regime would crumble, even at the cost of a total disaster, he was upset—without quite knowing why—whenever the regime or one of its allies was defeated on the battlefield. He realized that the regime’s victories did not upset him as he would have wished them to. Quite to the contrary, each victory inspired an obscure, shameful sense of satisfaction. In other words, he both desired and did not desire the regime’s downfall, both hated and did not hate it. What he said out loud was not always true, and what he felt in the shelter of solitude was often in contrast with his words. He asked himself what could be the reason for this unconquerable duplicity, but he was unable to pinpoint its source. At the time, one of his younger brothers had been called up and was fighting with the Italian army on the Russian front. Whenever he was gladdened by a German victory in Russia, he wondered whether his affection for his brother—with whom he was very close—was the root cause of this contradictory, painful attitude. But he had to admit that the real motives were deeper and more obscure. In truth, as he had often suspected, he did not want the German armies to be defeated, because such a defeat would lead to disaster, a disaster he was not prepared to confront. Deep down, he preferred to go on living in this deceptive,bitter limbo, between disgust and impotence, and he knew that such a disaster would put an end to it, forcing him to take some sort of action. Yes, he thought to himself, he
was
this limbo, this malady, this ambivalence between one and another. This limbo, this malady, was his raison d’être, wretched and bitter as it was, but he had no other. And precisely because he knew that he could not find any other reason to justify his existence, he did not want the malady to end. All of this seemed to confirm Maurizio’s careless comment. Sergio reflected: “I am nothing but an intellectual of the worst sort, in other words a man who is aware of all the reasons for action and yet is incapable of acting.” Rereading Pascal’s
Pensées
, he came upon the great philosopher’s definition of man: That which distinguishes man from a clump of reeds
173
is the fact that the reeds do not know that they are being crushed and a man does. “Man is a thinking reed.” Bitterly, Sergio had concluded that there was no better description for him. But it seemed to him that Pascal was mistaken about one thing: a thinking reed, in Sergio’s opinion, was far inferior to a simple reed. Not thinking was better than thinking without acting.
At home, everyone took him for a dyed-in-the-wool anti-Fascist. His family, who was not Fascist while at the same time not daring to be anti-Fascist, did its best to avoid political discussions, never referring to the war or the political situation in Sergio’s presence. He knew that his mother and father and two sisters would have been saddened by any anti-Fascist declarations from him because they loved his brother, who was fighting in Russia, and feared for his life.They simply wanted him to come home, and they knew that a defeat would impede his return. So he was silent. And still, he felt tossed around by his own impotent duplicity, like a fragile vessel buffeted by a tempestuous sea. On the rare occasions when he met with one of his very few remaining friends, he spoke of his desire for a German defeat. But as soon as he was alone, he realized with profound self-contempt that when he read the papers and saw that defeat seemed more and more inevitable and imminent, he felt a pang of disappointment and bitterness. This ambivalence vexed and disgusted him and inspired in him a gradual, funereal melancholy, as if he were suffering from an unnamable, mysterious disease for which there is no known cure.
Sometimes he asked himself, “So, then, does this
174
mean I am on the other side? Am I a supporter of the regime?” He tested himself to see if his suspicions were justified. But as soon as
was
this limbo, this malady, this ambivalence between one and another. This limbo, this malady, was his raison d’être, wretched and bitter as it was, but he had no other. And precisely because he knew that he could not find any other reason to justify his existence, he did not want the malady to end. All of this seemed to confirm Maurizio’s careless comment. Sergio reflected: “I am nothing but an intellectual of the worst sort, in other words a man who is aware of all the reasons for action and yet is incapable of acting.” Rereading Pascal’s
Pensées
, he came upon the great philosopher’s definition of man: That which distinguishes man from a clump of reeds
173
is the fact that the reeds do not know that they are being crushed and a man does. “Man is a thinking reed.” Bitterly, Sergio had concluded that there was no better description for him. But it seemed to him that Pascal was mistaken about one thing: a thinking reed, in Sergio’s opinion, was far inferior to a simple reed. Not thinking was better than thinking without acting.
At home, everyone took him for a dyed-in-the-wool anti-Fascist. His family, who was not Fascist while at the same time not daring to be anti-Fascist, did its best to avoid political discussions, never referring to the war or the political situation in Sergio’s presence. He knew that his mother and father and two sisters would have been saddened by any anti-Fascist declarations from him because they loved his brother, who was fighting in Russia, and feared for his life.They simply wanted him to come home, and they knew that a defeat would impede his return. So he was silent. And still, he felt tossed around by his own impotent duplicity, like a fragile vessel buffeted by a tempestuous sea. On the rare occasions when he met with one of his very few remaining friends, he spoke of his desire for a German defeat. But as soon as he was alone, he realized with profound self-contempt that when he read the papers and saw that defeat seemed more and more inevitable and imminent, he felt a pang of disappointment and bitterness. This ambivalence vexed and disgusted him and inspired in him a gradual, funereal melancholy, as if he were suffering from an unnamable, mysterious disease for which there is no known cure.
Sometimes he asked himself, “So, then, does this
174
mean I am on the other side? Am I a supporter of the regime?” He tested himself to see if his suspicions were justified. But as soon as
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