Bitter Spring
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120
Buonaiuti recalled: “Un artista maturato nella sofferenza e nella speranza,” in Cristini, Dal villaggio all’Europa, p. 12.
120
an American professor at Florida State: Cunningham, “La pazienza come volontà,” pp. 24–25.
120
Carlo Rosselli: Rosselli to Silone, November 17 and December 31, 1933, Archivio Silone, busta 1, fasciscolo 1.
121
“In Fontamara passion”: d’Eramo, L’opera di Ignazio Silone, p. 60.
121
“From the first”: Trotsky to Silone, July 17, 1933, printed in the Russian oppositionist journal in Paris, Bollettino dell’Opposizione, October 1933.
121
Silone, detecting: d’Eramo, L’opera di Ignazio Silone, p. 61.
121
“One hundred rich men”: Ibid., p. 63.
121
“In Fontamara we”: Spectator, November 2, 1934; quoted in Gordon, “Silone and His Critics,” p. 174.
122
“the entire action”: Interview with Grazia Coco, after a letter dated September 20, 1969, Archivio Silone, Florence, busta 10, fascicolo 1.
122
“life itself”: “A Note on Ignazio Silone,” afterword to Mr. Aristotle, pp. 203–11.
123
“My embarrassment”: “Note on the Revision of Fontamara,” in The Abruzzo Trilogy, p. 4.
123
Silone replied: Quoted in d’Eramo, L’opera di Ignazio Silone, p. 32.
123
“Who is he?”: Ibid., pp. 65–66.
123
“the necessity of a deep consciousness”: Petroni, “Testimonianza a Ignazio Silone.”
124
Silone offered a three-part definition: Dave Renton, Fascism: Theory and Practice (London: Pluto Press, 1999), p. 67.
124
“revolutions, like trees”: “The Choice of Companions,” p. 117.
124
Croat and Polish: The Polish translation was published without the author’s knowledge or consent. When Silone became aware of it, he wrote an angry letter to the publisher (who, unknown to Silone, had recently died). His widow replied by asking that Silone pay the Polish typesetter, as her husband had died in debt by publishing the book. D’Eramo, L’opera di Ignazio Silone, pp. 109–10.
124
blessings of Darina Silone: When I broached the subject of an English translation, Darina Silone was adamantly against it. She did approve of the 2002 Italian edition (“he’s done a really splendid job”); letter of July 12, 2002.
125
“Was ist Fascismus?”: Ignazio Silone, information, August–September 1932, p. 8.
125
“that the victory”: Il fascismo, trans. Marina Buttarelli, p. 273.
125
“of the general moral”: “The Choice of Companions,” p. 113.
126
“development, movement, change”: For the fourteen essays written by Silone for the review, translated from the original German into Italian by Lelio Cremonte, see Gli articoli di “information” (Zurigo 1932–1934), ed. M. Antonietta Morettini Bura (Perugia: Guerra, 1994).
126
“the idea and”: Silone to Tasca, July 8, 1937.
127
“Politics [for Machiavelli]”: School for Dictators, p. 12.
127
“A deep knowledge”: Ibid., p. 28.
127
“it mobilizes and marshals”: Ibid., p. 93.
128
“work of art”: Ibid., p. 35.
128
“The fascist leader’s”: Ibid., p. 72.
128
“Although a political movement”: Ibid., p. 134.
128
“The only thing fascism”: Ibid., p. 157.
128
“sacralization” of politics: Carlo Levi, Fear of Freedom, trans. Adolphe Gourevitch (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008); Gentile, The Sacralization of Politics.
128
“Nothing but an adequate liturgy”: School for Dictators, pp. 212–13.
129
“modern melancholy”: Kazin, “A Dialogue on Dictatorships.”
130
“Silone knows too much”: Tucci, “Bad News for the Thought Police.”
130
“He is the only one”: The thirty-four Silone-Oprecht letters, written between 1933 and 1958, are in the Zurich Central Library; see Castagnola Rossini, Incontri, pp. 21–34. On Musil, see Ignazio Silone, “Encounters With Musil,” Salmagundi 61 (Fall 1983).
130
“today they ignore us”: See J. M. Coetzee’s introduction to Robert Musil, The Confusions of Young Törless (New York: Penguin, 2001), p. ix.
130
“Here I truly”: Falcetto, “Introduzione,” in ISRS, vol. 2, p. lviii.
130
“13 January 1941”: My translation from the French of the handwritten letter, along with a typewritten page on St. Paul’s thought on love from his letter to the Corinthians (1:13), in the Archivio Silone, Florence, busta 1, fascicolo 5. This is the famous passage that begins, “If I have all the eloquence of men or angels, but speak without love, I am simply a gong booming or a cymbal clashing,” and ends, “There are three things that last: faith, hope and love; and the greatest of these is love.” In a footnote, Silone makes clear his interpretation that Paul was not speaking only of love between a man and a woman, and argues for “amitié.”
132
thought him a tragic figure: d’Eramo, L’opera di Ignazio Silone, p. 154.
132
“I very much admired”: Arthur Koestler, The Invisible Writing (New York: Macmillan, 1954), p. 279.
133
“he was a fanatical Stalinist”: Silone to Rudolf Jakob Humm, March 22, 1957, Archivio Silone, Florence, busta 3, fascicolo 19.
132
“the sorrowful comedy”: Lewis, The Picaresque Saint, pp. 160–61.
133
“a beautiful and painful book”: Quaderni di Giustizia e Libertà 9 (November 1933): 100. I am grateful to Frank Rosengarten for making the entire run of the Quaderni available for consultation.
133
a correspondence began: On the relationship, see Pugliese, Carlo Rosselli, pp. 192–93. The correspondence between Silone and Rosselli is in the Istituto Storico della Resistenza in Toscana in Florence, Archivio di Giustiza e Libertà, sezione I, fascicolo I, sottofascicolo III, inserti 1–4.
134
“Besides, there is”: Silone to Rosselli, June 12, 1934, sezione 1, fascicolo III, inserto 3.
134
“I understand perfectly”: Rosselli to Silone, June 15, 1934, Archivio Silone, Florence, busta 1, fascicolo 1.
134
“today [1942] the”: Silone to the Chief of Information Services of the Federal Swiss Attorney General, December 16, 1942; reproduced in Ignazio Silone, Memoriale dal carcere svizzero, p. 34.
135
promptly translated: Die Reise nach Paris, trans. Nettie Sutro (Zurich: Verlag Oprecht, 1934); Mr. Aristotle, trans. Samuel Putnam (New York: Robert McBride, 1935); also A Journey to Paris, trans. John Lehmann (London: Penguin, 1936). There were also Danish and Spanish translations. A Japanese translation appeared after the war, without the author’s consent.
135
“What, don’t you remember me?” Recounted in d’Eramo, L’opera di Ignazio Silone, p. 117.
135
“a book like yours”: Humm to Silone, May 19, 1936, quoted in Holmes, Ignazio Silone in Exile, p. 99.
136
“to me entirely”: Author’s note (1962) to Bread and Wine, p. 179.
135
Vino e pane: Doctoral dissertations have been written on the variations of Silone’s works, especially those between Pane e vino and the subsequent Vino e pane. For a summary, see d’Eramo, L’opera di Ignazio Silone, pp. 137–53. When Silone’s English translator Eric Mosbacher suggested pursuing the idea of making Bread and Wine into a film, Si
lone demurred: “I’m a bit fearful; I would need to collaborate with too many people.” Silone to Mosbacher, June 6, 1936, Archivio Silone, Florence, busta 2, fascicolo 1, doc. 44.
136
“The cause of my pain”: Bread and Wine, p. 272.
137
“Perhaps the wolf”: Ibid., p. 284.
137
“It’s not your ideal”: Ibid., p. 359.
137
“We live the whole”: Ibid., pp. 214–15.
138
Murica has become ensnared: Ibid., pp. 428, 453.
138
“Dear comrade”: Angela Balabanoff to Silone, August 15, 1936, Archivio Silone, Florence, busta 2, fascicolo 1, doc. 97.
139
“a compassionate parable”: d’Eramo, L’opera di Ignazio Silone, pp. 155–56.
139
“Just another word”: Archivio Silone, Florence, busta 1, fascicolo 3.
139
“I force myself”: Twice a Year, Autumn–Winter 1938; quoted in ISRS, vol. 1, p. 1382.
140
“a novel cannot”: “The Things I Stand For,” appeared in English in The New Republic (November 2, 1942) as well as La Parola of New York and in Italian in Il Mese of London (October 1943). Reprinted in Italian as “Le idee che sostengo,” pp. 1385–91.
140
“forgotten that in the best”: Silone reconstructed the history of NEC in “Le ‘Nuove Edizioni di Capologo,’ ” in Egidio Reale e il suo tempo (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1961), pp. 151–68. See also Castagnola Rossini, Incontri, pp. 61–121.
142
“At first I was afraid”: The Seed Beneath the Snow, pp. 663–64.
144
“The Third Front”: The document can be found in the Bern Bundesarchiv 8. 2070; it has been printed in its entirety in Silone, Memoriale dal carcere svizzero, pp. 64–67, and reprinted in ISRS, vol. 1, pp. 1392–1412.
146
Two weeks later: Riccardo Formica (pseudonym “Minotti”), born in Trapani, Sicily, joined the Socialist movement in 1921 but moved to the PCI that same year and fought in the Spanish Civil War in defense of the republic. By 1941, he had returned to the PSI. Olindo Gorni (“Giannini”), born near Mantova, was a professor of agronomy; he died of cancer in September 1943 in Geneva. Piero Pellegrini (“Pedroni”), from Turin, had been living in Lugano, where he was editor of the newspaper Libera Stampa. At the time, Silone was using “Sormani” as a code name.
149
“I was,” he confessed: In an interview with Silone’s widow, Darina, she stated that Silone had contemplated suicide several times in his life. During the course of their marriage, he more than once threatened to kill himself. Interview with author, March 16, 2000.
151
“The Spirit blows”: “The wind, that is, the Spirit, blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes” (John 3:8). In his essay “Unpacking My Library,” Walter Benjamin writes: “Habent sua fata libelli: these words may have been intended as a general statement about books. So books like The Divine Comedy, Spinoza’s Ethics, and The Origin of Species have their fates. A collector, however, interprets this Latin saying differently. For him, not only books but also copies of books have their fates.” Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken, 1968), p. 61.
152
“What is the worth”: ISRS, vol. 1, pp. 1269–72.
154
“vivid, living texts”: Silone could not have known it at the time, but his former colleague in the Italian Communist Party, Antonio Gramsci, had surreptitiously written his Prison Notebooks while in Fascist prisons, a work that was to revitalize Italian Marxism after the war. He surely knew of Carlo Rosselli’s Socialisme libéral, which had first been published in France in 1930 (and in an English edition as Liberal Socialism, trans. William McCuaig [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994]). Every educated person of Silone’s generation was familiar with Silvio Pellico’s memoir of time spent in Austrian prisons, Le miei prigioni, translated as My Prisons by I. G. Capaldi (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963). For more recent studies, see Charles Kloop, Sentences: The Memoirs and Letters of Italian Political Prisoners from Benvenuto Cellini to Aldo Moro (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), and Ellen V. Nerenberg, Prison Terms: Representing Confinement During & After Italian Fascism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001).
154
“archival madness.”: The term in the original is “cretinismo archivistico” (not to be confused with Jacques Derrida’s “archive fever”). The materials confiscated by the Swiss police are archived in the Institute for Social History in Amsterdam; I am indebted to the staff there for permission to consult the documents.
155
“I hope to be read”: Here, I do not think Silone means Christian in a religious sense. In the lexicon of the southern Italian peasantry, cristiano meant a decent person, not necessarily a follower of the religion. Of course, this raises the question of why the word came to be used in such a way and what implications it has in how Italians thought of Jews and Muslims. Paradoxically, even Jews and Muslims could be “bravi cristiani.”
156
“a grave threat”: Silone, Memoriale dal carcere svizzero, pp. 89–90.
157
“the special representative”: Darina Silone, letter to Le Monde, May 28, 2000, p. 13.
157
government in exile: Colloqui, p. 64.
157
communication to the Allies: Petersen, From Hitler’s Doorstep, p. 255.
157
conductor Arturo Toscanini: Ibid., p. 8.
158
support the anti-Fascist Resistance: Ibid., p. 594.
158
also a Fascist spy: Ottanelli, “Fascist Informant,” pp. 104–16.
158
“psychological value”: Ibid., p. 11. See the telegram from Dulles to London, April 28, 1944, pp. 275–76.
158
When Silone requested: Petersen, From Hitler’s Doorstep, p. 578.
159
“from the earliest days”: Telegram 1593, March 12, 1943 (doc. 1–41), ibid., pp. 51–52.
159
In the spring of 1943: Telegram 60–66, April 14, 1943, ibid., pp. 57–58.
159
“states that the insurgents”: Ibid., p. 81.
160
“take over Fascist corporations”: July 20, 1943; ibid., p. 85.
160
“Badoglio’s role is”: July 27 and August 14, 1943; ibid., pp. 98, 91.
160
The newly created Italian: January 27, 1944; ibid., p. 205.
160
“it is impossible”: Silone to Sforza, March 10, 1944; quoted ibid., p. 245.
161
“many things which”: “Le idee che sostengo,” p. 1385.
161
“My nostalgia for Switzerland”: Silone to Luce d’Eramo, “Il mio amico Silone,” in Ignazio Silone: Clandestino del Novecento, p. 18.
161
“Their manner of acting”: Quoted in Falcetto, “Introduzione,” in ISRS, vol. 1, pp. xxxiv–xxxv.
162
“a book once published”: Author’s Note to Bread and Wine, p. 179.
FOUR DARINA
163
One day Darina’s father: Colloqui, p. 21.
164
During her first year: “Religious Experiences,” unpublished essay, private correspondence with the author, March 2001.
165
“The curious thing is”: “Esperienze politiche,” unpublished essay of April 2001, presented to the author May 11, 2001.
165
“to become a heretic”: “The Making of an Earth Citizen,” unpublished remarks at a conference commemorating Indira Gandhi, New Delhi, January 1989.
165
“I understood that Mussolini”: “Esperienze politiche,” p. 1.
165
“During my school years”:
Ibid., p. 2.
166
In Zurich: A letter to her parents dated December 31, 1941, intercepted by the Fascist police, now in the Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome. Darina reads from this letter in Colloqui, pp. 100–01.
166
“Gute Deutsche kaufen”: Colloqui, p. 24.
166
One of these “good Germans”: Ibid., p. 25.
167
“Anything, except killing”: “Esperienze politiche,” p. 4.
168
“wasn’t like the movies”: Interview with author, November 27, 2000, Rome.
168
Expelled by the Italian government: Darina Silone obituary by Desmond O’Grady, Irish Independent, August 10, 2003.
168
“Dear Signorina, I have heard”: Colloqui, p. 45.
169
Darina immediately wrote: Ibid., pp. 46–47.
169
“Better to read a writer”: Ibid., p. 48.
170