The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani

Author:Giorgio Bassani [Bassani, Giorgio]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Fiction, Classics
ISBN: 9780156345705
Google: x2vIeK3WnRkC
Amazon: 0156345706
Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Published: 1977-12-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four

Rather more than the generic “see you soon” which I exchanged with Alberto when I left him, it was a letter from Micol I got a few days later that persuaded me to return.

It was a gay little letter, not too long and not too short, written on both sides of two sheets ofblue paper which her dashing but light handwriting had filled quickly, without hesitations or corrections. She began by apologizing: she had left suddenly, and hadn’t even said good-bye, which wasn’t exactly the thing, she was quite ready to admit. Before leaving she had tried to ring me up, without finding me at home, though, alas; and so she had told Alberto he was to chase me up if I happened never to turn up again. If I’d really vanished, had Alberto done what he’d solemnly sworn, and got hold of me at the peril of his life? He always ended up by dropping everyone, with that famous old phlegm of his, but I couldn’t imagine how much he needed people, poor soul ! The letter went on for another two and a half pages, talking about the thesis, which was now “getting near the winning post”, saying that Venice in winter “just made one cry”, and ending up surprisingly with a verse translation of a poem by Emily Dickinson.

It was this:

Morii per la Bellezza; e da poco ero discesa nellavello, che, caduto pel Vero, utzo fu messo nell attiguo sacello.

“Perche sei morta?” mi chiese sommesso.

Dissi: “Morii pel Bello.”

Io per la Verita: dunque e lo stesso,

-disse,-son tuo fratello”

Da tomba a tomba, come due congiunti incontratisi a notte, parlavamo cost; finche raggiunti l'erba ebbe nomi e bocche.1

He questioned softly why I failed?

“For beauty," I replied.

“And I for truth,-the two are one;

We brethren are," he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,

We talked between the rooms,

Until the moss had reached our lips,

And covered up our names.

A postscript followed, saying: “Alas, poor Emily.2 See what compensations poor wretched spinsterhood is forced to!”

I liked the translation, but it was the postscript that struck me above all. Whom should I refer it to? To “poor Emily” herself, or to Micol feeling depressed and self-pitying?

In my reply I was careful once again to hide myself in a thick smokescreen. After mentioning my first visit to her house, with no mention of how disappointing I had found it and promising I would soon return, I stuck prudently to literature. Emily Dickinson’s poem was superb, I wrote, but her translation was really good too. What interested me about it was the fact that it was in a rather dated, Carduccian style. Then, dictionary in hand, I compared it with the English text, with the result that I found only one thing to quarrel with, and that was her translation of the word “moss” as “erba”. She mustn’t misunderstand me, though: her translation was perfectly fine as it was, and in this kind of thing pleasing inaccuracy was always preferable to pedantic ugliness. In any case the defect I had pointed out was easily remedied.

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