{"id":1768,"date":"1955-04-09T14:24:47","date_gmt":"1955-04-09T14:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qa-www.rivistapirelli.org\/selezione_antologica\/allegra-michela\/"},"modified":"2023-10-18T11:37:48","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T11:37:48","slug":"allegra-michela","status":"publish","type":"selezione_antologica","link":"https:\/\/www.rivistapirelli.org\/en\/selezione_antologica\/allegra-michela\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cCheerful Michela\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":1480,"template":"","categories":[],"tags":[51],"class_list":["post-1768","selezione_antologica","type-selezione_antologica","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-culture-and-literature"],"acf":{"edizione":"N.2, 1955","autore":[{"ID":342,"post_author":"1","post_date":"2019-04-09 09:42:39","post_date_gmt":"2019-04-09 09:42:39","post_content":"Writer and translator (1908-1966). A politically committed intellectual, protagonist of the Italian Resistance and unflagging driver in the Reconstruction of the country, he was a key player is the cultural panorama of Italy in the post-Second World War. Creator of the magazine \u201cIl Politecnico\u201d (1945) and later founder and director with Italo Calvino of \u201cIl Menab\u00f2\u201d (1959), he wrote many essays (Diario in pubblico<\/em>, 1957) as well as novels and works of fiction (Piccola borghesia<\/em>, 1931; Conversazione in Sicilia<\/em>, 1938; Il garofano rosso<\/em>, 1948). Advisor to leading Italian publishing houses and creator of many important book series such as the Gettoni Einaudi and the Medusa series for Mondadori, he translated works by Poe, Faulkner and Lawrence and edited authoritative anthologies such as Americana. <\/em>Raccolta di narratori dalle origini ai nostri giorni <\/em>(1941).","post_title":"Elio Vittorini","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"elio-vittorini","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2019-04-30 10:58:23","post_modified_gmt":"2019-04-30 10:58:23","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/internal-pcons-be-fondazione-fr-dev-elb-1449244171.eu-west-1.elb.amazonaws.com\/?post_type=autori&p=342","menu_order":0,"post_type":"autori","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"riassunto":"","composizione_articolo":[{"acf_fc_layout":"composizione_articolo_testo","composizione_articolo_testo_testo":"

\u201cHuman rights\u201d, or \u201cCities of the World\u201d will be the title of the novel set in Sicily that Vittorini is currently working on: we are pleased to offer our readers some unpublished pages<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[…] They were travelling by train in a third-class carriage with an aisle down the middle; the man Gioacchino and the young Michela had left at dawn from the little station of Serradifalco; he was happy and finally she was quite cheerful.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo hell with them\u201d the man Gioacchino continued to say while waiting in line for the tickets with a crowd of sulphur miners. As he waited, groups of miners in close confabulation surrounding him, the express for Girgenti appeared puffing its way up the hill to the still-lit signal visible in the feint-blue air. He had repeated this again and again on the slow commuter train, every time he seemed have a sense of satisfaction: that moment when the sun had just cast its first glorious light on the rocky terrain that they were travelling through; when the rascal miners alighted from their compartment in the middle of the countryside, leaving them alone as in princely carriage; or when Michela rummaged through the wicker basket she kept by her side to share some dried fish-roe and a loaf of bread. \u201cCheerful Michela\u201d he had said for the third of forth time, relishing the blissful performance that she gave of bewildered placidity and free from concern or irony. He wasn\u2019t able to make her smile, but he was happy enough and just kept repeating \u201ccheerful Michela\u201d as if trying to convince her that she was indeed \u201ccheerful\u201d, hoping that she would stay so and not change mood. He showed her the wooden towers of the sulphur mines, and he repeated \u201ccheerful Michela\u201d. He indicated the smoking chimneys of lime-kilns dotted across the stony countryside and repeated \u201ccheerful Michela\u201d. Even when pointing out a crow flying past \u2013it black and blue hues glistening in the sunlight \u2013 he repeated \u201ccheerful Michela\u201d.<\/p>\n

At a certain point he got excited speaking of places he knew, those barren deserts above Capizzi surrounded by mountains like mothers; her, a mother pregnant with her first child or a young bride, there, a mother carrying her second child, or even a mother with a horde of children and still with her next, and then those old and haggard or old and wrinkled mothers, but still mothers. The high terrain passing by the side of the train towards Caltanissetta started to show steep drops with round shouldered edges, and he told her that these were small compared to the even bigger ones where he came from. He told her that it must be splendid up there on a day like today. The woods invading the mouths of the valleys on a day like this seemed blue; the gentle curves of the rocks were smooth and soft, and even gleamed in the sunlight; in that period of the year, green could be seen at the edges of the snow, and even in the middle of the snow and reaching the peaks to cover them with green instead of white. That solitude, he told, was something that opened ones heart; almost brazenly he repeated \u201ccheerful Michela\u201d as if taking the liberty of giving her the pleasure that she would feel on such a day, going back-and-forth with her chores in the fields of beans, in the woods and the coal pit, knowing she was fifty kilometres from the nearest town and it was easier seeing a beech marten at the stream or an eagle flying above than meeting another human. \u201cCheerful Michela\u201d he continued to repeat, \u201ccheerful Michela\u201d as if trying to convince himself of the reasons why she was cheerful, and he told her that the new house he had constructed \u2013 half hewn into the rock and half outside \u2013 stood next to the old one, but twice as big and with a window where he would live once he had a wife. \u201cCheerful Michela\u201d he repeated, and reflected, and reflected again; he stood up and reflected and again when he sat down, he reflected and then looked out of the window. When the train stopped at the Caltanissetta signal he reflected again; he smiled and reflected again, and then in the end asked if she knew what they would do. Know what? \u201cIn Caltanissetta\u201d he said, \u201cwe are not going wandering around the city and we\u2019re not going to a hotel. We\u2019re going to take the first train for Enna, not to get off at Enna, but at Pirato, the stop after where we\u2019ll catch a bus for Nicosia and Agira. Is that ok?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you wish\u201d replied Michela.
\n\u201cAnd when we get to Nicosia\u201d he continued \u201cwe\u2019ll get off and catch another bus to Capizzi, or the one to Cerami and then hike for a day from Cerami or Capizzi along the hill crests to the house. We\u2019re going straight home\u201d, he shouted. \u201cCheerful Michela! We\u2019ll soon be on the road home and we\u2019ll get there straight away\u201d
\n\u201cAs you wish\u201d, replied Michela.<\/p>\n

But on the express train that the lady from Madonie followed with her telescope to the east, from Santa Caterina Xirbi station, the man Gioacchino travelled without saying \u201ccheerful Michela\u201d anymore and Michela \u2013 no longer with her placid and bewildered mood like that morning \u2013 seemed like she was in Serradifalco and even before Serradifalco, questioning and ironic.<\/p>\n

The train was no faster than the workers\u2019 train that had taken them to Caltanissetta; if it didn\u2019t stop in stations, it stopped for long pauses in front of train signals, or on parts of the track being repaired. It was crowded in the eight third class carriages, and no less so in the three first and second class carriages; the man Gioacchino had to stand hunched over Michela who was sitting to protect her from that hot mass of people that every so often would bump into her.<\/p>\n

\u201cCover yourself\u201d whispered the man Gioacchino in Michela\u2019s ear. He looked around the wall of shiny faces in the crowd; he observed sharply those young men with dark laughing eyes, he saw them winking and rubbed his legs against those of Michela. His face became longer, and little by little heavy with sadness, and thoughts clouded his mind. He became pale and then his face immediately flushed. It was almost as if he was fighting against some fear, and he caressed Michela\u2019s head, but his fingers touched hair instead of her headscarf, and so once again he bent down and whispered in her ear, \u201cI told you to cover yourself, Michela!\u201d.<\/p>\n

It was about one or quarter past when they got to the station in Villarosa, but no one was able to pull out their picnic baskets full of provisions to eat; with great difficulty some people actually managed a quick sip from a bottle. At half past one, Gioacchino repeated to Michela, \u201cCome on, cover your face!\u201d. The only answer that Michela gave was \u201cyess\u201d. And then again, not simply \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cyes Gioacchino\u201d, but a sort of slurred \u201cyes sir\u201d. Or even \u201cnoss\u201d, not ti simply say \u201cno\u201d but again slurred to avoid saying \u201cno sir\u201d. The man Gioacchino asked her if she was hungry, and Michela replied \u201cnoss\u201d. The man Gioacchino asked her if she was thirsty and Michela replied \u201cnoss\u201d. Her heavy reply was as if she had lifted her gaze to convey all that worry and irony she could communicate with her blue eyes. And when it got past two o\u2019clock, under the brief short tunnel just before Enna, the man Gioacchino said, \u201cAs soon as the train stops, we\u2019re getting off\u201d; and then he said, \u201cGet ready\u201d; and grabbed in the dark the two bundles that were in the luggage rack.<\/p>\n"}],"custom_sticky":true},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rivistapirelli.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/selezione_antologica\/1768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rivistapirelli.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/selezione_antologica"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rivistapirelli.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/selezione_antologica"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rivistapirelli.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rivistapirelli.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rivistapirelli.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rivistapirelli.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}