by Anna Banti
The color hovered about and arrived later, within touching distance of the words that were yet to be said.
Silver
To seek each other, reflect each other everywhere, aglow in the darkness. To get to know objects, to remember where we are, to shine out, catching light, playing with reflections. To soothe, marvel, transmit an exquisite fairy-tale aura to an image, add movement to a glance, prolong a look, become enchanted with superficiality. To be surprised and stupefied, to recall magical associations, suggestive impressions, to slip away from time. To stop and try to see more than what is there, to throw doubt on what we actually see. To exalt luminosity and the essence of angles. To decorate, celebrate, ornament, make things memorable. To wait no longer for day-time to have something of night, for night to be space. To be assured of an opening, a point of escape, a gap in material life that we may pass through, like music. The feeling of cool relief, haste, even disloyalty. Haziness, a mixing of fire and oceans. To do away with surfaces in order to avoid depth. A flight from the impulse to perpetuate.
Green
Never still. It breathes, ripples, becomes part of the air, swelling, rocking, trembling. It races, jumps or sneaks about. Deaf, mute, unwary of adversaries, translucent, it has no beginning, no end. Its profundity reaches every niche of the forest, swinging with the trees, shaping the wind. Weaving in and out, it creates mazes in space and a soft musky odor over the cottony oceanic silence.
It is a sign of life among the plants and of seduction for reptiles; it is comforting, cordial, digestive. In shades of various intensity, penetrated by sounds, a rush of freshness that is unripe, flexible, an exceptional dancer not afraid of the world it owns, the energizer of metallic light, opposed to vainglory. It mirrors nothing, neither the tree next to the house nor the lizard on the garden wall. Meadows, pastures, prairies, plum trees, pine trees, parks, pistachios. It moves forever ahead, but never escapes, letting others search for it, mobile and spectacular. Verdi, the national anthem, Maurizio Nannucci, vegetables, Verdiglione. Fertile, frankly sexual, it laughs gurgling, greets you with a wide grin, with open arms, with the firm stance of a mountain climber or a gymnastics teacher. A painstaking seamstress, an expert at embroidering hems and borders, sewing buttonholes. Apparently unacquainted with nostalgia or bitterness, loved by everyone. “Why is green suffocated by black whereas white isn’t?” Because it exists outside of itself, always the host. Greenbacks, being in the hills. It has a task to perform, a mission to accomplish, never thinking over past choices, destined for immortality. Long greenish distances are liberated at every passing. Alert and aware, it is young, and although others may try hard not to die or go insane, not wanting to remain in this world, but lacking the courage to leave it, green is contented, fulfilling its duty, aspiring to maturity. Like a person without dreams who laughs and smiles, not too concerned with itself, eating what comes along, out of curiosity for new tastes, uncomplaining, nonchalantly swallowing tranquillizers, closing its eyes when its head aches, calmly dozing at the theater, unmoved by boredom.
White
Disintegrated voices, where all sounds fade away, calls reach their end, and space absorbs them; where words go when they sink to the deep or get thrown ashore. Can anyone express thought without the voice inevitably taking on those characteristics, imposing authority through acceptance of prohibitions, seductions, gestures, and the mazes of propositions that sadden words, forcing infinite repetition like someone who tries desperately to sit down, get up and go away. These are people who talk to each other, seek each other and adopt a pose when they meet. People who are forever late so that they may act as though they had never come, while others cannot remain where their desires lead them because they are afraid to die. Lines of shade, light, pointed angles, openings, ravines, short runs, dense steam and then periods of thin silence. Hands clasping the knees like cradles or hats, warm lips pressed tight that focus ahead. Corners in which waiting is immersed, over the knotty tree branches. A relaxed oval face that crosses hazily above, below and through another face, momentarily as in a port. A glitter of pleasure while glancing about, finally at rest and out of the wind. No need for experience in these seas. At the wedding tomorrow, it will be catapulted among white lilies, rice and sheets. White eyes and teeth stuck in a dark face, with luminously incandescent pearls at the ear-lobes. The fingernails standing out against the tan skin are like shells on the cliffs, whereas the white curves of the nails seem to be ephemeral shields protecting a desire to streak a furrow in the earth. The nails are open shells that embrace in the warmth of the skin. It is the dawn breaking from night’s embrace while, on the terrace rail, shreds of curdled spiderwebs swing from the green columns, hanging by a slender thread. The railing has blossomed ephemerous white growths that sway in the wind like sleepwalkers. The baker has set the baskets of warm bread all in a row next to the door, while way beyond, the thoughts of life spread ever wider on the horizon, arching softly, making the end imperceptible, slipping away, never stumbling, like a laugh that spreads, a voice reaching the bed, breath, a high floor, a white ceiling. The distant white whale among the icebergs. The white cliffs of Dover, Siamese cats, polar bears and ghosts, choir-boys, the uniforms of nurses, cooks and sailors. White telephones. Aniseed, milk, fresh almond and walnut kernels, bananas. Salt. Sails over the waves and a white band holding back dark hair. Pelican swans, a bone in a dog’s mouth, elephant tusks. Lambs, marble quarries, the moon behind the clouds, dazzling blades, Snow White, snow, canvas for painting, sleepless ‘white-mares.’ Space suits, zebra stripes on the asphalt, zebras in the savanna, white chessmen and checkers. A starched tuxedo shirt, egg white, cigarette paper. Thin crests of foam that break against the ship’s side.
Translated by Gloria Italiano
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Authors
Anna Banti (1895–1985) lived in Florence where for many years she directed the art-literary journal Paragone founded by her husband Roberto Longhi. Her novels and short stories have a historical setting, but with a modern message. They are imaginatively focused on such historical figures as the painter Artemisia and the French wife of the last Medici Grand Duke of Tuscany, Marguerite-Louise. Her story here deals with a nineteenth-century family that is contaminated at the core by the hatred of husband-father-breadwinner and wife-mother-housewife. A “typical” family situation, except that in this case the woman finds courage to resist, if only passively.
Grazia Deledda (1871–1936) was born and lived in Nuoro, Sardinia until she married and moved to Rome in 1900. Her novels and short stories, set in an archaic yet changing Sardinia, received early acclaim. Deledda won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1926. She wrote nearly forty novels and collections of short stories in as many years. The first English translation of her autobiographical novel, Cosima, translated by Martha King, was published by Italica Press in 1988.
Paola Drigo (1876–1938) was born in Castelfranco in the Veneto and died in Padua. Her three collections of stories and one novel, Maria Zef (published in 1936 and reissued in 1982), deal with the problems of the rural north. She is acclaimed for her realistic portrayals of aristocrats, farm owners and workers in a changing agricultural society. A movie version of Maria Zef was made in 1954, and in 1981 it was produced for TV. Blossom S. Kirschenbaum’s translation of the complete novel has been published by the University of Nebraska Press.
Natalia Ginzburg, born in 1916, is perhaps best-known to English readers through the translation of many of her books. Her simple, conversational style in such works as Voices in the Evening, Family Sayings, and The Little Virtues has won her a wide readership in the United States and England as well as in Italy. She works as an editor for Einaudi publishing house and also serves as a member in the Italian Parliament.
Geda Jacolutti (1921–1989) was born in Udine, where she taught in a women’s public school for more than thirty years. In addition to short stories she wrote poetry and had five books of her translations from the classics published in Italy. Jacolutti di
rected a graphics and poetry series, Pagine Provinciali, for the publisher La Nuova Base di Udine. This publishing house also brought out collections of her short stories: Gli itinerari (1978), Singolare Femminile (1983), and Il passo degli angeli (1984).
Gina Lagorio was born in Piedmont, in north-west Italy and at present lives and works in Milan. She has produced novels, essays and plays. In 1983 she was awarded the Premio Flaiano for the theater for her comedy Raccontami quella di Flic. The novel Tosca dei gatti (Premio Viareggio 1984) was first issued in 1983. She is known for her portrayal of “new” women who have forged nontraditional lifestyles.
Rosetta Loy’s prize-winning novel, La strade di polvere, a fictional history set in the politically turbulent nineteenth century, was on the list of best-selling books in Italy for many weeks. She was born in Rome of a Roman mother and a father from Piedmont (the locale of her recent novel). Loy has published four novels and a book of short stories since 1974.
Dacia Maraini has published novels, short stories, plays and poetry for more than 20 years. In 1962, when she was 26, her first novel, La vacanza, appeared with a rather equivocal preface written by Alberto Moravia. This novel was surprisingly successful and four printings immediately followed. Marini’s next novel, L’età del malessere, won the international award Formentor, which caused much controversy – how could such a young (and pretty) woman also be a good writer? Dacia Marini’s protagonists, always women, are often outsiders looking in on the “good life.” They are sometimes the victims of deliberate male repression, but more often they are simply playing out a bleak twentieth-century drama in which they have little or no control. Maraini, who presently lives in Rome, is considered one of the most influential writers associated with the feminist movement in Italy, and her fiction and poetry reflect her political concerns.
Milena Milani, like Monica Sarsini, is an artist as well as a writer, having had over forty one-person shows since 1965. Many of her collections of short stories, poetry, and her novels have won national prizes. She was born in Savona but has lived in Rome since childhood. Her short fiction has also appeared in various Italian newspapers.
Marina Mizzau teaches psychology at the University of Bologna. She writes about daily, apparently insignificant, incidents, such as a trip on an elevator or crossing the street, that nevertheless have wider implications. The conflicts, confusion, embarrassment of her characters put aspects of the human psyche in high relief. Her publications include Tecniche narrative e romanzo contemporaneo (Mursia, 1965), Prospettive della comunicazione interpersonale (Il Mulino, 1974), Eco e Narciso: Parole e silenze nel confitto uomo-donna (Boringhieri, 1979) and L’ironia (Feltrinelli, 1984).
Giuliana Morandini lives in Rome where she works in the field of literary and drama criticism with special reference to German culture. Her works include E allora mi hanno rinchiusa (Premio Viareggio, 1977), an inquiry into mental homes for women; I cristalli di Vienna (translated as Bloodstains by Blossom S. Kirschenbaum, St. Paul, MN: New Rivers Press, 1987), the novel in which her family and wartime memories mirror the crisis of reason and culture; La voce che è in lei (1980) on the works of nineteenth-century women writers; Caffé Specchi (Premio Viareggio, 1983), the intense story of a woman in timeless Trieste. Her interest in Central European heritage and psychoanalysis also affects her children’s works (Ricerca Carlotta, 1979). She edited the German edition of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s plays (Frankfurt, 1984). Her most recent work is the novel Angelo à Berlino (1987), which portrays the traditions and conflicts of Berlin, intermingled with personal recollections.
Elsa Morante (1912–1985) is considered by many to be one of the best Italian writers of this century. Though she wrote few books, they have proved durable, outside any current writing fashion. La storia (1947) was a best-seller for many weeks and was made into a television film in 1987. She also wrote L’isola di Arturo, the story of young Arthur’s growing up on the island of Procida, from innocence to knowledge of the corrupt world. Her last novel was Aracoeli. Perhaps because of the books’ popularity, Italian critics have been divided in their appraisal of them.
Maria Occhipinti was arrested in Ragusa, Sicily, as an activist opposing compulsory conscription in January 1945 when she was 24 years old. She was first exiled to the island of Ustica and later incarcerated in Palermo. “The Benedictines,” recalling these events, is from her autobiographical novel, Una donna di Ragusa (Milan: Luciano Landi, 1957; Feltrinelli, 1976). Now in her sixties, Occhipinti lives in Rome with her daughter after living many years in England, Switzerland and the United States where she worked in hospitals, private homes and as a fur tailor. After returning to Italy, she resumed her political advocacy for victims of persecution, speaking out in defense of the Sicilian farmers against state expropriations and against nuclear weapons. In 1975 Una donna di Ragusa won the Zafferana Etna Prize, and in 1988 it was awarded the Cesare Pavese Prize.
Anna Maria Ortese was born in Rome in 1914 and was twenty-three when her first book, Angelici dolori, came out in 1937. In 1950 her second novel was published, L’infanta sepolta, and three years later the successful collection of short stories, Il mare non bagna Napoli, which was awarded the Premio Viareggio. Many other prize-winning novels followed. Ortese has also contributed cultural articles to Italian newspapers. She now lives a reclusive life in Rapallo and continues to publish her visionary works in realistic settings. A complete collection of her short stories in English translation is forthcoming from McPherson & Co.
Fabrizia Ramondino, born in Naples in 1936, has lived in Spain, France and Germany. In 1960 she returned to Naples to live, contributing to the newspaper Il Mattino. Among her publications are Napoli, i disoccupati organizzati: I Protagonisti raccontano (1977), Althenopis (1981), Storie di Patio (1983), Taccuino Tedesco (1987), and Un Giorno e mezzo (1988), a novel about life in Naples in the late 1960s.
Francesca Sanvitale was born in Milan; studying and working in Florence until the sixties, she then moved to Rome where she now lives. She has published three novels and numerous essays on contemporary fiction. For many years she has written for newspapers, magazines and television. Her acute psychological observations make her novels and short stories rewarding reading; an especially poignant novel explores a mother-daughter relationship, Madre e figlia (1980). Because she has known different regions of Italy so well her settings can just as easily be Milan, Florence or Rome.
Monica Sarsini is a thirty-five year old Florentine multimedia artist. Her colorful paper collages have been exhibited in galleries in the principle cities of Italy. Her publications include Crepacuore and Crepapelle, both by Vanni Scheiwiller of Milan, and a novella “Lapo” appearing in the October 1988 issue of the literary review Linea d’Ombra. Her collages have also been printed in three limited editions, with numbered copies, by the Exit art publishing house. The five colors presented here are taken from Colorare (Bologna, 1984).
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Translators
Helen Barolini lives in Scarborough, New York. Her stories, translations, reviews, essays and poetry have appeared in Kenyon Review, Paris Review, New York Review of Books, Antioch Review, and elsewhere. For her work, she has won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation and a creative writing grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. She has translated many books from Italian into English; she originated and compiled The Dream Book: An Anthology of Writings by Italian American Women. She has published the novels, Umbertina and Love in the Middle Ages. Her most recent book is Festa: Recipes and Recollections of Italy (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1988).
Dick Davis is a British free-lance writer, poet, critic, and translator. He has translated The Little Virtues (New York: Seaver Books, 1986) and The City and the House (New York: Seaver Books, 1987) by Natalia Ginzburg into English
Gloria Italiano received an M.A. in Italian Literature from the University of Wisconsin and an M.S. in Linguistics from Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Presently Associate Professor of English
Language at the University of Florence, Italy, she previously taught simultaneous and consecutive translations at the School for Interpreters in Florence. Her translations include St. Teresa of Avila by Giorgio Papasogli (New York: Society of St. Paul, 1964), Pescia nel Rinascimento: All’Ombra di Firenze, by Judith C. Brown, In the Shadow of Florence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), and An English Prince: Newcastle’s Machiavellian Political Guide to Charles II (Pisa: Giardini Editors, 1988). Four English/Italian Stories – Experiments in Translation (Lake Bluff, IL: Jupiter Press, 1983) reflects her academic interests in socio-linguistic theory, language transfer, and their applications to foreign-language teaching.
Martha King received her Ph.D. in Italian from the University of Wisconsin. Her translations and articles on Italian literature have been published in Modern Language Notes, James Joyce Quarterly, Italian Quarterly, Translation, Stories, The Literary Review and other journals. The National Endowment for the Arts awarded her a translation grant in 1980–81. In 1988 Italica Press published her translations of Cosima by Grazia Deledda and Family Chronicle by Vasco Pratolini. Her interest has long focused on Sardinian writers, particularly Deledda, whose biography she is presently writing. She has lived in Tuscany since 1979.
