Journal of Italian Translation - Brooklyn College - Academic Home ...

Blossom S. Kirschenbaum / Stefano Benni
From La grammatica di Dio by Stefano Benni, translated by Blossom S.
Kirschenbaum, 12 March 2008
A Red Rose
In the conference room about twenty people were seated.
Such an utter silence prevailed that they could hear the bubbles
popping in the bottles of mineral water. The serious faces proclaimed
the importance of the moment. At the head of the table
was an old man with a stern visage. His pointed chin and thick
white eyebrows made him look like a bird of prey, a royal eagle
who commanded all the mountain peaks within his domain. Even
if a slight tremor of his hands proclaimed the toll that time had
taken, he was the boss, and every glance and gesture revealed it.
“I was sixteen years old,” began the old man, “an age exultant
and pathetic, marvelous and utterly sad. And I wanted, more
than anything else, a girl to love.
“But at age sixteen in that respectable city in that select junior
college, pairing up required possessing two qualities: to be very
rich or very handsome.
”I wasn’t rich, I couldn’t afford a motorcycle, or elegant colorful
argyle pullovers, or stylish sport shirts. I wore, almost yearround,
heavy hand-knitted raw-wool sweaters, and I smelled a bit
of camphor.
“Nor was I handsome. I had pimples and was generally unkempt.
Below my mouth was carved a bitter wrinkle, the same
one that I have preserved till now. I was tall, but hunched over
from study, and I always had dirty fingernails, no matter how
hard I tried to take care of them.
“However true or false my defects might have been, I suffered
over them, and I kept very much to myself.
“On Sunday afternoons I used to go walking for hours and
hours, from the center of town to the furthermost outskirts, looking
with envy at all the couples. Before falling asleep I dreamed
kisses, passionate outbursts, unbridled loves.
“I imagined dialogues and scenes, comedies and dramas, in
which I seduced or yielded to seduction.
“But in reality I was alone. Unjustly, intolerably alone, as
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