by Elsa Morante
“When he named me the heir of the house, he made me a fine speech for the occasion, as in a great novel: ‘This palazzo,’ he said to me, ‘is the dearest object that I possess on the earth, and so I leave it to you. I also leave you some money that I have in the bank in Naples, and so, adding those to your father’s property, you’ll be almost a gentleman. The thought that you’ll be spared work is a great satisfaction to me, because work isn’t for men, it’s for dunces. An effort, maybe, can sometimes give pleasure, provided it’s not work. An idle effort can be useful and pleasant, but work, instead, is a useless thing, and destroys the imagination. In any case, if for some reason the money isn’t enough, and you do have to adjust to work, I advise a profession that favors imagination as much as possible, for example a shipping agent. But to live without any profession is best of all: maybe content yourself with eating only bread, provided it’s not earned.
“ ‘This house I leave you was for me the palace of legends, the earthly paradise, and the day I have to abandon it, the thought that it will be your house will console me. To another thought I’m resigned as well: and that is, that you won’t live here alone, but with a wife. In fact, it seems strange, but you’re one of those who need a wife waiting for them somewhere, or their heart struggles to survive. And that’s all right, I don’t oppose your fate and your imagination: bring your wife here, to this house. Luckily, I won’t be here then: since I would prefer to breathe even my last breath facing the executioner rather than a woman. Blind as I am, the thought of having a woman before my eyes would make even death go wrong: my dying would no longer be dying, it would be dropping dead! Everything, in fact, can be forgiven one’s neighbor (at least at the point of death) but ugliness, no! And any ugly thing, at the thought, seems to me pleasing if I compare it to the ugliness of women. Lord, how ugly women are! And where else has there ever been ugliness so painful? so special? that, even if one doesn’t look at it and doesn’t see it, one feels vexed merely knowing that it exists?
“ ‘Better not to think of it. Enough: you, my Wilhelm, will marry, and you’ll bring her here, and start a family: for you it’s fated. And as for me, I told you, I will not oppose you on that. It’s your business, and doesn’t concern me. Another hope would suffice for me: that you reserve for me alone the place of friendship, in this house of yours, at least, and on this island of Procida!
“ ‘But enough: this is therefore your house, and you’ll always return to it, I’m sure, because one always returns home; and for you, too, this island of mine is an enchanted garden.
“ ‘You’ll always return, yes; but I would add: you’ll never stay long. About that, dear little master, I have no illusions. Men like you, who have two different kinds of blood in their veins, never find peace or happiness: when they’re there, they want to be here, and as soon as they return here immediately want to flee. You’ll go from one place to another, as if you’d escaped from prison, or were in pursuit of someone; but in reality you’ll only be following the diverse fates that are mixed in your blood, because your blood is like a hybrid animal, a griffin, or a mermaid. And you’ll also find some company to your taste among the many people you’ll meet in the world; but, very often, you’ll be alone. A mixed-blood is seldom content in company: there’s always something that casts a shadow on him, but in reality it’s he who casts a shadow, like the thief and the treasure, which cast a shadow on one another.
“ ‘And on this subject I now want to tell you the dream I had last night. I dreamed that I was an elegant, dashing young man. I was supposed to become a grand vizier, or something similar: I was wearing a Turkish costume of brightly colored silk, the color (I’ll say to give you an idea) of sunflowers; but not even sunflowers! Much more beautiful! Impossible to find a fitting comparison! I wore a turban with a tall feather, on my feet dancing slippers, and I was going along humming through fields of roses, in a beautiful place somewhere in Asia, where there was no one else. I was happy, full of life, with a sweet taste in my mouth, and all around I heard sighing. But to me that sigh seemed a natural thing (there’s the strangeness of dreams) and, in my brain, I explained to myself the reason for it clearly. That explanation I remember even now, awake, and it really is a logical explanation, a true philosophical concept. (Who knows why I always have such extraordinary dreams?) Listen, if this isn’t a fine concept:
“ ‘So it seems that living souls can have two fates: some are born bees, and some are born roses. What does the swarm of bees do, with the queen? They go and steal honey from all the roses, to carry to the hive, to their rooms. And the rose? The rose has in itself its own honey: rose honey, the most adored, the most precious! The sweetest thing it loves it has already in itself: there’s no need to seek elsewhere. But sometimes the roses, those divine beings, sigh for solitude! The ignorant roses don’t understand their own mysteries.
“ ‘The first among all roses is God.
“ ‘Between the two, the rose and the bee, the more fortunate, in my opinion, is the bee. And so the queen bee has supreme good fortune! I, for example, was born a queen bee. And you, Wilhelm? In my opinion, you, my Wilhelm, were born with the sweetest destiny and the bitterest:
“ ‘You’re the bee and you’re the rose.’ ”
Arturo’s Dream
If I think back today on those conversations with my father, and see again the scenes of that distant time, everything takes on a different meaning. And I remember the fable of that hatter who always wept or laughed at the wrong moment: because he was allowed to see reality only through the images of an enchanted looking glass.
At the time, I couldn’t understand anything of my father’s speeches (whether comic, or tragic, or playful) except what corresponded to my unquestioned certainty: that is, that he was the incarnation of human perfection and happiness! And perhaps, to tell the truth, he encouraged those boyhood concepts of mine, habitually displaying his own character in an advantageous light. But even if (let’s take an unlikely case) he had had the fantasy of vilifying himself by making the blackest confessions and declaring that he was a brazen scoundrel, it would have been the same. For me his words were divorced from every earthly reason and value. I heard them as one hears a sacred liturgy, where the drama recited is no more than a symbol, and the ultimate truth it celebrates is bliss. This last, true meaning is a mystery that only the blessed know: pointless to seek an explanation by human means.
Like the mystics, I wanted not to receive explanations from him but to dedicate my faith to him. What I expected was a reward for my faith; and this sighed-for paradise seemed to me still so distant that (I don’t say this as a figure of speech) I couldn’t reach it even in dreams.
Often, especially when he was absent, I dreamed about my father, but never the type of dream that would, so to speak, compensate for reality (or only deceive) with false triumphs. They were always cruel dreams, taunting me with the bitterness of my condition and retracting, without ceremony, the promises I might have believed by day. And in those dreams I had a sharp, precise feeling of suffering, which (because of my natural ignorance as a boy) I still hadn’t experienced in reality.
One of those dreams stayed in my mind:
My father and I are going down a deserted street; he is very tall, covered from head to toe in shining armor, and I, a boy who scarcely come up to his hip, am a recruit, with the cloth strips wrapped around my calves and a uniform of gray-green material too big for me. He walks with long strides, and I eagerly try to keep up. Without even looking at me, he orders brusquely: Go buy me some cigarettes. Proud of receiving his commands, I run back to the tobacco shop and, in secret from him, kiss the pack of cigarettes before giving it to him.
Although he hasn’t seen me kiss the pack, as soon as he touches it and looks at it, he notices something that merits his scorn. And in a lashing tone he scolds me: “You sappy kid!”
Final Events
So Arturo’s childhood passed. When I was about to turn fourteen, Immacolatella, who was eight, found
a boyfriend. He was a curly-haired black dog, with passionate eyes, who lived quite a distance away, in the direction of Vivara, and he came from there every evening, just like a fiancé, to visit her. He had learned our habits and, so that he would find us at home, came at dinnertime. If he saw that the kitchen window was still dark, he waited patiently; and if he saw it lighted he announced himself by barking from a distance, and scraped at the door to get us to open it. As soon as he entered, he greeted us with a loud exclamation, in a ringing tone, which seemed like the announcement of royal trumpeters, and then he galloped three or four times around the kitchen, like a champion at the start of a tournament. He could behave with great prowess and gallantry: he watched us eat, wagging his tail, without begging, to let us know that the only reason for his visits was sentiment; and if I threw him a bone he wouldn’t touch it, waiting for Immacolatella to take it. He must have been a cross with some sort of greyhound: he always carried his head high and had a bold character, and Immacolatella was content. I sent her out under the starry sky to play with him, and stood aside; but after a while she left him and returned to me, to lick my hands, as if to say: “You are my life.”
When the time for love arrived, Immacolatella became pregnant, for the first time in her life. But maybe she was too old, or had always been unfit because of some genetic malformation: she died giving birth to her puppies.
There were five: three white and two black. I hoped at least to save them, and sent Costante around the island in search of a bitch who could nurse them. Only after many hours did he return with a thin, red-haired bitch, who looked like a fox; but maybe it was too late, the puppies wouldn’t suck. I also thought of feeding them goat’s milk, as Silvestro had done with me, but I didn’t have time to try. They were weak, and born before their time: they were buried with their mother in the garden, under the carob tree.
I decided that I would never have another dog in place of her: I preferred to be alone, and to remember her, rather than put another in her place. It was hateful to meet that black dog, who went around lighthearted, as if he had never met any Immacolatella on the island. Whenever he came near me, insistent on fun and games with me as before, I chased him away.
When, some time afterward, my father returned to Procida and asked the usual question—“What news?”—I turned my face without answering. It wasn’t possible for me to say those words: “Immacolatella died.”
Costante told him; and my father was unhappy at the news, because he loved animals and was very fond of Immacolatella.
That time, he stayed on Procida barely an afternoon and a night: he had come only to get certain documents from the Town Hall. He remained absent about a month, and then reappeared, and left again the following day, after obtaining from the tenant farmer a sum of money. But as he said goodbye he informed me, for the first time in our lives, of his destination and the date of his return.
He explained to me that for several months he had been engaged to a Neapolitan woman, and was going to Naples to get married. The wedding was fixed for Thursday of that week, and right afterward he would return to Procida, with his bride.
So, he told me, I was to go and wait for them at the dock the following Thursday; they would arrive on the three-o’clock steamer.
CHAPTER 2
A Winter Afternoon
A Winter Afternoon
It was winter, and that Thursday a cold rain clouded Procida and the bay. On such days, so rare for us, the island looks like a fleet that has furled its countless painted sails and is traveling soundlessly with the currents, toward the land of the Hyperboreans. The smoke from the steamers making their usual daily rounds, and their long whistles through the air, seem like signals of mysterious routes, outside your fate: the journeys of smugglers, whale hunters, Eskimo fishermen—treasures and migrations! Those signals bring the joy of adventure or sometimes, instead, dismay, as if they were mournful farewells.
I had recently turned fourteen; only a few days earlier I had learned that starting today, with the arrival of the three-o’clock steamer, my existence would change. And, waiting for three o’clock, torn between impatience and revulsion, I wandered around the harbor.
In announcing to me that he was marrying that unknown Neapolitan woman, my father, in a dutiful tone (which was so unusual for him that it seemed artificial), had said: “This way, you’ll have a new mother.” And, for the first time in my life, I had a feeling of revolt against him. No woman could call herself my mother, and I didn’t want to call anybody by that name, except one, who was dead! Now in this foggy air I looked for her, my only mother, my Oriental queen, my siren; but she didn’t answer. Maybe, because of the arrival of the intruder, she was hiding or had fled.
I didn’t try to imagine what my father’s new wife might look like or what sort of character she might have. I resisted all curiosity. Whether that woman was like this or like that was the same to me. To me, she meant only: duty. My father had chosen her, and I must not judge her.
According to the books I had read, a stepmother could be only a perverse, hostile creature, an object of hatred. But, as my father’s wife, she was for me a sacred person!
At the appearance of the steamer, I approached the dock lazily. I tried to distract myself by observing the maneuvers of the landing; but the first passengers I saw were the two of them, standing at the top of the stairway, waiting for the gangplank to be lowered.
My father carried his usual suitcase, and she another, about the same size. While my father, who hadn’t yet seen me, looked for the tickets for the guard, I, first of all, went up to her and without explanation took the bag from her hand: I knew my duty. But I felt, for an instant, that she resisted me, as if she had taken me for a suitcase thief. Then, immediately, recognizing a sign in my gesture, she looked at me with animation. And, summoning my father with a light tug on his jacket, asked:
“Vilèlm, is that Arturo?”
“Oh, you’re here,” said my father. She blushed, for having thought me a thief, and gave me a small greeting, intimate but also modest.
Fortunately, it didn’t occur to her to embrace me, as is customary when relatives greet one another. I would have pushed her away, because, really, you can’t adapt to the idea that someone is your relative just like that, in an instant.
After picking up her suitcase, I saw that she was also carrying a shabby purse, so stuffed with objects that it wouldn’t close. I moved to take that weight from her, too; but, at my gesture, she hugged the purse more tightly, unwilling to give it up, and held the clasp together with her hands, as if she were defending a treasure.
The three of us walked along the pier, toward the harbor square. Although hindered by the suitcases, my father and I moved more quickly. She walked clumsily in her high heels, which she seemed unused to, and kept stumbling.
I would have preferred to go barefoot, I thought, rather than adapt to ladies’ shoes like that.
Apart from those high heels, though, and the new shoes, the wife had nothing ladylike about her, or rare! What might I have imagined? To see arriving beside my father some marvelous being, who attested to the existence of the famous female species described in books? That Neapolitan girl, in her worn, shapeless clothes, didn’t look very different from the regular fishwives and common women of Procida. And a first glance was enough, right away, to see that she was ugly, like all other women.
Like them, she was bundled up, she had a full, white face, dark eyes, and hair (the shawl that was wrapped around her head left the part slightly uncovered) as black as raven’s feathers. And one wouldn’t even have said that she was a wife: her body seemed a grown woman’s, but not her face, from which, although I had no experience of female ages, I recognized, with an instant intuition, that she was still almost a girl, not much older than me. Now, it’s true that a woman at fifteen or sixteen (because she must have been about that) is already grown up and mature, while a male of fourteen is still considered a boy. But my father’s claim made me increasingly indi
gnant: that, apart from any other reasons, I could accept as a mother a person who was barely a couple of years older than me, if not less!
She was fairly tall, for a woman; and I felt, in fact, shame and vexation in realizing that she was much taller than me. (That didn’t last long. It took me only a few months to catch up to her. And when, in the end, I left the island, she came barely to my chin.)
With a wave, my father summoned the carriage, and it came toward us. The bride meanwhile looked wide-eyed at the harbor square, and at the people, because it was the first time she’d been to the island.
In the carriage, I hoisted myself up to the box, beside the driver, but with my face turned to the two of them, who sat next to each other on the velvet seat. The driver had raised the hood, to protect the travelers from the rain, and the bride, as soon as she was sitting in shelter, hastened to clean her shoes with the hem of her dress. Those shoes (of shiny black leather, with gilt buckles) were, it should be noted, the most elegant I had ever seen; but she treated them as if, for her, they were sacred objects!
My father, glancing at her stealthily just then, had a faint smile, it wasn’t clear if of enjoyment or of superiority. But, bent over her shoes, she didn’t notice; otherwise, I think, she would have blushed.
It was easy to see that she was in awe of my father. Even when she used with him certain familiar manners that were spontaneous (as earlier, when she gave a little tug on his jacket), she had a hesitant and slightly fearful air. And although my father, for his part, seemed content to be bringing that woman home, he gave no sign of intimacy. I didn’t see them whisper, or embrace, or kiss, as lovers are said to do, or newlyweds on their honeymoon. That pleased me. He had his usual expression of arrogant detachment: and she sat composedly, a little apart from him, holding on her lap her precious purse, and clutching its clasp with all ten fingers. Her hands were small and rough, reddened by chilblains, and I noticed that on her left hand she wore a gold ring: my father’s wedding ring. My father, however, wore no ring.