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

I know Margherita like the palm of my hand, so when we reached the first slope of the Futa pass I shifted gears and before she could say a word explained the situation to her.

"No, Margherita," I said, "the fact that though we're headed for Naples, we have to go up, not down, doesn't mean I've taken the wrong road. True, north is up and south is down, but that doesn't mean that when you head south you never have to go up and when you head north you never have to go down."

Ensconced in the back seat, Albertino was perusing his comic book, oblivious to the things of this world. Margherita turned her head for a moment to look at him tenderly.

"Don't ever tell him," she whispered in my ear. "He's a highly sensitive boy, and this would be a terrible disappointment. For him the south is always down. He still believes blindly in geography."

She remained lost in thought for a moment, then she sighed. "These days you can't believe in anything, not even the points of the compass.

When we got to Florence, I filled the car with gasoline and Albertino with comic books. I didn't have to fill the Pasionaria with anything. She had been left behind with a neighbor.

Then we sat down at a cafe.

"There," I said to Albertino, "is Giotto's campanile. If you want to look at it, there it is."

Albertino was reading his comic book.

"That the O?" he demanded, not raising his head.

"No," I said, "Giotto's O has nothing to do with Giotto's campanile. They are two absolutely different things."

"Okay," Albertino remarked, reading away.

We went to three cafes but couldn't find a waiter willing to acknowledge our existence, the place was so full of tourists. Finally at the fourth cafe a waiter deigned to take notice of us: he delivered a brief discourse in English.

"Two Campari sodas and an orangeade," I said in Italian, at which the waiter regarded us unfriendlily and took himself off in a rage.

"What a silly joke!" Margherita remarked. "You might have answered in English."

When I protested that I didn't speak English, Margherita declared that the study of foreign languages was the very stuff of life.

That's all I have to say about Florence.

We reached Rome toward evening, and suddenly, for Rome is a city that appears without warning. One turn of the road and there it was.

"The eternal city!" I cried, putting on the brakes.

I invited Albertino to look at Rome.

"Can you see the Colosseum?" Albertino inquired without interrupting his reading.

"Just a glimpse," I replied, "at the far end."

"Okay," Albertino assured me, "I can see it later, when it's nearer."

I turned to Margherita. "Rome!" I cried in a voice full of emotion. "Rome! Look at it!"

Margherita sighed heavily.

"Really, Giovannino," she said, "have you no delicacy at all? How can you expect a poor woman with her bones all but crushed from twelve hours in the car to even look at a city that size?"

I got annoyed. "But since that's Rome, that's all I can show you!"

"In that case, you should have the good grace to ignore it. Isn't it better to neglect Rome than to malign the mother of your children? You married me, didn't you, you didn't marry Rome."

I ignored Rome and got us there as fast as I could.

The next morning, having filled up with gasoline and comic books, we went to visit Saint Peter's.

We parked the car on this side of the famous colonnade and set off on foot, followed by Albertino, who was reading the latest Donald Duck. I mentioned that if he raised his head he could see the most famous church in the world.

"I know," he said. "It's the picture in my school reader." Then I made use of my secret weapon. "But I bet that round thing there on the ground isn't in your school reader!"

Albertino raised his head and looked at the little marker I was pointing to on the pavement of the piazza near the obelisk. It did not, he admitted, appear in the photo in his school reader.

"In the picture there's a carriage there."

I took him to the left colonnade and had him observe the four lines of columns. Then I led him to the famous little marker.

"Now look," I said. "How many rows of columns do you see?"

He had to admit he could see only one row of columns. Even Margherita looked, and cried out at the wonder of it. But Albertino controlled his emotion. He ran over to the colonnade, counted the columns, then turned to us.

"Four," he announced, "just as I thought. That round thing is a trick." And he returned to Donald Duck. "That's why they didn't put it in the school reader."

We wandered about till noon. Then Margherita expressed a desire to lunch in a typical Roman osteria. We passed about twenty but not until two in the afternoon did we come upon one that Margherita approved of. It was, Margherita said, a perfect example of a typical Roman osteria. Unfortunately, the sign read: Trattoria Bolognese.

After long study, Margherita decided what to order. They brought us three bowls of soup la Pavese and three cutlets a la Milanese and a bottle of Bardolino wine. To compensate, the owner of the place was Tuscan and the waiter came from Genoa.

"We ought to send some picture postcards," Margherita said, after we had gone on to a cafe.

"Absolutely," I replied. "Some pretty views of Venice, saying 'Souvenir of Turin."'

Margherita did not take offense: the Roman air had already exerted its charm over her. She sighed and in a faraway voice said: "What I'd like is to see all of Rome on foot--Rome dozing placidly in the spring sun. Is it far to the Boboli Gardens, Giovannino?"

"All the way back to Florence," I said as sweetly as I could....

~~~

Albertino, meanwhile, continued studying his comic books. He neglected them only for a moment or two inside the Colosseum.

"I like this," he said at last. His verdict surely made the bones of the ancient Romans tremble with joy.

We reached Naples the following evening and Albertino, disillusioned when he learned that for the past four years Vesuvius hadn't even made a pretense of smoking, lost all interest in the city and its environs. When we got to Pompeii, I explained that it was a very old city buried in the ashes of an eruption of Vesuvius. Albertino, deep in his reading, sneered: he had lost all respect for volcanoes.

Two days later we were home, and we greeted the Pasionaria.

"She's been a very good girl," we were told by the woman who'd been looking after her.

The Pasionaria glared at us.

"But I'm not going to be good any more," she said. "I'm tired of being good. I need a rest."

And so ended our pleasure trip.