All Our Yesterdays (2 page)

The old man had not a single friend. Occasionally he went out and walked all over the town, with a contemptuous, hostile air, and he would sit in a café in the centre of the town looking at the people passing, in order to be seen by those whom he had once known very well, to show he was still alive and meant them to be angry with him. He would come home well satisfied when he had seen one of the ones who had once been Socialists like himself and were now Fascists, and who did not know the things that were written about them in his book of memoirs, about the time when they were honest and decent people and about the shady, dirty things they had afterwards done. At table the old man would rub his hands together and say that if God existed, He would let him live till the end of Fascism, so that he could publish his book and see people's faces. He said that in that way one would know at last whether this God existed or not, but he himself thought, on the whole, that He did not exist, or again, possibly He did exist but was on Mussolini's side. After the meal the old man would say, “Giustino, go and buy me a paper. Make yourself useful, seeing that you're not ornamental.” For there was nothing kindly about him when he was not sad.

From time to time big boxes of chocolates used to arrive, sent by Cenzo Rena, who had been a great friend of the old man's at one time. Picture post-cards also used to arrive from him, from all parts of the world, for Cenzo Rena was always travelling, and Signora Maria would recognize the places where she had been with the old lady, and she stuck the post-cards into her dressing-table mirror. But the old man did not like to hear Cenzo Rena's name mentioned, because they had been friends but had then had a terrible quarrel, and when he saw the chocolates arrive he would shrug his shoulders and snort with rage, and Ippolito had to write secretly to Cenzo Rena to thank him and to give news of the old man.

Concettina and Anna had piano lessons twice a week. A timid little ring would be heard, Anna would open the gate, and the music-master would walk across the garden, stopping to look at the rose-trees, for he knew the story of the dung and the shovel, and also he hoped that the old man would pop out from some corner of the garden. At first the old man had paid him a great deal of attention and had imagined that this music-master was a great man ; he had sat him down in his own room and given him his own tobacco to smoke, and had tapped him hard on the knee and told him over and over again that he was an exceptional person. The music-master was engaged in writing a Latin grammar in verse ; he copied it out into a little exercise-book and every time he came he was anxious that the old man should hear a few new stanzas. And all of a sudden the old man had become terribly tired of him; he did not wish to hear any more new stanzas of the grammar, and when the music-master's timid little ring at the gate was heard the old man could be seen escaping up the stairs to hide where best he could. The music-master could not resign himself to being no longer welcomed in the old man's room, and he would talk in a loud voice in the passage and read out his stanzas, looking this way and that all the time. Then he grew sad, and used to ask Concettina and Anna whether he had perhaps offended their father without knowing it. Neither Anna nor Concettina played well. They were both sick of these lessons and wanted to stop them, but Signora Maria was unwilling because the music-master's was the only face from the outside world that was ever seen inside the house. And a house is really too gloomy, she said, without a few visitors now and then. She herself was always present at the piano-lessons, with her rug over her knees and her crochet-work. And afterwards she used to carry on a conversation with the music-master and listen to his new stanzas, and he would stay on till it was quite late, still in the hope of seeing the old man.

The music-master was in very truth the only stranger who came to the house. There was indeed a nephew of Signora Maria's who put in an occasional appearance— the son of that sister of hers at Genoa ; he was studying to be a veterinary surgeon and at Genoa he always failed in his exams, and so he had come to study in this little town where the exams were much easier, but even so he failed from time to time. In any case he was not a real stranger because everyone had seen him constantly ever since he had been a child, and Signora Maria was always on tenterhooks when he arrived, for fear the old man should treat him unkindly. The old man did not want anyone about the house, and even Concettina's
fiancés
were not allowed to enter the gate.

In the summer they all had to go to Le Visciole, every year. Each time Concettina wept because she wanted to go to the seaside, or else to stay in the town with her
fianc
é
s.
And Signora Maria, too, was in despair, because of the
contadino's
wife there, for they had quarrelled one day when the pig had eaten some handkerchiefs. And Giustino and Anna, too, who as children had enjoyed themselves at Le Visciole, now wore cross expressions when they had to go there. They hoped their father would let them go one summer to stay with Cenzo Rena in a kind of castle he possessed, for Cenzo Rena wrote every year to invite them. But their father did not wish them to go and said that in any case it was an ugly castle, a wretched thing with poor little towers ; Cenzo Rena only thought it beautiful because he had spent money on it. Money is the devil's excrement, said their father.

They went to Le Visciole by a little local train. It was near, but departure was a complicated business, for the old man gave no one any peace during the days when the packing had to be done ; he flew into rages with Ippolito and with Signora Maria and the trunks had to be packed and unpacked a hundred times over. And Concertina's
fiancés,
who had come to bid her good-bye, hung about the gate, and she cried because she was filled with a tremendous rage at having to stay for so many months at Le Visciole, where she grew fat from boredom and there wasn't even a tennis-court.

They left early in the morning, and the old man was in a very bad temper throughout the journey, because the little train was crowded and people were eating and drinking, and he was afraid they would soil his trousers with wine. Never once did he fail to start a quarrel in the train. Then he would get angry with Signora Maria, who always had numbers of little bundles and baskets and her shoes in cloth bags stuck about all over the place, and in her string bag a wine-flask of coffee and milk ; the old man was particularly disgusted at this flask, to him it seemed revolting to see coffee and milk in a wine-flask; and he said to Signora Maria that he quite failed to understand how the old lady could have wanted to take her about with her on so many journeys. But when they arrived at Le Visciole he was content. He sat himself down under the pergola and took in deep, strong breaths, breath after breath, and said how good the air tasted, It had such a strong, fresh taste that he felt he was taking a drink each time he breathed. And he called the
contadino
and greeted him warmly, and called Ippolito to see whether he didn't-think the
contadino
looked like a Van Gogh picture ; he made the
contadino
sit with his face supported on his hand and put his hat on his head, and asked if he didn't look like a real Van Gogh. After the
contadino
had gone, Ippolito said he might indeed be a Van Gogh, but he was also a thief because he stole grain and wine. The old man flew into a great rage. He had played with this
contadino
as a boy, and he could not allow Ippolito to start pouring contempt in this way upon the things of his childhood, and it was much worse to pour contempt upon the childhood of one's father than to keep back a few pounds of grain when you needed it. Ippolito made no answer, he held his dog between his legs and stroked its ears. As soon as he arrived at Le Visciole he used to put on an old fustian jacket and high boots, and he went about dressed like that the whole summer, and he was shockingly dirty, and besides, he must be bursting with heat, said Signora Maria. But Ippolito never looked hot, he did not sweat and his face was always dry and smooth, and he used to go about the countryside with the dog in the hot noonday sun. The dog ate the armchairs and had fleas, and Signora Maria wanted to give it away, but Ippolito was mad about this dog, and once when the dog was ill he had kept it in his room at night, getting up to make bread and milk for it. He would have liked to take it with him to the town, instead of which he had to leave it at Le Visciole with the
contadino
who did not look after it and who gave it bad food, and Ippolito was always much distressed in the autumn when he had to say good-bye to the dog, but his father agreed with Signora Maria about the dog and would not hear of having it in the town. So Ippolito would have to wait patiently for him to die, his father said, and really, perhaps Ippolito did hope very much that he would die soon, perhaps this was his pet dream, to be able to go for a walk in the town with his dog.

Ippolito listened in silence when his father spoke unkindly to him, he never answered back and his face remained quiet and pale, and at night he stayed up to type out the book of memoirs, or to read Goethe aloud when his father could not sleep. For he had the soul of a slave, Concettina used to say, and camomile in his veins instead of blood, and was like an old man of ninety, with no girls whom he liked and no desire for anything, all he could do was to wander about the countryside alone all day with the dog.

Le Visciole was a tall, large house, with guns and horns hung up on the walls, with high beds and mattresses that rustled because they were stuffed with maize-leaves. The garden stretched down to the high road, a big, uncultivated garden full of trees ; it was no use trying to plant rosebushes or other flowers because in winter the
contadino
would certainly not look after them and they would die. Behind the house was the courtyard, with the farm-cart and the
contadino's
cottage, and the
contadino's
wife who came to her door from time to time and flung out a bucket of water, and then Signora Maria would shout out that this dirty water made the courtyard stink, and the
contadino's
wife shouted back that it was clean water, quite good enough to wash Signora Maria's face in, and so the two of them would go on quarrelling for a bit. All round, as far as the eye could see, stretched fields of corn and maize, and in the middle of them stood scarecrows, waving their empty sleeves ; vineyards and oak-trees started at the foot of the hill, and every now and then a shot would be heard from that direction, and a cloud of birds would rise and Ippolito's dog would be heard barking, but Concettina said it barked from fright, not from a desire to catch anything. The river was some distance away, beyond the road, a bright, far-off streak amongst bushes and rocks : and the village was a little beyond it, about ten houses or so.

In the village were the people whom the old man called “the humbugs”—the local Fascist Secretary, the Superintendent of Police, the Secretary of the Commune ; and the old man went every day to the village so that the Humbugs might see him, that they might see he was still alive and that he cut them dead. The Humbugs would be playing bowls in their shirtsleeves, ignorant that they too were in the book of memoirs ; and their wives would be sitting round the monument in the little square, knitting and suckling their babies, with handkerchiefs over their breasts. The monument was big and made of stone, a big, stone young man with a badge and a fez : the old man would stop in front of it and stick his eyeglass in his eye, and look and smile sarcastically, he would stay there for a little, looking and smiling sarcastically : and Signora Maria was afraid that some day or other the Humbugs would arrest him, and she would try to pull him away, as she had once done with the old lady in front of the hat-shop windows. Signora Maria would have liked to talk to the wives of the Humbugs, to have learnt new stitches and taught them some as well: and also to have told them that it would have been a good thing if they had washed their breasts with water that had been boiled before suckling their babies. But she never dared go near them because of the old man.

In the summer, freckles and places where the skin had peeled were to be seen on the old man's bald, shiny head, because he went out in the sun bareheaded ; and Concettina's legs went golden brown, seeing that there was nothing else to do at Le Visciole except sunbathe, and Concettina sat all day long in a deck-chair in front of the house, with dark glasses and a book that she did not read ; she would look at her legs and take care that they got nicely sunburnt, and then she had the idea that if she kept them sweating in the sun they might grow a little thinner ; for Concettina, besides being heavy in the hips, was heavy in the legs as well, and she used to say she would give ten years of her life to be slimmer from the hips down. Signora Maria would arrange her clothes about her as she sat under the pergola, her extraordinary clothes cut out of old curtains or bedspreads, with a hat made out of a newspaper on her head and her feet crossed on a footstool. Far away, on the brow of the hill, Ippolito could be seen going backwards and forwards with his gun and his dog : and the old man would curse the stupid dog and Ippolito's mania for wandering about the countryside, when all the time he needed him to give him his injection and do some typewriting, and he would send off Giustino to chase him.

2

It was at Le Visciole that the old man felt ill for the first time. He was taking his coffee, and all of a sudden the hand that held the cup started trembling, and the coffee was spilt on his trousers, and his body was bowed down, and he was trembling and breathing heavily. Ippolito went on a bicycle to fetch the doctor. But the old man did not want the doctor and said that he felt a little better ; he said the doctor was a humbug and he wanted to leave for the town at once. The doctor came, a humbug of the most insignificant kind, hardly taller than Signora Maria, with fair hair that looked like chickens' feathers, and big baggy trousers like a Zouave and check stockings. And all at once he and the old man made friends. For the old man discovered that he was not a humbug at all, and that he hated the local Fascist Secretary and the Superintendent of Police and the stone young man in the village square. The old man said he was very pleased he had been ill, because in that way he had discovered this little doctor, a person whom he had believed to be a humbug whereas he was really a fine fellow ; and every day they used to have a chat and tell each other all sorts of things, and the old man was almost inclined to read him some bits out of the book of memoirs, but Ippolito said better not. Ippolito could not now go roaming over the countryside, but had to sit all day long in his father's room and give him injections and drops and read aloud to him : but the old man no longer wanted Goethe, he now wanted detective stories. Luckily there was the little doctor coming all the time, and the old man was perfectly contented : only he had told him to stop wearing those check stockings, because they did not suit him and were rather ridiculous.