The Skin (17 page)

"My generation was sold at the age of twenty. But the reason wasn't hunger, it was something worse. It was fear."

"The young men of my age were sold when they were still children," said Jeanlouis, "and you won't find them breaking any heads today. Those children there will do as we did: they'll grovel at our feet and lick our boots. And they'll think they're free men. Europe will be a continent of free men, that's what Europe will be."

"Luckily those children will always remember that they were sold because someone was hungry—and they will forgive. But we shall never forget that we were sold for a worse reason—fear."

"Don't say such things. You mustn't say such things," said Jeanlouis in a low voice, gripping my arm. And I felt his hand trembling.

I wanted to say to him, "Thank you, Jeanlouis, thank you for suffering"; I wanted to tell him that I understood the reasons for many things, that I pitied him; and then I chanced to raise my eyes, and saw the sky. It is a shame that there is such a sky anywhere in the world. It is a shame that the sky at certain moments is as it was on that day, at that moment. What made a shiver of fear and disgust run down my back was not the sight of those little slaves leaning against the wall of the Cappella Vecchia; it was not those women, thin-faced, wizened, plastered with rouge, or those Moroccan soldiers with their dark, scintillating eyes and their long, powerful fingers. It was the sky, that blue, limpid sky, above the roofs, above the ruins of the houses, above the green trees, whose boughs were thick with birds. It was that lofty canopy of raw silk, that cold, brilliant blue sky, into which the sea infused a vague, nebulous green luminosity; that soft, heartless sky, which seemed pink and tender as the skin of a child where it hung in a gentle curve over the hill of Posillipo.

But the point at which that sky looked softest and most heartless was directly above the wall at whose foot sat the little slaves. The wall that forms a background to the courtyard of the Capella Vecchia is high and sheer. Its plaster is all cracked with age and through exposure to the elements, though once, no doubt, it was of the same red colour as the houses of Herculaneum and Pompeii, the colour which Neapolitan painters call
rosso borbonico.
Time, sun, rain and neglect have faded and softened that vivid red, giving it the colour of flesh, pink here, pale there and, farther off, transparent as a hand before the flame of a candle. And whether on account of the cracks, or of the green patches of mould, or of the white, ivory and yellow tints which were visible in places on the ancient plaster, or of the play of the light, whose constant variations were due to its reflecting the continual, irregular movement of the sea, or to the restless vagaries of the wind, which modifies the colour of the light according as it blows from the mountain or from the water—whatever the reason, it seemed to me that that high, ancient wall had life, that it was a living thing, a wall of flesh, in which all the experiences to which human flesh is subject were represented, from the pink innocence of babyhood to the green and yellow melancholy of life's decline. It seemed to me that that wall of flesh was gradually withering; and on its surface could be seen those white, green, ivory and pale yellow tints which characterize human flesh when it is weary, old, scored with wrinkles, and ready for the final, marvellous experience of dissolution. Big flies wandered slowly over that wall of flesh, humming. The ripe fruit of the day was turning soft, decaying, and the sky, that cruel Neapolitan sky, so pure and tender, was filling the weary air, over which the first shades of evening had already cast their blight, with misgiving, with regret, with a sad and fleeting happiness. Once more the day was dying. And one by one sounds, colours, voices, that tang of the sea, that scent of laurel and honey, which are the tang and the scent of the light of Naples, were taking refuge again in the warmth of the night, like stags and deer and wild boars when they seek the shelter of the woods.

Suddenly a window opened in the wall and a voice called me by name. It was Pierre Lyautey, calling to me from the window of General Guillaume's Moroccan Divisional Headquarters. We went up, and Pierre Lyautey, tall, athletic, sturdy, his face cracked by the frosts of the mountains of Cassino, came to meet us on the stairs, spreading his huge arms wide.

Pierre Lyautey was an old friend of Jeanlouis' mother, Contessa B— . Whenever he came to Italy he never failed to spend a few days, or a few weeks, on Lake Como, in Contessa B— 's villa, a remarkable creation of Piermarini. Here were reserved for his use, by ancient prescription, Napoleon's bedroom, the one in the corner which looks out over the lake in the direction of Bellagio, the bed in which Stendhal had spent a night with Angela Pietragrua, and the little mahogany writing-desk at which the poet Parini had written his famous poem
Il
giorno.

"Ah, que vous êtes beau!" cried Pierre Lyautey as he embraced Jeanlouis, whom he had not seen for some years. And he went on to say that he had left Jeanlouis "quand il n'etait qu'un Eros," and now that they were reunited he found "qu'il était un ..." I was expecting him to say "un heros," but he corrected himself in time and said "un Appollon." It was dinner-time, and General Guillaume invited us to his table.

With his Apollo-like profile, his ruby-red lips, his dark, lustrous eyes set in a smooth, pale face, and his exquisitely soft voice, Jeanlouis made a deep impression on those French officers. It was the first time they had been to Italy, and for the first time they found themselves confronted with a vision of manly beauty in all the splendour of the ancient Greek ideal. Jeanlouis was a perfect example of that type of manly beauty which Italian civilization has evolved in long centuries of culture, wealth, refinement, physical and intellectual selection, moral indifference and aristocratic freedom. In the face of Jeanlouis an eye familiar with the slow, continous evolution of the classical ideal of beauty in the Italian painting and sculpture of the period extending from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries would have perceived, superimposed on a sensuality reminiscent of a Renaissance "portrait of a man," the noble, melancholy mask of the Italian, and in particular the Lombard (Jeanlouis belonged to one of the most ancient and most illustrious families of the Lombard nobility), Romanticism of the early nineteenth century, which was Romantic and liberal even in Lombardy, where the Napoleonic era evoked nostalgic memories. Those French officers were like Stendhal before Fabrizio Del Dongo; and they, like Stendhal before them, failed to perceive that the beauty of Jeanlouis, like that of Fabrizio, was a beauty without irony, undisturbed by moral qualms.

To those French officers the miraculous appearance at that table, in that Neapolitan interior with its clumsy
bourgeois
furniture, of this living Apollo, of such a perfect example of manly beauty in the classical tradition, was like the revelation of a forbidden mystery. They all gazed at Jeanlouis in silence. And I wondered, with a sense of disquiet which I could not account for in my own mind, whether they realized that the marvellous vision of classical Italian civilization as it was in the hour of its supreme triumph, when it had already been corrupted and degraded by the canker of a voluptuous feminine sensibility and rendered sterile by a lack of noble sentiments, strong passions and high ideals, was the image of the hidden malady that afflicted much of the youth of all the countries of Europe, victorious and vanquished. This malady took the form of a mysterious tendency to transform ideals of liberty, which seemed to be the ideals of all the young men of Europe, into a yearning for sensual gratification, moral obligations into a total rejection of responsibility, social and political duties into vain intellectual exercises, and the new proletarian folklore into the equivocal folklore of a narcissism that had been perverted into masochism. (What seemed strange was the fact that Barrés had as little in common with Jean-louis and the young men of his generation as Gide—the Gide who said of himself
Moi, cela m'est égal, parce que j'écris Paludes.)

The Moroccan servants who were busying themselves around the table could not take their enraptured eyes off Jeanlouis. Those eyes, I saw, gleamed with an evil desire. To these men from the Sahara and the Atlas Mountains Jeanlouis was merely a thing of pleasure. And I laughed to myself (I could not help laughing, the impulse was too strong for me; in any case, there was no harm in laughing at so strange and sad an idea) as I imagined Jeanlouis and all the young "heroes" like him sitting in the midst of the other little slaves in the
piazzetta
of the Cappella Vecchia, propped up against that wall of flesh as it gradually dissolved in the fading light, and little by little was swallowed up in the night like a piece of rotten flesh.

To my eyes Jeanlouis personified the venality which unfortunately characterizes certain choice elements of the younger generation in this Europe that has been not purged but corrupted by suffering, not exalted but degraded by its newly-won liberty. Why should they not be venal too?
We
had been sold when we were young. It is the destiny of the young, in this continent of Europe, to be sold in the streets because someone is afraid, or hungry. It is very necessary for the young to prepare to play their part in social and political life, and to accustom themselves to doing so. One day or another, if all goes well, the young will be sold in the streets for some far worse reason than fear or hunger.

As if, under the influence of my lugubrious thoughts, the minds of my table-companions had reverted to the same subject, General Guillaume suddenly asked me why the Italian authorities not only did not prohibit the traffic in children, but did not even show any signs of being aware of the scandal. "It's a disgrace," he added. "I've had those shameless women and their unfortunate children chased away a hundred times. A hundred times I've called the Italian authorities' attention to the matter. I've even spoken about it myself to the Archbishop of Naples, Cardinal Ascalesi. All to no purpose. I've forbidden rny
goumiers
to touch those boys. I've threatened to have them shot if they disobey. The temptation is too strong for them. A
goumier
will never be able to understand that it may be illegal to buy what is sold in the open market. It's up to the Italian authorities to take the necessary steps, to arrest those unnatural mothers and put their children in an institution. There's nothing I can do." He spoke slowly, and I was conscious that it was painful to him to utter such words.

I began to laugh. Arrest those unnatural mothers! Put their children in an institution! There was nothing left in Naples, nothing left in Europe, everything had gone to rack and ruin, everything was destroyed, everything was down to the ground: houses, churches, hospitals, mothers, fathers, sons, aunts, grandmothers, cousins— everything was
kaputt.
I laughed, and my loud, anguished laughter made my stomach positively ache. The Italian authorities! A bunch of thieves and cowards—until the day before they had been throwing poor unfortunate people into gaol in the name of Mussolini, and now they were throwing them into gaol in the name of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin; until the day before they had lorded it in the name of tyranny, and now they were lording it in the name of liberty. What did it matter to the Italian authorities if there were unnatural mothers who sold their children in the streets? A bunch of cowards, the lot of them, from first to last—too busy licking the victors' boots to be able to concern themselves with trivialities. "Arrest the mothers?" I said. "What mothers? Forbid them to sell their own children? And why? Don't their children belong to them? Do they belong to the State, to the Government, to the police, to the municipal authorities, to the political parties? They belong to their mothers, and their mothers have the right to do with them what they think fit. They are hungry, and they have the right to sell their sons to satisfy their hunger. Better sell them than eat them. They have the right to sell one or two children out of ten to satisfy the hunger of the other eight. And then, what mothers? What mothers do you mean?"

"I don't know," said General Guillaume in profound astonishment. "I am referring to those unfortunate women who sell men-children in the streets."

"What mothers?" I said. "What mothers are you referring to? Are they mothers, those creatures? Are they women? And the fathers? Haven't they got fathers, those children? Are they men, their fathers? And we? Are
we
men?"

"Ecoutez," said General Guillaume. "Je me fous de vos mères, de vos autorites, de votre sacre pays. But the children—ah, not that! If children are sold in Naples today, it's a sign that they have always been sold there. And it's a disgrace to Italy."

"No," I said, "children have never been sold in Naples before. I should never have believed that hunger could drive people to such extremes.   But the fault is not ours."

"Do you mean that it's ours?" said General Guillaume.

"No, it isn't your fault. It's the fault of the children."

"The children? Which children?" said General Guillaume.

"The children—those children. You don't know what a terrible breed of children flourishes in Italy. And not only in Italy, but throughout Europe. It's they who compel their mothers to sell them in the open market. And do you know why? To make money, so that they can keep their lovers and lead a life of luxury. Today there's not a child anywhere in Europe who hasn't got lovers, horses, cars, castles and a banking account. They're all Rothschilds. You have no idea of the depths of moral degradation to which children—our children—have sunk, all over Europe. Of course, no one likes it to be mentioned. It's against the law to say these things in Europe. But that's how it is. If the mothers didn't sell their children, do you know what would happen? To make money, the children would sell their mothers."

They all looked at me in amazement. "I don't like to hear you talk like that," said General Guillaume.

"Ah, you don't like it when I tell you the truth? But what do you know of Europe? Before you landed in Italy where were you? In Morocco, or in some other part of North Africa. What do the Americans or the British know of it? They were in America, in Britain, in Egypt. What can the Allied soldiers who landed at Salerno know of Europe? Do they think that Europe still contains children—that it still contains fathers, mothers, sons, brothers and sisters? A heap of putrid flesh, that's what you'll find in Europe when you have liberated it. No one likes it to be said, no one likes to be told so, but it's the truth. That's what Europe is today—a heap of putrid flesh."