body had already been cut up in portions and was therefore unidentifiable. As usual, there was a trick in it. Lattarullo insisted on examining the fish and pointed out to me that the body didnât match the head, and from its triangular backbone evidently belonged to the dogfish family, which most people avoided eating if they could. The other recommended item on the menu was veal, Milanese style, very white but dry-looking, which the waiter, under pressure, admitted to being horse. We settled for macaroni.
No attempt was made to isolate the customers from the street. Ragged, hawk-eyed boys â the celebrated scugnizzi of Naples â wandered among the tables ready to dive on any crust that appeared to be overlooked, or to snatch up leftovers before they could be thrown to the cats. Once again I couldnât help noticing the intelligence â almost the intellectuality â of their expressions. No attempt was made to chase them away. They were simply treated as nonexistent. The customers had withdrawn from the world while they communed with their food. An extraordinary cripple was dragged in, balancing face downwards on a trolley, only a few inches from the ground, arms and legs thrust out in spider fashion. Nobody took his eyes off his food for one second to glance down at him. This youth could not use his hands. One of the scugnizzi hunted down a piece of bread for him, turned his head sideways to stuff it between his teeth, and he was dragged out.
Suddenly five or six little girls between the ages of nine and twelve appeared in the doorway. They wore hideous straight black uniformsbuttoned under their chins, and black boots and stockings, and their hair had been shorn short, prison-style. They were all weeping, and as they clung to each other and groped their way towards us, bumping into chairs and tables, I realised they were all blind. Tragedy and despair had been thrust upon us, and would not be shut out. I expected the indifferent diners to push back their plates, to get up and hold out their arms, but nobody moved. Forkfuls of food were thrust into open mouths, the rattle of conversation continued, nobody saw the tears.
Lattarullo explained that these little girls were from an orphanage on the Vomero, where he had heard â and he made a face â conditions were very bad. They had been brought down here, he found out, on a halfdayâs outing by an attendant who seemed unable or unwilling to stop them from being lured away by the smell of food.
The experience changed my outlook. Until now I had clung to the comforting belief that human beings eventually come to terms with pain and sorrow. Now I understood I was wrong, and like Paul I suffered a conversion â but to pessimism. These little girls, any one of whom could be my daughter, came into the restaurant weeping, and they were weeping when they were led away. I knew that, condemned to everlasting darkness, hunger and loss, they would weep on incessantly. They would never recover from their pain, and I would never recover from the memory of it.
November 5
Called for the first time on two new contacts, Ingeniere Losurdo and Avvocato Mosca, and found â no longer to my entire astonishment â that the circumstances of their lives bore an extreme resemblance to those of Lattarullo. Both lived in the Via Chiaia, once the resort of the townâs aristocracy, in vast, dark, bare palazzi of which they occupied a single floor. Both palazzi date from the early eighteenth century, and have much-defaced coats of arms over the doorway. Each of them has its dim little porterâs lodge, in which sits an identical old woman knitting in the semidarkness, and a courtyard behind heavy doors with its flagstones rutted with the passage of the carriages of two centuries. There was a traceof embarrassment, a hint of apology, in the manner of both these men as they invited me into rooms which appeared to be virtually unfurnished. In each case I
No attempt was made to isolate the customers from the street. Ragged, hawk-eyed boys â the celebrated scugnizzi of Naples â wandered among the tables ready to dive on any crust that appeared to be overlooked, or to snatch up leftovers before they could be thrown to the cats. Once again I couldnât help noticing the intelligence â almost the intellectuality â of their expressions. No attempt was made to chase them away. They were simply treated as nonexistent. The customers had withdrawn from the world while they communed with their food. An extraordinary cripple was dragged in, balancing face downwards on a trolley, only a few inches from the ground, arms and legs thrust out in spider fashion. Nobody took his eyes off his food for one second to glance down at him. This youth could not use his hands. One of the scugnizzi hunted down a piece of bread for him, turned his head sideways to stuff it between his teeth, and he was dragged out.
Suddenly five or six little girls between the ages of nine and twelve appeared in the doorway. They wore hideous straight black uniformsbuttoned under their chins, and black boots and stockings, and their hair had been shorn short, prison-style. They were all weeping, and as they clung to each other and groped their way towards us, bumping into chairs and tables, I realised they were all blind. Tragedy and despair had been thrust upon us, and would not be shut out. I expected the indifferent diners to push back their plates, to get up and hold out their arms, but nobody moved. Forkfuls of food were thrust into open mouths, the rattle of conversation continued, nobody saw the tears.
Lattarullo explained that these little girls were from an orphanage on the Vomero, where he had heard â and he made a face â conditions were very bad. They had been brought down here, he found out, on a halfdayâs outing by an attendant who seemed unable or unwilling to stop them from being lured away by the smell of food.
The experience changed my outlook. Until now I had clung to the comforting belief that human beings eventually come to terms with pain and sorrow. Now I understood I was wrong, and like Paul I suffered a conversion â but to pessimism. These little girls, any one of whom could be my daughter, came into the restaurant weeping, and they were weeping when they were led away. I knew that, condemned to everlasting darkness, hunger and loss, they would weep on incessantly. They would never recover from their pain, and I would never recover from the memory of it.
November 5
Called for the first time on two new contacts, Ingeniere Losurdo and Avvocato Mosca, and found â no longer to my entire astonishment â that the circumstances of their lives bore an extreme resemblance to those of Lattarullo. Both lived in the Via Chiaia, once the resort of the townâs aristocracy, in vast, dark, bare palazzi of which they occupied a single floor. Both palazzi date from the early eighteenth century, and have much-defaced coats of arms over the doorway. Each of them has its dim little porterâs lodge, in which sits an identical old woman knitting in the semidarkness, and a courtyard behind heavy doors with its flagstones rutted with the passage of the carriages of two centuries. There was a traceof embarrassment, a hint of apology, in the manner of both these men as they invited me into rooms which appeared to be virtually unfurnished. In each case I
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