They used to go to the cemetery sometimes on Sundays, Anna, Giustino and Signora Maria. Concettina did not go, she never set foot outside the house on a Sunday ; it was a day she detested and she stayed shut up in her room mending her stockings, wearing her ugliest clothes. [...]

In the end Anna told him about the time when they burned the newspapers, herself and Concettina and Ippolito and Emanuele. Giuma did not show much surprise, he said he had suspected for some time that Emanuele was getting mixed up in politics, he was really an idiot. He didn’t like Fascism himself, but it was better to put up with it and it wasn’t worth the trouble of running risks, besides Emanuele ought to think of Mammina, if they put him in prison Mammina would go mad. He didn’t hold with Fascism himself, above all it was a provincial thing, it made Italy provincial, it prevented people from arranging exhibitions with fine pictures from abroad. Fascism was certainly an ugly, provincial, ignorant thing. But it wasn’t worth the trouble of getting oneself put in prison for such an ugly, clumsy thing, getting oneself put in prison was taking it too seriously. But there must be a revolution, Anna said. He started to laugh a great deal, he bent back and laughed, displaying all his wolf-like teeth. A revolution, he said, Anna wanted to start a revolution. No, he said, there was no need for that, because Fascism would gradually fizzle out by itself, like those rubber balloons that deflate themselves with a whistling noise. No, there was no revolution to be started and in any case even if a revolution did have to be started Emanuele and Anna would not be the people to do it. “And not Danilo either ? ” asked Anna. Not Danilo either, Giuma answered, not Danilo either, because he had married a wife who was too twisted and pinched.

[...] At first they had read Montale but then Danilo had asked him whether he knew about Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, yes, he knew about it, but he had told Danilo clearly that he didn’t want to hear any mention of things like that. Later on he would have to be a director of the soap factory, and Emanuele also would have to be a director, and so they could not possibly be on the side of Karl Marx, they were the owners of a factory and they could not be on the side of those who wished to hand over the factories to the workers. It was perfectly clear and if Emanuele did not understand it he was a complete idiot, if he let his head be turned by Danilo and read Karl Marx. Anna said that perhaps it was not right that they two should possess a soap factory and other people nothing, not even enough to clothe and feed themselves. Giuma got very angry and said it was perfectly right, it was right because his father had built up the soap factory out of nothing at all, before that it had been just a ridiculous kind of shanty and his father had worked all his life to turn it into something big and important. In any case justice is not of this earth, said Giuma, justice is of the kingdom of heaven. And he said that he as a child had believed in the kingdom of heaven, but now he had ceased to believe in it, now it was a thing that only babies believed in. Then Anna asked where justice could be found, if the kingdom of heaven, where it could have been found, did not exist. Giuma said it certainly was a pity not to be able to find it anywhere. However he did not believe in the justice of Karl Marx. And he did not want to go to Danilo’s again, he did not want ever to smell the smell of that room again, he smelt it upon himself, in his clothes, he had them kept out in the air all night long but the smell did not go away. Anna suddenly remembered what Cenzo Rena had said about the peasants in the South, that they ate nothing but beans, and she said that all the same something ought to be done about the peasants in the South. But Giuma told her not to think now about the peasants in the South, he drew her into a quiet corner of the public gardens and they stayed there kissing for a while. Then Giuma wanted to go back to the café where he had been with Danilo, a café on the other side of the river, smoky and dark, Giuma said it was like certain cafés in Paris, if you hid yourself away in there with that old gramophone with a horn and those old prints on the walls you could really believe you were in a café on the Seine.

Anna told Giuma nothing of what she had heard. She was careful to say nothing to him that might displease or provoke him. She pretended to believe all he said to her, she pretended to believe it was because of the smell that he had given up going to see Danilo. She pretended to believe that he did not like the company of his school-fellows because they did not wash properly and were silly, she pretended not to know that they turned their backs on him when he approached. She felt cowardly in relation to Giuma, she had a great fear that he might suddenly get tired of being with her and of kissing her, if she contradicted him over something and they started quarrelling. So she tried never to contradict him and never to quarrel. They no longer talked about justice, they no longer talked about the revolution. But Anna still thought about the revolution when she was alone in her room, she saw a Giuma who had suddenly become different, who mounted the barricades with her and fired shots and sang. These were thoughts that she allowed to grow in secret within her, every day she added a new adventure, the flight of herself and Giuma with guns over the roofs, Fascists whom Danilo and Ippolito had not succeeded in capturing and whom she and Giuma led in chains in front of the people’s tribunal. And she and Giuma, after the barricades, would get married, and they would give the soap factory to the poor. While she was with Giuma these thoughts would dissolve in smoke, she would be deeply ashamed of them and it would seem to her that she would never think them again, but she always thought them again when she got back home and shut herself up in her room, as soon as she sat down at the little table in her room these thoughts blossomed joyous and arrogant inside her.

Signor Sbrancagna asked him whether they ought to take Concettina away to have her baby in some quiet country place, which the war could never reach. Ippolito shrugged his shoulders slightly, he looked at the window and the mountains, they all looked at the mountains and thought of what was going on behind them, women and children running away, tanks advancing and taking the whole of France. It was Danilo who answered Signor Sbrancagna, saying that in a short time there would not be a single quiet place on earth in which to have babies, unless you went to Madagascar. Probably the Germans did not calculate on getting to Madagascar. Then Signora Maria cried that this was not a moment for joking, it had got to be decided where Concettina could go to have her baby, Ippolito must decide, he was the head of the family and he was responsible for Concettina and for the others. Ippolito sat there a little longer with the twisted smile on his face, and then suddenly he got up and they saw him go out of the gate and walk away with the dog on a lead, a cigarette between his lips and his small head bent sideways on to his shoulder.

[...] Giuma knew nothing of the child that was inside her. They lay down and made love in the bushes by the river, and then they were silent with their faces in the grass and Anna hunted for words in which to tell him of the child that was inside her. But she looked at Giuma’s face in the grass and allowed all the words to escape from her. It seemed to her that she had become grown-up since the moment when she realized she was to have a baby, and it seemed to her that he, on the contrary, was still a little boy, with his heat-flushed face and his rumpled hair. He started to complain of how Emanuele would never let him touch the car, he would begin shrieking every time he saw him go near the garage. If they had had the car perhaps they might have been able to go and swim in the lake, it was a tepid, dirty pool but perhaps it wouldn’t have been so bad to take a dive into it once in a way. But they couldn’t go there on foot. He himself, in any case, would be leaving in a short time, Mammina had arranged for the villa up above Stresa and in a short time would be coming back to fetch him, she had also arranged for a tutor to give him lessons, in October he was to take his final exams.

[...] She thought how she had neither father nor mother, and how she had found her brother dead on a seat and how she had a baby inside her. But she had not the courage to tell anybody about the baby, nor had she the courage to go and look for a midwife in the town. It seemed to her that she would have courage only for starting a revolution. She ran in despair through the rain. [...]

[...] She said she had not yet thought of how she wanted to spend her life. He asked her how old she was and she said she was sixteen. He said that at sixteen a person ought to begin to know how he wanted to spend his life. She said she wanted to spend her life making a revolution. Then he started laughing heartily, he had small teeth but not like a wolf’s, he had separate, gay little teeth like so many grains of rice. He told her that there was no question of a revolution now.

[...] Cenzo Rena suddenly stopped the car, he asked her if she really wanted to get rid of the baby. Anna asked what else she could do, Giuma would never marry her and possibly she herself would not have at all liked marrying him, she had made a mess of everything and so what would that baby have if it came into the world, nothing but a mother who had made a mess of everything and had no courage. Cenzo Rena said that no one found himself with courage ready-made, you had to acquire courage little by little, it was a long story and it went on almost all your life. They had stopped at the gates of the town, the tin roofs of the soap factory could be seen. He told her that up till that day she had lived like an insect. An insect that knows nothing beyond the leaf upon which it hangs.

He asked her if she would marry him. In that way she would not have to get rid of the baby. The streets were full of babies and certainly they grew up into men with scowling, nasty faces, and yet it seemed to him sad that one of them should be got rid of. [...]

She said yes, she would marry him. But she told him she felt a little cold at the thought of having decided something for the whole of her life. Cenzo Rena said he himself felt very cold too, he felt long, cold shudders down his back, but anyone who was afraid of a cold shudder did not deserve to live, he deserved to hang on a leaf all his life. And she, now, had got to come away from her leaf, only insects remained on leaves, with their little staring, sad eyes, and their little motionless feet, and their short, sad little breathing. In order to get married it was necessary to know whether you felt free and happy together, with cold shudders down your back because even joy has its cold shudders, and with a great fear of making a mistake and a real desire to go forward. And he himself had never felt so free and happy as he had the day before when he had begun to think he might marry her, for he had thought of it at once and had been awake all night thinking about it, and he had had such long, cold shudders that he had got up and drunk some brandy and put on his sweater over his pyjamas.

[...] For them there had been no fanfare of trumpets, he said. And that was a good thing, because when fate announced itself with a loud fanfare of trumpets you always had to be a little on your guard. Fanfares of trumpets usually announced only small, futile things, it was a way fate had of teasing people. You felt a great exaltation and heard a loud fanfare of trumpets in the sky. But the serious things of life, on the contrary, took you by surprise, they spurted up all of a sudden like water. She had not quite understood what it was, this fanfare of trumpets, she asked him as he was sitting in the revolving chair with his face all covered with soap. A fanfare of trumpets, he said, a fanfare of trumpets. The way fate had of teasing people. Some people waited all their lives for some little fanfare or other, and their lives passed without any fanfares and they felt defrauded and unhappy. And others heard nothing but fanfares and ran about hither and thither, and then they were very tired and thirsty and there was no water left to drink. There was nothing left but dust and fanfares. As they went out of the shop they took another look in the mirror, she told him that at all events she never again wished to wear dresses made out of curtains. Cenzo Rena said she was wrong, dresses made out of curtains suited her very well. When they were inside the car he bent down and kissed her, and then she saw very closely the grey streaks in his hair and moustache and his tortoiseshell spectacles and all the grains of rice.

Cenzo Rena explained to Anna that these were not among the most wretched of the villages, the truly wretched villages were still further south, villages of utterly poor contadini, without either schools or chemists’ shops or doctors. At Borgo San Costanzo there was a doctor and a school, but the doctor took no interest in illness and the schoolmistress took no interest in teaching, with the years they became more and more depressed and more and more cynical, allowing their work to crumble away in their hands. And so even that was a fairly wretched village, and after the war there would have to be a revolution. Anna, at the mention of revolution, woke up and asked if he would allow her to take part in the revolution with him. But starting a revolution meant, to Cenzo Rena, going to the municipal offices and pulling out all the old deeds crumbling in the drawers, and making the Marchesa disgorge money for improving the drainage and setting up a dispensary, with an active doctor who would not let himself crumble away. All these were things that at present seemed like a dream, because Fascism was in power and Fascism wanted people to let themselves crumble away. This kind of revolution did not please Anna, revolution to her meant shooting and escaping over the roof-tops, and she felt sad at the thought of Cenzo Rena’s dull revolution, just a few deeds thrown away and a quarrel with the old Marchesa.

The Turk was very pleased that the war was not going well, in Africa the Italians were running away over the desert, in Greece there was slush and snow and mud and the Italians were unable to advance. But Cenzo Rena told him in Turkish not to delude himself too much, the war would go on for a very long time yet, the Italians were not fighting well because they had no boots and because they did not like the war, but the Germans had boots and everything, and they liked the war very much because they liked killing. The Turk trembled and grew pale at the mention of the Germans, if the Germans won the war what would happen to him, a Turkish Jew, he would never go back home again. With the Italians he had no great quarrel, all they had done to him was to send him to San Costanzo, they had spotted him in Rome selling carpets in the street and had put him in prison for a little and then had sent him here. He was getting on all right but he was very cold, even with Cenzo Rena’s sweater and the coat with red and yellow checks, all they put in his room at the inn was a bowl with charcoal embers in it, which was barely enough to warm his hands. You could see he had sold carpets because he always kept his shoulders bent, as though beneath a heavy weight of carpets, you could easily picture him walking with long carpets hanging down from his shoulders.

[...] Cenzo Rena had been ashamed to take the money to those fat women combing their hair, and yet that was what he ought to have done, but shame was the thing that spoilt human beings, probably without shame human beings would have been a little less nasty. But now there was no time left to argue about shame, there was no time left to trouble about one’s soul, the houses built for human beings were falling to the ground and mattresses and babies were pouring out of them because the earth was going to ruin. And Giustino, said Anna, Giustino, where in the world was he? Giustino, said Cenzo Rena, Giustino, where indeed?

[...] In any case it was useless to talk any more about Mussolini, no one was thinking about Mussolini now. Now there was the King, the collector of coins, who gradually had pulled himself together and wanted to try and take command. The King would dig out goodness knows what old ministers, because Italy had had quite enough of Fascists with big muscular torsos and of athletic processions and had a great longing for white-haired, mild old gentlemen with crooked, trembling knees. In a short time Italy would certainly be flooded with mild old gentlemen, dressed as generals and ministers and dragging behind them elderly wives, trembling and white-haired, and Italy would clap her hands at these elderly wives, sick as she was of the women that Fascism had brought into fashion, bronze breasts and thighs crowned with ears of corn on the bridges and the fountains. The King would go about Italy sometimes on horseback and Italy would clap her hands at him, he had never imagined that the King’s crooked knees could be pleasing to Italy and yet now it was just those crooked knees that Italy was greeting with joy and relief, and the wizened, disdainful, monkey-like little face under the peaked cap that was too big for him. If anyone fired a shot in the air the little monkey would run off and hide himself in the place where he had been for so many years, the little monkey would run off to the cellar where his collection of coins was kept, but at present Italy was pleased and was not thinking of firing any shots immediately. The police-sergeant made as if to rise, because he could not bear to hear the King called a little monkey. His father had received a medal from the King’s own hands. Cenzo Rena held him firmly by his cloak and poured him out some more wine, perhaps later on he and the police-sergeant might become enemies but not yet, not that day, that day they must drink together over the downfall of Mussolini. Later on, after the little monkey had also been put aside, they would have to begin to do something really fine, but he did not want to tell the police-sergeant what, because he did not want to cause him pain that day.

[...] And Giustino, said Anna, what on earth had become of Giustino and Concettina, there were always stories about Rome but about the North no one knew anything, Concettina’s last letter, a little before the armistice, had said that Giustino was at Turin, but after that no more letters had come and Cenzo Rena said it was useless to write, Italy was all broken up and a letter took days and days to arrive and when it did arrive what was written in it had ceased to be true.

[...] One day the Fascists went into the forest guard’s house and started shooting at the looking-glass in the way the Germans did, and then they took the forest guard’s boots, the forest guard himself had for some time been in hiding at a farm-house and there was only his wife in the house, and when she wept and screamed a German came to see what was going on. The German stayed all night with the forest guard’s wife, and the Fascists ran off with the boots, and next day the forest guard’s wife ate some rat poison, but the doctor came and made her vomit in time. When she was better, the forest guard’s wife packed a bag and went off to her parents at Teramo, the German gave her a lift in a lorry.

The German stood looking on while they dug the hole, he went on repeating how hard he had jammed on his brakes, his whole back was still hurting him because of the jar that sudden braking had given him. Then he sat down in the kitchen and began playing with the little girl, the child had a little bucket full of horse-chestnuts and he started carving faces on the chestnuts with his penknife. The German was tall and young, with a long, glossy, brown head, and he told them that before the war he had been a waiter in a small restaurant at Freiburg, and after the war he would start being a waiter again if there was still a need for waiters after the war, and he wondered if he would still be able to turn and twist among the little tables with the dishes, it was a job that needed a great deal of patience and he had lost his patience in the war. He had deep white scars on the backs of his hands, Cenzo Rena asked him if they were war scars, but he explained that one day in the kitchen of the restaurant he had upset some boiling soup on his hands out of a tureen. It was the fault of the under-cook, who had knocked into him as he was coming forward with the tureen. The under-cook used to go to bed with him and she made a great lamentation over his hands. But then she had left him, because she couldn’t help weeping every time she looked at his hands. Women were like that, he said, they hurt you and then they ran away out of remorse. Men were very often like that too, said Cenzo Rena, but the waiter said no, men were different, for instance he had killed the dog and had not run away. [...]

[...] Cenzo Rena said he would have started thinking that the Germans were all waiters, poor unfortunates with some sort of a job at the back of them, poor unfortunates whom it was not really worth while killing. And this was a thought that in war-time had no sense, it was an idiotic thought but he himself might happen to have an idiotic thought of that kind. [...]

[...] Emanuele had now come downstairs, and he was all red and sweaty because he had been asleep, they had no idea of the life that he led in Rome, he said, he spent his nights at the newspaper and during the day he had all kinds of meetings and never could he spend an afternoon sleeping, In order to sleep he had to come home. But in a short time he would be giving up the newspaper and leaving Rome for good, because he did not know how to produce newspapers. He could produce secret newspapers but not newspapers that were not secret, producing secret newspapers was easy, oh, how easy and how splendid it was. But newspapers that had to come out every day with the rising of the sun, without any danger or fear, that was another story. You had to sit and grind away at a desk, without either danger or fear, and out came a lot of ignoble words and you knew perfectly well that they were ignoble and you hated yourself like hell for having written them but you didn’t cross them out because there was a hurry to get out the newspaper for which people were waiting. But it was incredible how fear and danger never produced ignoble words but always true ones, words that were torn from your very heart. [...]

[...] And they laughed a little and were very friendly together, the three of them, Anna, Emanuele and Giustino; and they were pleased to be together, the three of them, thinking of all those who were dead, and of the long war and the sorrow and noise and confusion, and of the long, difficult life which they saw in front of them now, full of all the things they did not know how to do.