Read Online The Day of the Owl by Leonardo Sciascia - Free Book Online
Authors: Leonardo Sciascia
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Contemporary, Crime, Mystery, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Crime Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, Thrillers & Suspense
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signature. It was not the importance of the denunciation which made such an impression on the captain, but the agony, the despair which had provoked it. Those 'regards' made him feel brotherly compassion and anguished distress, the compassion and distress of one who under appearances classified, defined and rejected, suddenly discovers the naked tragic human heart. By his death, by his last farewell, the informer had come into a closer, more human relationship; this might be unpleasant, vexatious; but in the feelings and thoughts of the man who shared them they brought a response of sympathy, of spiritual sympathy.
Suddenly this state of mind gave way to rage. The captain felt a wave of resentment at the narrow limits in which the law compelled him to act; like his subordinates he found himself longing for exceptional powers, exceptional liberty of action; a longing he had always condemned in them. A few months' suspension in Sicily of constitutional guarantees, and the evil could be uprooted forever. Then he remembered Mori's repression of the mafia under fascism and rejected this alternative. But his anger smouldered on, his Northerner's anger against the whole of Sicily, the only region in the whole of Italy actually to have been given liberty during the fascist dictatorship, the liberty of safety of life and property. How many other liberties this liberty of theirs had cost, the Sicilians did not know or want to know. In the dock at the assizes they had seen all the Dons and zii, the election riggers and even those Commanders of the Order of the Crown of Italy, the doctors and lawyers who intrigued with or protected the underworld. Weak or corrupt magistrates had been dismissed; complaisant officials removed. For peasant, smallholder, shepherd and sulphur-miner, dictatorship had spoken this language of freedom.
'And perhaps that's why there are so many fascists in Sicily,' thought the captain. 'They never saw fascism as buffoonery or, like us, lived out its full tragic consequences after September 8th; but it's not only that. It's because in the condition they were in, one liberty was enough, they would not have known what to do with any others.' But this was not an objective opinion.
As he pursued these thoughts, at times clear and at others confused, for he lacked knowledge, he was already on his way through the night to S., a night which the cold white headlights made even vaster and more mysterious, an endless vault of splendid crystals and of glittering apparitions.
The sergeantmajor of S. had had a terrible day, and was about to wade through an even worse night, with silent insidious waters of sleep waiting to drown him at any moment. From the neighbouring town he had brought in Marchica who, to tell the truth, had caused no trouble and, indeed, seemed half asleep like a puppy at its mother's dugs: he had gone peacefully into the guardroom and, even before the door was closed behind him, thrown himself, like a sack of bones, on the plank bed.
And, as if Marchica were not enough, the last straw for the sergeantmajor had been another corpse. It was enough to drive the most placid of men crazy; but the sergeantmajor, with his pangs of hunger and his weariness, just felt sleepy. Then just as he was slipping off for a cup of coffee he was stopped on the very threshold of the bar by the voice of the captain, who had arrived that minute, which showed what an unlucky star he had, at least in his relations with his superiors. Instead, the captain joined him in a coffee, and insisted on paying for both, in spite of the barman saying what a pleasure it was for the bar to offer a coffee impersonally to the Signor Capitano and the Signor Maresciallo, thus making the sergeantmajor's ill humour foam silently like a glass of beer. 'Now he'll think I come in here and drink free,' he was thinking. But the captain had quite other worries.
The body of Parrinieddu, covered by a bluish cloth, still lay on the pavement. The
Suddenly this state of mind gave way to rage. The captain felt a wave of resentment at the narrow limits in which the law compelled him to act; like his subordinates he found himself longing for exceptional powers, exceptional liberty of action; a longing he had always condemned in them. A few months' suspension in Sicily of constitutional guarantees, and the evil could be uprooted forever. Then he remembered Mori's repression of the mafia under fascism and rejected this alternative. But his anger smouldered on, his Northerner's anger against the whole of Sicily, the only region in the whole of Italy actually to have been given liberty during the fascist dictatorship, the liberty of safety of life and property. How many other liberties this liberty of theirs had cost, the Sicilians did not know or want to know. In the dock at the assizes they had seen all the Dons and zii, the election riggers and even those Commanders of the Order of the Crown of Italy, the doctors and lawyers who intrigued with or protected the underworld. Weak or corrupt magistrates had been dismissed; complaisant officials removed. For peasant, smallholder, shepherd and sulphur-miner, dictatorship had spoken this language of freedom.
'And perhaps that's why there are so many fascists in Sicily,' thought the captain. 'They never saw fascism as buffoonery or, like us, lived out its full tragic consequences after September 8th; but it's not only that. It's because in the condition they were in, one liberty was enough, they would not have known what to do with any others.' But this was not an objective opinion.
As he pursued these thoughts, at times clear and at others confused, for he lacked knowledge, he was already on his way through the night to S., a night which the cold white headlights made even vaster and more mysterious, an endless vault of splendid crystals and of glittering apparitions.
The sergeantmajor of S. had had a terrible day, and was about to wade through an even worse night, with silent insidious waters of sleep waiting to drown him at any moment. From the neighbouring town he had brought in Marchica who, to tell the truth, had caused no trouble and, indeed, seemed half asleep like a puppy at its mother's dugs: he had gone peacefully into the guardroom and, even before the door was closed behind him, thrown himself, like a sack of bones, on the plank bed.
And, as if Marchica were not enough, the last straw for the sergeantmajor had been another corpse. It was enough to drive the most placid of men crazy; but the sergeantmajor, with his pangs of hunger and his weariness, just felt sleepy. Then just as he was slipping off for a cup of coffee he was stopped on the very threshold of the bar by the voice of the captain, who had arrived that minute, which showed what an unlucky star he had, at least in his relations with his superiors. Instead, the captain joined him in a coffee, and insisted on paying for both, in spite of the barman saying what a pleasure it was for the bar to offer a coffee impersonally to the Signor Capitano and the Signor Maresciallo, thus making the sergeantmajor's ill humour foam silently like a glass of beer. 'Now he'll think I come in here and drink free,' he was thinking. But the captain had quite other worries.
The body of Parrinieddu, covered by a bluish cloth, still lay on the pavement. The
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