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Authors: Giorgio Bassani
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Mussolini being more good than Hitler.”
“I know, I know,” he said. “But you’ve got to admit it. Hitler's a bloody lunatic, whereas Mussolini may be a turncoat and as Machiavellian as you like, but . . .”
I broke in again, unable to restrain an impatient gesture. Did he or didn't he agree-I asked, rather abruptly -with the thesis of Leon Trotsky’s essay, which I’d handed him a few days ago?
I was referring to an article published in an old number of the Nouvelle Revue Francaise, several complete years of which I kept jealously in my room. This was how it happened: for some reason, I can’t remember what, I had been rude to my father. He was hurt, and sulked, and, as I wanted to re-establish normal relations as soon as possible, I thought the best thing to do was tell him what I had been reading just lately. Flattered by this sign of my good opinion, my father didn’t wait to be asked twice. At once he read, or rather devoured, the article, underlining away in pencil, smothering the margins of the pages with closely written notes. In fact -he had told me explicitly - what “that old scoundrel, Lenin’s chum” had written had been a real revelation to him as well.
“But of course I agree!” he exclaimed, pleased to find me ready to discuss things, and disconcerted at the same time. “There’s no doubt about it, Trotsky’s marvellous at polemics. And what fire, what language ! He’s quite capable ofhaving written the article in French himself. Yes, the fact is,” and he smiled proudly, “those Russian and Polish Jews mayn't be terribly likeable, but they’ve always had a perfect genius for languages. They’ve got it in their blood.”
“Stop worrying about languages, we’re talking about concepts,” I broke in, with a touch of school-masterish sharpness I regretted at once.
The article was quite clear, I went on more gently. Capitalism, in its phase of imperialistic expansion, couldn’t help being intolerant of all national minorities, and of the Jews, who are the minority, by definition. Now, in the light of this general theory (Trotsky’s essay was written in 1931, we mustn’t forget: the year in which Hitler’s real rise to power began), what did it matter that Mussolini, as a person, was better than Hitler? And was he, in fact, any better, even as a person?
“I see, I see . . .” my father kept repeating softly, while I spoke.
His eyelids drooped, his face was twisted, as ifhe had something painful to endure. At last, when he was quite certain I had nothing more to add, he laid a hand on my knee.
He had understood-he told me yet again, slowly opening his eyes. But just let him speak: he thought things looked too black to me, too catastrophic.
Why wouldn’t I admit, in fact, that after the announcement on September 9th, and even after the additional circular of the 22nd, things, at least at Ferrara, had in fact carried on pretty weil the way they’d done before? It was perfectly true-he admitted, with a melancholy smile-during the last month, out of the 750 members of our community no one important enough to deserve space in the Corriere ferrarese had died (just a couple of old women in the home in via Vittoria, ifhe wasn’t mistaken: one called Saralvo, and the other Rietti; and old girl Rietti wasn’t even from hereabouts, but from some Mantuan village: Sabbioneta, Viadana, Pomponesco, or something like that). But let’s be fair: the telephone directories hadn’t been withdrawn to be reprinted, purged; not a single haverta, * maid, cook, nurse, or old housekeeper, serving in any of our families, had suddenly discovered a “racial conscience” and packed her bags; the Circolo dei Commercianti, where the lawyer Lattes had been vice-president for over ten years-and which, as I must know, he still frequented, undisturbed, almost daily-hadn’t so far asked anyone to resign. And had Bruno Lattes, Leone Lattes’s boy, been
“I know, I know,” he said. “But you’ve got to admit it. Hitler's a bloody lunatic, whereas Mussolini may be a turncoat and as Machiavellian as you like, but . . .”
I broke in again, unable to restrain an impatient gesture. Did he or didn't he agree-I asked, rather abruptly -with the thesis of Leon Trotsky’s essay, which I’d handed him a few days ago?
I was referring to an article published in an old number of the Nouvelle Revue Francaise, several complete years of which I kept jealously in my room. This was how it happened: for some reason, I can’t remember what, I had been rude to my father. He was hurt, and sulked, and, as I wanted to re-establish normal relations as soon as possible, I thought the best thing to do was tell him what I had been reading just lately. Flattered by this sign of my good opinion, my father didn’t wait to be asked twice. At once he read, or rather devoured, the article, underlining away in pencil, smothering the margins of the pages with closely written notes. In fact -he had told me explicitly - what “that old scoundrel, Lenin’s chum” had written had been a real revelation to him as well.
“But of course I agree!” he exclaimed, pleased to find me ready to discuss things, and disconcerted at the same time. “There’s no doubt about it, Trotsky’s marvellous at polemics. And what fire, what language ! He’s quite capable ofhaving written the article in French himself. Yes, the fact is,” and he smiled proudly, “those Russian and Polish Jews mayn't be terribly likeable, but they’ve always had a perfect genius for languages. They’ve got it in their blood.”
“Stop worrying about languages, we’re talking about concepts,” I broke in, with a touch of school-masterish sharpness I regretted at once.
The article was quite clear, I went on more gently. Capitalism, in its phase of imperialistic expansion, couldn’t help being intolerant of all national minorities, and of the Jews, who are the minority, by definition. Now, in the light of this general theory (Trotsky’s essay was written in 1931, we mustn’t forget: the year in which Hitler’s real rise to power began), what did it matter that Mussolini, as a person, was better than Hitler? And was he, in fact, any better, even as a person?
“I see, I see . . .” my father kept repeating softly, while I spoke.
His eyelids drooped, his face was twisted, as ifhe had something painful to endure. At last, when he was quite certain I had nothing more to add, he laid a hand on my knee.
He had understood-he told me yet again, slowly opening his eyes. But just let him speak: he thought things looked too black to me, too catastrophic.
Why wouldn’t I admit, in fact, that after the announcement on September 9th, and even after the additional circular of the 22nd, things, at least at Ferrara, had in fact carried on pretty weil the way they’d done before? It was perfectly true-he admitted, with a melancholy smile-during the last month, out of the 750 members of our community no one important enough to deserve space in the Corriere ferrarese had died (just a couple of old women in the home in via Vittoria, ifhe wasn’t mistaken: one called Saralvo, and the other Rietti; and old girl Rietti wasn’t even from hereabouts, but from some Mantuan village: Sabbioneta, Viadana, Pomponesco, or something like that). But let’s be fair: the telephone directories hadn’t been withdrawn to be reprinted, purged; not a single haverta, * maid, cook, nurse, or old housekeeper, serving in any of our families, had suddenly discovered a “racial conscience” and packed her bags; the Circolo dei Commercianti, where the lawyer Lattes had been vice-president for over ten years-and which, as I must know, he still frequented, undisturbed, almost daily-hadn’t so far asked anyone to resign. And had Bruno Lattes, Leone Lattes’s boy, been
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