The Periodic Table by Primo Levi Read Free Book Online Page A

toilsome, age-old plan for systematic research, a kind of combined steamroller and fine-toothed comb which nothing (in theory) could escape, but I preferred to invent each time a new road, with swift, extemporaneous forays, as in a war of movement, instead of the deadly grind of a war of position. Sublimate mercury into droplets, transform sodium into chloride, and identify it as trough-shaped chips under my microscope. One way or another, here the relationship with Matter changed, became dialectical: it was fencing, a face-to-face match. Two unequal opponents: on one side, putting the questions, the unfledged, unarmed chemist, at his elbow the textbook by Autenrieth as his sole ally (because D., often called to help out in difficult cases, maintained a scrupulous neutrality, refused to give an opinion: a wise attitude, since whoever opens his mouth can put his foot in it, and professors are not supposed to do that); on the other side, responding with enigmas, stood Matter, with her sly passivity, ancient as the All and portentously rich in deceptions, as solemn and subtle as the Sphinx. I was just beginning to read German words and was enchanted by the word Urstoff (which means “element”: literally, “primal substance”) and by the prefix Ur which appeared in it and which in fact expresses ancient origin, remote distance in space and time.
    In this place, too, nobody wasted many words teaching us how to protect ourselves from acids, caustics, fires, and explosions; it appeared that the Institute’s rough and ready morality counted on the process of natural selection to pick out those among us most qualified for physical and professional survival. There were few ventilation hoods; each student, following his text’s prescriptions, in the course of systematic analysis, conscientiously let loose into the air a good dose of hydrochloric acid and ammonia, so that a dense, hoary mist of ammonium chloride stagnated permanently in the lab, depositing minute scintillating crystals on the windowpanes. Into the hydrogen sulfide room with its murderous atmosphere withdrew couples seeking privacy and a few lone wolves to eat their snacks.
    Through the murk and in the busy silence, we heard a Piedmontese voice say: “ Nuntio vobis gaudium magnum. Habemus ferrum.” “I announce to you a great joy. We have iron.” It was March 1939, and a few days earlier an almost identical solemn announcement (“Habemus Papam”) had closed the conclave that had raised to Peter’s Throne Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, in whom many put their hopes, since one must after all put one’s hope in someone or something. The blasphemous announcement came from Sandro, the quiet one.
    In our midst, Sandro was a loner. He was a boy of medium height, thin but muscular, who never wore an overcoat, even on the coldest days. He came to class in worn corduroy knickers, knee socks made of homespun wool and sometimes a short black cape which made me think of the Tuscan poet Renato Fucini. He had large, calloused hands, a bony, rugged profile, a face baked by the sun, a low forehead beneath the line of his hair, which he wore very short and cut in a brush. He walked with the peasant’s long, slow stride.
    A few months before, the racial laws against the Jews had been proclaimed, and I too was becoming a loner. My Christian classmates were civil people; none of them, nor any of the teachers, had directed at me a hostile word or gesture, but I could feel them withdraw and, following an ancient pattern, I withdrew as well: every look exchanged between me and them was accompanied by a minuscule but perceptible flash of mistrust and suspicion. What do you think of me? What am I for you? The same as six months ago, your equal who does not go to Mass, or the Jew who, as Dante put it, “in your midst laughs at you”?
    I had noticed with amazement and delight that something was happening between Sandro and me. It was not at all a friendship born from affinity; on the