Journal of Italian Translation

Roberto De Lucca/ Carlo Emilio Gadda
113
heart thinks, the tongue speaks… at the babies, at the pretty maids all verdant
with chard and spinach, in baskets, coming from Piazza Vittorio in the
morning: or with their fannies in the air, bent over to mop some kid’s nose, or
poke around, see if he’s wet himself, off schedule: since it’s right then you get
a load of her goldmine, that is the maid’s, the whole works, all the thigh from
behind: now that it’s the style to wear such skimpy underpants, if they’re
even wearing. She looked at the girls; returned, in a flash as by deep-felt,
despondent signal, the bold glances of young men: a caress or benevolent
franchise mentally bequeathed future bequeathers of life: to whoever might
bear within him the certainty, the seminal truth, the kernel of secret becoming.
The pure assent of a fraternal soul: to those who traced the pattern of life.
But out of the dark manger the years stampeded, one after the other, into
nothingness. From those years, the constraints of morality, at work, the initial
manifestations and hence the gradual deterioration into a delirium of
solitude (“rare, in a woman”, dottor Fumi put in gently: “In a Roman woman,
then…”: “We’re chummy, we Romans”, Balducci acquiesced): and that entirely
contrasting need to depend spiritually on the other’s physical image;
upon the vigorous breeding of peoples, of the poor. That mania… for forking
out double bed-sheets to the maids, insisting on putting up dowries, pushing
folks who asked for nothing better to tie the knot: and then the whim, that
took hold of her for days on end, to want to bawl and blow her nose, poor
Liliana, if they actually went ahead and did it: as if pricked by jealousy after
the fact. Ate her heart out: like they’d up and married to spite her, just to be
able to say: lookee here, four months only and already a kid’s on the way!
Our eight pound kiddo, two pounds a month. “Some mornings all it took
was some girlfriend saying: You should see the spare tire Clementine’s got
on her!”, to give her the sniffles. “Once she almost threw a fit with me, her
husband, over some girl from Soriano nel Cimino: country girl’d come down
to Rome by train to bring me a piece of the wedding cake. “I don’t even
wanna lay eyes on that dirty bitch!” she was screaming. The bride, poor kid,
comes in with her guy, preceded by a belly like a hot air balloon at the
fireworks at San Giovanni. They said: we brought you the wedding cake.
Naturally they were a little embarrassed. I say to them, laughing: I see you’re
enjoying the fresh air up there, at Cimìno: she blushes, glances down at her
belly, like the Virgin Mary when that angel lays it on the line at the Annunciation:
but then she gains her spunk back and says: well, what do you want,
Mr. Balducci? We’re young. So we jumped the gun a little… When the kid
comes into the world who’s gonna still remember? if the priest was around
or wasn’t around, to give his blessing? Not to worry, ‘cause now we’re all
three blessed.” The years! like a wasting rose, its petals falling one by one
into nothingness.
It was at this point, his face ashen, that Ingravallo begged leave to
shove off: duty calling. Reports and memoranda from subordinates, voiced
or in writing: orders to impart: telephone. Dottor Fumi followed him from out
of the corner of his eye as he moved toward the exit, his head bowed and