CONTENTS

1) The Non- Camillo Books (Introduction)

2) Early Family Stories
- Introduction
.
- "He and She"
- "Age Forty"
- "Venice..."
- "Birthday Cake"
.
- "Travelling..."
- "...Revolution"
- "Prisoner..."
- "Purgatory Cake"

3) Later Family Stories

4) Drawing Room Farces

5) Notes from Prison Camp

He's dead now, but his restless spirit still wanders about the dark, deserted house.

And as it passes before the only occupied room, where I am working, it stops to listen at the door and find out whether that boy is really busy or whether he is chatting with that woman.

That woman is dead too. She died almost as soon as she came to Milan, as if to avoid giving me trouble, and did it while I was on a trip to Rome, so that when I came back it was all over. I remember that I came by plane and that I looked out at the storm clouds as if I expected to see her spirit emerge from among them.

He waited only long enough for her to be buried in the cemetery of the village where she was born before he followed her there. And it is still hard for me to think of him as my father, having always heard him referred to as he and him.

"Have you seen him?" my mother would say when I came back from the city in the evening.

"Has he gone yet?" I used to ask when I got up in the morning.

"Ask that woman where she put my things," my father would grumble.

And when he spoke of me to that woman, he always called me that boy.

In vain do I search my childhood for an image of my father; all that I can find is him.

"Don't touch those things. He doesn't like it. Don't make a noise or you'll wake him up."

My mother always spoke of him in this manner, and I remember that when I had to call him, I tried in every possible way to get out of saying "father." When there was absolutely no way to avoid it, I remember the unpleasant feeling it gave me.

I always called my mother "mother," and it was only with him that I referred to her any differently.

"She wants to know if you've mailed her letter..."   "So-and-so came this morning. I wasn't here, but he explained everything to her."

He is dead now, and no matter how hard I try, I can't think of him as "father." And this saddens me immensely.

~~~~~

I was in the dining-room, reading the paper, and all the doors were open. Suddenly I heard Margherita call Albertino.

"Run upstairs and see if he's still in bed."

I got up and looked into the kitchen.

"I'm up," I said to Margherita. "But I'm not he."

"You don't seem to be anybody else," she retorted. "You're very much yourself and you got out on the wrong side of the bed."

"No, Margherita, I didn't get up on the wrong foot. It's something quite different. I don't want you to call me he to our children."

"I never even thought of it," said Margherita. "I always refer to you as daddy."

"Then why did I catch you calling me he just a minute ago?"

"I don't know. It just came out inadvertently."

"That's just the trouble. It came out because you had it inside you. If it hadn't been inside, it would never have come out."

Margherita leaned out the back door.

"Children, come here!" she shouted. "Your father's lecturing on existentialism!"

I said existentialism had nothing to do with it.

"Philosophical nonsense may masquerade under different names, but the substance is always the same," Margherita insisted. "And to say that because something comes out means that it's inside comes under the heading of philosophy."

"Margherita, this is no joking matter, and I wish you wouldn't change the subject."

"Then don't waste time discussing it with me, Nino. Get busy and bring the question before the Chamber of Deputies."

I refused to rise to this provocation.

"Margherita," I said gently, "it's a matter of egoism, of the healthy kind of egoism that's called instinct. I'll skip the technical aspects, which you know better than I do, and present you with the conclusion that every mother considers her children as belonging more to her than to her husband. A mother's attachment to her child is like the relationship between the earth in which a seed has been sown and the tree that grows out of it. The tree is fastened to the earth by the spreading roots which serve as channels for its nourishment. Actually father and mother have equal rights, but the mother recognizes only her own and is ever ready to defend them. A wife may find it natural enough to divide the possession of a child with her husband, but as a mother she will never cede an inch of it. Even if a wife is on excellent terms with her husband and bound to him by the very deepest affection, the mother within her looks upon the father within him as a natural enemy."

"And what about the father that lurks within the husband? How does he behave?"

"Margherita, you can't draw up an equation Mother: Wife equals Father: Husband. There just isn't a paternal instinct that can be compared to the 'maternal' variety. In an effort to restore the balance, people talk about 'the call of the blood,' something that no one has ever seen outside a nineteenth-century fairy-tale. Way down in the depths of the husband there's practically nobody on guard, because the father is on the upper and outward level. So when maternal instinct carries the attack to the husband's foundations it meets with no resistance and easily knocks out the husband-father team."

Margherita shook her head.

"Nino, we started out this argument with two characters, and now we're saddled with four. It's all too complicated. Can't you evacuate the stage?"

"It's all quite simple," I assured her. "No matter how fond a woman may be of her husband, her maternal instinct is so overpoweringly strong that she can't help quite unconsciously trying to overturn him in her children's eyes. In their presence, she can't resist the temptation to present herself as a martyr, simply in order to draw them more closely to her. It's instinct, Margherita, not you. When you're talking deliberately to your children you say: 'Go see if daddy's awake.' But if you're not thinking, then instinct comes to the fore and compels you to say: 'Go see if he's awake.'"

Still Margherita didn't seem to be convinced.

"Margherita, when you present your husband as he, then you're relegating him to the role of a stranger, as if he had taken advantage of your weakness to install his mastery in your house. Thus he must be watched so that he won't annoy you, and your children mustn't be afraid to show that they're on your side. In short, when you call me he, you gradually exclude me from the family circle; you cut the bonds between my children and me in order to tie them to yourself more closely. In so doing, you weaken the family unit, and damage us, our children, our country and the whole social structure."

Margherita looked at me hard.

"Giovannino, do you think this thing can be held within our own borders, or is it going to make trouble with the United Nations? Did the fact that I spoke of you as he make the relationship between East and West deteriorate still further?"

"Margherita, just keep an eye on that tenant way down in the depths of you! Don't let her get out of control. When you find her explaining to your children that you're his victim, that you can't do anything without his approval, that if by some good fortune he's away overnight, you can all play hen-and-chicks in the double bed while you read fairy stories... well then, there's the time to clamp down. Send the intruder back where she belongs, by brute force if necessary."

Margherita shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't like to use force, Giovannino, you know that. And why should I repress the maternal instinct that's been given me for the defense of my children?"

At this point, she stepped back until she was directly in front of Albertino and the Duchess, who were listening in intent silence to what I had to say. Then she threw out her arms, raised her eyes to heaven and said with desperate passion:

"What do you know of mother love? You can take everything away from me. Tear my flesh and step on me! Starve me and send me to die in a ditch; let snow cover my lifeless body! But don't take my children away!"

Automatically, as if they were obeying orders, the Duchess and Albertino stepped forward and stood one on either side of their mother as if to defend her. There were only two of them but together with Margherita they looked like a squadron and there was a look of defiance in their eyes. Margherita stood motionless, a veritable statue of maternal despair, and I got up to leave the room in disgust.

At the doorway I turned dramatically and said, "Margherita, I beg of you. Don't make a stranger of me in my own home. Don't let the legend on my tombstone read simply: 'Here he lies.' There, at least, let my children read their father's name!"

This appeal to the tomb had quite an effect on the Duchess. She left her mother's side and came over to me.

"Pay no attention!" she whispered. "She's nuts." And we went out to walk in the meadow.

"Is there snow on your grave?" she asked me.

"It's covered with snow."

"Is it in a very lonely spot?"

"Completely alone."

"Couldn't you have had it nearer the center of town?" she asked with a sigh.

I threw out my arms, helplessly.

"Never mind. I'll come to visit it, even in the snow."

She sighed again and added:

"I'll wear my galoshes, that's all."

A few minutes later, the other pillar of strength joined us. "She wants to know if you'll look at the water pump. It isn't working."

So he went back and since the water pump was working fine, which she knew all the time, they had some tea together.