The Twenty Days of Turin by Giorgio de Maria

Author:Giorgio de Maria
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Publisher: Liveright

VIII.

THE HEADLINES

I’D GOTTEN A LETTER from Ballarin in Venice, sent shortly after his return. Despite my friend’s certainty that Turin now held me in chains like Prometheus bound to his rock, I eagerly considered his invitation to pack my bags and meet up with him. Ballarin explained that, dead city for dead city, in the Most Serene Republic the eyes and ears could at least have their fill, even if Marghera stank to high heaven. My artistic sense had to take certain perks into account, however ephemeral they were. Why leave off a decision indefinitely when it would only bring me advantages? This was all very kind coming from a friend. I replied that, for now, my work at the company was the only thing I had to survive on: if I ever saw a chance to get a job in his neck of the woods, I would’ve sprung on it immediately. Of course, I omitted the essentials; my recorder wasn’t like his flute—a hippogriff that could be ridden at will, taking off into the air!

And I knew this well, especially after I’d made my visit to Giuffrida. Even the comforts of Bach’s sarabands and certain adagios by Vivaldi and Albinoni—which for better or for worse I’d always been able to perform and find relative peace in—were now lost to me. Any beauty their musical phrases once had could no longer move me. They felt strange and hollow, as if my memory of the slurping noise I’d heard at Giuffrida’s house were acting retrospectively to drain me of pleasure. I felt run-down and bitter: I placed my hands on the instrument without any certainty and breathed out foolishly like someone puffing into a blowgun. I even tried to set aside the classics and throw myself into a punkish mode with noisy items chosen out of my kitchenware. Yet the battering of saucepans with ladles, the furious grating rhythm of knives being whetted, only made my inner condition worse: there was an endless surfeit of anguish and desolation that I couldn’t expel.

I had an ugly dream. I dreamed that a bunch of young archaeologists digging around Volterra had discovered bas-reliefs revealing that the great poet Virgil had actually been an ostrich. The sculptures dated back to the Augustan period. The anonymous artist depicted the poet in various positions: standing upright with his long neck almost vertical and his tiny head and beak animated by two eyes that shone with intelligence; in another panel, you saw him running through the Imperial Palace and flapping his wings, among Pretorian guards with their weapons on display. This was followed by a group scene: “AVGVSTVS IMPERATOR” . . . “QVINTVS HORATIVS FLACCVS” . . . “PVBLIVS VIRGILIVS MARO STRVTHIOCAMELVS” . . . “PVBLIVS OVIDIVS NASO,” and next to them certain palace advisors. These revelations had touched the whole world and strengthened the case of those who believe that a sublime soul can reside even in the body of an animal.

The dream cast a sinister light

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