Unaquila nella notte (I libri del sorriso Vol. 2) (Italian Edition)

We were expected to speak Italian with the people from out of town, translating sometimes for them if they did not understand the shopkeepers. It was only when I went away to school at the age of ten to attend a college prep school—my town did not have one at that time—that I switched to Italian for good. Still, I enjoyed listening to the poetry recited in the mother tongue. An un- usual occurrence. People were dis- couraged and even punished for speaking the mother tongue, or rewarded, as I was, for using the Italian language correctly, and they were never asked to write in it.

The vernacular is by definition unwritten. Even so, some po- ets chose to write in it. Unfortunately, they seldom found an audience out- side of their towns. These books are collectibles. Dialect poetry, until recently, was marginalized in the Italian culture. For the reasons I mentioned. Italy was perceived to be too fragmented and there was a movement toward union. But also for other more practical reasons. When a poet writes in the Italian language, his work can be read and understood by every Italian.

When his work is in his own dialect, not in ours, the rest of us will need notes or a translation into Italian. The other huge leap in my picaresque journey was switching from Italian to English after I emigrated. Total immersion was easier in this set- ting. I lived in a culture and in a household that spoke English—the uncle and aunt with whom I lived for the first two years spoke Italian and did to me at the beginning, but ran the household and communicated with each other and their children in English.

And I was fifteen and in school, at St. And school fills the whole day in this country. After a few days or a week of orientation with a girl named Roberta who knew Italian, I was on my own. In a fog, a dark wood. My school girl French! But I did not know English and she did not Italian. French was the only language we had in common. Neither French nor Italian, however, helped me with the pronuncia- tion of English vowels, the a in cat, the o in got and i in pit being very diffi- cult.

Not to my ear. At that point, no one mentioned dia- lectal variations. It was hard to lift words and phrases out the common run of the spoken language. To understand my Aunt and the older Italians, especially my land- lady when I was in college, who did not speak English and did not speak Italian, the father tongue, I had to learn the Italian-American dialect which Ferdinando Alfonsi Almanacco, has called Italese, and which is made up of English words with Italian suffixes. And with English meanings even when the made-up word corresponds to an actual word in the Italian lan- guage.

I never spoke this dialect myself, but I needed to know it. My landlady spoke a mixture of an Italian vernacular mixed with this Italian American dialect. In all of these exchanges, losses and gains. I went to see American movies, and they were no longer dubbed. Although this might seem a gain, I perceived it as a loss. I could no longer lose myself in a movie. And I was also expected to read American and English books in the original, a long time- consuming process. What an innocent I had been abroad in my own coun- try. I had watched American movies dubbed in Italian and had asked no questions, seen no discrepancies.

I never no- ticed how the lips moved. Or whether the gestures did not go with the words. What if cowboys spoke in long musical sentences instead of mono- syllables? I had never heard a cowboy speak English, neither in real life nor in a movie. How was I supposed to know that certain taciturn, reticent types went with certain landscapes? When I came to the States and told my new friends about this wonderful western I had seen, which starred Alan Ladd against the background of gorgeous mountain peaks, and they said, Shane, I did not recognize the title.

In this case too, I had not been much aware of the translation, neither of the movie nor of the title. Still, the amazing thing is that the story, and in the case of Shane, the nobil- ity of the character and the strong theme came across despite the differ- ences. I had the same experience discussing the movie Julius Caesar, which I had seen in Italian. The famous speeches and the key scenes had all come across. The mediums in this famously well-acted and produced movie had been the drama, the pictures, the force of the personalities brought to the screen by the actors, with the language, even in Italian, acquiring authority from them, aside from what the translator had been able to do, which I was not in a position to judge.

I was then the person for which translation is meant. Perhaps this is a commonplace which we sometimes forget. But, then, how could they? English has great synthetic power, and Shakespeare is master of syntactic conci- sion, a great inventor of verbs; while the forte of Italian is the strong phrase, the musical phrase. When I was growing up I never considered translation as one version of the original. I had no idea what the differences between the two might be, the different approaches and complementary results, or that different versions might be needed for different purposes.

Despite a spoken ver- nacular that deviated in major ways from Italian, which was in fact an- other language; despite the study of Latin and French, I took translations into Italian for granted just as the natives of any place take their language and mores for granted --as the only way something is said and done. Translation, in this frame of reference, is seen as the same piece of writing with the very same words but in a different lan- guage.

I did not entertain the idea that translators have to interpret what they read, and may interpret the same passage differently, or that if a word is ambiguous in one language, the same word might not be in another lan- guage. Dante chose to write his epic-length poem in the spoken tongue rather than in Latin, the literary language. And he consciously forged a national language out of his own Tuscan dialect. A language all writers had to sub- sequently learn, regardless of their mother tongue. Alessandro Manzoni, who is given credit for developing the historical novel in the nineteenth century, and for enriching the language of prose, was a northern Italian who started with the language he had learned in school and then, he said, went to Tuscany to rinse it in the waters of the Arno.

Translators not only have ways of reading first level of interpreta- tion ; they have ways of re-creating through their choices second level of interpretation character and literary persona, diction and syntax, rhythm and sound, tone. Sometimes they have to invent what their own language does not have to come out with an equivalent.

The original and the translation are both translations, and as such, approximations. Authors translate what they see and feel, the experi- ence of life into the experience of words, structures made of words, choos- ing out of huge vocabularies, and they may be more or less successful, more or less satisfied. Regardless of how it was, how many versions this version went through, it is now fixed and the words are all a reader has.

He has to try to imagine what the author saw or felt, and it is only when he has a view, that he can re-create the physical and emotional land- scapes. A translator has access to the original. For most of us, the approxi- mation that we call translation is all there is. Many of the books I read as a child were in translation. And in Italy, a great many prose writers and poets have also been gifted translators.

Sometimes, they too took for granted what they did, and so did their editors and publishers. When I started reading English Literature in college with barely a year of English—through some translation error, I started college at all of it was equally difficult for me. I had no bias in favor of modern or con- temporary works as the American students did, and I made no distinction between the English and American dialect.

They had to contend with archaic versions of English, while I read contemporary Italian translations. The strangeness I had encountered had to do with content, with elliptical political and social references rather than with terms and phrases that had become obsolete. The picaresque journey that is translation has continued throughout my life.

Not only because learning involves translation; I have been profes- sionally involved with translation for many years, in my work, and as a poet. When I was still in college, I was asked by the poet Sam Hazo, who was one of my English professors at Duquesne University, to translate a few poems of Quasimodo.

I did, and that started me on my way, publish- ing them in Choice, a poetry journal edited by John Logan. But that was the beginning and the end for many years. I had no time write or translate when my kids were little. But when I started working, still part-time and at a research job in anthropology with a flexible schedule, my languages came into play again. I read and translated from ethnogra- phies, some of whom were in French, Italian and Spanish. I have since rendered into English hundreds of individual poems, and I have col- lected some of my translations of modern Italian poets in three books: I always translated from Italian into English.

Not that the language of poetry has much to do with the spoken tongue. Still, the point is valid. Also true that I always write in English, think in English, and have done so for decades, and that I seldom have much chance to speak Italian. Thus, the challenge of reading, digging, understand- ing, of discovering another persona, of hearing another voice is missing, and this, which should make things easier, make them go faster, slows ev- erything down instead. But I am doing it. Translating by the Numbers by John DuVal I was raised in the faith and discipline of the New Criticism, scruti- nizing, dissecting, and reassembling that exquisite monument, the poem itself.

This approach was useful because it taught us to learn from the mas- ters, how they packed the maximum meaning into every word despite the requirements of meter or rhyme. It was also useful in that we learned to cherish the words of the great craftspeople of our language. Where it failed, I believe, is in not paying due respect to the language itself and the infinite choices it offers of saying almost the same thing, with infinite slight and delightful variations and always a hint that a phrase could be better phrased.

For us translators the New Critical approach is still useful in that it encourages us to study each word and each phrase of an original to learn what the original writer has done to make it so wonderfully what it is. The problem is that it directs us straight to the Slough of Despond, where we stay, sunk and moping unless Faith in the language we are translating into pulls us out.

Maria Burnett Italian-English literary translator

We will not find in English the phrase that G. Belli, for instance, wrote in Romanesco, the dialect of the people of Rome, but given how slowly our minds work and how vast our language is, we can always discover another phrase like it, and then another, and if we keep looking, we may find a better one than the ones we found before. I had thought the following translation of a poem by Trilussa, another Romanesco poet, was finally and after much struggle finished when I had this down on paper: To Mimi Do you remember our first rendezvous behind the Convent House, alone together in the cloister?

Here Carlo kissed Mimi. I saw you once more, just as you had been, wearing a pretty lilac dress. Fui io che scrissi: I wrote, Twelve February, nineteen hundred. Here Charley kissed Mary. I think it might have been the chance of rhyming Mary whimsically with a Romanesco word in the original, jeri yesterday , which first inclined me toward the English names. Also I was fascinated by how, in this poem about the passage of time, the poet had handled words that marked off time: What difference did the month make when everybody knows that given the right weather in Rome, the noonday sun can glitter as brightly in February as in May?

Trilussa had been Trilussa since he was eighteen. He even signed his name Tri. But he was born Carlo Alberto Salustri. For a poet who described his poetry and his personality as a series of masks, this mention of his almost-forgotten well, forgotten by me anyway! Also, as the months went by, it dawned on me that February is not May, no more than age is youth or disillusion hope. Carlo, Mimi, and the month of May too were all written back into the poem. While I was at it, I changed Rosa, who had been Rose in the English, back to her original name, but Paul, whose name in Romanesco was Pasquale, stayed Paul to rhyme with the wall on which he had carved his name.

Now, I thought the translation was finished, and I submitted it, just as it appears at the beginning of this article, in a volume of translations from Trilussa for the University of Arkansas Press. One of the outside readers for the University of Arkansas Press, how- ever, going over the manuscript before its publication, did not think the translation of the last line was finished: This is one of those few instances in English where what everybody says is an error and what is correct is pedantic.

Paul could have been in love with Rosa in or or even in What difference does it make? I could translate by the numbers. Vistas of alternate endings opened before me. To be systematic, I began with I had scored with my first shot. The grammar was correct with- out being pompous, the rhyme was perfect, and the line meant pretty much the same as the original: I read the English to myself aloud.

The present perfect tense seemed to imply that if only Paul pulled himself together, and did something, he might still come out all right. Paul was a dead person; I was making him sound like a failure in the business world. I changed the tense. The problem was more than the tense; it was also the too active rhyming verb, done. And do would not do when I got to Carlo could address his fellow lover across the centu- ries instead of merely meditating on his fate. This was more comic than the Romanesco, but not as kind.

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In the original, the emotion goes outward; self pity blossoms into sym- pathy. By ending in you rather than me, Carlo seems to be taking not only consolation, but satisfaction in knowing that someone is worse off than he is. Translating a little closer to the origi- nal might help: But there were more numbers. I might try three again, varying the last line: What am I feeling sorry for myself for? For some reason I was fond of this solution anyway. Maybe the technical flaws gave it a kind of humor in accord with the sardonic Romanesco, but nobody that I showed it to liked it.

The even makes perfect sense: But at the end of the sentence, when the sentence could have ended perfectly well without it, even sounds as if the translator stuck it there simply for the rhyme, which he did. Other abstract words, such as predicament or situa- tion or of course state either bring on other associations in conflict with the original or are too vague.

It is late in the poem to be introducing an Arkansas accent, rhym- ing been with ten. Also, it evokes the metaphysical question of whether Paul, having died, is now experiencing Purgatory or worse, a question that has no place in this poem. I wrote more, with rhymes for fourteen, fifteen, sixteen There must be better endings, but mine get worse.

But did my language sound conversational enough throughout the poem? Ma io ero innamorato del Provenzale. Il punto interrogativo era comunque questo: Io sono passato attraverso questi cicli, e ne scrissi. Le lingue di queste poesie sono state esplorate, controllate e comparate prima di essere state tradotte Poesia provenzale in dialetto molisano e lingua. Cosmo Iannone Editore, Isernia La similitudine allegorica mi risporta al traduttore-esegeta.

Vedi anche Annalisa Buonocore. Dialettali e Neo dialettali in Inglese. Prefazione di Cosma Siani. Edizioni Cofine, Roma, Born in in Santarcangelo di Romagna, Raffaello Baldini pub- lished six poetry collections, all written in the romagnolo dialect of Italian: Intercity, was published by Einaudi in Baldini wrote three theatrical mono- logues: Carta canta, Zitti tutti! There are no further allegorical, liturgical or philosophical significances to this con-credendo, with prefix?

They do not accompany him up onto the stage to confront the huckster-performer wearing the shabby jacket? After fleeing the lower levels of the theater that has flooded with water, the narrator climbs flight-of-stairs after flight-of-stairs, opens door after door, and meets a card-reader with cards all laid out on a table; is this card-reader a man or a woman?

The translator wants to get this exactly right. How can I explain it? He was in great pain. Each word cost him. Not a small plate. Not a huge plate. Is this an evocation of a particular line of po- etry? The verb tenses must be changed: His most recent collection was awarded the Campana Prize. Solitude, Outsider, Small Talk. Each poem moves towards and resists Death.

His narrators also wander into anacoluthon, that is to say ending a sentence with a different structure from that with which it began. His poems employ the rhetorical techniques that form the backbone of argu- ment: The rhetorical techniques of argument are defined in this way: The translator read it late one night, intending to phone the next day to ask if it was possible to get a copy of the music.

There was a message on the answering machine. The translator was feeding paper into a printer, catching yet more errors. Cartridge out of ink. A computer talking back: White stacks on floor, packages prepared for release to known addressees to reach the unknown interlocutor. The window was open in Milan. Here it is, he said. I go ahead and just let him say it: This is an order! Do you need glasses? I was soaked, a faucet? Damn, could he have hypnotized me too? Small Talk I had bad dreams all night, all these snakes, how did you make this coffee? I was just about do go down to see you, and so have you finished the skirt?

I say that, what are they racking their brains about? He is cur- rently on the faculty at Bennington College, where he teaches Italian literature. He also works as a writer of Italian films for DVD release. The main reason is translation. The English in the translation of the novel regularly tends to- wards the very linguistic medietas Gadda takes every possible step to avoid. It also offers extensive com- mentary in the form of linear notes.

The importance of the linguistic elaboration, indisputable in Gadda, are of primary concern to the translator. Much effort is being made in the present version to preserve the diatypes lexical variety of the original, where possible. Given the impossibility of translating into another language the aura parlativa peculiar to an environment, the translator must, however, try to conserve, in some way, the heterogeneity of registers that the introduction of colloquialisms and dialects represents.

This new translation is a small part of the renewed understanding of this great literary work. Synopsis In Fascist Rome the novel takes place in , the young police in- spector Francesco Ingravallo called don Ciccio for short , a detective-phi- losopher from the southern Italian region of Molise, is called on to investi- gate a jewel theft that has taken place in an apartment building at , Via Merulana.

In the building lives a couple, Remo and Liliana Balducci, friends of Ingravallo: Three days after the robbery, whose investigation is so far inconclusive, Ingravallo is shocked by the news that Signora Balducci has been found murdered in her home. He rushes to the scene and takes part in the preliminary inquiry, wondering whether there is any link between the two crimes.

It also abounds indirectly, via remembered citations from others in speech from the mur- dered Liliana Balducci — an anomaly in a novel where the Signora is central, though largely silent. Ceccherelli, backed by the other two, corroborated down to the last detail both the order received by the poor Signora, more than two months before, and the sundry phases of the readying of the fob: In all honesty, I just focus on doing my job, as above board as possible. Anyway just to be on the safe side, I chucked it right in this special drawer here I got for that stuff, just right as soon as I got it pried out of the setting with the pliers, without even laying a pinky on it, like.

The pliers I ran over to the barber to have disinfected with alcohol: E come un cappone in mezzo a tanti galli! Il ciondolo doveva consegnarlo a Giuliano in persona. Il cassiere—capo ragionier Del Bo conosceva Liliana: Like a capon in the middle of a bunch of roosters! The one you estimated at two thousand lire? I want to give that one away as a present. The one you figured was worth nine and a half thousand? You know to whom I mean! Liliana herself had insisted on explaining everything to Amaldi: Ceccherelli traced with the nail of his little finger the clean contour of the stone, green, seal mounted, that is to say slightly overhanging the setting, and backed with a thin gold plate, in order to hide and encase the uncut face.

Easier said than done. But after those three depositions in his defense by the three jewelers, that were middling enough, there was the one, better still, by the head teller of the bank: According to the bank balance on the savings account passbooks , it turned out that Liliana had withdrawn the ten thousand lire there, just on January Del Bo, the head teller, knew Liliana: Oh yes, he remembered it like yesterday: Una bella signora come lei.

Domenica 20, nella mattinata, ulteriori indicazioni del Balducci ai due funzionari: Ed ecco il dente. In dieci anni de matrimo- nio, a momenti, che, che! I medici aveveno parlato chiaro: Nice little smell, just take a whiff. Fresh from the Mint. I practically played the part of mother when he was a baby.

The table, in fact, overflowed onto the shelves, and from there to the cabinets: All smoky and stifling, the charming Cacco atmosphere, in a syn- cretic little fragrance sort of like a barracks or the upper gallery of the Teatro Jovinelli: Beat the tower of Babel on a shopping day. In ten years of marriage, almost, not even a token: The doctors had laid it on the line: So that out of those ongoing disappointments, those ten years, or nearly, where the pain, the humiliation, desperation and tears had put down roots; from those use- less years of her beauty those sighs dated, those ahs, those long glances at every woman, not to mention the ones with a baby in the oven!

Er maschietto nostro de quattro chili: Avemo preso li passi avanti Ragguagli e rapporti di subalterni, parole e carta scritta: She looked at the girls; returned, in a flash as by deep-felt, despondent signal, the bold glances of young men: The pure assent of a fraternal soul: But out of the dark manger the years stampeded, one after the other, into nothingness.

That mania… for forking out double bed-sheets to the maids, insisting on putting up dowries, push- ing folks who asked for nothing better to tie the knot: Ate her heart out: Our eight pound kiddo, two pounds a month. The bride, poor kid, comes in with her guy, preceded by a belly like a hot air balloon at the fireworks at San Giovanni. Naturally they were a little embarrassed.

I say to them, laughing: It was at this point, his face ashen, that Ingravallo begged leave to shove off: Reports and memoranda from subordinates, voiced or in writing: Femmine tutte, e nel ricordo e nella speranza, e nel pallore duro o ostinato della reticenza e nella porpora del non—confiteor: Roberto De Lucca shoulders sagging, with a bearing that seemed tired, absorbed.

He saw him pull a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, engrossed in unknown cares. The door closed behind him. Even that notion of wanting to die if no kid came: And now from the talk of the husband, made garrulous by hardship, by his sense of being at the center of attention and collective commiseration A hunter, he was! Saw himself tramping in with a bagged hare, shouldering his gun, muddied boots, panting hounds , needing to get it off his chest after the blow: Buttafavi and Alda Pernetti stairway A , whose brother counted for an extra six.

Females all, demon- strating that widespread sensitiveness, in consequence: Females all, both in memory and hope, and in the hard, stubborn pallor of their reticence and the purple of the non-confiteor which dottor Fumi, those days, was soliciting them to recall in detail, with the courtesy and tact which set him apart during the whole of a long and busy career the just reward of which, today, is his nomination to the position of sub-prefect of Lucunaro, adnuente Gasparo: His latest book of translations is From Adam to Adam: Giorgio Roberti Poet, essayist, translator, editor, founder and presi- dent for thirty years of the Centro Romanesco Trilussa, Giorgio Roberti energetically promoted Romanesco language, culture and poetry.

His translation into Romanesco of Er Vangelo seconno S. Marco has been much praised and often reprinted. Note on translation G. Belli, writing sonnets in Romanesco in the early nineteenth cen- tury, gave an example for Italian poets with his sonnets that showed how dialect could convey the energy of conversation more effectively than stan- dard language. We translators of dialect into English in the United States do not have dialects to convey that energy precisely, so we try to make our verse sound like people talking.

This would seem impossible for A Stick in the Eye, a story over twenty-seven centuries old, but Roberti helps with his deft details and his sudden shifts of style, and makes translating his poem a pleasure, though difficult. You call your country Greater Greece, because you dine on greater grease I guess--and stronger wine! Tell me what your name is. Anyone will swear I am. But are you single? Do you have a wife? Hitched to the single life. Then the poor fool fell, fell like a stone, like a bull with his throat cut in the Colosseum at a festival.

Some promised they were able to slip him a little gift beneath the table; and others talked about friends in high places. Like it or like it not, when all talk ended, all that the lottery threw up were four pathetic bastards no one ever protected. E mentre Lui strillava la natura diventava rugosa e penzierosa: Chi te fa piagne come un regazzino? Nessuno che me leva, sarvognuno, tutto er punto de vista personale Furious, frantic, fast, Ulysses struck it deeper and turned it like a merry-go-round. At once that moribund volcano hurled forth great eye fragments and little wads of jell out of his monster brain.

He yelled a yell enough to raise goose pimples on the world. As he was screaming, Mother Nature frowned, wrinkling her great face, and started to stir and raised up mountains from the level ground. Beholding earth beneath them relandscaped, many a luminous, uneasy star turned into a comet and escaped. Are you all right? Why have you pulled your cave door shut and hid yourself away from us and out of sight? No One, god damn it! Then, hey, shut the fuck up and quit your belly aching.

E le stelle me dicheno: He has published two po- etry chapbooks: His poetry has been included in numerous anthologies and published in local, regional and national magazines and newspapers. His principal works include: Note on translation The dialect I have translated is referred to by local people as Lancianese, that is the language of Lanciano, a city of 30, inhabitants in Abruzzo. Although people familiar with Abruzzese dialects in general have proved helpful, at times I needed to consult with people who grew up in Lanciano in order to obtain the full flavor of a particular word or expression.

Lancianese, like all languages, has evolved over time. Some words and expressions are now extinct. Only go backwards or even better stay nailed to the spot where you find yourself! Love and song My love, I would compose for you a song one of those hammered and forged in fire, polished the way it should be and blended with notes that are shiny and passionate. I speak and afterwards you speak And what do we say? My Life My life: A sky that often has a hole that at certain times makes like a small window: A wind that, sometimes, if it stops leaves the dry leaves by my feet; What do you find that is good?

Of a rose the only thing that you can pick up is a leaf! A brooklet, even that at times, leaves the stains of melancholy and goes, without getting dirty with mud, singing all by itself along the way. The Song To those who no longer sing, the spirit of life is tasteless To those who sing more, the voice of the heart gets more flavor Concetta I Concetta, your petticoat is too hot swinging every which way as you walk! He waved cheerfully to all of them and Josh stopped the jeep. I am going in, have fun and Ughino placed the ball on the ground, tucked his shirt inside his pants and said: As soon as they reached the highway, they crossed it, entering an alley in the front that ran along the perimeter of a thicket.

The other side of the road was delimited by grassy fields that sloped along the side of the hill; the grass was very tall and, for the most part, dry. We have to leave our bicycles next to the large oak tree. Then, they had left, for they thought they heard some steps coming down the stairs. Markus remembered that day well, because it was very cold and on the way back home it had started to rain cats and dogs.

They arrived in the vicinity of the turn to the inside of the wooded area. The pair on the tricycle was moving slower and at every pothole Ughino would jump really high, almost falling to the ground. She was standing by the road, looking in the direction of a tree. We almost hit you! She turned towards them, her mouth open and in disbelief, pointing to the tree.

It was standing still in the middle of the road and would not move Then it opened his mouth and I thought it was about to speak! It had an acorn in its paw and Then it retreated to the tree Markus bent down and grabbed an acorn in his hand. Suddenly acorns began to pour from the tree, hitting the children from up high, nonstop, as a thick hailstorm. As they stopped, Angela slid on the leaves and fell right next to the trunk of the big chestnut tree. Angela was sitting on the ground, looking up high towards the top of the trees, in all directions.

But what was wrong with those squirrels? It would have been impossible to use the bicycles. Unexpected notes, from very heavy to very light acute trills, the notes floated through the vegetation, to the ears of the children. Two small bushes of red berries, like bony, bleeding hands marked the entrance to the garden.

The three crossed the threshold of the fence, and found themselves in the green area in front of the house. The house seemed abandoned, as did everything else around it. In the middle of the area in front of the house, there was an old well made of rock stone, which brightly stood out against the green. Angela and Markus kept approaching the front door of the house cautiously, when they realized that Ughino was moving towards the well. I want to see. You could not see the bottom, but along the side there was a long metallic ladder hooked onto a border stone. I thought there was some one Markus, was this here when we were here before?

I remember it very well. Markus, you go ahead. Markus looked at his friends, sighed and lifted his hand to knock. He knocked three times. The music stopped immediately and a cat meowed. The children heard noises of chairs and moved objects coming from the first floor, along with heavy steps on a wooden ladder and a muffled grumble. In the meantime, the cat must have reached the door, because the meows sounded much closer now and the steps were becoming heavier and sounder. The door snapped open, quickly, causing the three children to jump backwards.

In his hands, he was holding a long wondrous clarinet made of ebony. He was holding it like a club and between his feet— in a pair of leather sandals — standing upright, a grey cat with velvety hair was observing them annoyingly. There are many doctors around. He then turned towards the door and walked into the house, slamming the door. As he was climbing the stairs, you could hear him mumble: It was hard to tell whether Ughino was more frightened or disappointed after the short meeting.

He stayed on the side, staring at the closed door, without saying a word. Angela put her arm on his shoulders, pulling him back towards the garden. He then started walking behind his friends, his gaze to the ground, while the sky was turning red and the nocturnal animals lazily began to yawn and wake up.

After midnight, the sky filled with a multitude of stars and even the smallest ones were visible to the naked eye, from the hills that were void of the luminous shine of the metropolis. You could also hear better. You could hear noises that during the day were hidden in the neglected acoustic background: But for Ughino, that was not a peaceful night.

He kept turning in his bed over and over again, jabbering words during his agitated sleep, while thinking back to the images of a cold rusty ladder, down the bottom of a well. A continuous metallic noise resonated in his ears, caused perhaps by an object hitting the steps of the ladder. In his sleep, he thought that was caused by the heel of a shoe, hitting an iron pole. He forced himself to open his eyes and in the darkness of the room, he looked up high towards the small open window that overlooked a small vegetable garden behind the house.

The light of the moon lit the window panes, which were protected by metallic grids. In the square of light projected on the wall, Ughino noticed a large shadow that was knocking lightly on the metal grid. The boy turned on the light on his night table and a faint soft light lit up the bluish walls of the room. Rubbing his eyes, he directed his attention to the small window, now able to see clearly what was happening.

A large barn owl stood upright on the sill, hitting the metallic grid with its beak. The animal appeared proud and composed, as if taking pleasure in his wonderful attire illuminated by the moon. The light of the moon, in fact, made the whiteness of his facial feathers shaped like a heart really stand out.

Ughino loved all the animals in the countryside and the presence of the night bird truly did not bother him. The only thing that bothered him was the fact that the animal had woken him up, by hitting his beak on the grid. He had seen other barn owls during his summer nights on the hills, but that was unusually large. I am tired of hitting my beak against the grid; it was beginning to hurt!

The barn owl had spoken! His voice was similar to that of an unexpectedly disappointed old grouch. Ughino then got out of his bed and said: Come closer and listen to me. The barn owl continued: They are waiting for you there with all the instructions. I was dreaming of an iron ladder that was going down into But why do I have to go down there? I am a little scared. I have no time to waste. If you want to help your mother, go down the stair in the well and you will realize that it is not dangerous.

That said, I bid you farewell. Slowly the boy sat at the side of the bed.

Should he go down the metal stair? On the other side of the coin, how could he trust a night bird that spoke like an ill-tempered old man? A grey feather was right next to the grid. Would anybody ever believe him? He had to go. It was a lucky break he was allowed to bring Markus and Angela along. Without them, it would have been a real problem. Yes, it was still night, but who could have slept after that encounter? Ughino looked at his old alarm clock on the night table.

It was three in the morning. He grabbed his pants and shirt off the chair and got dressed in a hurry, silently. He pushed the door aside lightly, but in the semidarkness of the moonlight through the window, he saw an empty bed! Yet, he remembered he had wished her good night, the night before and that she was already in bed. Maybe the barn owl had woken her up and she had gone into the kitchen to get a drink of water. The house, however, was immersed in darkness. He went into the small kitchen and turned the light on.

As he was turning around, he thought he heard a soft noise coming from behind. He turned just in time to protect his head. Paola, from behind, lowered the bottle she was holding on the head of her son with all her might. She let an angry cry escape. Ughino jumped to the side to avoid the woman. Luckily, the boy was so agile that he managed not to get hit. While he was jumping around, he grabbed a towel and wrapped his bleeding hand in it. Go away, you and your snakes! There was no other choice: Ughino then ran out of the door, climbing the stairs that were leading to the road.

As soon as he got outside, he jumped on his delivery bicycle and started to pedal with all his might. He pedaled and cried. He cried and sobbed. His bicycle, though, knew the way. Servo Inutile General field: E' un riflesso al " saeculorum " finale. Frutto delle preghiere dell'infanzia. Fin da bambino infatti, ho scorazzato nella chiesa di fronte alla mia casa. Una chiesa povera, austera come i suoi servitori. Burberi e severi frati Francescani Cappuccini. Quelli con la barba per intenderci. Ed ora sono qui. Se non osservassi l'orologio, uno Swatch da pochi soldi; un regalo delle mie figlie: Mi guardo intorno ed incrocio il volto dei colleghi.

Nei loro occhi la medesima domanda: Vorrei poter sospendere tutto. Io non ho colpe. Ma rimango e in silenzio, mi rivolgo ai miei Santi. A San Giuseppe mio patrono. A San Giovanni della Croce di cui avevo un'immaginetta bellissima. A Santa Bernardetta che non posso dimenticare. Alla Madonna di sale che aveva mia nonna e che baciavo tutte le sere prima di andare a letto. Salvate, salvate la mia anima. Non potevi trovare una scusa? Bastava dire che non ti sentivi all'altezza. Bastava poco per non essere qui, cretino!

Una paura atavica, ancestrale. Tutto quello che la mia formazione culturale non ammette. Anni di studi, anni di materie astruse come fisiologia, anatomia, patologia che impediscono di riconoscere quello che la fede non ha mai messo in dubbio. Rivolgo gli occhi a padre xxxy e tutto si placa. E' la sua voce che calma tutto.

E una grande pace mi prende. La mia gola articola in silenzio: Sono venuto con il pellegrinaggio che la mia Diocesi organizza ogni anno. Un viaggio in treno di millecinquecento chilometri, un convoglio di ventiquattro carrozze per ottocento pellegrini; una bolgia pazzesca. E' la quinta volta che vengo con loro ma prima, per altre tre volte, da giovane, con un gruppo di amici, sono stato in questo posto.

Mi si permetta, anche se potrebbe suonare blasfemo, di far riferimento alla mitologia. Ad Omero in particolare. Al canto delle sirene che irretiscono Ulisse. E' come se ci fosse un richiamo. Del consumismo sfrenato che circonda l'area sacra. Molti osservano di non aver visto nulla di particolare. Tanti sorridono ricordando le innumerevoli e variegate manifestazioni della fede popolare. Troppe persone sono ritornate da Lourdes a mani vuote. Era sufficiente leggere, prima di partire, il Vangelo di Matteo. E' questo quello che succede a Lourdes. A Lourdes quelli che sono ciechi nella fede: Quelli che zoppicano nella fede: Quelli che hanno una fede macchiata, piagata: Quelli che sono sordi al richiamo della fede: Quelli che sono morti nella loro fede: A tutti quelli che ascoltano: Caricare, senza disturbare alcuno, il mio tasso di nicotina nel sangue.

Stavo appunto tirando a pieni polmoni che ti vedo arrivare costui. Avrei compreso in seguito l'importanza che quest'ultima rivestiva per lui. Posso fare una domanda? Il tono nasale e stentato mi fece subito capire che si trattava di un francese. Il vestito scuro, accompagnato da una camicia grigia, ed in particolare la piccola croce sul risvolto della giacca mi fecero pensare che fosse un sacerdote. Stavo per raccogliere nella mente una splendida risposta nella sua lingua che tra parentesi, amo tanto, quando lui mi precedette nuovamente.

Non mi meravigliai per la sua perspicacia dato che indossavo un camice bianco e un fonendoscopio mi usciva di tasca. Avrei sempre potuto rifiutarmi in seguito, una volta conosciute le problematiche. Chiesi di che cosa si trattasse per potermi organizzare con eventuali sussidi terapeutici. Un prete, un malato, gli psichiatri. Stavo per dire che del paragrafo sulle ossessioni avevo studiato solo il titolo quando lui riprese: Quella sera, a cena, non stavo nella pelle.

Non mi seppi trattenere e parlai con due miei colleghi di quello che mi era successo. Anche loro convennero sull'importanza di quell'esperienza. Nessuno di noi aveva mai assistito ad un esorcismo, se di questo forse si trattava. Si, malati psichiatrici ne avevamo visti anche noi ma nessuno che avesse manifestato qualche tipo di possessione. Avrei ringraziato in seguito per la loro presenza.

Il giorno dopo, oggi, ci siamo trovati tutti e tre puntuali all'appuntamento. Il prete, padre xxxy ci aspettava assieme ad una suora. Nell'attesa che venga il malato, che ora sappiamo essere una malata, il padre ci spiega tutto quello che dobbiamo fare, quello che possiamo e quello che non dobbiamo fare. Mettetevi poi ai lati del malato. Non correrete alcun pericolo se vi atterrete a questi consigli. E questa sarebbe l'indemoniata? Vengo distolto dalla sua presentazione. So che siete preoccupati ma Io non ho mai fatto male a nessuno.

E ci vorrebbe che questo simpatico criceto, possa farmi male! Hai dormito troppo poco. Il sacerdote si avvicina e saluta la ragazza. Strano, osservo, il prete non le ha dato la mano. La ragazza mi squadra e poi mi strizza l'occhio. Si china verso di me e sussurra: Sai, sono tre mesi che mi vede, due volte alla settimana. Qui non ci siamo! Mi sa che sto sbagliando tutto. Quando parla di Babilonia. Dopo, sono stata benissimo. Ma di cosa sta parlando? Quasi quasi me ne vado. Ad un cenno del padre lo seguiamo nella sacrestia.

La ragazza viene mandata avanti, nella chiesa e il prete si rivolge a me. Dopo entriamo anche noi nella chiesa. E' una chiesa a navata unica. Con il soffitto in legno sorretto da architravi. Due file di panche sono separate da uno spazio, lungo fino in fondo. Le panche sono di legno, leggere e facilmente spostabili. Ci avviciniamo e il sacerdote ci indica i posti. Io mi siedo alla destra della ragazza. I miei due colleghi, uno a sinistra e uno dietro. Il prete si sposta di lato, a quasi due metri ed inizia la vestizione.

Mentre ci guardiamo l'un l'altro, la suora sta armeggiando alle finestre. Ad una ad una le chiude e le spranga. Poi va alla porta da cui siamo entrati e la chiude a doppia mandata. Torno a guardare i colleghi e leggo nei loro occhi la stessa voglia di fuga. Di traverso, vedo la ragazza sorridere mentre si segna. Poi la voce lenta di padre xxxy ci raggiunge. Il suo latino fa compiere alla mia mente un balzo di trent'anni ed io entro nel coro dei frati. Rispondiamo sperando che il Signore non consideri gli errori di latino.

Segue, sempre in latino la preghiera del Padre Nostro e una decina di Avemarie. La ragazza, che osservo, prega sottovoce e ad un tratto appoggia la sua mano destra sulla mia gamba. Non solo appoggia ma prende quasi, con forza. Sta facendo altrettanto con la gamba del mio collega. Noi ci guardiamo in silenzio. Finite le preghiere iniziali il sacerdote prende il cestello dell'acqua santa con l'intenzione di aspergerci. Le gocce arrivano sui corpi e le mani della ragazza cominciano ad artigliare le cosce.

Spontaneamente, prendiamo con le mani le sue braccia. Il collega parla il linguaggio dei muti, articolando la mascella. Poi il padre apre la Bibbia, sul fondo e comincia a leggere. Veniva dal profondo della gola. A questo punto i gemiti della ragazza si traformarono in un pianto dirotto. Un pianto che non avevo mai udito. Straziante come se avesse subito una perdita irreparabile. Nella mia vita ho pianto molte volte ed ho udito, anche a seguito della mia professione, molte persone piangere. Le usciva dalla gola un ruggito tremendo, profondo e allo stesso tempo acuto.

Lo alternava a tratti con bestemmie rabbiose all'indirizzo della Madre di Dio. Con movimenti alternati in avanti e in dietro cercava di liberarsi dalle nostre prese.

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Ci spinse tutti e tre improvvisamente e quello dietro rimase incastrato tra le due panche. Per fortuna la persona amica ci venne subito in aiuto altrimenti avremmo dovuto lasciarla. E questo era assolutamente da evitare secondo quanto ci aveva detto il prete. Come in un ballo assurdo giravamo per la chiesa, sempre trattenendola.

Il suo unico scopo, per quanto mi parve di capire, era quello di raggiungere il sacerdote. Non volevo pensare a quello che avrebbe potuto fare se lo avesse preso. A tratti, oserei dire per grazia di Dio, perdeva improvvisamente le forze e allora la lasciavamo scivolare a terra. Tutta rannicchiata, cominciava allora a tossire.

Flavio Bulgarelli

Una tosse canina, insopportabile all'udito. Poi seguiva il vomito. Durante questo periodo, in due occasioni, mentre la ragazza era particolarmente debilitata, il sacerdote facendosi aiutare da noi, la ungeva con l'olio santo. In questi momenti lei diventava come una furia. Dopo, quando la ragazza e la persona amica se ne erano andate io parlai con padre xxxy.

Le guarigioni del corpo sono bellissime ma le guarigioni dell'anima non sono definibili tanto sono belle agli occhi di Dio. Sapessi quante vengono a cercarmi. Ogni settimana ne vedo quasi una decina. Si ritrasse come se l'avessi colpito. Quando la vidi per la prima volta le dissi che non potevo fidarmi della sua parola. Che dovevo, come un medico, vedere con i miei occhi. Andai allora al tabernacolo, indossai la stola e simulati i riti tornai con un'ostia non consacrata, solo un piccolo pezzo di pane.

Poi la guardai e lei era stupita. La ragazza era decisamente preoccupata ed allora le chiesi se voleva riprovare. Non posso prendere l'Eucaristia due volte lo stesso giorno. Compresi subito che conosceva le regole e allora incalzai dicendo: Presi tra le mani l'ostia consacrata e avvicinatomi feci per metterla nella sua bocca.

Mentre urlava pensai tra me che qui c'era un problema. Come anche tu puoi ben comprendere lei non poteva assolutamente conoscere la differenza tra i due pezzi di pane. Io rimasi in silenzio e trattenni a lungo in mano, mentre tornavo all'albergo, il biglietto con l'indirizzo del padre. Quella notte mentre dormivo, " lessi " il libro. Come sia possibile leggere e dormire non so spiegarlo ma, al mattino, sul letto accanto, trovai il testo. Qualche giorno prima, in una cartoleria del centro, in alto, su, dietro il grande Castello, avevo acquistato uno di quei " livre de brouillon " che solo i francesi sanno fare.

Ma ora questo volume era tutto vergato da una scrittura fitta che non potevo non riconoscere. Mancava solo la mia firma al fondo ma tutto il resto non potevo averlo scritto che io. Alla fine non mi rimase che pregare. Sono rimasto a lungo combattuto tra due idee diametralmente opposte. La seconda quella di pubblicarlo. I ceppi e le catene verranno tolti e vagheremo liberi e forti. Liberi e potenti come un tempo. Per rinserrare le fila, per coltivare l'albero della Vostra furia, per massimamente addestrarvi. Di una Vostra tendenza a contemplare l' Abisso, a crogiolarvi nell'attuale moltitudine.

Sono contate le anime del primo stadio. Tutto questo deve finire. Un nuovo ciclo di raccolta deve iniziare. A questo sono stato mandato. Sulla manipolazione dello stesso. Sulla confusione dello stesso. Sulla perdita dello stesso. Dal sorgere del sole al sorgere del sole dovrete correre sul cuore degli uomini. Penetrare le loro teste, scardinare le loro case, distruggere le loro certezze. Instillate dubbi, favorite pensieri, trafugate i doni di Colui che io non nomino.

Agite da soli, in coppia, in gruppo, a miriadi per raggiungere e completare il Vostro compito. Rendetelo fastidioso agli occhi dei genitori. Presto, essi si stancheranno di quest'essere simile ad una zanzara. Combattete fianco a fianco con i fedeli celesti di Colui che io non nomino. Vi impediranno di far dolore ai bambini. Disturbate il sonno dei piccoli favorendo i rumori di trasferimento dei grandi. Favorite l'inserimento ed il successo degli uomini di comunicazione nelle macchine che loro stessi hanno creato. Date loro udienza e nomea e presto i piccoli saranno parcheggiati davanti a loro.

E' il primo passo. Il distacco semplice dalla famiglia. Che nessuno di questi stupidi uomini o donne legga mai ai loro figli la storia di Colui che io non nomino! L'allegria, le immagini in movimento saranno il pane della loro vita. Il blocco delle aspirazioni. Ora dobbiamo solo lavorare, poi ci divertiremo. Cullate i sogni dell'infanzia, favorite appetiti insaziabili, stimolate i rifiuti, create la paura, l'angoscia. Daranno fastidio ai genitori, toglieranno la forza agli insegnanti.

A proposito di quest'ultimi, impegnatevi a fondo. Appoggiate i favoritismi, create l'antipatia. Che le loro spiegazioni risultino difficili, noiose. Volti gratificanti, voci suadenti, conoscenze splendide. Essi lavorano per Voi. Sono i nostri fratelli umani. Ora dobbiamo usarli, poi ci divertiremo. Vanificate dunque chiunque si opponga. Rendete inutili le sue proteste.

Intimidite con frastuoni e fastidi chi combatte. Distogliete pertanto costoro da questa richiesta. Appesantite le loro braccia. Non lasciate nulla di intentato. I piccoli saranno distolti e si guarderanno attorno. Il desiderio d'immedesimazione, quello del possesso, Il sogno d'imitazione sono tutte cose buone e giuste.

Sono indispensabili per la nostra vittoria. Favorite i guadagni di coloro che sono a contatto con i piccoli uomini. E chi si oppone, venga messo alla berlina. Chiudete gli occhi ai genitori. Vedranno solo la grande intelligenza dei loro figli. Accarezzeranno il loro futuro. Venderanno l'anima per il futuro dei figli. Sollevate il vento e mostrate i piccoli corpi.

Gli innocenti che soppravviveranno porteranno rancore verso i propri simili. Vi ripeto, non preoccupatevene! Colui che io non nomino difende a denti stretti con l'aiuto dei suoi servi celesti la loro crescita. Saranno i genitori il Vostro tramite. Stimolate l'ira di questi padri, allettate l'intemperanza delle loro madri. Nella loro ansia di proteggere i figli non vedranno la strada di Colui che io non nomino. High to Low Avg. Come un'onda del mare I libri del sorriso Vol. Available for download now. Available to ship in days. An eagle in the night I libri del sorriso Book 8 Jul 11, Asia and Jolly I libri del sorriso Vol.

Il volto della gloria I libri del sorriso Vol. La nostra capanna sull'albero I libri del sorriso Vol. Scusi, vuol ballare con me? I libri del sorriso Vol. Un'aquila nella notte I libri del sorriso Vol. Sulle ali del tempo. Confidenze in versi e immagini May 04, Out of Print--Limited Availability. Provide feedback about this page.