That Awful Mess On The Via Merulana

by Carlo Emilio Gadda

  The wood of the steps continued to creak, more and more, under the rising weight of the three. Ingravallo, once at the top, pushed the door, with a certain charitable prudence.

  He went in, followed by Tina and by Di Pietrantonio, into a large room. A stink, there, of dirty clothing or of not very washable or seldom-washed people in illness, or sweating in the labor that the countryside, unremittingly, at every change of weather, demands: or rather, even more, of feces poorly put away near the illness, so needful of shelter. Two long tapers painted in the vivid colors, blues, reds, gold, of a coloristic tradition unbroken in the years, hung on the wall from two nails at either side of the bed: the dry olive twig: an oleograph, the blue Madonna with a golden crown, in a black wood frame. Some rush-bottomed chairs. A plaster cat with a ribbon around its neck, scarlet, on the commode amid bottles, bowls. Near the Illness was seated an old woman, her striped skirt halfway down her tibias, with a pair of cloth shoes, no laces (and, within, her feet) which she had rested on the crossbar of the chair, open like slippers. In the bed, broad, under worn and greenish blankets, covered in part by one good one (and warm, and light, gift of Liliana, Ingravallo deduced) an outstretched little body, like a skinny cat in a sack set on the ground: a bony and cachetic face rested on the pillow, motionless, of a yellow-brown like something in an Egyptian museum; were it not, on the other hand, for the glassy whiteness of the beard, which indicated its belonging, not to an Egyptian catalogue, but to an era of human history painfully close and, for Ingravallo, in those days, downright contemporary. Everything was silent. You couldn't understand whether the man was alive or dead: if it was a man or woman, who in proceeding among the consolations of offspring and of the hoe in a swarm of mosquitoes towards the golden wedding, had sprouted that beard: a virile beard, as was wont to say, even of feminine beards, the Founder of the five-year-old Empire. The two tapers, here and there, seemed to be waiting to be stuck into suitable candlesticks, lighted by a match held in a charitable hand. Intolerant of this new mess of the dying parent and yet cautious and pitying, the imagination of Doctor Ingravallo kicked, bucked, galloped, heard and saw: he was seeing and already dismissing the coffin without drapery, of poplar planks, flowered with periwinkles and primula, surrounded by the absolving mutters or the prompt insurgence of some phrase chanted, or perhaps nasalized for better or worse amid the murmurings of the women and the good odor of the incense, issuing (core cuidado) from the parsimonious sway of the censer: to signify the great fear suffered and the repentance of the deceased, and the imploration and hope, all around, of the living and the surviving, once that coffin was closed and nailed and well-hammered: and in short, a kind of convinced serenity in every heart (better to go like this than to suffer for another month or more), in watching the planks, the flowers . . . target of the reiterated spatterings of the asperges: between a shuffling of soles and a creaking of iron on the cobbles, if there were cobbles. But the reality was as yet different from the dream: those images of an almost raving impatience regarded the future, however near that future might be. Don Ciccio restrained the galloping of his delirium, tugged at the reins of his pawing rage. The patient, so thin, seemed ripe for the last rites: Eternity, infallible physician, was already, bent over him. Lovingly, she gazed upon him (and gulped some saliva down) with the succoring and greedy gaze of a Red Cross woman or a nurse who was slightly necrophilic: concerned with wiping his forehead in a light caress with the more delaying hand: and with the other, expert one, maneuvering under the covers and even under the body, between the sacroiliac and the bedpan, had finally found the right spot to stick into him the little point, the ebonite straw, for the service of perpetual immunization.

  Strange borborygms, under cover, contradicted the coma, and, more strangely, death: they gave the impression of a miraculous imminence: that the sheets and the blankets were on the point of bulging, swelling: of rising and floating in midair, on the paralyzed gravity of death. The old woman, Migliarini Veronica, was huddled in the chair, frozen in a commemoration of the ages that had, on the other hand, dissolved into non-memory: she had one of her hands in the other, resembling Cosimo pater patriae in the so-called portrait by Pontormo: dry, lizardy skin, on her face, and the wrinkled immobility of a fossil. There wasn't, in her lap, but she would have liked it, the earthenware brazier. She raised her eyes, gelatinous and glassy in their tan color, without interrogating any of those people who, to her, must have seemed shadows, neither the girl, nor the men. The spent quiet of her gaze was opposed to the event, like the mindless memory of the earth, from paleontological distances: alienating that face of a hundred-and-ninety-year-old Aztec woman from the acquisitions of the species, from the latest, quick-change artist's conquests of Italian eyeing.

  A majolica pan, as if from a clinic of the first category, was set on the brick floor, and not even near the wall: and neither did it lack some undeciphered content, on the consistence, coloration, odor, viscosity and specific weight of which both the lynx eyes and the bloodhound scent of Ingravallo felt that it wasn't necessary to investigate and analyze: the nose, of course, could not exempt itself from its natural functioning, that is, from that activity, or to be more accurate, that papillary passivity which is proper to it, and which does not admit, helas, any interlude or inhibition or absence of any kind from its duty.

  "Is this your father?" Don Ciccio asked Tina, looking at her, looking around, and then taking off his hat.

  "Doctor, you see the state he's in. You wouldn't believe me: but now you've got to believe me, finally!" she exclaimed in a resentful tone, and with eyes which seemed to have wept, the beauty. "I've given up hope by now. It'd be better for him, and for me too, if he died. To suffer like that, and without any money or anything. His behind, if you'll pardon the word, is just one big sore, now: it's a mess, poor Papa!" She was trying, thought Ingravallo harshly, in her grief she was trying to turn her father to use, his direct decay. "And he even has a rubber bedpan," she sighed, "otherwise his bedsores would have been infected. This morning, at eight o'clock, he was in pain again, it hurt him bad, he said. He couldn't stay still ten minutes, you might say. Now he hasn't moved for three hours: he doesn't say a word: I have a feeling he's out of his suffering now, that he can't suffer any more": she dried her eyes, blew her little nose: "because he can't feel anything now, good or bad, poor Papa . . . The priest can't get here before one, he sent word. Ah me, poor us!" she looked at Ingravallo, "if it hadn't been for the signora!" That remark sounded empty, distant. Liliana: it was a name. It seemed, to Don Ciccio, that the girl hesitated to evoke it.

  "Of course," he said, wearily, "the bedpan!" and he remembered the unbosomings of Balducci, "I know, I know who gave it to you: and that jar, too," and he indicated it with his head, his chin, "and the blanket," he looked at the blanket on the bed, "you were given them by ... by a person who promptly got paid back, for her goodness. Don't do good, if you don't want to receive evil, the proverb says. And that's how it is. Aren't you going to talk? Don't you remember?"

  "Doctor? what should I remember?"

  "Remember the person who helped you so much, when you deserved so little."

  "Yes, the family where I worked: but why didn't I deserve it?"

  "The family! Signora Liliana, you mean! who had her throat cut by a murderer!" and his eyes were such that, this time, Tina was frightened: "by a murderer," he repeated, "whose name," he spoke, curule, "whose full name we know! . . . and where he lives: and what he does . . ." The girl turned white, but didn't say a word.

  "Out with his name! yelled Don Ciccio. "The police know this name already. If you tell it right now," his voice became deep, persuasive: "it's all to the good, for you."

  "Doctor Ingravalli," repeated Tina to gain time, hesitating, "how can I say it, when I don't know anything?"

  "You know too much, you liar," shouted Ingravallo again, his nose to hers. Di Pietrantonio was stunned. "Cough it up, that name, you've got here: or the corporal'll make you spill it, in the barracks,
at Marino: Corporal Pestalozzi."

  "No, sir, no, Doctor: it wasn't me!" the girl implored then, simulating, perhaps, and in part enjoying, a dutiful fear: the fear that whitens the face a little, but still resists all threats. A splendid vitality, in her, beside the moribund author of her days, which should have been splendid: an undaunted faith in the expressions of her flesh, which she seemed to hurl boldly to the offensive, in a prompt frown, with a scowl: "No, it wasn't me!" The incredible cry blocked the haunted man's fury. He didn't understand, then and there, what his spirit was on the point of understanding. That black, vertical fold above the two eyebrows of rage, in the pale white face of the girl, paralyzed him, prompted him to reflect: to repent, almost.

  The name Remo (Remus) Gadda imagines as being disliked by the Fascists because of their cult of Romulus, founder of Rome. Eleuterio is the Italian translation of the Greek name which means "free." It's unlikely that many Fascists gave these names any thought.

  The title "signorino," now disappearing from Italian usage, was given—usually by the women of the family—to unmarried men, young or old. The word, when used by Ingravallo, has a slightly contemptuous nuance.

  The initials PV and BM—which will be encountered later on— are indications of various bus lines in the Rome of 1927.

  One of the difficulties of the Countess' surname is that it is perilously close to several Italian obscenities, such as cazzo, caca.

  Luigi Facta had been the ineffectual Prime Minister of Italy at the time of the March on Rome. Mussolini made him a Senator in 1924.

  Margherita Sarfatti, one-time mistress of Mussolini and author of the fulsome biography, Dux.

  Mussolini, in 1927, was also Foreign Minister. His offices were in Palazzo Chigi.

  Faiti and Cengio are mountains where the Italian army fought bitterly and suffered severe losses in the First World War, and where Gadda's brother was killed. For a moment, here, Gadda identifies himself openly with Ingravallo and attributes his own bereavement to the fictional character.

  Sgurgola is a small village not far from Rome, often used by Romans to indicate a backward locality, a place from which peasants come.

  At a later date, Mussolini, with great bombast, was to ask the wives of Italv to sacrifice their gold wedding rings to the Fatherland.

  A typical Gaddian private joke. Pope Pius XI was fond of blessing newlyweds, referring to them as sposi novelli ("fresh bridal pairs") ; polli novelli is the characteristic Roman advertisement for fresh chickens. (Among Gadda's less well-known achievements is the construction, as engineer, of the Vatican Power Station for Pius XI. He also wrote the official description of it.)

  Cola di Rienzo (1312-54), medieval revolutionary figure who was executed. The words "fat, he was" are a quotation from a contemporary chronicle.

  Ferrania is a small city near Savona. Mussolini had planned an oil pipeline there. It was never built.

  Reference to an Italian custom: recently married couples send sugared almonds in tulle bags to those who have sent—or should send —wedding presents.

  cinobalànico, a word invented by Gadda, a Greco-Italian adjective created from an obscene Roman dialect expression meaning "badly done."

  Cesare Beccaria, Italian reformer and humanitarian (1738-94), author of the famous Dei delitti e delle pene. The Pirroficoni case was an actual event (as, for that matter, was the crime which inspired Il pasticciaccio).

  Luigi Federzoni was Mussolini's Minister of the Interior.

  A Gaddian parody of the Latin inscriptions on buildings all over Italy, a custom initiated by the Popes and continued with gusto by the Fascists, who were fond of translating their names and titles into Latin. Rosa Maltoni was the maiden name of Mussolini's mother.

  Irnerius, teacher of law of Bologna, was the first great commentator on Roman law (1065-1125).

  Prati, a section of Rome on the left bank of the Tiber, a fashionable residential district in the early years of this century.

  La Gajola is a little island off the tip of Cape Posillipo, just outside Naples.

  Vittorio Amedeo II of Sardinia once gave his Collare dell'Annunziata (a decoration corresponding, more or less, to the Garter) to a group of poor subjects—an episode included in all Italian school-books for the edification of young students during the Monarchy.

  The Italian Mint is in Piazza Verdi, Rome.

  A reference to Alcide de Gasperi, Prime Minister of Italy at the time this book was being written.

  Mussolini numbered the years of the "Fascist Era." The Year Fifteen would be 1937.

  The little town of Predappio was Mussolini's birthplace.

  Barbisa is the Milanese dialect word for the female organ.

  "Comit" is the abbreviation for the Banca Commerciale Italiane.

  Alessandro Galilei (1691-1737), architect of St. John Lateran, the beloved "San Giovanni" of the Romans.

  Virginia assumes that the word pediatra (pediatrician) has something to do with feet (piedi).

  Rome's Regina Coeli prison is on the Via della Lungara.

  The law in Italy is enforced not only by the police, locally, but also by the carabinieri (formerly the Royal Carabinieri), a national force with a long tradition. There is ill-concealed rivalry between the two forces.

  Another reference to Mussolini, son of Rosa Maltoni.

  The "mountain" is that of the French revolutionary Convention. The "bull" is Danton. An obscure reference, prompted by Gadda's wide reading in French history.

  The "fourth shore," an Italian jingoist slogan, referring to the shore of Libya, Italy's onetime colony.

  A private reference. The Sicilian sculptor Francesco Messina was, apparently, at one time the owner of a red Lancia.

  The Milanese engineer Luigi Vittorio Bertarelli was President of the Italian Touring Club and sponsored, about this time, a campaign to set up the standard Italian road signs all over the country, arousing Gadda's ire.

  Vitori and Luis are Milanese dialect for Vittorio and Luigi, the names of the hapless Bertarelli.

  "Hypocarduccian" is a reference to the patriotic poet Giosue Carducci (1835-1907).

  References to the Italian revolution of 1848 and the brief Roman Republic of 1849.

  "Gregorian" has a faintly Papal flavor, but in Roman dialect gregorio also means the "behind."

  La difesa della razza was the publication of the Italian racists, sponsored by the Fascists after the special (i.e., antisemitic) laws of 1938.

  The Foro Italico—formerly Foro Mussolini—is a complex of stadiums, swimming pool, and other sports buildings on the northern outskirts of Rome. It was—and still is—decorated by pseudo-heroic male statues, each representing a city or a region of Italy. Latium (Lazio) is the region of Rome.

  The Priory of the Knights of Malta is on the Aventine Hill, just above the Clivo de' Publicii.

  Pinturicchio (or Pintoricchio) was a nickname, meaning "little" painter; Doctor Fumi is making a pun on the name.

  That is to say, to Ingravallo's native Molise.

  Another reference to Mussolini.

  The sibyl of Cumae (just outside Naples) was renowned in ancient times, described by Virgil in Book Six of the Aeneid.

  To ward off the evil eye.

  A complicated and typically Gaddian aside: he refers to the bureaucratic confusion which once had him registered as Paolo Emilio. (Paulus Emilius, in 216 B.C., advised Varro not to fight Hannibal; Varro did and was defeated at Cannae. Paulus was killed, having refused to flee when the opportunity was given him.) Then he was registered as Paolo Maria, before he succeeded in having his name entered properly, correcting also "Gadola" into "Gadda."

  R.R.C.C., the Royal Carabinieri.

  A reference to the Bernini St. Teresa in Ecstasy, in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome.

  Fara Filiorum Petri is the peculiar name of a small town in the Abruzzo from which, apparently, this carabiniere private comes. Gadda refers to him at times by the name of the town, at times by combined forms of it ("Farafi
lio"), and at times by his surname, Cocullo.

  This whole passage is underlined by an untranslatable play on the similarity of two words, la luce (light) and I'alluce (big toe).

  Babylon, in this case, means Rome.

  "At prompting of the Eternal Spirit's breath," Dante, Paradiso, XII, 99 (Binyon translation).

  " Crescite vero in gratia et in cognitione Domini. Petri Secunda Epistula: (111-18)." (Author's note). ". . . grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord . . ."

  "Saepe proposui venire ad vos et prohibitus sum usque adhuc. Pauli ad Romanos: (1-13)." (Author's note). ". . . oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, but I was let hitherto . . ."

  Gioacchino Belli (1791-1863), Roman dialect poet.