All Our Yesterdays

by Natalia Ginzburg

  Anna slept soundly all night, because she was tired and because she had partly forgotten the baby. During the night she heard the dog barking down in the garden, then she heard the gate creak, she wanted to look out of the window but fell asleep at once. In her sleep the dog was barking, she dreamed that Ippolito was putting on soldier’s uniform and going off to the war, Giuma too was going off to the war with a tennis-racquet, the war was in the meadows beyond the river and it was just a wooden enclosure full of dogs. Giustino came to awaken her, it was six o’clock in the morning and they had to go, but Ippolito was not in his room, there were just his pyjamas on the unmade bed, he had looked for him all over the house and had not found him. Anna dressed hurriedly and they went out into the cool morning, in the garden the dog was barking, it was scratching the ground and worrying at the gate and barking. Goodness knows where Ippolito had gone, he was really off his head. They walked along the road by the river, they went as far as Danilo’s house but everyone there appeared to be asleep, all the shutters were still closed. They waited for a little outside the door and then Danilo’s wife came out, going to the foundry, no, Ippolito had not been with them. They walked a little way with Danilo’s wife. Danilo’s wife advised them to go to the public gardens, Ippolito had acquired a habit of going there to sit on a seat and smoke early in the morning, she saw him when she passed that way to do her shopping in the market, certainly he had been behaving very strangely for some time now. They left Damlo’s wife at the main gate of the foundry, that day was not a market day, she would have liked to go with them but she was already late. The road by the river was now beginning to be crowded, the air was becoming dusty and hot, and thick white smoke was rising from the chimneys of the soap factory. Their train had left some time ago, they had heard it going off with its shrill whistle into the country. As they went into the public gardens they saw, standing round a seat, a little group of people and two policemen, so they started running. On the seat was sitting Ippolito, dead, and beside him on the ground was their father’s revolver.

  It was an old revolver with an ivory handle, it was the one that their father used to keep on his table when Danilo was standing waiting for Concettina at the gate. There was not much blood to be seen, just a line along his cheek, and a little on his shirt-collar and on the worn collar of his coat. The small head with its streaky fair hair had fallen back on the back of the seat, and you could see the fine white teeth between the parted lips, and the thin line of blood on the stubbly cheek, how rarely he had shaved since France had been defeated. And his hand hung down white and empty, the hand that had fired the shot and then dropped their father’s revolver on the ground.

  A doctor in a white overall looked at the wound, he unbuttoned the shirt over Ippolito’s chest and bent down holding a black trumpet to his ear. And then two men took up the long, inert body from the seat and carried it home. All at once the house was full of people, there were Danilo’s sisters and Signora Maria’s nephew and the music-master, and later Danilo’s mother came rushing in, her bosom heaving and her comb stuck crookedly into her cloud of hair. They had laid Ippolito on the bed in his own room, they had lit wax candles round him and had tied up his face tightly with a handkerchief, Anna had had a long search for the handkerchiefs in the suitcases. In the garden the dog went on barking and scratching, it had dug a hole in front of the gate and was sniffing round inside it and barking. Danilo and his wife appeared. But upon Danilo’s face there was no surprise, there was hardly even any sadness, it was as though something had happened that he had been expecting for a very long time. He sat on the edge of an armchair in the sitting-room as if he were paying a visit, with the same precise, prudent look as he had worn on the day he came back from prison. His wife was weeping, every now and then she burst into a sob which sounded like a cough. Later Signor Sbrancagna also arrived, and sat down in an armchair with his hands crossed on the handle of his stick, and he asked Danilo whether Ippolito had said anything to him. No, said Danilo, Ippolito had not said anything to him. And Signor Sbrancagna said that he had at once taken a great liking to Ippolito, from the very first day he had seen him, and also he had had a suspicion that he might have some secret trouble, a woman perhaps, who knows ? He was such a silent boy, he had no words of friendship or pity for anyone and yet one felt the better just for being with him, as though a great power of friendship and pity proceeded from him. Perhaps few people had understood him. He himself had understood him, he had always sat beside Ippolito with great pleasure and had told him all about himself. Perhaps Ippolito had never got over the death of his father. Then the music-master started to speak of Ippolito’s self-sacrifice in looking after his father, in giving him his injections and reading aloud to him. Giustino suddenly asked whether there was no way of keeping the dog quiet. But then he remembered that Ippolito had asked him to take care of the dog, and he went into the kitchen to get its dinner ready. At the windows the black curtains were fluttering in the sunshine, and Signor Sbrancagna asked Danilo what he thought about the war.

  Towards evening Signora Maria arrived, they had said nothing to Concettina, Emilio had remained at Le Visciole to break it to Concettina gradually. When Signora Maria arrived she looked very, very small, if ever a misfortune occurred she had a way of contracting herself and growing smaller, and this was a misfortune that she could not manage to understand, there she was with her hat all crooked and a little twitch in her shoulder. She wanted to know who the girl was who had refused to marry Ippolito, she asked her nephew, Signor Sbrancagna and the music-master. Danilo she did not ask because she had never been able to endure Danilo, she was sure it was Danilo’s fault that Ippolito was dead, she did not know how but she was sure it was his fault. There must surely be a letter somewhere, surely Ippolito must have left a letter, they had not looked properly. She was sure it would not have happened if she had stayed in town, she would have understood from Ippolito’s face that he was in some sort of trouble, she would have made him speak and she would have gone to the girl and put things right. She told Signor Sbrancagna that Ippolito had so much confidence in her. But Giustino said that there was no girl, no letter, nothing. Signora Maria wrung her hands and lamented that she had gone away, something in her heart had told her she ought not to go, why, oh why had she not listened. She knelt down and prayed at the foot of Ippolito’s bed, she would have liked Anna and Giustino to knee! down too and pray with her, she considered it had been a mistake on the part of their father not to allow his children to kneel down and pray sometimes. Their father said one should not go down on one’s knees in front of anyone, not even in front of God, and one did not know whether God existed or did not exist but if He did exist He liked to see people standing and with their heads held high. Signora Maria thought now that the old man had said many foolish things, perhaps Ippolito would not be dead if as a child he had been taught to pray.

  15

  All the portraits of Ippolito were taken out and framed and arranged on the piano in the sitting-room. The house was searched for yet more portraits, was it possible that there could be so few, why had nobody thought of having more photographs taken of him? Memories, also, were searched for words that he had spoken. But he had spoken so few words. It seemed impossible now that nobody should have asked him for a few more words, it seemed impossible that nobody should have asked him whether perhaps he needed help, that nobody should have followed him when he went out for walks alone, or sat down with him when he was smoking on the seat in the public gardens. After the funeral the drawers of his desk were tidied up, the few letters collected and tied together, there was nothing except a few letters from his father and a few picture post-cards, there were no letters from girls. And Anna and Signora Maria spent a day polishing the floor of his room with wax, tidying up the books and the shelves and cleaning the windows. Anna had forgotten her baby, if she thought of it she said to herself that by now it must certainly be dead, she had sobbed so much and the baby must have been killed by her sobs. Then t
he room was shot up, the mattresses rolled and covered over. Two days after the funeral Emanuele arrived. He thought he would still be in time for the funeral, he had driven his car like a man in desperation but he was too late for the funeral. He fell into an armchair in the sitting-room and burst into sobs. Anna and Giustino stood in front of him in silence, they had already sobbed a great deal and now they had no more tears left, they had nothing left inside them but amazement and silence. Emanuele could not forgive himself for having said good-bye so casually to Ippolito on the morning he went away, just a wave from the window, the figure of Ippolito at the window would stick in his memory for ever, and that little wave of his hand. And he could not forgive himself for having gone away, he was sure that if he had stayed Ippolito would not be dead, he would not have allowed him to think of dying, he would have told him that it wasn’t all over. He took up the portraits of Ippolito one by one from the piano, looked at them and began sobbing again. He had known about it through a letter from Danilo, a very short, cold letter, which did not even mention the day of the funeral. He asked Giustino to go and look for Danilo, but Danilo was no longer there, he had been summoned to the police station and sent away to an island, and there he would have to stay until the end of the war. His mother said there was always typhus on that island, and perhaps typhus was worse than war. His wife had not been able to follow him, she could not lose her job at the foundry. For a short time people in the town had talked of Ippolito, in whispers and in secret because he was a suicide, the Fascists did not like suicides mentioned, in the newspaper the news had been given that a young man had been killed in the public gardens while cleaning his revolver. But soon everyone had forgotten Ippolito and started thinking about the war again. Italian soldiers had begun firing up in the mountains, the Germans were entering Paris. Emanuele said he himself did not feel it was all over. He asked Signora Maria whether she would let him sleep in the sitting-room, he did not want to sleep all alone in his own house. He limped up and down the sitting-room till late talking of Ippolito, never again would he have a friend like Ippolito, never again. No one had known him, he alone could say that he had known him well. And if he had stayed in town he would not have let him die, he would have followed him everywhere and would have snatched the revolver out of his hands, he would have explained to him that the Germans might take Paris and London too, into the bargain, and yet it would not be all over. He went away again next day. He put another case of soap into the car, Mammina always had a horror of being left without soap, of having to wash with those greenish cubes that were being turned out now. Anna and Giustino helped him to load the case on to the car, and stood on the pavement waving their hands until the car disappeared.

  They left for Le Visciole, Signora Maria said that Concettina could not stay there all by herself, with that baby that frightened her because it was the first baby she had ever seen, and with her grief for Ippolito and her fear that her husband would be called to the war. In the train everyone was talking of the bombing of Turin, some of them had been there at the time, the sirens had sounded when the aeroplanes were already streaming over the town. There were fourteen dead, said the newspapers, but goodness knows how many there had really been, you had to multiply what the papers said by ten if it was bad, muttered someone, divide it by ten if it was good. It was an old pedlar who spoke, with a drawer full of laces and buttons tied round his neck, he was a little drunk and kept on talking about multiplying and dividing, he counted on his fingers and got all muddled up. He also told a story of a young man who had shot himself through the head in the public gardens, because he did not want to go to the war. His neighbours made him keep quiet. The pedlar had seen Giustino looking at him, and tried to insist on selling him a few pairs of shoe-laces.

  Concettina was sitting under the pergola suckling her baby. When she saw them arriving she immediately started crying, but the contadino’s wife ran over to tell her that she must not cry when she was suckling the baby or else her milk would be salted with tears. The contadino’s wife was now also weeping for Ippolito, and so was the contadino, and they remembered how they had given him rides on the cart when he was a little boy. But the dog was running after the hens and the contadino’s wife said that hell had begun again for her with that dog.

  Emilio came back late in the afternoon and went off early in the morning : on Sundays he stayed all day. He was no longer so calm and fresh as he had once been, he no longer seemed so like a grazing calf. He had taken to thinking all the time about Ippolito, he too was always searching his memory for words that Ippolito had spoken to him. When he went through the public gardens he seemed to see Ippolito sitting dead on the seat. He said that he, Emilio, had never suffered much, even when he wanted to marry Concettina and she refused he did not suffer very badly, he had an obscure feeling that they would get married some day. But now it had occurred to him that perhaps there were a great many things that had to be suffered, and that the reason he himself did not suffer was merely because he was incapable of thinking about these things, when he wanted to start thinking about something very important or very remote his breath failed him and he became as it were giddy, and it had occurred to him that perhaps this was not at all a good thing. Ippolito had thought about everything, he had died thinking about everything. But he himself, if he was called to the war and if it happened that he was killed, would be dying so very poor in thoughts, so very poor in sorrow, he would be dying without having thought about all there was to think about. He did not feel at all ready to die, if God existed what would he be bringing to this God, God would ask him what he was bringing and he would not know what to answer, he had worked a little in industry with his father, he knew a little about monosulphides and hydrates, he had got his hands a bit stained with acids, he had put on a black shirt and had marched in processions. Concettina started crying, she asked why he too had to die, Ippolito was dead already, why did she have to lose everyone she had? And then Emilio told her for goodness’ sake not to cry, perhaps the contadino’s wife was right, perhaps if she cried her milk would be spoiled in some way or other. Together they went to look at the baby. He had lost his black feather-brush, his head was now all covered with a fine down which glistened in the sun. The baby started yelling and immediately Concettina was frightened, perhaps her milk was not so very good now, she touched her breast to feel if there was still milk there. Concettina said how silly she had been as a girl, she had tortured herself so much on account of her breast, she had been distressed at having so little of it, now all she wanted to know was whether what breast she had was suitable for suckling the baby. Emilio left her alone and went off to roam about the countryside like Ippolito, with Concettina it was now quite impossible to hold a sensible conversation, all she could talk about now was milk and babies. He wandered for a long time among the vineyards and the oak-trees, In the places where he knew Ippolito had been in the habit of walking with the dog; and whenever he knocked his foot against a stone he wondered whether Ippolito had also knocked against it, with those feet that now were dead; and wherever he rested his eyes on the countryside he reflected that Ippolito too had looked at that spot, and he thought how strange it was that the eyes of men should pass across things without leaving any trace, thousands and thousands of dead men’s eyes had rested upon that green and humming countryside.

  Anna did not roam about the countryside, she lay on the bed in her room with the curtains drawn, she did not want to look at the countryside, she did not want to look at the brow of the hill where once upon a time Ippolito could be seen passing and repassing with his gun and his dog. The days lowed past, and she knew now that her baby was still there, she had finished all the quinine, she kept the thousand ire in an envelope pinned to her underclothes, she thought that one day she would go into the town in the little train and look for a midwife, she would tell Signora Maria that she had left one of her mathematical books behind. She pictured the midwife as looking rather like Danilo’s mother. Gradually she came to pictu
re her as being more and more kind-hearted and motherly, she did not even want the thousand ire and did everything for nothing, so sorry was she for her. But on the other hand there were times when she imagined that she would let this baby come into the world, and that she would go and live with it in some distant town, and work hard to support it, and all of a sudden Giuma would appear by chance in this distant town, he would have left the girl Fiammetta for good because he had realized that she was an impossible kind of person. And Giuma wanted to marry her but now she no longer wanted it, she ran away with the baby to some even more distant town, she worked even harder, she sat at an office desk and handled business affaire, she handled them with vertiginous speed and the manager came and told her that no one could handle affairs so speedily as she. And the Germans were there but all the same it suddenly became possible to start a revolution. She and the manager were running over the roof-tops, placing secret papers in safety. But the baby had to be placed in safety too, the house in which the baby was had caught fire, she and the manager threw themselves into the flames in order to save the baby.