The Neapolitan Novels

I listened, but at times I was baffled. Yes, Imma was consoled but only because Lila was introducing her to a permanent stream of splendors and miseries, a cyclical Naples where everything was marvelous and everything became gray and irrational and everything sparkled again, as when a cloud passes over the sun and the sun appears to flee, a timid, pale disk, near extinction, but now look, once the cloud dissolves it’s suddenly dazzling again, so bright you have to shield your eyes with your hand. In Lila’s stories the palaces with paradisiacal gardens fell into ruin, grew wild, and sometimes nymphs, dryads, satyrs, and fauns inhabited them, sometimes the souls of the dead, sometimes demons whom God sent to the castles and also the houses of common people to make them atone for their sins or to put to the test good-hearted inhabitants, to reward them after death. What was beautiful and solid and radiant was populated with nighttime imaginings, and they both liked stories of shades. Imma informed me that at the cape of Posillipo, a few steps from the sea, opposite Gajóla, just above the Grotta delle Fate, there was a famous building inhabited by spirits. The spirits, she told me, were also in the buildings of Vico San Mandato and Vico Mondragone. Lila had promised her that they would go together to look in the streets of Santa Lucia for a spirit called Faccione, called that because of his broad face, who was dangerous and threw big stones at anyone who disturbed him. Also—she had told her—many spirits of dead children lived in Pizzofalcone and other places. A child could often be seen at night in the neighborhood of Porta Nolana. Did they really exist, or did they not exist? Aunt Lina said that the spirits existed, but not in the palaces, or in the alleys, or near the ancient gates of the Vasto. They existed in people’s ears, in the eyes when the eyes looked inside and not out, in the voice as soon as it begins to speak, in the head when it thinks, because words are full of ghosts but so are images. Is it true, Mamma?

Yes, I answered, maybe yes: if Aunt Lina says so, it could be. This city is full of events, both large and small—Lila had told her—you can even see spirits if you go to the museum, the painting gallery, and, especially, the Biblioteca Nazionale, there are a lot of them in the books. You open one and, for example, Masaniello jumps out. Masaniello is a funny and terrible spirit, he makes the poor laugh and the rich tremble. Imma liked it in particular when, with his sword, he killed not the duke of Maddaloni, not the father of the duke of Maddaloni, but their portraits, zac, zac, zac. In fact, in her opinion, the most entertaining moment was when Masaniello cut off the heads of the duke and his father in the portraits, or hanged the portraits of other ferocious noblemen. He cut off the heads in the portraits, Imma laughed, in disbelief, he hanged the portraits. And after those decapitations and hangings Masaniello put on an outfit of blue silk embroidered with silver, placed a gold chain around his neck, stuck a diamond pin in his hat, and went to the market. He went like that, Mamma, all decked out like a marquis, a duke, a prince, he who was a workingman, a fisherman, and didn’t know how to read or write. Aunt Lina had said that in Naples that could happen and other things, openly, without the pretense of making laws and decrees and entire conditions better than the previous ones. In Naples one could get carried away without subterfuges, with clarity and complete satisfaction.

The story of a minister had made a great impression on her. It involved the museum of our city, and Pompeii. Imma told me in a serious tone: You know, Mamma, that a Minister of Education, Nasi, a representative of the people almost a hundred years ago, accepted as a gift from workers at the excavations of Pompeii a small, valuable statue they had just dug up? You know that he had models made of the best artworks found at Pompeii to adorn his villa in Trapani? This Nasi, Mamma, even though he was a Minister of the Kingdom of Italy, acted instinctively: the workers brought him a beautiful little statue as a gift and he took it, he thought it would make a very fine impression at his house. Sometimes you make a mistake, but when as a child you haven’t been taught what the public good is, you don’t understand what a crime is.