The Skin by Curzio Malaparte

eye-sockets. They are blind, and do not see us; if they were not blind, they would see that we also are full of worms. Ah, the blighters! They treat us like slaves, they would like us to be alongside them, at their beck and call, always ready to be of service to them, to satisfy all their whims, to bow and raise our hats, to say, "Your most humble servant." Try to say "No" to a dead man, try to tell him that you have no time to waste on the dead, that you have other things to do, that the living have their own affairs to settle, that they have duties to perform towards the living too, and not merely towards the dead, try to tell him that in these days the dead are dead and the living soon console themselves for their absence. Try to tell a dead man this, and see what happens to you. He will round upon you like a savage dog, and will try to bite you and tear your face with his nails. The police ought to handcuff the dead instead of being in such a frantic hurry to handcuff the living. They ought to shut them up in their coffins with irons on their wrists, and get a strong force of thugs to follow every funeral procession, in order to protect honest citizens from the fury of those savage blighters; for they have a terrible strength, the dead, and they might burst their irons, smash their coffins, and break out and bite and tear the faces of all and sundry, relations and friends. The police ought to bury them with handcuffs on their wrists and, having nailed up the coffins securely, lower them into very deep, specially dug holes, and then tread down the earth above the grave, to prevent those blighters from coming out and biting people. Ah, sleep in peace, you blighters! Sleep in peace if you can, and leave the living undisturbed!
    Such were my thoughts as I followed the procession up through Santa Lucia, through San Ferdinando, Toledo and the Piazza della Carita. A pale, ragged crowd of people brought up the rear, weeping and cursing. The women tore their hair and dug their nails into their faces; baring their breasts, they raised their eyes to heaven and howled like dogs. Those whose sleep had been rudely shattered by the uproar appeared at the windows, waving their arms and shouting, and everywhere people were weeping, swearing and-calling upon the Virgin and St. Januarius. All were weeping, for in Naples a death is lamented by all, not by one, nor by a few, nor by many, but by everybody, and the grief of the individual is the grief of the entire city, the hunger of one man is the hunger of all. In Naples there is no private grief, no private misery. Every man suffers and weeps for his neighbour, and there is no anguish, no hunger, no outbreak of cholera, no massacre which these good-hearted, unhappy, generous people do not regard as a common treasure, a common legacy of tears. "Tears are the chewing-gum of Naples," Jimmy had said to me one day. Jimmy did not know that if tears were the chewing-gum not only of the Neapolitans, but also of the American people, America would be a truly great and happy nation, a great nation of human beings.
    When the funeral procession finally reached the Ospedale dei Pellegrini the dead and the injured were unloaded haphazard in the courtyard, which was already thronged with tearful people (the relatives and friends of the dead and injured whose homes were in other districts of the city); and from there they were carried bodily into the corridors.
    Dawn was already breaking, and a light green mist was forming on the skin of the mourners' faces, on the plaster of the walls, and on the grey blanket of the sky, in which gaps had been torn here and there by the bitter wind of early morning; and through the rents a pinkness was visible, like the new flesh that forms over a wound. The crowd continued to wait in the courtyard, praying aloud, and every so often interrupting its prayers to give expression to its grief.
    At about ten in the morning pandemonium broke loose. Weary of the long wait,