could never bring herself to think that society should be changed in order to improve the material circumstances of people like herself. This despite the fact that if now she was middle-aged she was almost comfortable, she had been raised in a poverty still more extreme than Giuseppe’s. Ifchange was desired it was up to the individual to change, that was how she looked at it; and if things were in a sorry state, then it was God’s will that they should be so. ‘One is born holding a particular piece of music,’ she was taught by her thin, bitter, wheezing father, ‘and either one sings that tune, to the best of one’s ability, or one doesn’t sing anything at all. One simply rants and raves, and makes a noise, and in the end come to silence anyway.’ A lesson she came to believe.
She came to believe it. That did not make her believe however, like her father, that the people who had the best tunes, so to speak, were also the best people. Nor did she think that because it was God’s will that things were in a sorry state, they were not really in a sorry state at all. They were, she knew: one only had to look around to see that. And though she accepted those things and believed it was up to the individual to make changes in his or her own life, if he or she so desired and were capable of it, she couldn’t help admiring those who did not sing the tune they had been handed at birth, and did rant and rave. She believed, but she didn’t see why everyone should. Moreover, those who didn’t, well, it was only right that they should make themselves heard in whatever way they chose. She loved her father, and felt sorry for him, and she was grateful for what he had taught her. All the same, she couldn’t help wishing at times, for his own sake more than hers, that he had taught her something else; and couldn’t help thinking that if he had he might have been a happier, healthier man. For the tune that he sang was a depressing , discordant dirge, destined to be brief and to finish unresolved ; and probably, in his case, rants and raves would have been sweeter.
Besides, she sometimes wanted to ask him after his death, what is a man to do if he is handed some lusty revolutionary hymn at birth?
It was because she felt as she did that, when she was twenty-three, she fell in love with and married Giuseppe, who was four years older. For Giuseppe seemed to her ‘The Way’. He rantedand raved, and believed that, yes, society should be changed: but he ranted and raved quietly. He supported the Communist Party, and believed that communism would provide post-war Italy with the only solution to its problems that it was likely to find; but he didn’t object, or not very strongly, to her supporting the Christian Democrats. And though he didn’t believe , he had in his quiet, neat way a faith that was just as strong as hers. He was certain of the eventual triumph of justice over injustice, of equality over inequality, of the hungry over the greedy, and looked forward to man’s ultimately being able to live in harmony not only with his fellow men, but with the whole world, animal, vegetable and mineral.
‘Of course it won’t happen overnight. I mean, it won’t happen in our lifetime, nor in Elisabetta’s, nor even in Elisabetta’s great-great-grandchildren’s lifetime,’ he told his wife. ‘But I do believe that one day, one day it will happen, and that when it does, people will look back at this time with the same sort of wonder with which we look back on—I don’t know—the Stone Age. And they’ll say to each other “How primitive they were,” and think how difficult life must have been, in those days.’
A speech that conjured up in Maria’s mind a vision of a whole world full of quiet, neat people, and made her first give a wistful smile and then stroke her husband’s hair.
He was a good man, she thought, even if he didn’t believe in God, and even if he sometimes told her that the word ‘good’ didn’t
She came to believe it. That did not make her believe however, like her father, that the people who had the best tunes, so to speak, were also the best people. Nor did she think that because it was God’s will that things were in a sorry state, they were not really in a sorry state at all. They were, she knew: one only had to look around to see that. And though she accepted those things and believed it was up to the individual to make changes in his or her own life, if he or she so desired and were capable of it, she couldn’t help admiring those who did not sing the tune they had been handed at birth, and did rant and rave. She believed, but she didn’t see why everyone should. Moreover, those who didn’t, well, it was only right that they should make themselves heard in whatever way they chose. She loved her father, and felt sorry for him, and she was grateful for what he had taught her. All the same, she couldn’t help wishing at times, for his own sake more than hers, that he had taught her something else; and couldn’t help thinking that if he had he might have been a happier, healthier man. For the tune that he sang was a depressing , discordant dirge, destined to be brief and to finish unresolved ; and probably, in his case, rants and raves would have been sweeter.
Besides, she sometimes wanted to ask him after his death, what is a man to do if he is handed some lusty revolutionary hymn at birth?
It was because she felt as she did that, when she was twenty-three, she fell in love with and married Giuseppe, who was four years older. For Giuseppe seemed to her ‘The Way’. He rantedand raved, and believed that, yes, society should be changed: but he ranted and raved quietly. He supported the Communist Party, and believed that communism would provide post-war Italy with the only solution to its problems that it was likely to find; but he didn’t object, or not very strongly, to her supporting the Christian Democrats. And though he didn’t believe , he had in his quiet, neat way a faith that was just as strong as hers. He was certain of the eventual triumph of justice over injustice, of equality over inequality, of the hungry over the greedy, and looked forward to man’s ultimately being able to live in harmony not only with his fellow men, but with the whole world, animal, vegetable and mineral.
‘Of course it won’t happen overnight. I mean, it won’t happen in our lifetime, nor in Elisabetta’s, nor even in Elisabetta’s great-great-grandchildren’s lifetime,’ he told his wife. ‘But I do believe that one day, one day it will happen, and that when it does, people will look back at this time with the same sort of wonder with which we look back on—I don’t know—the Stone Age. And they’ll say to each other “How primitive they were,” and think how difficult life must have been, in those days.’
A speech that conjured up in Maria’s mind a vision of a whole world full of quiet, neat people, and made her first give a wistful smile and then stroke her husband’s hair.
He was a good man, she thought, even if he didn’t believe in God, and even if he sometimes told her that the word ‘good’ didn’t
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