The Skin

by Curzio Malaparte

  "Don't be afraid—don't move!" our host kept shouting to the unhappy creatures, who had seized their children and, clasping them to their bosoms, were rushing towards the door in a panic. "Where do you think you're going? Stay here—don't be afraid!" Meanwhile the servants, who were standing in the doorways, raised their arms to halt and turn back that fear-crazed mob of women. But at that point a great commotion was heard in the ante-chamber, and a group of men appeared at the door, carrying in their arms a young girl who had apparently fainted.

  As the she-wolf, pursued by hunters and hounds, retreats with her wounded cub into the depths of the northern forests that are her home and, prompted by a maternal instinct that is stronger than fear seeks refuge in a woodman's cottage, scratching at the door and howling; and, showing the terrified man her bleeding offspring, implores him by voice and gesture to admit her and to grant her sanctuary in the warmth and security of his home: even so did those unhappy men seek refuge from death in the palace of the signore, standing in the doorway and showing him the blood-stained body of the young girl.

  "Let them come in, let them come in," said our host to the servants, waving away the crowd of women. And he himself helped to force a passage for the group of men, and led them into the hall, casting his eyes around for a place where they might lay the poor young woman.

  "Put her here," he said, clearing a space on the table with his arm, regardless of the glasses and jugs, which rolled on the floor.

  As soon as they laid her on the table the girl appeared devoid of life. She lay dead, one arm trailing at her side, the other resting lightly on her left breast, which had been crushed by the weight of a beam or a lump of stone. But her horrible death had not distorted her face nor imprinted on it that expression of mingled terror and wonder which is seen on the faces of corpses newly dug out of the ruins of buildings. Her eyes were soft, her brow serene, her lips smiling. Everything in that lifeless body seemed cold and limp save the expression and the smile which were warm and strangely alive. As it lay there on the table the corpse invested the scene with an air of brightness and calm; it transformed the hall and the people in it into a peaceful tableau, dominated by the sublime, naive indifference of nature.

  Our host had felt the girl's pulse, and he was silent. All around him gazed in silence at the face of the signore, awaiting not, indeed, his opinion but his decision, as though he alone had to decide, as though he alone could decide, if the girl was still alive or if she was already dead—as though it were on his decision alone that the fate of the unfortunate young woman depended. Such is the confidence which the common people of Naples repose in the "gentry," and so deeply ingrained is their age-old habit of relying on them in matters pertaining both to life and to death.

  "God has taken her," said our host at last; and as he uttered the words they all began to yell, tearing their hair, beating their faces and breasts with their clenched fists, and calling the dead girl's name aloud: "Concetti'! Concetti'!" And meanwhile two hideous old women fell upon the poor young girl and kept kissing and embracing her with savage frenzy, every so often shaking her as if to rouse her, and crying: "Wake up, Concetti'! Oh, wake up, Concetti'!" The two old women sounded so furiously reproachful, so frenziedly despairing, so menacing, that I expected to see them strike the dead girl.

  "Take her into the next room," said our host to the servants; and they, forcibly pulling the two old women away from the body of the unfortunate girl, and repelling the others with a violence that would have aroused my indignation had it not been inspired by pity, gently lifted the poor dead girl and carried her with extraordinary gentleness into the dining-hall, where they laid her on the old Sicilian lace cloth which covered the vast table.

  The young woman was almost naked, like a corpse that has been dug out of the ruins after an air-raid. Our host lifted the edges of of the precious table-cloth and draped it about the naked body. But Consuelo's hand was laid upon his arm, and Consuelo said: "Go away and leave it to us; this is women's work." We all withdrew from the dining-hall with our host, leaving only Consuelo, Maria Teresa and a few women—relatives, perhaps, of the poor dead girl.

  We sat in the darkness of the room that overlooks the garden and gazed at Vesuvius and the silvery expanse of the sea. The wind ruffled the golden moonlit waters, which glittered like fishes' scales. A strong odour of the sea came in through the open casements and mingled with the clean, fresh breath of the garden, which was heavy with the dampness of sleeping flowers and the murmur of grass in the night. It was a red, warm odour, smacking of seaweed and crabs; and as it floated up through the keen air, which was already filled with the languid stirrings of approaching spring, it evoked a picture of a scarlet curtain billowing in the wind. A pale green cloud was rising from the distant heights of Agerola. I thought of the oranges in the gardens of Sorrento, which were already beginning to turn soft as they sensed the advent of spring, and I seemed to hear the song of a lonely sailor drifting sadly over the sea.

  Dawn was already upon us. The air was so clear that the green veins at the edge of the blue vault of heaven could be seen in sharp outline; they formed strange arabesques, resembling the ribs of a leaf. The whole sky trembled like a leaf in the morning breeze; and the singing of the birds in the gardens below, that murmur which spreads among the trees as they sense the approach of day, made sweet, sad music. The dawn was climbing not, to be sure, from the horizon but from the bed of the ocean. It resembled an enormous pink crab in a setting of purple coral reefs like the antlers of a herd of deer, doomed to roam the deep pastures of the sea. The bay that divides Sorrento from Ischia looked pink, like an open shell. In the distance, the pale, bare rock of Capri diffused a faint pearly radiance.

  The sea's red breath was vocal with a myriad gentle whispers, a chirping of birds, a beating of wings; the glassy waves appeared carpeted with young green grass. A white cloud drifted up from the crater of Vesuvius and rose into the sky like a vast sailing-ship. The city was still shrouded in the black mist of night; but already dim lights were burning here and there at the end of the alleys. They were the lights of the sacred images in the chapels, which had to be extinguished during the night because of the threat of air-raids, and which the faithful used to rekindle at daybreak; and the statuettes of wax and painted papier mache at the feet of the blue-clad Madonnas, which represented the souls in Purgatory, enveloped in masses of flames like scarlet flowers, were suddenly beginning to glow. The moon, which by now was setting, shed its pale, silent beams upon the roofs, above which the smoke from the explosions still hovered. From the Vicolo di Santa Maria Egiziaca came a short procession of little girls, wearing snowy veils, each with a rosary wound round her wrist and a black prayer-book clasped in her white-gloved hands. From a jeep which had drawn up outside a Pro Station two negroes followed the procession of newly-initiated communicants with their great white eyes. The Madonnas in the sanctuaries of the chapels shone like specks of blue sky.

  A star crossed the firmament and was submerged beneath the waves between Capri and Ischia. It was the month of March, the sweet season in which the oranges, over-ripe and almost rotten, begin to fall from the branches with a soft thud, like stars from the lofty gardens of the sky. I looked at Vesuvius, which was all green in the pale light of the moon; and gradually a vague feeling of horror crept over me. I had never seen Vesuvius looking such a strange colour: it was green, like the ravaged face of a corpse. And it was watching me.

  "Let's go and see what Consuelo is doing," said our host, after a long silence.

  We looked through the doorway, and an extraordinary scene met our eyes. The young woman lay completely naked; and Maria Teresa was washing and drying her, aided by a few of the women, who kept handing her the basin of warm water, the bottle of eau-de-Cologne, the sponge and the towels, while Consuelo supported the girl's head with one hand and combed her long black hair with the other. We stood in the entrance and surveyed that tender, animated scene. The golden light of the candelabra, the blue reflecti
on from the mirrors, the exquisite brilliance of the porcelain and the crystals, and the green landscape depicted on the walls, the distant castles, the woods, the river and the meadows, where iron-clad knights, with long blue and red plumes waving from their helmets, galloped towards one another, raising their glittering swords, like the heroes and heroines of Tasso in the paintings of Salvator Rosa—all this gave the scene the melancholy air of an episode from the Gerusalemme Liberata. The dead girl lying naked on the table was Clorinda, and these were Clorinda's obsequies.

  All around were silent. There was no sound apart from the muffled groans of the ragged and dishevelled crowd of women standing in the doorway of the library and the crying of a child, who wept, perhaps, not for fear but for wonder, bewildered by that sad, tender scene, by the warm light of the candles and the mysterious actions of the two richly-dressed and very beautiful young women who were bending over the white, naked corpse.

  Suddenly Consuelo took off her silk slippers and her stockings, and with a series of swift, easy movements put them on the dead girl. Then she took off her satin blouse, her skirt and her vest. She undressed slowly, her face very pale, her eyes glowing with a strange, unwavering light. The women who were standing in the doorway came in one by one, clasped their hands and, laughing and crying, their faces beaming with a wondrous joy, contemplated the young woman as she lay on her rich death-bed in her splendid funeral attire. Cries of "How beautiful! How beautiful!" in which grief was mingled with joy, arose on all sides. Other faces appeared in the entrance; men, women and children came in, clasping their hands and crying: "How beautiful! How beautiful!" And many of them knelt in prayer, as if in the presence of a sacred image or of some marvellous wax Madonna.

  "It's a miracle!" cried a shrill voice suddenly.

  "It's a miracle! It's a miracle!" cried one and all, drawing back as though afraid lest their miserable rags might brush against the splendid satin garment that adorned the body of poor Concettina, whom Death had miraculously transformed into a Princess of the Fairies, a statue of the Madonna. Very soon all the poor people from the Vicolo del Pallonetto, summoned by the news of the miracle, were crowding round the doorway, and the hall took on a festal air. Old women arrived with lighted wax candles and rosaries, chanting litanies. They were followed by women and boys carrying flowers and the sweetmeats which, in accordance with an ancient custom, are eaten in Naples at funeral wakes. Some women brought wine, some brought lemons and other fruits. Some brought babes in arms, or cripples, or invalids, so that they might touch the miracolata.{6}

  Others—and these were all very young, with wild eyes, unruly hair and pale, forbidding faces, and their bare shoulders were covered with vivid shawls—surrounded the table on which Concettina lay and intoned those immemorial funeral dirges with which the people of Naples accompany their dead to the grave, recalling and lamenting the good things of life, the only good thing, which is love, recollecting days of joy and nights of tenderness, kisses, caresses and loving tears, and taking leave of them on the frontier of the forbidden country. They were funeral dirges, yet they sounded like love-songs, so sweetly modulated were they, and so warmly voluptuous in then sadness and resignation.

  The joyously plaintive throng moved into the hall, as it might have moved into a square in one of the poorer parts of Naples on a day of carnival or mourning; and no one—not even the young singers, although they were grouped around her and were touching her—seemed aware of the presence of Consuelo, who, white-faced and trembling from head to foot, stood almost naked near the dead girl, gazing at her face with a strange expression, though whether it betokened fear or some secret emotion I could not tell. Nor did she move until Maria Teresa, supporting her with loving arms, dragged her out of the throng.

  As the two merciful women, each with her arm around the other, slowly climbed the stairs, weeping without restraint and trembling in every limb, a terrible cry rent the night, and a tremendous blood-red glare filled the sky.

  CHAPTER VIII - THE HOLOCAUST

  THE sky to the east was scarred by a huge, crimson gash, which tinged the sea blood-red. The horizon was crumbling away, plunging headlong into an abyss of fire. Shaken by subterranean convulsions, the earth trembled; the houses rocked on their foundations; and already one could hear the dull thud of tiles and lumps of plaster as they came apart from the roofs and the cornices of the verandahs, and hurtled down on to the pavements below, like harbingers of universal destruction. A dreadful grinding noise filled the air, like the sound of bones when they are broken and crushed. And above the din, above the wails and terrified shrieks of the people, who were running hither and thither, groping their way through the streets like blind creatures, there arose a terrible cry, which rent the heavens.

  Vesuvius was screaming in the night, spitting blood and fire. Never since the day that saw the final destruction of Herculaneium and Pompeii, buried alive in their tomb ashes and lava, had so dreadful a voice been heard in the heavens. A gigantic pillar of fire rose sky-high from the mouth of the volcano—a vast, stupendous column of smoke and flames, which penetrated deep into the firmament, so that it touched the pale stars. Down the slopes of Vesuvius flowed rivers of lava, sweeping towards the villages which lay scattered amid the green of the vineyards. The blood-red glare of the glowing lava was so vivid that for miles around the mountains and the plain were lit up with unbelievable brilliance. Woods, rivers, houses, meadows, fields and paths could be seen far more clearly and distinctly than by day; and already the sun was a remote and faded memory.

  The mountains of Agerola and the ridges of Avellino were suddenly seen to fall apart, uncovering the secrets of their green valleys and woods. A distance of many miles lay between Vesuvius and the Monte di Dio, from the summit of which, dumb with horror, we contemplated that marvellous spectacle; yet our eyes, as they searched and explored the Vesuvian countryside, which but a little while before had been sleeping peacefully in the moonlight, picked out men, women and animals as if they had been magnified and brought closer by a powerful lens. We saw them fleeing to the vineyards, the fields and the woods, or wandering among the houses of the villages, which the flames were already lapping on every side. And not only could we make out their gestures and demeanour, but we could even distinguish their tousled hair, their unkempt beards, their staring eyes and wide-open mouths. We even seemed to hear the hoarse whistling sound with which they expelled the breath from their lungs.

  The sea presented, perhaps, an even more horrifying picture than the land. As far as the eye could reach there was nothing but a hard, livid crust, pitted everywhere with holes that resembled the pock-marks of some frightful disease; and beneath that motionless crust one sensed the explosive presence of a prodigious force, of a fury scarce repressed, as though the sea were threatening to rise from its bed, to break its hard, scaly back, that it might make war on the land and vent its dreadful fury. Outside Portici, Torre del Greco, Torre Annunziata and Castellammare boats could be seen retreating in great haste from the perilous shore, propelled in desperation by oars alone, since out at sea the wind had dropped like a dead bird, though it was blowing violently to landward. Other boats were to be seen hurrying from Sorrento, Meta and Capri to bring help to the luckless inhabitants of the seaside villages, trapped by the fury of the flames. Torrents of mud flowed sluggishly down the sides of Mount Somma, forming twisted, coiled heaps like black snakes; and where the torrents of mud met the rivers of lava clouds of purple vapour rose aloft, and a dreadful hissing sound reached our ears, like the sizzling of red-hot iron when it is immersed in water.

  A huge black cloud, in shape resembling the ink-sac of a cuttlefish, swollen with ashes and fragments of glowing lava, was struggling to break away from the crest of Vesuvius. Propelled by the wind, which, fortunately for Naples, was by some miracle blowing from the north-west, it trailed slowly across the sky in the direction of Catellsammare di Stabia. The roar emitted by that black, lava-filled cloud as it rolled through the heavens was like the rum
bling of a lorry laden with stones when it enters a bumpy street. Every so often, from some gap in the cloud, a deluge of lava rained down upon earth and sea, landing on the fields and the hard sea-crust with a crash like that which is heard when the same lorry tips up its load; and as the lava touched the ground and the hard surface of the sea it raised clouds of reddish dust, which spread into the sky, blotting out the stars. Vesuvius screamed horribly in the red darkness of that awful night, and a despairing lament arose from the unhappy city.

  I pressed Jack's arm, and felt him tremble. His face was pale as he contemplated that vision of hell, and horror, dread and wonder mingled in his wide eyes. "Let us go," I said to him, tugging him by the arm. We moved away, and set off along the Vicolo di Santa Maria Egiziaca in the direction of the Piazza Reale. The walls of that narrow alley reflected such a blaze of crimson light that we walked like blind men, groping our way. Naked people were leaning out of all the windows, waving their arms and calling to one another with shrill cries and piercing wails. Others who were rushing panic-stricken through the streets raised their eyes, crying out themselves and weeping, without pausing or slowing down in their headlong flight. There were people everywhere, some looking miserable, others fierce, clad in rags or naked; some were hurrying to the chapels with wax candles and torches for the Madonnas and the Saints; others, kneeling on the pavement, were calling aloud upon the Virgin and St. Januarius to help them, beating their breasts, while frenzied tears poured down their ravaged cheeks.

  It often happens at a time of great and desperate peril that a sacred image, or the feeble glimmer of a candle in a chapel, suddenly revives the memory of a faith long neglected, and fans the embers of hope, repentance, fear, and a trust in God that has been long denied or forgotten. The man who has forgotten God pauses; bewildered and deeply moved, he contemplates the sacred image, and his heart trembles in an ecstasy of love. So it was with Jack. All of a sudden he stopped outside a chapel, and covered his face with his hands, crying: "Oh, Lord! Oh, my Lord!"