The Skin by Curzio Malaparte Read Free Book Online

ecstatic, marvellously remote, into the blue abyss of the evening. From the furthermost horizon, as if borne on the wind, the first shadows of the night climbed into the sky. And whether on account of the magical limpidity of the moonlight, or of the cold cruelty of that unreal sadness, like a presage of a happy death.
    Ragged boys, seated on the stone parapet which rose sheer from the sea, sang with their eyes turned to the sky, their heads tilted slightly on to their shoulders. Their faces were pale and thin, their eyes blinded by hunger. They sang as the blind sing, their faces uplifted, their eyes fixed upon the heavens. Human hunger has a wonderfully sweet, pure voice. There is nothing human about the voice of hunger. It is a voice that arises from a mysterious level of man's nature, wherein lie the roots of that profound sense of life which is life itself, our most secret, most intense life. The air was clear and sweet to the lips. A light breeze, redolent of salt and seaweed, blew from the sea. The mournful cry of the gulls rippled the golden reflection of the moon upon the waves, and far away, low on the horizon, the pallid ghost of Vesuvius sank little by little into the silver mist of the night. That cruel, inhuman scene, so insensible to the hunger and despair of men, was made purer and less real by the singing of the boys.
    "There is no kindliness," said Jack, "no compassion in this marvellous Nature."
    "It is malignant," I said. "It hates us, it is our enemy. It hates men."
    "Elle aime nous voir souffrir," said Jack in a low voice.
    "It stares at us with cold eyes, full of frozen hatred and contempt."
    "Before it," said Jack, "I feel guilty, ashamed, miserable. It is not Christian. It hates men because they suffer."
    "It is jealous of men's sufferings," I said.
    I liked Jack because he alone, among all my American friends, felt guilty, ashamed and miserable before the cruel, inhuman beauty of that sky, that sea, those islands far away on the horizon. He alone realized that this Nature is not Christian, that it lies outside the frontiers of Christianity, and that this scene was not the face of Christ, but the image of a world without God, in which men are left alone to suffer without hope. He alone realized how much mystery there is in the story and the lives of the people of Naples, and how their story and their lives are so little dependent on the will of man. There were, among my American friends, many intelligent, cultured and sensitive young men; but they despised Naples, Italy and Europe, they despised us because they believed that we alone were responsible for our miseries and misfortunes, our acts of cowardice, our crimes, our perfidies, our infamies. They did not understand what mystery and inhumanity there is behind our miseries and our misfortunes. Some said: "You are not Christians: you are pagans." And there was a hint of scorn in their voices as they uttered the word "pagans." I liked Jack because he alone realized that the word "pagan" does not in itself reveal the deep-seated, historic, mysterious causes of our suffering, and that our miseries, our misfortunes, or infamies, our way of being miserable and happy, the very reasons for our greatness and our degradation, are outside the realm of Christian ethics.
    Although he called himself Cartesian, affecting to put his trust wholly and always in reason and to believe that reason can probe and explain everything, his attitude to Naples, Italy and Europe was one of affection tempered both with respect and with suspicion. To him, as to all Americans, Naples had been an unexpected and distressing revelation. He had believed he was setting foot in a world dominated by reason and ruled by the human conscience; and he had found himself without warning in a mysterious country, where men and the circumstances that make up their lives seemed to be governed not by reason and conscience, but by obscure subterranean forces.
    Jack had travelled all over Europe, but