by Elsa Morante
“Who is Hamlet?” she asked.
With a contemptuous expression I answered, “A clown,” and at my response she broke into a gale of nervous laughter. I didn’t immediately understand why she was laughing so hard: but I quickly realized that the designation clown, which I had given Hamlet, she, as a natural consequence of my speech, had also applied to herself. At that idea, I, too, started laughing. Then I became serious again and explained:
“Hamlet was a clown, and I know the reason. But you have nothing to do with him: you understand? He was the Prince of Denmark!”
I saw that, at that revelation, her face expressed an extreme deference; and so I exclaimed firmly:
“Don’t make that servile face! Almost all kings and princes are clowns.”
This was one of my more recent conclusions; and I realized that I couldn’t announce it to my ignorant listener without adding some suitable explanation:
“Possessing a throne is not enough to merit the title of king!” I said. “A king should be the bravest of all his people. For example: Alexander the Great! He was a real king! He,” I added with a certain envy, “was foremost among all his people, not only in valor but also in beauty. He had a divine beauty! He had curly blond hair that looked like a beautiful golden helmet!”
She listened to me, as usual, with profound attention and respect. In awe, she observed: “You’re more a kid than me and you understand so many things!” I went on, irritated by the word kid she’d used:
“But there aren’t many kings like him! And those who accept the title of king but aren’t as valorous—you know what they are? They’re scum and dishonorable, usurpers of power!”
“Of course, the ones in command should do more good than others,” she agreed humbly, in a timid voice, “because if those at the top don’t set an example, how can this world continue?”
Then, after some thought, she added:
“But so it goes! Even the person at the top doesn’t always remember to pay his debt to the Lord. Even the powerful make mistakes, not only the wretched. Yes, there aren’t many souls who have an honest conscience. That’s why the Son of God, up in Heaven, still walks with a crown of thorns; and who knows when his passion will end!”
As she spoke she sighed, like a fantastic young nun, at the millennial sufferings of that unhappy God (her curls swung in time to her laments). And without remembering that she was talking to an atheist, she looked at me with confident and affectionate eyes, as if her Absolute Certainties matched mine!
In response, however, I confined myself to looking at her with a tolerant expression, and I resumed, continuing my interrupted argument:
“It’s also the fault of the populace! It’s very clear, if you read world history, and also look at certain countries, that the mass of people don’t recognize the only hope in life, and don’t understand the feelings of true kings. That’s why you can see that even the best and bravest are isolated, like fierce pirates. No one goes with them, except their faithful escort, or maybe a single friend, who is always there and defends them with his life: he alone knows their heart! The rest of the people are divided from them, like a herd of abject slaves thrown into the hold of the splendid ship!
“The splendid ship,” I informed her at this point, “is a phrase I’ve said to make a poetic symbol. It’s not a concrete object. The ship signifies: the honor of life!”
Amid these explanations, I had sat up and was astride the bench. It was the first time I had revealed to any person the results of my solitary meditations. Her expression was solemn, almost religious. I was silent for a while, every so often giving her a brief glance, before I made up my mind to keep talking; and finally I said:
“The ideal of all world history is this: that true kings should join up with a population that shares their feeling. Then they could carry out any magnificent action, they could even begin to conquer the future!
“The satisfaction in being a brave man isn’t enough if others aren’t his equal and he can’t form friendships. The day every man has a brave, honorable heart, like a true king, all hatreds will be thrown into the sea. And then people will no longer know what to do with kings. Because every man will be king of himself!”
This last idea—highfalutin and grandiose—sounded new to my ears, since it had come to me at that precise moment, just like that, as I was talking, without my ever having thought it before; and I was happy about it, inside, as if it were a true philosophical discovery, worthy of an important thinker! At a glance, I could see that the face of my listener, like a devout mirror, had also lighted up with radiant admiration. And so, inspired by a new ardor, I proclaimed, boldly and confidently:
“I want to read all the books of science, of true beauty: I’ll become as well educated as a great poet! And then, when it comes to strength, I’m ready for that: I can do any exercise, I’ve been training since I was seven or eight months old. A few more summers, and I want to see who could beat me: even if an international champion showed up! Then, as soon as I can, I have to learn how to use weapons, and practice fighting. As soon as I’m old enough, I’m going wherever there’s fighting, to prove myself. I want to perform glorious deeds, and make my name known to all! The name Arturo Gerace will be renowned throughout the world!”
She began to laugh, a faint enchanted girlish laugh, as she gazed at me in admiration, with absolute faith: as if I were one of her brothers who had come down to tell her about the brave acts of the Archangel Michael in Paradise.
So I no longer hesitated to tell her as well about my most jealously guarded and ambitious plans: and not only the ones I still believed in, in my conscience, as feasible, but also those fantastical ones which I had contemplated as a boy, and which could never come true. Now, at my age, I was aware that some of my old plans were fairy tales; but I told her about them just the same, knowing that she, anyway, would believe me.
“Well, then,” I began, “when I become the valorous leader, just like a true king, you know what I’ll do? I’ll go with my faithful followers to conquer peoples, and teach everyone true bravery! And honor! I’ll make all those miserable, shameless people understand how ignorant they are. A lot of them get scared as soon as they’re born, and they keep that fear forever! I want to explain to everyone the beauty of valor, which vanquishes wretched cowardice!
“And one of my undertakings will be this. Soon, as I told you, my father and I will go far away together, for a long time, until one day we’ll land here on Procida at the head of a proud fleet. All the people will acclaim us, and the Procidans, with our example, will become the greatest heroes of all the nations, like the Macedonians, and very proud, and noble, as if they were my father’s brothers. They’ll be our followers, and support us in our actions. First, we’ll attack the prison and free all the prisoners; and at the top of the fort we’ll raise a flag with a star that will be seen over the surrounding sea!
“The island of Procida will be all decked with flags, like a beautiful ship: it will be better than Rome!”
Here, with an air of challenge, I stared her in the face. On this point, as a result of the opinion she had expressed in the carriage, a few hours earlier, about prisoners and jails, there was still an unanswered question between the two of us! But on her face now my gaze found only an exultant solidarity, as if she were already impatient to see my flag waving over the island’s fortress, and already promising a great celebration of songs and dancing! Then, to conclude my speech, I resumed, pounding the cover of Great Leaders with the back of my hand:
“This, here, is not a book of made-up stories, it’s true history, it’s knowledge! The leaders of history, even the most famous, like Alexander the Great, weren’t fairy-tale people (fairy-tale people are mythical); they were people like other people, in every way, except in their thoughts! In order to be like them, and even better than them, you have first to keep in mind certain true great thoughts . . . and I know these thoughts!”
“What thoughts . . . ?” she asked intent
ly.
“Well,” I confided, after some hesitation, frowning, “the first thought, the most important of all, is this: One mustn’t care about death!”
So now I had revealed to her even the famous reticence of my famous Code: the boldest, that is, and the most difficult of my Absolute Certainties (and also my supreme, most secret uncertainty!). She assented, in a serious tone:
“That’s the first truth.” And she added:
“Which God, too, teaches.”
But at that point I was barely listening to her. I had such a strong sense of satisfaction that I no longer had the patience to go on talking.
I snorted. Suddenly the kitchen seemed to me a prison. I would have liked to be in midsummer, in the morning, on the beach, climbing up the rocks, diving, flipping over in the water; I was seized by an impatient desire to play, to perform bold acts. Suddenly I turned to her impulsively. “Watch!” I cried. And, taking off my shoes, I took a rapid run-up from the wall opposite the window grate, which was perhaps two meters from the ground. In a single leap I gripped one of the middle bars with my hands; and almost at the same instant, with a violent push of my legs and my whole body, I hoisted myself up, with my feet between the two higher bars, letting my neck fall back. From this position I could see her, amid all her curls, clapping enthusiastically.
I had a feeling of extreme happiness. Having performed a kind of somersault, I hung by my hands from the grate, and enjoyed showing off, whirling and swinging; then I exclaimed:
“Look! the flag!”
And, grabbing the bars with one hand, I exerted my arm muscles until my body was stretched out like a banner. I held that pose for a few seconds, like a virtuoso holding a note; finally, I dropped to the floor, and from there I took off in a huge, running leap, as if across an aerial bridge, and landed upright, feet joined, on the table, three or four meters away.
She looked at me as if I had leaped not onto a kitchen table but onto the main deck of a conquered ship; and, carried away by my momentum, I now felt like a mythical cabin boy, flying with fantastic skill from the quarterdeck to the towers to the lookouts! So I demonstrated various similar exercises, all of which she greatly admired.
Finally I went back to where she was, and sat on the floor. I had bare feet, because socks were among those garments my father and I often did without. My shoes were on the floor a little distance from me; stretching out my foot, I grabbed one between the big toe and the middle, and said proudly:
“Look, I have a prehensile foot.”
She admired this capacity of mine no less than the preceding skills; and I explained to her that I had acquired this skill only a short time ago, with practice. Here on Procida, I added, since I was born, I had led the life of a real sailor. And a sailor, according to a sentence I’d read in a book of adventures, has to possess the agility of a monkey, the eye of an eagle, and the courage of a lion!
I then told her a story I’d read as a boy about a pirate who had lost both hands in combat and, ever since, in place of the missing limbs, had worn two loaded pistols, tightly fastened to the stumps. He had learned to shoot his pistols by pulling the trigger with his foot, and had developed infallible aim, so that in the novel he was always called the Fiendish Amputee or the Terminator of the Pacific.
“You know so many things!” she observed, with devout humility; then, raising her head as if she were singing, she exclaimed with a happy, impulsive smile: “When you become the equal of a king, we’ll all come to honor you. I’ll bring my mother and my sister! I want to bring all of Pallonetto! And all Chiaia! And all Naples!”
She sat daydreaming for a moment, and added, as if in secret: “Do you believe it, Artú? when you tell me your idea, that you want to become like a king, I seem to see you as if it were already true and natural: dressed magnificently, in a beautiful silk shirt, with gold buttons, and the mantle, and the crown of gold, and so many beautiful precious rings—”
“Hey!” I interrupted her, with proud indifference. “What are you thinking? The crown and the mantle and so on! I say this word, king, and right away you think of titled kings. The kings I mean are special kings, who don’t go around dressed like clowns the way you say.”
“And how are they dressed?” she asked, bewildered but still curious.
“They dress carelessly, however they like,” I declared. Then right away, without having to think about it too much, I explained: “In summer, a pair of pants and an ordinary shirt, maybe even torn and without buttons . . . and . . . like that . . . a flowered kerchief around their neck . . . And in winter an ordinary jacket, maybe checked . . . in other words, relaxed!”
She seemed a little disappointed; but after a moment her eyes regarded me again with innocent devotion, and she said, with conviction, shaking her head:
“Yes, you, anyway, you dress like a beggar, but you look like a prince just the same . . .”
I didn’t answer, keeping my lips pressed together, to display indifference; when all of a sudden, on the spot, I started laughing, that compliment gave me such pleasure.
Soon afterward we heard my father’s steps coming down the stairs; and the most mysterious of all reappeared.
We saw then that the water in the pot, which had been boiling for a while, had half evaporated, without the two of us noticing; and the coals were almost spent. That fact delayed dinner and, during the wait, my father began to drink some Ischian wine, which was his favorite. He had gotten up from his nap rested and in a smiling mood, and he seemed content, as if it were a game, for the three of us to have dinner together, in the Castle of the Geraces. This gaiety of his elated us all: and the evening took on the air of a great celebration.
At Supper
The bride had finally taken off her coat from the journey: over the velvet skirt, she wore a red wool sweater that, like the coat, was short and tight on her; in this outfit, the shape of her body could be seen better. Even to my inexperienced eye, it appeared already very developed for her age, but there was, in those womanly shapes, a kind of roughness and childish ignorance, as if she herself were not aware of being grown up. Her bosom seemed too heavy for that immature bust, with its thin shoulders and small waist: and it inspired a strange and even delicate sense of compassion; and the heaviness of her broad, rather ill-proportioned hips gave her figure a character not of strength but of awkward and helpless naïveté. The sleeves of the sweater left her arms bare almost to the elbow: and you could see the division between the white skin of her arms and the blistered, winter-reddened skin of her hands. This, too, roused a feeling of compassion. And looking at her wrists, which were not delicate, one felt that, precisely because they were thick, they had, inexplicably, an expression of tender innocence.
Proud of cooking the pasta, she seemed even to forget the fear that my father instilled in her, and that earlier, in the afternoon, had made her tremble so. But his current mood didn’t seem threatening; he wasn’t giving her troubling orders now, or mussing her hair; and in fact he wasn’t even near her, and wasn’t concerned with her.
At the table, he ate a lot and drank more Ischian wine; and as usual the wine, without making him drunk, provoked unpredictable behavior, making him even more mysterious to me. The wine could have different and even opposing effects; at times, it made him more expansive, at times sleepy and somber. And on some occasions it filled him with regrets, with yearning, or with a peculiar violence, in search of objects at which to vent. (He never vented at me except to become harsher in manner; evidently he considered me too small a personage, not worthy of punishment.)
That night the wine matched his carefree mood, making him more talkative and fanciful. His stern gaze yielded, every minute, to a kind of gracious contentment that seemed to cause him to be charmed by whatever he saw, even a crust of bread or a glass. He said, with satisfaction, that upstairs he had had a good sleep, he had slept more than two hours; then he glanced at the bride, with a duplicitous expression, as if, unknown to her, he were plotting some boyish crim
e, and added:
“And you know who I dreamed about? That ancestor of mine, in the portrait: the ghost of the castle.”
“Oh, him,” she murmured.
“Yes, him! He was wearing a dressing gown embroidered with stars and half-moons, like a wizard. And he told me: You’ll see what happens when you bring a woman into my house. Tonight I’ll come with my knights and throw her out.”
The bride laughed, with an incredulous expression, but still hesitant.
“You laugh: well, you’ll soon stop laughing. The moment has come, I believe, to reveal to you something I’ve been silent about until now. You approve, Arturo? It’s right to inform her, now that she’s Signora Gerace? Know, then, girl: There’s a mystery in our family! The whole town is aware of it: this castle is visited by spirits. That ancestor of mine, in fact, is a great man, and continues to host theater productions and dancing parties for the best young men, as when he was alive: the only difference, of course, is that now his guests are all ghosts—in fact, SOMETHING WORSE. Naturally, he doesn’t invite the spirits of females, because, as you know, he hates women. His guests are all male, boys and young men who died in the flower of youth; and all, if you want to know, DAMNED SOULS! These are young men chosen from among the worst scoundrels, who were transformed into devils when they died! And this gang arrives here every night from all parts of Hell, entering through the windows or from underground by the hundreds. You can vouch for it, right, Arturo?”
I said nothing in response, but smiled at him in a sign of understanding and (since it was my duty) complicity; but this smile of mine, it seems, served as encouragement to her. She had, in turn, the faint smile of a wise and experienced person, and, shaking her head, she said to my father:
“Well, now you want to tease me, you treat me as if I were ignorant. But I understand about certain things better than you!”