Montefalcone on the charge of intent to kill, but Pietrosantoâs pride would not bear it and Bombolini was not yet ready for such a challenge to his young regime. The next morning the sign was down and the old ways were restored, and this was the death of pure democracy in Santa Vittoria. That night Bombolini had Fabio copy in his book: âThere is nothing more difficult to carry out and more doubtful of success than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who prosper by the old order.â He was training Fabio to become mayor of the city when he would no longer be available.
This, then, was the way things were going in Santa Vittoria for Italo Bombolini. The people had trust in him, and then as the summer went on the harvest began to look rich and strong. The grapes were plentiful and they were fat; they had the look of healthy animals. When the grapes are good, things in Santa Vittoria are good.
If the failure of democracy at the fountain was his first error out of all the things that he did, I suppose it can be said that I was his second major error, since it was I who almost brought down his government. I came to Santa Vittoria the same morning that he was forced to take down his sign at the fountain.
Â
T HIS MUCH should be said at once. Although Fabio della Romagna, for a time at least, later came to hate me, if it hadnât been for Fabio I would have died. The first people to find me in Santa Vittoria that morning assumed that I was dead. One of them felt my legs and when he felt their coldness, since the blood had run out of them hours before, he took my shoes. When they sent news of the body to Bombolini he agreed with the people that it should be taken at once, before the sun was fully up, and buried some place in the rock quarry under the stones. Bomboliniâs fear was that the crime, if that was what it was, would be reported to Montefalcone and then the police would come, and the freedom of the city would be endangered. He woke Fabio, and Fabio came down the steps of the Mansion of the Leaders to see about taking me to the rock quarry, and he took one look at me in the grape basket and knew that I was alive.
They are funny about the dead in Italy. They are fascinated with death, but not with the body that death leaves behind it. Sometimes the people are so anxious to get rid of the body that errors are made. Babbaluche, who made coffins when he was not cobbling, has stories about the men and women who came to life at the sound of earth raining down on the roof of what was to be their last home. The fingernails left behind in the soft wood of the boxes, Babbaluche says, are the monuments to these silent struggles.
Instead of taking me to the quarry, they took me upstairs into the Mansion of the Leaders and put me in a bed. I have no idea of how long I stayed there. Three or four times a day the girl, Angela, came and held my head in her lap and spooned broth and pasta and soft sopping bread into my mouth, and sometimes she poured me a small glass of wine. I had no idea that I ever would get well, nor any hope that I would. I leaned toward death. The bone in my leg had joined together, but it had come together all wrong. I would lie on the bed for hours at a time in darkness and never make a move. When it was light in the piazza, I never knew whether it was because the sun was going down or coming up.
After some time, a week or two weeks, I began to realize that, with no effort on my part or any consciousness of it, I was beginning to understand all the shouting and calling that I heard from downstairs and from the piazza. The language of my father and mother was returning to me. I had learned it as a small boy, but later, although it was spoken in the house, I had unlearned it. I wouldnât speak to my family in anything but English and I wouldnât listen to them unless they spoke to me in what we called American.
I still dreamed at night about
This, then, was the way things were going in Santa Vittoria for Italo Bombolini. The people had trust in him, and then as the summer went on the harvest began to look rich and strong. The grapes were plentiful and they were fat; they had the look of healthy animals. When the grapes are good, things in Santa Vittoria are good.
If the failure of democracy at the fountain was his first error out of all the things that he did, I suppose it can be said that I was his second major error, since it was I who almost brought down his government. I came to Santa Vittoria the same morning that he was forced to take down his sign at the fountain.
Â
T HIS MUCH should be said at once. Although Fabio della Romagna, for a time at least, later came to hate me, if it hadnât been for Fabio I would have died. The first people to find me in Santa Vittoria that morning assumed that I was dead. One of them felt my legs and when he felt their coldness, since the blood had run out of them hours before, he took my shoes. When they sent news of the body to Bombolini he agreed with the people that it should be taken at once, before the sun was fully up, and buried some place in the rock quarry under the stones. Bomboliniâs fear was that the crime, if that was what it was, would be reported to Montefalcone and then the police would come, and the freedom of the city would be endangered. He woke Fabio, and Fabio came down the steps of the Mansion of the Leaders to see about taking me to the rock quarry, and he took one look at me in the grape basket and knew that I was alive.
They are funny about the dead in Italy. They are fascinated with death, but not with the body that death leaves behind it. Sometimes the people are so anxious to get rid of the body that errors are made. Babbaluche, who made coffins when he was not cobbling, has stories about the men and women who came to life at the sound of earth raining down on the roof of what was to be their last home. The fingernails left behind in the soft wood of the boxes, Babbaluche says, are the monuments to these silent struggles.
Instead of taking me to the quarry, they took me upstairs into the Mansion of the Leaders and put me in a bed. I have no idea of how long I stayed there. Three or four times a day the girl, Angela, came and held my head in her lap and spooned broth and pasta and soft sopping bread into my mouth, and sometimes she poured me a small glass of wine. I had no idea that I ever would get well, nor any hope that I would. I leaned toward death. The bone in my leg had joined together, but it had come together all wrong. I would lie on the bed for hours at a time in darkness and never make a move. When it was light in the piazza, I never knew whether it was because the sun was going down or coming up.
After some time, a week or two weeks, I began to realize that, with no effort on my part or any consciousness of it, I was beginning to understand all the shouting and calling that I heard from downstairs and from the piazza. The language of my father and mother was returning to me. I had learned it as a small boy, but later, although it was spoken in the house, I had unlearned it. I wouldnât speak to my family in anything but English and I wouldnât listen to them unless they spoke to me in what we called American.
I still dreamed at night about
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