‘Invito a pranzo’

Written in 1945 and part of the collection Invito a pranzo: Racconti (Mondadori, 1955).

Silvio D’arzo

1920–52

Born in Reggio Emilia, traditionally a Socialist stronghold in northern Italy, Ezio Comparoni was an illegitimate son who wrote a collection of seven short stories and a volume of poetry, published under a partial pseudonym, when he was just fifteen. He studied the history of languages and graduated from the University of Bologna in 1942. The following year he was summoned by the army. Captured by Germans after Italy surrendered, he was destined for a concentration camp. He managed to escape en route and to return to Reggio Emilia. Nevertheless, endangered for his refusal to support the Salò government – an Italian puppet state set up by Adolf Hitler – he lived in and out of hiding until the war ended. During this period he wrote a series of articles which were published under different pseudonyms: critical essays on authors including Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson, all of whom he adored. The story ‘Casa d’altri’ (‘The House of Others’), now regarded as his masterpiece, was published in its final form in a magazine in 1952, the year he died from leukaemia at thirty-two. It formed part of a collection of the same name that had been rejected by three major Italian publishers, one of whom complained of its ‘lack of architecture’, and not published until 1980. The title story was deemed by Nobel Prize-winning poet Eugenio Montale ‘un racconto perfetto’: a perfect story. It was also included in the first edition of Siciliano’s anthology for Mondadori, exposing D’Arzo to a wider audience. This selection is a somewhat shorter story from the same volume. Here, as in all his work, is an example of his heterodox vision, his elusive rhythms, his rarified style. His invented last name, ‘D’Arzo’, means ‘from Reggio’ in Emilian dialect.

Elegy for Signora Nodier

Translated by Keith Botsford

It is said that, for a certain period at least, we live a life that is not properly our own; then, suddenly, ‘our day’ dawns, as might a rebirth, and only then does each of us have his own, unconfoundable life.

I have managed to observe this in more than one person. However, in the case of Signora Nodier, who owns the land next to ours, it seems to me that she always lived her own life.

An unusual case, Signora Nodier had got to the age of twenty-five, to thirty and beyond without marrying; furthermore, no one had so much as made an offer. This, despite the fact that she was distinguished and something like rich, owning land here and there throughout the province. Those who knew her when she was young still remember her expression as tending towards being beautiful, though not quite attaining beauty – and that is the only way to be seriously beautiful, and forever. To sum up, they found her disdainful. But no one was brave enough to admit it. It was a lot easier to say that she lacked ‘femininity’ or ‘vivacity’, the latter, and other such sorry tags, being the word most commonly used.