which runs, "If conquerors respect the temples and the Gods of the conquered, they shall be saved"; and he had looked at me for a moment in silence. Then he had asked me which Gods the Americans would have to respect in Europe if they were to be saved.

  "Our hunger, our misery, and our humiliation," I had replied.

  General Cork had offered me a cigarette, had lit it for me, and had then said to me with a smile: "There are other Gods in Europe, and I appreciate why you haven't mentioned them."

  "What are they?" I asked.

  "Your crimes, your resentments—and I am sorry I cannot also say your pride."

  "We have no pride left, in Europe," I said.

  "I know," said General Cork, "and it's a great pity."

  He was a serene, just man. His appearance was youthful. Although he was now past fifty years of age he did not look more than forty. Tall, slender, active, muscular, with broad shoulders and narrow hips, he had long legs and arms and slim white hands. He had a thin, pink face, and his aquiline nose, which was perhaps too large by comparison with his childishly small and narrow mouth, afforded a contrast to the youthful softness of his blue eyes. I liked talking to him, and he seemed to have for me not only sympathy but respect. He was certainly dimly aware of what I, from a sense of decorum, sought to hide from him—that to me he was not a conqueror, but simply "another man."

  "I like Italians," said General Cork, "but . . ."

  "But . . .?" I said.

  "The Italians are a simple, good-natured, warm-hear
ted people —especially the Neapolitans. But I hope all Europe isn't like Naples."

  "All Europe is like Naples," I said.

  "Why Naples?" exclaimed General Cork with profound astonishment.

  "When Naples was one of the most illustrious capitals in Europe, one of the greatest cities in the world, it contained a bit of everything. It contained a bit of London, a bit of Paris, a bit of Madrid, a bit of Vienna—it was a microcosm of Europe. Now that it is in its decline nothing is left in it but Naples. What do you expect to find in London, Paris, Vienna? You will find Naples. It is the fate of Europe to become Naples. If you stay in Europe for a bit you will become Neapolitans yourselves."

  "Good Gosh!" exclaimed General Cork, turning pale.

  "Europe is a bastard continent," said Colonel Brand.

  "The thing I don't understand," said Colonel Eliot, "is what we have come to Europe to do. Did you really need our help to drive out the Germans? Why didn't you drive them out by yourselves?"

  "Why should we put ourselves to so much trouble," I said, "when you ask nothing better than to come to Europe to fight on our behalf?"

  "What? What?" cried all the guests in unison.

  "And if you go on at this rate," I said, "you'll end up by becoming the mercenaries of Europe."

  "Mercenaries are paid," said Mrs. Flat severely. "How will you pay us?"

  "We shall offer you our women in payment," I answered.

  They all laughed. Then they became silent, and looked at me with embarrassed expressions.

  "You're a cynic," said Mrs. Flat, "an impudent cynic."

  "It must be very unpleasant for you to have to say that," said General Cork.

  "Undoubtedly," I said, "there are some things which a European finds it distressing to say. But why should we lie among ourselves?"

  "The strange thing," said General Cork, as if apologizing for me, "is that you are not a cynic. You are the first to feel the sting of your own words. But you like hurting youself."

  "Why are you surprised?" I said. "It's always been so, unfortunately. The wives and daughters of the conquered always go to bed with the conquerors. The same thing would have happened in America if you had lost the war."

  "Never!" exclaimed Mrs. Flat, flushing with indignation.

  "It's possible," said Colonel Eliot. "But I like to think that our women would have behaved otherwise. There must be a certain difference between us and the peoples of Europe, and in particular between us and the Latin peoples."

  "The difference," I said, "is this—that the Americans buy their enemies, and we sell ours."

  They all looked at me in amazement.

  "What a funny idea!" said General Cork.

  "I have a suspicion," said Major Morris, "that the peoples of Europe have already begun to sell us so as to get even with us for having bought them."

  "You're dead right," I said. "Do you remember what was said of Talleyrand—that he had sold all those who had bought him? Talleyrand was a great European."

  "Talleyrand? Who was he?" asked Colonel Eliot.

  "He was a great bastard," said General Cork.

  "He despised heroes," I said. "He knew from experience that in Europe it's easier to act the hero than the coward, that any excuse is good enough for acting the hero, and that fundamentally political life is nothing more or less than a school for heroes. The raw material is certainly not lacking: the best, the most fashionable heroes are swine. Many of the heroes of today who shout 'Long Live America!' or 'Long live Russia!' were also the heroes of yesterday who shouted 'Long live Germany!' The whole of Europe is like that. The real sahibs are those who don't profess to be either heroes or cowards, who didn't shout 'Long live Germany!' yesterday and who don't shout 'Long live America!' or 'Long live Russia!' today. If you want to understand Europe, never forget that the real heroes are dying, the real heroes are dead. Those who are alive . . ."

  "Do you think there are many heroes in Europe today?" asked Colonel Eliot.

  "Millions," I replied.

  They all began to laugh, leaning right back in their seats.

  "Europe is a strange continent," said General Cork when his guests' laughter had subsided. "I began to understand Europe the very day we landed at Naples. The crush of people in the city's principal streets was such that our tanks couldn't get on with the job of chasing the Germans. The crowd strolled serenely down the middle of the streets, chatting and gesticulating as if nothing was the matter. It fell to me to arrange for the hurried printing of some large posters in which I politely asked the population of Naples to walk on the footpaths and leave the roadways clear, so that our tanks could get after the Germans."

  A burst of laughter greeted General Cork's words. There is not a nation in the world that knows how to laugh as heartily as the Americans. They laugh like children, like schoolboys on holiday. A German never laughs on his own account, but always on someone else's. When he is at table he laughs on his neighbour's account. He laughs just as he eats: he is always afraid that he will not eat enough, and he always eats on someone else's account. And in the same way he laughs as if he feared he would not laugh enough. But Germans always laugh either too soon or too late—never at the right moment. This gives their laughter that air of being ill-timed, or rather untimely, which is so characteristic of their every action and sentiment. I would say that a German always laughs on behalf of someone who did not laugh at the right moment, or someone who did not laugh before him, or someone who will not laugh after him. The English laugh as if only they knew how to laugh, as if they alone had the right to laugh. They laugh in the way all islanders laugh—only when they are quite certain they cannot be seen from the shores of any continent. If they suspect that from the falaises of Calais or Boulogne the French are watching them laugh, or are laughing at them, they at once assume a studied gravity of expression. The traditional English policy towards Europe consists entirely in making it impossible for those damned Europeans to watch them laugh, or to laugh at them, from the falaises of Calais or Boulogne. The Latin peoples laugh for the sake of laughing, because they like to laugh, because "laughter makes good blood," and because —suspicious, vain and proud as they are—they believe that since they always laugh at others and never at themselves, it follows that no one can laugh at them. They never laugh to please. Like the Americans, they laugh on their own account; yet, unlike that of the Americans, their laughter is never gratuitous. They always laugh for a reason. But the Americans—ah, the Americans—though they always laugh on their own account, often laugh for no reason, and sometimes more than necessary, even if they know that they have already laughed enough. And they are never concerned, especially at table, in the theatre or at the cinema, to know whether they are laughing for the same reason as their companions. They all laugh at the same time, whether there are twenty of them or a hundred thousand or ten million; but always each of them laughs on his own account. And what distinguishes them from every other nation on earth, the thing that reveals most clearly the spirit underlying their manners and customs, their social life and their civilization, is that they never laugh by themselves.

  But at this point the laughter of the guests was interrupted. The door opened, and in the entrance appeared a number of liveried waiters, each holding aloft with both hands an immense tray of solid silver.

  After the soup, which consisted of cream of carrots seasoned with vitamin D and disinfected with a two per cent solution of chlorine, came spam—the imitation pork that is the pride of Chicago. It lay in purple slices on a thick carpet of boiled maize. I recognized the waiters as Neapolitans, not so much by the blue livery with red revers of the house of the Duke of Toledo as by the mask-like expressions of horror and disgust that were imprinted on their faces. I have never seen faces in which contempt was written larger. It was the contempt—inscrutable, historic, deferential, serene—of the Neapolitan servant for the uncouth foreign master in his every shape and form. Peoples that have an ancient and noble tradition of servitude and hunger respe
ct only those masters who have refined tastes and lordly manners; there is nothing more humiliating to an enslaved people than a master with uncouth manners and coarse tastes. Of all their foreign masters the people of Naples remember with approval only the two Frenchmen, Robert of Anjou and Joachim Murat, the one because he could choose a wine and appraise a sauce, the other because he not only knew what an English saddle was, but could fall from a horse with supreme grace. What is the use of crossing the sea, invading a country, winning a war, and crowning one's brow with the victor's laurel, if afterwards one cannot comport oneself properly at table? What kind of heroes were these Americans, who ate maize in the manner of hens?

  Fried spam and boiled maize! The waiters supported the trays with their two hands; each averted his face as though he were serving up a Gorgon's head. The reddish violet hue of the spam, which frying had, as always, made rather dark in colour, like meat that has gone bad through exposure to the sun, and the pale yellow of the maize, which was covered with white streaks—maize is softened by the process of cooking, and becomes like the grain with which the crop of a drowned hen is sometimes found to be stuffed —were dimly reflected in the tall, clouded Murano mirrors, which alternated with ancient Sicilian tapestries on the walls of the hall.

  The furniture, the gilded picture-frames, the portraits of Spanish Grandees, the Triumph of Venus, depicted on the ceiling by Luca Giordano, the whole vast hall of the Duke of Toledo's palace, in which General Cork was that evening giving a dinner in honour of Mrs. Flat, General-in-Chief of the Waacs of the American Fifth Army, little by little became tinged with the lurid violet of the spam and the moonlight pallor of the maize. The ancient and glorious house of Toledo had never known so tragic a humiliation. This hall, which had witnessed the many "triumphs" of Aragon and Anjou, feasts in honour of Charles VIII of France and Ferrante of Aragon, the balls and love-pageants of the brilliant nobility of the Two Sicilies, gradually became suffused with a pale, auroral half-light.