The Skin Read Online Free PDF Page A

French, and at my "Oui, mon colonel" he had flushed with joy. "Vous savez," he said to me, "il fait bon de parler francais. Le francais est une langue tres bon pour la sante.") At every hour of the day a small crowd of soldiers and sailors from Algeria, Madagascar, Morocco, Senegal, Tahiti and Indo-China would be standing about on the pavement outside the Caffè Caflisch, but their French was not that of La Fontaine, and we could not understand a word they said. Sometimes, however, if we strained our ears, we were lucky enough to catch a few French words pronounced with a Parisian or Marseillais accent. Jack would flush with joy, and seizing me by the arm would say: "Ecoute, Malaparte, écoute, voila du francais, du veritable francais!" We would both stop, deeply moved, and listen to those French voices, those French words, with their Menilmontant or La Cannebière intonation, and Jack would say: "Ah, que c'est bon! Ah, que ca fait du bien!"
    Often, each lending the other courage, we would cross the threshold of the Caffè Caflisch. Timidly Jack would go up to the French sergeant who ran the Foyer du soldat and ask him with a blush: "Est-ce que, par hasard . . . est-ce qu'on a vu par là le lieutenant Lyautey?"
    "Non, mon colonel," the sergeant would reply, "on ne l’a pas vu depuis quelques jours. Je regrette."
    "Merci," Jack would say. "Au revoir, mon ami."
    "Au revoir, mon colonel," the sergeant would say.
    "Ah, que ca fait du bien, d'entendre parler francais!" Jack would say, red-faced, as we left the Caffè Caflisch.
    Jack and I, accompanied by Captain Jimmy Wren, of Cleveland, Ohio, used often to go and eat hot taralli, fresh from the oven, in a baker's shop situated on the Pendino di Santa Barbara, that long, gently sloping flight of steps which leads up from the Sadile di Porto in the direction of the Monastery of Santa Chiara.
     
    The Pendino is a dismal alley. It owes its character not so much to its narrowness, carved out as it is between the high, mildewed-walls of ancient, sordid houses, or to the eternal darkness that reigns within it even on sunny days, as to the strangeness of its inhabitants.
    In point of fact, the Pendino di Santa Barbara is famous for the many female dwarfs who reside in it. They are so small that they barely come up to the knee of a man of average height. Repulsive and wrinkled, they are among the ugliest of their kind in the world. There are in Spain female dwarfs of great beauty, with well-proportioned limbs and features. And I have seen some in England who are truly exquisite, pink-skinned and fair-haired, like miniature Venuses. But the female dwarfs of the Pendino di Santa Barbara are frightful creatures. All of them, even the youngest, look like very old women, so wizened are their faces, so creased their foreheads, so thin and faded their dishevelled locks.
    The most astounding thing about that noisome alley, with its horrible population of dwarf women, is the handsomeness of the men, who are tall and have very dark eyes and hair, leisurely, noble gestures, and clear, resonant voices. There are no male dwarfs to be seen on the Pendino di Santa Barbara, a fact which encourages the belief that they die in infancy or that this lack of inches is a monstrous legacy inherited only by the women.
    These dwarf women spend the whole day sitting on the doorsteps of the bassi or squatting on tiny stools at the entrances to their lairs, croaking to one another in frog-like voices. Their shortness of stature seems prodigious against the background of the furniture that fills their dark caverns—chests of drawers, vast cupboards, beds that look like giant's.couches. To reach the furniture the dwarf women climb on chairs and benches; they hoist themselves up with their arms, making use of the ends of the high iron beds. And anyone climbing the steps of the Pendino di Santa Barbara for the first time feels like Gulliver in the Kingdom of Lilliput, or a servant at the Court of Madrid among