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Authors: Italo Calvino
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and I cannot decide what attitude to take, whether to pretend absolute ignorance or to call on a remote experience now vague; it is my relationship with my life, consisting of things never concluded and half erased, that the subject of seashells forces me to contemplate; hence the uneasiness that finally puts me to flight.
In addition there is the fact that this girl's application in drawing seashells denotes in her a search for formal perfection which the world can and therefore must attain; I, on the contrary, have been convinced for some time that perfection is not produced except marginally and by chance; therefore it deserves no interest at all, the true nature of things being revealed only in disintegration. If I were to approach Miss Zwida, I would have to express some appreciation of her drawings—which are of highly refined quality, for that matter, as far as I have been able to see—and therefore, at least at first, I would have to pretend to agree with an aesthetic and moral ideal that I reject, or else declare my feelings at the very start, with the risk of wounding her.
Third obstacle: the condition of my health, which, though much improved thanks to this stay by the sea on doctors' orders, affects my opportunities to go out and meet strangers; I am still subject to intermittent attacks, and especially to periodic worsening of a tiresome eczema, which discourages me from any notion of sociability.
Every now and then I exchange a few words with the meteorologist, Mr. Kauderer, when I meet him at the observatory. Mr. Kauderer always goes by at noon, to check the readings. He is a tall, thin man, with a gloomy
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face, a bit like an American Indian. He rides along on his bicycle, staring straight ahead, as if maintaining his balance on the seat demanded all his concentration. He props his bicycle against the shed, slips a bag from the handlebars, and takes from it a ledger with broad, short pages. He climbs the steps to the platform and marks down the figures recorded by the instruments, some in pencil, others with a thick fountain pen, never relaxing his concentration for a second. He wears knickerbockers under a long topcoat; all his clothing is gray, or black-and-white check, including his visored cap. It is only when he has concluded these operations that he notices me observing him and greets me cordially.
I have come to realize that Mr. Kauderer's presence is important for me: that someone still evinces so much scrupulousness and methodical attention, though I know perfectly well it is all futile, has a reassuring effect on me, perhaps because it makes up for my vague way of living, about which—despite the conclusions I have reached—I continue to feel guilty. Therefore I stop and watch the meteorologist, and even converse with him, though it is not the conversation in itself that interests me. He talks to me about the weather, naturally, in detailed technical terms, and of the effects of the swings of pressure on the health, but also of the unsettled times in which we live, citing as example some episodes of local life or even news items he has read in the papers. At these moments he reveals a less reserved character than appears at first sight; indeed, he tends to warm to his subject and become verbose, especially in disapproving of the majority's way of acting and thinking, because he is a man who tends to be dissatisfied.
Today Mr. Kauderer told me that, because he is planning to go away for a few days, he will have to find someone to take his place in recording the data, but he does not know anyone he can trust. In the course of the conver-
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sation he asked me if I would be interested in learning to read the meteorological instruments, in which case he would teach me. I did not answer yes or no, or at least I did not mean to give a precise answer, but I found myself beside him on the platform while he was explaining how to establish the maximum and the minimum, the progress of the
In addition there is the fact that this girl's application in drawing seashells denotes in her a search for formal perfection which the world can and therefore must attain; I, on the contrary, have been convinced for some time that perfection is not produced except marginally and by chance; therefore it deserves no interest at all, the true nature of things being revealed only in disintegration. If I were to approach Miss Zwida, I would have to express some appreciation of her drawings—which are of highly refined quality, for that matter, as far as I have been able to see—and therefore, at least at first, I would have to pretend to agree with an aesthetic and moral ideal that I reject, or else declare my feelings at the very start, with the risk of wounding her.
Third obstacle: the condition of my health, which, though much improved thanks to this stay by the sea on doctors' orders, affects my opportunities to go out and meet strangers; I am still subject to intermittent attacks, and especially to periodic worsening of a tiresome eczema, which discourages me from any notion of sociability.
Every now and then I exchange a few words with the meteorologist, Mr. Kauderer, when I meet him at the observatory. Mr. Kauderer always goes by at noon, to check the readings. He is a tall, thin man, with a gloomy
----
face, a bit like an American Indian. He rides along on his bicycle, staring straight ahead, as if maintaining his balance on the seat demanded all his concentration. He props his bicycle against the shed, slips a bag from the handlebars, and takes from it a ledger with broad, short pages. He climbs the steps to the platform and marks down the figures recorded by the instruments, some in pencil, others with a thick fountain pen, never relaxing his concentration for a second. He wears knickerbockers under a long topcoat; all his clothing is gray, or black-and-white check, including his visored cap. It is only when he has concluded these operations that he notices me observing him and greets me cordially.
I have come to realize that Mr. Kauderer's presence is important for me: that someone still evinces so much scrupulousness and methodical attention, though I know perfectly well it is all futile, has a reassuring effect on me, perhaps because it makes up for my vague way of living, about which—despite the conclusions I have reached—I continue to feel guilty. Therefore I stop and watch the meteorologist, and even converse with him, though it is not the conversation in itself that interests me. He talks to me about the weather, naturally, in detailed technical terms, and of the effects of the swings of pressure on the health, but also of the unsettled times in which we live, citing as example some episodes of local life or even news items he has read in the papers. At these moments he reveals a less reserved character than appears at first sight; indeed, he tends to warm to his subject and become verbose, especially in disapproving of the majority's way of acting and thinking, because he is a man who tends to be dissatisfied.
Today Mr. Kauderer told me that, because he is planning to go away for a few days, he will have to find someone to take his place in recording the data, but he does not know anyone he can trust. In the course of the conver-
----
sation he asked me if I would be interested in learning to read the meteorological instruments, in which case he would teach me. I did not answer yes or no, or at least I did not mean to give a precise answer, but I found myself beside him on the platform while he was explaining how to establish the maximum and the minimum, the progress of the
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