Read Online Difficult Loves by Italo Calvino - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Italo Calvino
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General, Fiction - General, Literature: Classics, Interpersonal relations, Short Stories, Man-Woman Relationships, love, Italian - Translations into English
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the insects
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gnaw and burrow all over, and at the yellowing leaves and the thick weeds, all the work of his life that is falling to pieces like the sustaining walls of the terrace that crumble more with every rain; and he curses his sons.
Dog, I say, thinking of my brother, you dog. Then I prick up my ears and from below I can hear something clatter to the floor, a falling broomstick. My mother is alone in that enormous kitchen, and daylight is just brightening the windowpanes, and she is slaving for people who turn their backs on her. As I am thinking this, I fall asleep.
It's not yet ten o'clock when Mother starts yelling from the stairs, "Pietro! Andrea! It's ten already!" She sounds very angry, as if she were irritated by something extraordinary; but it's the same every morning. "Awright ..." we yell back. And, awake by now, we stay in bed another half-hour, to become used to the idea of getting up.
Then I start saying, "Come on, Andrea, wake up. Let's get up, all right? Andrea, come on, start getting out of bed." Andrea grunts.
Finally, with a lot of huffing and stretching, we're on our feet. Andrea walks around in his pajamas with an old man's movements, his hair all disheveled and his eyes half blind, and he's already licking a paper to roll a smoke. He smokes at the window, then begins to wash and shave.
Meanwhile he has started grumbling, and little by little the grumbling gives way to singing. My brother has a baritone voice, and though in company he is always mournful and never sings, when he's alone, shaving or taking a bath, he strikes up one of those cadenced tunes of his in a grim voice. He doesn't know any songs, so he always comes forth with a Carducci poem he learned as a child: "On Verona's castle strikes the noonday sun. ..."
----
I'm getting dressed on the other side of the room, and I act as chorus, joylessly, but with a kind of violence: "And the green Adige flows murmuring into the open country. ..."
My brother continues his chant to the end, not overlooking a single stanza, as he washes his head and brushes his shoes. "Black as an old raven, and with eyes of coal. ..."
The more he sings, the more I'm filled with anger, and I also start singing fiercely: "Ill-luck is mine, and an evil beast has bitten me. ..."
This is the only time we make noise. Afterward we're quiet for the whole day.
We go downstairs and warm up some milk, then dip bread into it and eat noisily. Mother hovers over us and talks, complaining, but without insistence, about all the things that have to be done, the chores that could be performed. "Yes, yes," we answer, forgetting immediately.
As a rule I don't go out in the morning. I stay home, dawdling in the halls with my hands in my pockets, or I arrange my library. I haven't bought any new books for some time: it would take money; besides, I've lost interest in too many things, and if I started reading again I'd want to read everything, and I don't feel up to it. But I keep arranging the few books I have on the shelf: Italian, French, English; or else by subject—history, philosophy, fiction—or else I put all the bound volumes together, with the fine editions and the shabby books elsewhere.
My brother, on the contrary, goes to the Caffè Imperia and watches the billiards game. He himself doesn't play, because he doesn't know how: he stays there for hours and hours, looking at the players, following the balls in fancy triple shots, smoking, never getting excited, never betting since he has no money. Sometimes they let him keep score, but often his mind wanders
----
and he makes mistakes. He transacts a little deal or two, enough to pay for his smokes. Six months ago he filed an application with the Aqueduct Administration for a job that would support him, but he hasn't followed it up; for the present he gets enough to eat, anyway.
At dinner my brother arrives late, and both of us eat in silence. My parents are always arguing about expenses and income and debts
----
gnaw and burrow all over, and at the yellowing leaves and the thick weeds, all the work of his life that is falling to pieces like the sustaining walls of the terrace that crumble more with every rain; and he curses his sons.
Dog, I say, thinking of my brother, you dog. Then I prick up my ears and from below I can hear something clatter to the floor, a falling broomstick. My mother is alone in that enormous kitchen, and daylight is just brightening the windowpanes, and she is slaving for people who turn their backs on her. As I am thinking this, I fall asleep.
It's not yet ten o'clock when Mother starts yelling from the stairs, "Pietro! Andrea! It's ten already!" She sounds very angry, as if she were irritated by something extraordinary; but it's the same every morning. "Awright ..." we yell back. And, awake by now, we stay in bed another half-hour, to become used to the idea of getting up.
Then I start saying, "Come on, Andrea, wake up. Let's get up, all right? Andrea, come on, start getting out of bed." Andrea grunts.
Finally, with a lot of huffing and stretching, we're on our feet. Andrea walks around in his pajamas with an old man's movements, his hair all disheveled and his eyes half blind, and he's already licking a paper to roll a smoke. He smokes at the window, then begins to wash and shave.
Meanwhile he has started grumbling, and little by little the grumbling gives way to singing. My brother has a baritone voice, and though in company he is always mournful and never sings, when he's alone, shaving or taking a bath, he strikes up one of those cadenced tunes of his in a grim voice. He doesn't know any songs, so he always comes forth with a Carducci poem he learned as a child: "On Verona's castle strikes the noonday sun. ..."
----
I'm getting dressed on the other side of the room, and I act as chorus, joylessly, but with a kind of violence: "And the green Adige flows murmuring into the open country. ..."
My brother continues his chant to the end, not overlooking a single stanza, as he washes his head and brushes his shoes. "Black as an old raven, and with eyes of coal. ..."
The more he sings, the more I'm filled with anger, and I also start singing fiercely: "Ill-luck is mine, and an evil beast has bitten me. ..."
This is the only time we make noise. Afterward we're quiet for the whole day.
We go downstairs and warm up some milk, then dip bread into it and eat noisily. Mother hovers over us and talks, complaining, but without insistence, about all the things that have to be done, the chores that could be performed. "Yes, yes," we answer, forgetting immediately.
As a rule I don't go out in the morning. I stay home, dawdling in the halls with my hands in my pockets, or I arrange my library. I haven't bought any new books for some time: it would take money; besides, I've lost interest in too many things, and if I started reading again I'd want to read everything, and I don't feel up to it. But I keep arranging the few books I have on the shelf: Italian, French, English; or else by subject—history, philosophy, fiction—or else I put all the bound volumes together, with the fine editions and the shabby books elsewhere.
My brother, on the contrary, goes to the Caffè Imperia and watches the billiards game. He himself doesn't play, because he doesn't know how: he stays there for hours and hours, looking at the players, following the balls in fancy triple shots, smoking, never getting excited, never betting since he has no money. Sometimes they let him keep score, but often his mind wanders
----
and he makes mistakes. He transacts a little deal or two, enough to pay for his smokes. Six months ago he filed an application with the Aqueduct Administration for a job that would support him, but he hasn't followed it up; for the present he gets enough to eat, anyway.
At dinner my brother arrives late, and both of us eat in silence. My parents are always arguing about expenses and income and debts
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