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The Mysterious Flame Of Queen Loana :: Эко Умберто
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"Were you studying to be a doctor?"
"I was studying philosophy. I was given the lancet in Greece by a doctor in my regiment, before he died. ‘I don’t need this anymore,’ he told me. ‘That grenade has opened my belly. What I need now is one of those kits, like women have, with a needle and thread. But this hole is past stitching up. Keep this lancet to remember me by’ And I’ve worn it ever since."
"Why?"
"Because I’m a coward. With the things I do and the things I know, if the SS or the Black Brigades catch me, they’ll torture me. If they torture me, I’ll talk, because evil scares me. And I’ll be sending my comrades to their deaths. This way, if they catch me, I’ll cut my throat with the lancet. It doesn’t hurt, only takes a second, sffft. I’ll be screwing them all: the Fascists because they won’t learn a thing, the priests because I’ll be a suicide and that’s a sin, and God because I’ll be dying when I choose and not when he chooses. Put that in your pipe and smoke it."
Gragnola’s speeches left me sad. Not because I was sure they were evil, but because I feared they were good. I was tempted to discuss them with my grandfather, but I did not know how he would react. He and Gragnola might not have understood each other, though they were both anti-Fascists. Grandfather had resolved his problems with Merlo, and with Il Duce, in an amusing way. He had saved the four boys in the chapel, pulling one over on the Black Brigades, and that was it. He was not a churchgoer, but that did not mean he was atheist-if he were, why would he have set up the Nativity scene? If he believed in God, it was a jolly God, who would have had a good laugh seeing Merlo trying to vomit his guts out-Grandfather had saved God the trouble of sending Merlo to Hell, since after all that oil he would surely have been sent merely to purgatory, where he could relieve himself in peace. Gragnola, on the other hand, lived in a world made wretched by an evil God, and the only times I saw him smile with any tenderness were when he was talking to me about Socrates or Jesus. Both of whom, I would remind myself, were killed, so I did not see what there was to smile about.
And yet he was not mean, he loved the people around him. He had it in only for God, and that must have been a real chore, because it was like throwing rocks at a rhinoceros-the rhinoceros never even notices and continues going about its rhino business, and meanwhile you are red with rage and ripe for a heart attack.
When was it that my friends and I began the Great Game? In a world where everyone was shooting at everyone else, we needed an enemy.
"Were you studying to be a doctor?"
"I was studying philosophy. I was given the lancet in Greece by a doctor in my regiment, before he died. ‘I don’t need this anymore,’ he told me. ‘That grenade has opened my belly. What I need now is one of those kits, like women have, with a needle and thread. But this hole is past stitching up. Keep this lancet to remember me by’ And I’ve worn it ever since."
"Why?"
"Because I’m a coward. With the things I do and the things I know, if the SS or the Black Brigades catch me, they’ll torture me. If they torture me, I’ll talk, because evil scares me. And I’ll be sending my comrades to their deaths. This way, if they catch me, I’ll cut my throat with the lancet. It doesn’t hurt, only takes a second, sffft. I’ll be screwing them all: the Fascists because they won’t learn a thing, the priests because I’ll be a suicide and that’s a sin, and God because I’ll be dying when I choose and not when he chooses. Put that in your pipe and smoke it."
Gragnola’s speeches left me sad. Not because I was sure they were evil, but because I feared they were good. I was tempted to discuss them with my grandfather, but I did not know how he would react. He and Gragnola might not have understood each other, though they were both anti-Fascists. Grandfather had resolved his problems with Merlo, and with Il Duce, in an amusing way. He had saved the four boys in the chapel, pulling one over on the Black Brigades, and that was it. He was not a churchgoer, but that did not mean he was atheist-if he were, why would he have set up the Nativity scene? If he believed in God, it was a jolly God, who would have had a good laugh seeing Merlo trying to vomit his guts out-Grandfather had saved God the trouble of sending Merlo to Hell, since after all that oil he would surely have been sent merely to purgatory, where he could relieve himself in peace. Gragnola, on the other hand, lived in a world made wretched by an evil God, and the only times I saw him smile with any tenderness were when he was talking to me about Socrates or Jesus. Both of whom, I would remind myself, were killed, so I did not see what there was to smile about.
And yet he was not mean, he loved the people around him. He had it in only for God, and that must have been a real chore, because it was like throwing rocks at a rhinoceros-the rhinoceros never even notices and continues going about its rhino business, and meanwhile you are red with rage and ripe for a heart attack.
When was it that my friends and I began the Great Game? In a world where everyone was shooting at everyone else, we needed an enemy.