From the Clouds to the Resistance (1979) - full transcript

From the Clouds to the Resistance

There is a law, Ixion,
which we must obey.

Up here the law
does not arrive, Nephele.

Here the law

is the snow-field,
the storm, the darkness.

And when the clear day comes and
you draw, light, near to the rock...

it is too beautiful
still to think about it.

There is a law, Ixion,

which there wasn't before.
The clouds,

a stronger hand gathers them.

Here this hand does not arrive.



You yourself,
now that it is fine, laugh.

And when the sky grows dim
and the wind howls,

what matters the hand
which scatters us like droplets?

It happened already in the times
when there was no master.

Nothing has changed

on the mounts.
We are used to all this.

Many things have changed on
the mounts. Pelion knows it,

Ossa and Olympus know it.
Still wilder mounts know it.

Neither the sun nor the water,
Ixion. Man's fate

has changed. There are monsters.

A limit
is imposed upon you men.

The water, the wind,
the rock and the cloud

are no longer your thing,
you can no longer press them close
to you, engendering and living.

Other hands henceforth
hold the world.



There is a law, Ixion.

My fate,
I have it in my fist Nephele.

What has changed?
These new masters

can perhaps hinder me

from casting a rock in play,
or from going down to the
plain and breaking

an enemy's spine?

Will they be
more terrible

than fatigue and death?

It is not that, Ixion. All that

you can do, and other things more.
But you can no longer

mingle with us others, the nymphs
of the springs and of the mounts,

with the daughters of the wind,
with the goddesses of the earth.

Destiny has changed.

- You can no longer...
- What does it mean, Nephele?

It means

that, wanting that, you will on
the contrary do terrible things.

As he who,
to caress a companion,
would strangle him

or be strangled by him.

You won't come any more
on the mountain?
You are afraid of me?

I'll come
on the mountain and everywhere.

You cannot do anything to me,
Ixion. You cannot do anything

against the water and against the
wind. But you must bow your head.

Only thus
will you save your fate.

I am afraid.

I have seen the peaks
of the mounts. But not for me,

lxion. I cannot suffer.
I am afraid for you

who are only men.
These mounts,

where you once
wandered as masters

these creatures, ours and yours,
engendered in freedom,

now tremble at a nod.

We are all enslaved

by a stronger hand. The sons of the
water and the wind, the Centaurs,

are hiding at the bottom
of the ravines. They know

they are monsters.

Who says so?

Don't defy the hand, Ixion.

It is fate. I have seen some
more audacious then them and you

hurled
from the rock and not die.

Death,
which was your courage,

can be taken from you,
like some good.

What does it matter?
We'll live longer.

You play and do not know
the immortals.

I want to know them, Nephele.

Ixion, you believe

that they are presences like us,

like Night, Earth and old Pan.
You are young, Ixion,

but you were born
under the old destiny. For you

no monsters exist
but only companions.

For you death

is something that happens,
like day and night.

You are one of us, Ixion. You
are all in the gesture you make.

But for them, the immortals,

your gestures
have a sense that lingers.

They feel everything from afar

with their eyes,
their nostrils, their lips.

They are immortals and they
do not know how to live alone.

What you achieve
or do not achieve,

what you say,
what you seek,

everything gladdens
or displeases them.

And if you disgust them -
if by mistake you disturb
them in their Olympus -

they pounce on you

and give you death -
that death which they know,

which is a bitter savour
which lasts and is felt.

Then one can still die.

No, Ixion. They will
make of you like a shadow,

but a shadow that wants to
live again and does not ever die.

Have you seen them, these gods?

I too
have seen them, Nephele.
They are not terrible.

I knew it.
Your fate is marked.

Whom have you seen?

It was a young man, who
was walking barefoot through
the forest. He passed by me

and did not say a word to me. Then
in front of a rock he vanished.

I sought him for a long time,
to ask him

who he was.
He seemed

made of the same flesh as you.

Then in a dream

I saw him again,
with the goddesses.

And they told me
the things that you are
telling, but without fear,

without trembling like you.
We talked together

of destiny and death.

We talked of Olympus, we laughed

at the ridiculous monsters.

O Ixion, Ixion, your fate
is marked. Now you know

what has changed above the mounts.

And you too

have changed. And you
believe yourself to be
something more than a man.

I tell you, Nephele,
that you are like them.

Why, at least in a dream,
should not they please me?

Fool,
you cannot stop at dreams.

You will climb up as far as them.
You will do something terrible.

Then that death will come.

Tell me
the names of all the goddesses.

You see
that dreaming is not enough

for you anymore?
And that you believe in
your dream as if it were real?

I implore you, Ixion,
don't climb to the top.

Think of the monsters
and of the punishments.

Nothing else can come from them.

I had another dream
last night. You were there too.

We were fighting the Centaurs.
I had a son who was the son
of a goddess,

I don't know which. And he
seemed to me like that young man
who walked through the forest.

He was stronger even than me,
Nephele. The Centaurs fled,

and the mountain was ours.

You were laughing, Nephele.

You see
that even in a dream

my fate is acceptable.

Your fate is marked.

One does not life one's eyes
to a goddess with impunity.

Not even
to the one of the oak,
the lady of the peaks?

The one or the other,
Ixion, it does not matter.

But don't be afraid.
I'll be with you until the end.

I have seen your father,
Hippolochus.

He won't hear of coming back.
He wanders, ugly and stubborn,
through the countryside,

does not care about
inclement weather nor washes
himself. He is old and beggarly,

About him
what do the boors say?

The Aleian plain is desolate,
uncle.

There is nothing but reeds
and swamps. On the Xanthus,

where I asked about him,
they had not seen him for days.

He does not remember
either us or the houses.

When he meets somebody,
he talks to him of the Solymi,

and of Glaucus,
Sisyphus, the Chimera.

Seeing me he said:
"Boy, if I were your age,

I would already have
thrown myself into the sea."

But he does not threaten
a living soul.

"Boy," he said to me,

"you are just and pious.
We are just and pious men.

If you want to live
just and pious, stop living."

Truly he grumbles and complains
in this manner?

He says threatening and terrible
things. He calls the gods

to measure themselves against him.

Day and night, he walks.

But he insults
and pities only the dead -

and the gods.

Glaucus and Sisyphus, you said?

He says they were
punished treachery.

Why -

wait until
they got old to overtake them

sad and decaying?

"Bellerophon,"

he says,
"was just and pious as long as
the blood coursed in his muscles.

And now that he is old
and that he is alone,

the gods abandon him?"

Strange thing,
to be astonished about it.

And to accuse the gods
of what falls to all living men.

But he, what has he in common

with those dead
he who was always just?

I too
asked myself, seeing that
bewildered eye, if I was speaking

with the man who
once was Bellerophon.

To your father
something has happened.

He is not only old.
He is not only sad and alone.
Your father

is atoning for the Chimera.

Your father accuses

the injustice of the gods who
wanted him to kill the Chimera.

"From that day,"
he repeats,

"when I reddened myself
in the monster's blood,

I have no longer had a true life.
I have sought enemies,

tamed the Amazons,
massacred the Solymi,

I have ruled over the Lycians
and planted a garden -

but what is all this?
Where is there another Chimera?

Where is the strength
of the arms that killed her?

Sisyphus too

and Glaucus my father
were young and just -

then both of them getting old,

the gods betrayed them, let them
become like beasts and die.

He who once faced the Chimera,
how can he resign himself

to die?

This, says your father,
who one day was Bellerophon.

From Sisyphus,
who enchained the child Thanatos,

to Glaucus who fed horses
with living men,

our breed
has violated many boundaries.

But these are men of the past

and from a monstrous age.
The chimera

was the last monster they saw.

Our earth now is just and pious.

Do you believe it,
Hippolochus? Do you believe that
it was enough to have killed her?

Our father - I can call him that -

should know. And yet
he is as sad as a god -

as a forsaken
and white-haired god,

and he crosses countryside
and swamps talking to these dead.

He lacks the arm that
killed her. He lacks the pride

of Glaucus and Sisyphus,

precisely now that he,
like his fathers, has attained

the limit, the end.
Their audaciousness torments him.

He knows that nevermore

will another Chimera wait
for him among the rocks.

And he calls the gods in defiance.

I know his son, Sarpedon,

but I do not
understand these things.

Upon the earth
henceforth made pious,

one should get old in peace.

In a young man,
almost a boy, like you, Sarpedon,

I understand
the tumult of the blood.

But only in a young man.
But for honorable causes.

And not
to set oneself against the gods.

But he, he who knows what is
a young man and an old man.

He has seen other days.

He has seen the gods,
as we see each other.

He tells of terrible things.

And who wouldn't want to listen
to him? Bellerophon has seen

things which don't happen often.

I know, Sarpedon, I know,

but that world is past.

When I was a child,
he told me of those too.

Only that then, he was not talking
with the dead. At that time

they were fables.

Today, on the contrary,
the destinies

he touches become his own.

They are facts that you know.
But you don't know the coldness,

the bewildered look, as
from him who is nothing anymore

and knows everything.

They are
stories of Lydia and Phrygia,

old stories,
without justice or piety.

Do you know

the one
of the Silenus that a god provoked
and defeated on mount Celaenae,

and then killed

by slaying him like the butcher
slaughtering a young goat.

From the cave

a torrent now wells up,
as if it were his blood.

The story of the mother petrified,

turned into a weeping rock,
because it pleased a goddess

to kill her sons,
one by one, with arrows.

And the story of Arachne,
who by Athena's hatred

was struck with horror
and became a spider.

These are things that happened.
The gods did them.

And it is well.
What does it matter?

It is no use thinking
about it. Of those destinies

nothing remains.

There remains the torrent,
the rock,

the horror. There remain
the dreams.

Bellerophon cannot take a step
without striking

a corpse, a hatred, a pool of
blood, from the times when

all happened and it was not
dreams.

His arm at that time weighed
in the world and killed.

He too was cruel, then.

He was just and pious.
He killed Chimeras.

And now that he is old
and that he is tired,

the gods abandon him.

For that
he wanders through the fields?

He is the son of Glaucus
and of Sisyphus. He fears

the caprice and the ferocity
of the gods.

He feels himself
becoming like a beast
and does not want to die.

"Boy," he says to me,

"here is the mockery
and the treachery: first they
take away from you all strength

and then
they are indignant
if you are less than a man.

If you want to live,
stop living."

And why doesn't he kill himself,
he who knows these things?

Nobody kills himself. Death

is destiny. One can only wish it,
Hippolochus.

Old Tiresias, must I believe

what they say,
that the gods blinded you

out of envy?

If it is true that everything
comes to us from the gods,

you must believe it.

You, what do you say?

That there is to much talk
about the gods.

Being blind

is a misfortune no different
from being alive.

I have always seen mishaps

fall in their own time
where they had to fall.

but then, the gods,
what do they do?

The world is older than them.

it was already filling space,
and it bled, it enjoyed,

it was the only god -
when time was still not born.

Things themselves reigned them.

Things happened -

now
through the gods

everything is made into
words, illusion, threats.

But the gods
can give annoyance,

bring them together or
pull them apart. Not touch them,

not change them.
They came too late.

Precisely you, a priest, say this?

If I did not know at least this,
I would not be a priest.

Take a boy
who bathes in the Asopus.

It is a summer morning.

The boy comes out of the water,
goes back in happily,

dives and dives again,
he is taken ill and drowns.

What do the gods
have to do with this?

Should he attribute his end to the
gods or else the enjoyed pleasure?

Neither the one nor the other.
Something happened -

which is neither good nor evil,
something which has no name -

then the gods
will give it a name.

And to give a name,
to explain things,

seems little to you,
Tiresias?

You are young,
Oedipus

and like the gods
who are young

you yourself clear up things

and call them.

You still don't know that

beneath the earth
there is stone,

and that the bluest sky
is the emptiest.

For him who like me
does not see,

all things are a blow,
nothing else.

But yet you have lived
practicing the gods.

Seasons, pleasures, human miseries

have occupied you
a long time. They tell
more than one fable about you,

as about a god.

And one so strange, so unusual,

that yet it must have a meaning -

maybe the one
of the clouds in the sky.

I have lived long.
I have lived so much

that every story I listen to

seems to be my own.

Which meaning
do you say about
the clouds in the sky?

A presence within
the void...

But what is
this fable

which you think has a meaning?

Have you always been what you are,
old Tiresias?

Ah, I catch you.
The story of the snakes.

When I was a woman
for seven years.

Well,
what do you find in this story?

To you it happened
and you know it.

But without a god
these things do not happen.

You believe it?

Everything can happen on earth.

There is nothing unusual.

At that timeI felt disgust
about the things of sex -

it seemed to me

that the spirit, the sanctity,
my character, would be

debased by it.

When I saw the two snakes enjoy
and bite each other on the moss,

I could not
hold back my vexation:

I touched them with my stick.

Shortly afterwards I was a woman -

and for years my pride
was constrained to submit.

The things of the world are stone,
Oedipus.

But is the sex of woman
truly so base?

Not at all.

There are no base things,
except to the gods.

There are annoyances,
disgusts and illusions,

which, on touching the stone,
are dispelled.

Here the stone
was the strength of sex,

its ubiquity and omnipresence
under all forms and changes.

From man to woman
and vice versa

(seven years later I saw
the two snakes again)

what I did not want
to consent to with my spirit

was done to me through violence
or through lust,

and I,
disdainful man or debased woman,

I broke loose like a woman

and was abject like a man,

and I knew everything of sex:

I reached the point

where as a man I sought men
and as a woman women.

You see therefore that a god
has taught you something.

There is no god above sex.

It is the stone, I tell you.

Many gods
are wild beasts,

but the snake
is the oldest

of all the gods.
When he conceals himself

in the ground, there
you have the image

of sex. There is in it
life and death.

What god

can incarnate
and include so much?

But you yourself.
You said so.

Tiresias is old
and is not a god.

When he was young,
he was ignorant.

Sex -

is ambiguous and
always equivocal. It is a half

which appears
a whole.

Man succeeds in incarnating it,
in living inside it

like the good swimmer in the water

but meanwhile he has got old,
he has touched

the stone. At the end
one idea, one illusion

is left to him: that the other sex
comes out of it satiated.

Well, don't believe it:

I know that for all
it is a wasted fatigue.

To refute what you say
is not easy.

It is not for nothing
that your story

begins with the snakes.

But it begins

also with the disgust,
with the annoyance of sex.

And what would you say
to a fit man

who swore to you that he ignored
disgust?

That he is not a fit man -
he is still a child.

I too, Tiresias, have had

encounters
on the road to Thebes.

And in one of these

we talked of man -
from childhood to death -

we too have touched the stone.

From that day I was husband
and I was father,

and King of Thebes.

There is nothing ambiguous
or wasted,

for me,
in my days.

You are not alone,
Oedipus, in believing this.

But the stone
is not touched with words.

May the gods protect you.

I too speak to you and
am old. Only the blind man knows

darkness.

It seems to me

that I live outside time,
that I have always lived,

and I no longer believe
in the days. In me too there is

something that enjoys
and that bleeds.

You said
that this something

was a god.

Why, good Tiresias,
don't you try praying to it?

We all pray to some god,

but what happens has no name.

They boy drowned
on a summer morning,

what does he know of the gods?

What does it help him to pray?

There is a big snake
in every day of life,

and it conceals itself
and watches us.

Have you ever asked yourself,
Oedipus,

why the unhappy,
as they get old

go blind?

I pray the gods
that it does not happen to me.

It is not
the first time
that a beast has been killed.

But it is the first time
that we have killed a man.

Who was thinking of his name
and the stories of another time?

He has the heart of a beast
besides the hair.

For a long time
in these brushwoods

a similar or bigger wolf
has not been seen.

Me, I think of his name.

I was still a boy
and they were already
talking about him. They told

unbelievable things
of when he was a man -

that he tried to slaughter
the Lord of the mounts.

Now it is done.
We must skin him

and go back to the plain. Think
of the feast which awaits us.

I ask myself

if, once his skin taken,
we should bury him.

He was a man once.

He was already a wolf when
the mountains were still desert.

He had got older than
the hoary and mouldy trunks.

Who remembers that he had
a name and was somebody?

If we want to be frank,

he should have been dead
for a long time.

But his body
left unburied...

He was Lycaon,
a hunter like us.

To any one of us can befall

death on the mounts, and
nobody would find us any more

if not the rain or the vulture.

If he was truly a hunter,
he died badly.

He defended himself
as an old man, with his eyes.

But you deep down,
you don't believe

that he was your own kind.
You don't believe in his name.

If you believed it
you would not want to insult

his corpse,

because you'd know that he too

despised the dead, he too
lived wild and inhuman -

not for anything else the Lord of
the mounts turned him into a wild beast.

They tell about him
that he cooked his own kind.

I know men

who have done much less
and are wolves -

they are lacking only the
howling and skulking in the woods.

Are you so sure of yourself that you
don't sometimes feel Lycaon like him?

All of us others have days

when, if a god touched us,

we'd howl and jump at the throat

of anyone who resists us.

What is it that saves us
if not that by waking up

we find again these hands
and this mouth and this voice?

But he had no escape -

he left for ever
the human eyes and the houses.

Now at least
that he is dead,

he should have peace.

I do not believe
that he needed peace.

Who more in peace than him,
when he could

squat upon the rocks
and howl at the moon?

I've lived enough in the woods

to know that the trunks
and the wild beasts

do not feat anything sacred
and do not look at the sky

but to rustle or to yawn.

There is even something

that makes them equal
to the lords of the sky:

whatever they do,
they have no remorse.

To hear you,

it seems that the wolf's
is a high destiny.

I do not know if high or low, but

did you ever hear
of a beast or of a plant

that turned itself
into a human being?

On the contrary
all these places are full

of men and women
touched by the god -

this one becomes bush,
this one bird, this one wolf.

And however impious he was,
whatever crime he had committed,

he gained not having
red hands any longer,

he escaped remorse and hope,

he did not remember he was a man.

Do the gods feel otherwise?

A punishment is a punishment
and he who inflicts is

has compassion at least in this that he
removes from the impious the certainty

and of remorse makes destiny.

Even if the beast
does not remember

the past and lives only
for its prey and death,

there remains its name,
there remains what it was.

There is old Callisto
buried on the hill.

Who knows still her crime?

The lords of the sky
punished her much.

Of a woman -
she was beautiful, they say -

to make a bear who
growls and sheds tears,

who in the night out of fear

wants to go back to the houses.
Here is a wild beast

who had no peace. The son came
and killed her with his lance

and the gods did not move.

There are some too
who says that, repentant,

they turned her into
a cluster of stars.

But the body remains
and that is buried.

What do you mean?
I know the stories.

And if Callisto did not know
how to resign herself, it is not

the fault of the gods.

It is like someone who goes
melancholically to a banquet

or gets drunk at a funeral.

If I were a wolf,

I would be a wolf
even in my sleep.

You don't know the way of blood.

The gods add nothing to you
nor take anything away. Solely,

with a light touch,
they nail you

where you reached.

What at first was
wish, was choice

reveals itself to you as destiny.

That is what it means:
to become a wolf.

But you remain the one
who ran from the houses

you remain the old Lycaon.

Then you mean
that Lycaon suffered

like a man whom one
would chase with dogs?

He was old, finished:

you yourself agree that he did
not know how to defend himself.

While he was dying without voice on
the stones, I thought of these old beggars

who sometimes stop
in front of the court-yards,

and the dogs strangle themselves
with their chains to bite them.

That too occurs, in the
houses down there.

Let us even say that he lived like
a wolf. But, dying and seeing us,

He understood he was a man.
He told us with his eyes.

Friend, and you think
it matters to him

to rot underground
like a man,

he when the last thing he saw

were hunting men?

There is a peace beyond death.
A common fate.

It matters to the living,
it matters

to the wolf that is in us all.

It has fallen to us to kill him.

Let us at least follow the
custom and leave the insult

to the gods.

We shall go back to the houses
with clean hands.

Here is the field, stranger.
From here

it is not possible
for you to make off.

And as you have eaten
and drunk with us,

our earth will drink your blood.

Next year the Meander will see

a wheat tighter and thicker
than this one.

You have killed many in
the past on this field?

Enough.

But nobody who had your strength
or was good enough alone.

Who taught you this custom?

It has always been done.
If you don't nourish the earth,

how can you ask it to nourish you?

Already this year your wheat
seems to me in full vigour.

Whom did you slaughter?

No stranger came to us.
We killed an old servant

and a goat. It was flabby blood

which the earth barely felt.
See the spike, how empty it is.

The body which we lacerate

must first sweat, foam in the sun.

For that
we'll make you reap,

carry the sheaves,
stream with fatigue,

and only at the end,

when your blood
is boiling brisk and pure,

will it be the moment
to slit your throat.

Your gods, what do they say?

There is no god above the field.
There is only the earth,

the Mother, the Cave
which is always waiting.

and shakes only
under the flow of blood.

Tonight, stranger,
you will be yourself

in the cave.

You other Phrygians,

you don't go down into the cave?

We come out of it when we're born

and there is no hurry to go back.

I understand. And thus
the excrement of blood

is necessary to your gods.

No gods,
but the earth, stranger.

You, you don't live on the earth?

Our gods are not on earth,
but they rule

the sea and the earth,
the forest and the cloud,

as the shepherd keeps his flock and
the master commands his servants.

They keep themselves separate,
on the mount,

like the thoughts inside the eyes
of one who is speaking

or like the clouds in the sky.

They do not need blood.

I don't understand you,
foreign guest.

The cloud the rock the cave
have for us the same name
and cannot be separated.

The blood the mother has given
us we give back to her

in sweat in excrement in death.

It is really true that you
come from far away.

Those gods of
yours are nothing.

They are a breed of immortals.

They have conquered the forest,
the earth and its monsters.
They have driven into the cave

all those like you

who shed blood to
nourish the earth.

Oh you see, your gods knows
what they are doing. They too

have had to satiate the earth.

And besides you are too robust

to have been born of
an earth not satiated.

But don't you fear
death on the sheaves?

Maybe you hope

to run off through the furrows
like a quail or a squirrel?

If I have understood well
it is not death

but a return to the Mother
and like a hospitable gift.

All these boors who tire
themselves out on the field

will hail with prayers
and with songs

him who will give his blood
for them. It is a great honour.

Guest, thank you.
I assure you that the servant

we slaughtered last year

did not say that.
He was old and finished

and still we had to tie
him up with bark bands

and for a long time
he struggled under the sickles,

so much that before he fell
he had already lost all his blood.

This time, Lityerses,
it will go better. And tell me,

the unfortunate man killed,
what do you do with him?

He is lacerated
while still half alive,

and we scatter the pieces
over the fields

to touch the Mother.

We keep the bleeding head

wrapping it in spikes and flowers

and among songs and cheerfulness

we throw it into the Meander.
Because the Mother

is not only earth but,
as I have told you,

also cloud and water.

You know many things,
you Lityerses,

not for nothing are you the lord

of the fields at Celaenae.

And in Pessinus, tell me,
do they kill many?

Everywhere, stranger,
they kill under the sun.

The earth is alive,
and must also be nourished.

But why

must the one you kill
be a stranger?

The earth,
the cave that made you

should still prefer

to take back the juices
that most resemble her.

You too, when you eat,
don't you prefer

the bread and the wine
from your field?

I like you, stranger,

you take to heart
our good as if you were

our son.

But reflect a moment: why

do we endure the fatigue
and the effort of this work?

To live, no?
And so it is just

that we stay alive
to enjoy the harvest

and that the others die.
You are not a peasant.

But wouldn't it be
more just to find the way

to put an end
to the killings and that all,

strangers and countrymen,
eat the wheat?

To kill for one last time

him who alone will
make the earth fruitful for ever

and the clouds and the strength
of the sun on this plain?

You are not a peasant, I see it.

You don't even know
that the earth begins again

at every solstice

and that the course of
the year wears everything out.

But there will be on this plain

someone who has been
nourished, going back to his fathers,

by all the juices of the seasons,
who is so rich

and so strong and
with so generous a blood

that he should suffice once for all

to renew the earth
from the past seasons?

You make me laugh, stranger.

It seems almost that you are
talking about me. I'm the only one

in Celaenae

who, through my fathers,
has always lived here.

I am the lord, and you know it.

I am talking in fact about you.
We shall reap, Lityerses.

I came from Greece
for this deed of blood.

And tonight you will go back
to the cave.

You want to kill me,
on my own field?

I want
to fight with you

to the death.

Do you know at least how to
handle the sickle, stranger?

Don't worry, Lityerses.

Our bonfire,
nobody sees it.

We make it, it does not matter.
Everywhere this night there are bonfires.

O Zeus,

receive this offering
of milk and sweet honey;

we are poor shepherds
and of the flock not ours

we cannot dispose.

May this fire which burns
drive away the misfortunes

and as it is covering itself with spirals
of smoke, let it cover us with clouds.

Wet and sprinkle, boy.

It is enough if they
kill a calf in the big farms.

If it rains, it rains everywhere.

You must sprinkle towards the
sea. The rains come from the sea.

Father, why
is it not raining now?

They have lit the bonfires.

It is the feast, boy.
If it were raining,

it would put them out.
To whom is it convenient?

It will rain tomorrow.

And on the bonfires
while they were still burning,

it has never rained?

You were still not born,
and I neither,

and they were already lighting
the bonfires. Always this night.

They say that one time
it did rain, on the bonfire.

But that was when man
lived more justly than now,

and even the king's sons
were shepherds.

All this earth was like
a threshing floor, then,

clean and smoothed
and it obeyed to King Athamas.

One worked and lived and there was no need
to hide the young goats from the master.

They say that terrible
dog-days come

and thus the meadows and the
wells dried up and people died.

The bonfires were of no use at all.
Then Athamas asked for advice.

But he was old and
had at home since a short time

a young wife, who commanded,

and she began to fill his head

that it was not the moment to show
himself flabby, to lose his credit.

They had prayed and sprinkled?
Yes.

They had killed the calf and the
bull, many bulls? Yes.

What had resulted?
Nothing.

Then, let them offer the sons.

But not her sons of her own, who did not
have any: figure it out;

the two already grown sons
of the first wife

two boys who worked
out in the fields all day.

And Athamas, the dolt,
decides: he had them called.

They understand,

it's known,
king's sons are not silly,

and so to their heels.

And with them disappeared the first clouds
that, hardly having heard such a thing,

a god had sent over the countryside.

And immediately
that witch saying:

"You see? The idea was just,
the clouds were already there;

here we have to
slaughter someone."

And so much does she
that people decide

to seize Athamas and burn him.

They prepare the fire,
light it, conduct Athamas

bound and adorned
with flowers like an ox,

and when they are about
to throw him in the bonfire,

the weather breaks,
there is thunder, lightning,

and down comes a god's water.
The countryside is reborn.

The water puts out the bonfire and
Athamas, good man, pardons everyone

- even his wife.

Beware, boy, of women.

It's easier to recognize
the female snake from the snake.

And the king's sons?

Nothing was known of them again.

But two boys like those
will have found some good to do.

And if at that time
they were just, why

did they want to burn two boys?

Silly, you don't know what
dog-days are.

I have seen some, and your
grandfather saw some.

Winter is nothing.
In winter one suffers,

but one knows that it's
doing the crops good.

Not the dog-days.
The dog-days burn.

Everything dies,

and hunger and thirst
change a man.

Take one who hasn't eaten:
he is quarrelsome.

And you think these people
who all agreed with each other

and everyone had his land,

used to doing good and being well.

The wells dry up,
the wheat burns,

they are hungry and thirsty.

But they become
fierce beasts.

They were bad people.

Not worse than we are.

Our dog-days are our masters.

And there is no rain
that can set us free.

I do not like
these fires any more.

Why
do the gods need them?

Is it true that at one time they
always burned somebody on them?

They moved slowly.
They burned on them cripples,

idlers and insane people.
They burned on them

useless people.
People who stole on the fields.

Anyway the gods
are contented wit hit.

Good or bad, it rained.

I do not understand

what tasthe the gods found for that.
If it rained just the same.

Also Athamas.
They have put out the pyre.

You see, the gods

are the masters.
They are like the masters.

You want them to see
one of their own burning?

Amongst themselves
they help each other.

Us on the contrary nobody helps.

Whether it is raining or fine,
what does it matter to the gods?

Now we're lighting the fires
and they say it brings rain.

What does it matter
to our masters?

Have you ever seen them
come to the fields?

- Me, no. -

- And so. -

If once a bonfire
was enough to make it rain,

burning some vagabond on it
to save a crop,

how many masters' houses
would have to be set on fire,

how many killed
in the streets and on the squares

before the worlds turns just again

and we can tell our word?

They are unjust, the gods.

If it were not thus,
they would not be gods.

One who does not work,

how do you want him
to spend his time?

When there were no masters
and people lived with justice,

one had to

kill someone from time to time
to let them enjoy themselves.

They are made thus.

But in our time,
they don't need that any more.

There are so many of us in a
bad way that it is enough for them

to watch us.

Vagabonds them too.

Vagabonds. You said justly.

What did they say while burning
on the bonfire the crippled boys?

Did they shout a lot?

It is not so much the shouting.

It is who shouts,
that counts.

A cripple or a wicked one

don't do any good.
But it is a little worse

when a man who has children
sees the idlers fatten.

That is unjust.

I do not want to, you understand,
I do not want to.

They do well, the masters,
to eat our marrow,

if we have been
so unjust among ourselves.

They do well, the gods,
to watch us suffer.

I do not know whether I come
from the hill or from the valley,

from the woods
or from a house with balconies.

The girl who left me on the
steps of the cathedral of Alba,

maybe didn't come
from the country either,

maybe was the daughter
of the owners of a big house,

or else I was carried there
in a vintage-basket

by two poor women
from Monticello,

from Neive,
or, why not, from Cravanzana.

If I grew up in this village,

I must say thank you to Virgilia,
to Padrino

even if they took me
and reared me

only because
the hospital in Alessandria

gave them a monthly income.

On these hills
there were damned ones

who, to see a piece of silver,

loaded themselves with a bastard from the hospital,
in addition to the children they had already.

There was one
who took a small girl

to have afterwards a little
servant and order her about better;

Virgilia wanted me

because
she already had two daughters.

I grew up with the girls, we used to steal each other's
polenta and sleep on the same straw mattress.

Angiolina, the bigger one,
was a year older than me;

and only when I was ten, the winter when
Virgilia died, did I know by chance

that I was not her brother.

Maybe now
my father will spring up too.

Your father
is you.

In America the beautiful
thing is that they are all

bastards.

That too,
is a thing to be set right.

Why should there be

those who have no name or house?
Aren't we all human beings?

Leave things as they are.

I made it, even without a name.

You made it,

and no one dare speak to you
about it any more;

but those who didn't make it?

You don't know how many wretches
there still are on these hills.

When I went around
with the musicians, all over

in front of the kitchens were to be found
idiots, half-wits, simpletons.

Children of alcoholics
and ignorant servant-girls,

who reduce them to live on
cabbage-stalks and crusts.

There were even
those who laughed at them.

You made it, because
for good or bad,

you found a house;
you athe little at Padrino's,

but you ate.

You had a passion for it.
Why did you give up playing?

Because your father died?

There was the war.

Maybe the girls' legs
still itched to dance, but

who got them to dance any more?

People amused themselves
diversely in the war years.

Then there is the bore
that music

is a bad masters. By playing
you don't bring much home,

and then all this waste
and never well knowing who pays,

in the end it disgusts you.

It becomes a vice,
you have to give it up.

My father used to say that
the vice of women is better...

Of the two, I preferred music.

To form a group the nights
when we were coming home late,

and play, play,
I, the cornet and the mandoline,

going along the main road,

in the dark, far from
the houses, far from the women

and from the dogs, who reply
as if mad, to play like that.

Serenades,
I have never played any.

I have never known a girl
who understood what playing is.

I had a musician, Arboreto,
who played the bombardon.

He played so many serenades that
we used to say of him: those two,

they don't speak to each other,
they play to each other.

Who knows how many boys down here
would like to take the road to Canelli...

But they don't take it.

You, on the contrary, you took it.
Why?

Does one know these things?

Because at La Mora
they called me "eel"?

Because one morning
on the bridge at Canelli

I saw a car run into that ox?

It's because there is a destiny. You

in Genoa, in America, who knows,

you had to do something,
to understand something

which was going to befall you.

One day or the other
I'll tell you things about here

Something befalls everyone.
You see boys, people

who are nothing, who do no harm,

but the day comes when

they too... Listen to them. To get
them to come and pray to the Madonna,

the parson has to let them
relieve themselves.

And to be able to relieve
themselves, they have

to light candles to the Madonna.
Which

of the two cheats the other?

They cheat each other by turns.

No, no,
the parson is the winner.

Who is it who pays for

the illumination, the fireworks,
the parish expenses and the music?

The damned ones, they break their
spine for four acres of land, and then

let it be eaten off them.

Don't you say that
the biggest expense

falls to the ambitious families?

And where do the
ambitious families get the money?

They make their servant, their
maid, their peasant work.

And the land,
where did they take it from?

Why should there be
one who has much and one nothing?

What are you? A Communist?

We are too ignorant
in this country.

A Communist
is not whoever wants to be one.

There should be
Communists who aren't ignorant,

who don't disgrace the name.

I thought
coming back to Italy I'd find

something done. You had
the knife by the handle.

I had only a plane and a chisel.

Misery,

I've seen it everywhere.
There are countries where the flies

are better off than the Christians.
But that's not enough

to revolt.
People need a push.

At that time you had the push
and the strength...

Were you on the hills, too?

No, if I'd gone,
they'd have burnt my house.

I was a boy like you

and I lived here
with Padrino,

we had a goat.
I took it to graze,

In winter when the hunters
didn't pass by any more,

we couldn't even go on to the shore,

so much water and ice there was,

and from Gaminella
there came down the wolves,

who in the woods

didn't find any more to eat;
and in the morning

we saw
their footprints in the snow.

I slept in the back room
with the girls

and we used to hear at night

the wolf lamenting
because he was cold on the shore.

On the shore last year
there was a dead man.

A German.
Buried by the partisans.

So close to the road?

The water carried him down and Dad

found him
under the mud and the stones.

It's Dad.

I was passing by chance and wanted
to see the countryside again.

I don't recognise it,
it has been worked so much.

Have you worked in the house too?

The women stay in the house.
They have to think about that

Did you go and cut the grass?

For many reasons
I cannot sell the vineyard -

because it is the last land
to bear my name,

because otherwise

I would end up
in someone else's house

because it suits the farmers so,

because anyway I am alone.

You don't know
what it is to live

without a piece of land
in these villages,

You,
where do you have your dead ones?

I do not know.

I understand.
That's life.

I, alas, have someone
recently dead in the cemetery.

For twelve years,
and it seems like yesterday to me.

Not someone dead
as it human to have,

someone dead you get resigned to,
of whom you can think with trust.

I have made many stupid mistakes,

everyone does in life.
The true bruises of old age

are remorses. But
one thing I can't forgive myself.

That boy...

I planted these trees.
I wanted that here

on the summit of the hill
the land should be his...

In every countryside there should
be a piece of land like this,

left uncultivated...
But the vineyard must be worked.

I am old.

- Boors. -

The bonfires do good
for sure.

They awaken the earth.

But Nuto,
not even Cinto believes that.

And yet, I don't know what it is,
whether it's the heat or the blaze,

or that the dampness awakens,
the fact is

that all the fields where
at the edge they light a bonfire

give juicier and livelier crops.

So you believe in the moon too?

The moon
you have forcibly to believe in.

Try to cut down
a pine tree by full moon,

the worms will eat it up on you.
A vat,

you have to wash it
when the moon is young.

Even grafting,

unless done
in the first days of the moon,

doesn't take.

It is useless for you to find so
much to say about the government

and the speeches of the priests,

if you believe in these superstitions like
the old folk of your grandmother.

Superstition
is only that one which does harm,

and if someone were to use the moon
and the bonfires

to rob the peasants
and keep them in the dark,

then he would be ignoramus

and should be shot on the square.

But before you can speak, you have
to become a countryman again.

A man like Valino

may know nothing else,
but the land, he knows it.

I have learnt the end of Padrino
and of his folk.

Cola's daughter-in-law
told me about it.

At Cossano where they
ended up with the four pennies

from the croft, Padrino

died old, very old,
on a road,

where his daughters' husbands
had thrown him.

The younger one had married
while just a girl; the other,

Angiolina,
a year afterwards -

with two brothers who lived
at the Madonna of the Oak,

in a farm behind the woods.

The two men worked hard,

they wore out
the oxen and the women;

the younger one died
in a filed, killed by lightning;

the other,
Angiolina,

made seven children and then took
to bed with a tumour in her ribs,

she suffered and screamed
for three months -

the doctor goes up there once a year -
she died without even seeing the priest.

His daughters finished,
the old man

had no one left in the house
to give him anything to eat

and he began to go around
the countryside and the fairs.

He, too, died in the end

on the threshing-floor of a farm,
where he had come in to beg.

So it is useless
for me to go to Cassano to seek

my foster-sisters.
In my mind remains

Angiolina stretched out
with bared teeth,

like her mother
that winter she died.

I would be disposed
to go to the shores myself

to seek other dead men,
all the dead,

to dig up
with the hoe

so many poor boys,
if that would be enough

to shut up in prison
some Communist scum.

It's difficult
to accuse the Communists.

Here
the bands were autonomous.

That they were autonomous
doesn't mean a thing.

All the partisans were assassins.

For me
the fault

was not of this or that individual.

It as all
a situation of guerrilla,

illegality,
blood.

Somebody,
ploughing an uncultivated field,

had found two other dead men
on the slopes of Gaminella,

with their heads crushed and no
shoes. They had to be republicans,

because the partisans
died in the valley,

shot on the squares and hanged from the
balconies or they were sent to Germany.

Probably these two
were really spies...

But who formed
the first bands?

Who
wanted civil war?

Who provoked the Germans
and the others?

The Communists.
Always them.

They are all the responsible ones.

They are
the assassins.

It's an honour
which we Italians

grant them willingly.

I do not agree.

That year

I was still in America.
And in America I was interned.

In America, which is in America,

the papers published a proclamation
by the King and Badoglio

which ordered all Italians

to take to the woods,
to start guerrilla fighting,

to attack the Germans
and the fascists from the back.

They are all bastards.

It's our money they want.

The land and the money,
like in Russia.

And whoever protests,
is done away with.

At the assembly in the directory
they all agreed.

They decided

to have
a fine solemn burial service

for the two victims.

In short the parson
attracts water to his mill

and has still not digested
the inauguration

of the memorial stone to the
partisans hanged in front of the Ca'Nere,

which was done without him.

He already tried a move
like this with the gypsies.

During the days of '45
a band of boys

had captured two gypsies

who for months
had been coming and going,

double-crossing, informing
on the partisan detachments.

You know how it is,
in the bands there were all sorts.

Ignorant people as well.
Enough,

instead
of taking them to headquarters,

they put them down a well
and make them tell

how many times they'd gone
to the militia barracks.

Then one of them,
who had a fine voice,

they tell to sing
to save himself.

He sings,

sitting on the well, bound,
he sings like mad.

While he's singing, a blow of the
hoe for each, they lay them out...

We dug them up

and immediately the priest
made the sermon in the church.

In your place I'd go and ask him

for a mass
for the dead who were hanged.

If he refuses, you besmirch him
in front of the village.

He is capable of accepting
and of having all the same

his meeting.

The times have been diabolical.
Too much blood

has been shed and too many
young people still listen to

the word of hatred.

The fatherland,
the family, the religion

are still threatened.

- Red, -

the fine colour of the martyrs,
had become the emblem

of Antichrist

and in his name
have been and are being committed

so many crimes.

We, too, must repent,

purify ourselves, make reparation
- give Christian burial

to these two unknown young men
barbarously slaughtered,

done away with, God knows, without
the comfort of the sacraments -

and make reparation, pray for
them, raise a barrier of hearts.

To show it to those without fatherland,
to the violent ones, the Godless.

Do not believe
that the adversary is defeated...

That parson was on his toes.

To hear the speeches that the women and the
shop -keepers were making now in the village,

blood had flowed on these hills
like must in the wine-presses.

Until the former mayor

said plainly, over the tables at
the Angel, that in times before,

these things did not occur.

Then the lorry-driver - a hard-faced man
from Calosso - jumped to his feet

and asked him where
the sulphur of the co-operative

had ended up, in times before.

Even if

the farmers and
the miserable ones of the village

didn't go out into the world,

in the year of the war
the world had come to awaken them.

There had been
people from all parts,

southerners, Tuscans, townsfolk,
students, evacuees, workers -

even the Germans,
even the fascists

had been of some use, they had

opened the eyes of the dumbest,

forced everyone
to show himself for what he was,

you
to exploit the peasant,

me
so that even you have a future.

And the unsubmissive,
the deserters

had showed the government of lords

that wanting is
not enough for having a war.

Harm had been done too, people
robbed and killed without a motive,

but not that many:

still fewer
than the people

whom the powerful ones of before
worked to death.

And then?
How did it go?

We gave up
being on our guard, we believed

in the Allies, we believed
in the powerful ones of before,

who now
- when the hailstorm was past -

crept out from the cellars,
from the villas,

from the parish houses, from the convents.
And now are at the point

where a priest,
who, if he still rings his bells,

owes it to the partisans
who saved them for him,

takes the defence of the republic
and of two spies of the republic.

Were there partisans up there?

The partisans
were everywhere.

They hunted them down like
beasts. They died everywhere.

One day you would hear shooting
at the bridge, the day after

they were over by Bormida.
And never did they

close an eye in peace,

never was a lair safe...
Everywhere spies...

I passed beneath La Mora
the other day.

The pine tree at the gate
is no longer there.

Nicoletto, the administrator,
had it cut down. That ignoramus.

He had it cut down
because the beggars

used to
stop in the shade and ask.

It is not enough for him
to have eaten half the house.

He does not even want
a poor man

to stop in the shade
and call him to account...

People who had a carriage.
With the old man

it wouldn't have occurred...
And the girls?

The little one,
Santina, how did she end up?

She stayed at Canelli.

Nicoletto and she
couldn't stand each other.

She kept the black brigades brisk.

Not possible? Santa Santina?

To think that at six years old
she was so beautiful.

You didn't see her at twenty,
the other two were nothing.

They spoiled her, Mr. Matthew
no longer saw anyone but her.

Do you remember

when Irene and Silvia wouldn't
go out with their stepmother

so that they wouldn't
look bad by her?

Well, Santa
was more beautiful

than the two of them
and her mother put together.

You have a beautiful beast,

is the fodder from here
enough for him?

You're mad,
the mistress has to provide it.

How things are,

a master provides
fodder for the beast,

he does not provide it for the man
who works the land for him.

I'll send you that putty, then.

With the life he leads...
I cannot call him a brute...

If it were nay use...
It is necessary first

that the government should burn
the money and whoever defends it.

Did you find
the viper?

If I find it,
I'll cut off its head.

If you don't tease it,
even the viper won't bithe you.

If you're passing
the Angel tomorrow,

I'll give you a fine jack-knife

with a clasp.

Did you ever go
to find Nuto at the Salto?

You'd like it. There are benches,

planes, screwdrivers.
If your father let you,

I'd have you taught a trade.

As for my father...
I don't tell him.

Do you want
the money or the knife?

I want the knife.

If your father sees it, he is
capable of taking it from you.

Where will you hide it?

As for my father... If he
takes it from me, I'll kill him.

More than on a train,

I'd like to go on a bicycle.

Today there's the match.

And you aren't going?

It isn't easy to get
on board ship.

You had courage.

It wasn't courage, I ran away.

Do you remember

the speeches we made
with your father

in the workshop?
He said

already then
that the ignorant

will always be ignorant
because strength

is in the hands of those
whose interest it is

that people do not understand,

in the hands of the government,
the blackrobes, the capitalists...

Here at La Mora,

it was nothing, but when
I was a soldier and went around

through the alleys and the docks
in Genoa,

I understood what

the masters, the
capitalists, the military are...

Then there were the fascists

and these things
couldn't be said. But there were

also the others...

Now after so many things
have occurred, I don't know

even myself what to believe,

but in Genoa
that winter I believed in it,

and how many nights

we spent
in the conservatory at the villa

arguing with Guido, with Remo,
with Cerreti and all the others.

Then Teresa

got scared, she didn't want
to let us come in any more,

and so I told her
she should continue

being a servant, being
exploited, she deserved it,

we
wanted to make a stand and resist.

But one night Cerreti came
to warn me

that Guido and Remo
had been arrested,

and that they were seeking
the others. Then Teresa,

without reproaching me,
spoke to somebody

- brother-in-law, former
master, I don't know -

and in two days she had
found me some sweated labour

on a boat going to America.

Father has burnt down the house.

Everything's burnt, even the ox.
The rabbits ran away.

No, no, he has killed Rosina
and Grandmother.

He wanted to kill me
but I didn't let him...

Then eh set fire to the straw
and still sought me,

but I had the knife and so

he hanged himself in the vineyard.

The mistress from the villa
had come

with her son to share the beans
and the potatoes.

The mistress
had said that

two rows of potatoes had already been
pulled up, that she had to be compensated,

and Rosina had shouted,
Valino cursed,

the mistress had come into the
house to get the grandmother

to speak, too, while
the son watched over the baskets.

Then they had weighed the potatoes and
the beans, they had come to an agreement

looking angrily at each other.
They had loaded the cart

and Valino had gone to the village.

But then in the evening
when he came back,

he was in a black mood.
He had begun to shout at Rosina,

at the grandmother, because
they hadn't picked

the green beans before.

He said that now the mistress was eating
the beans that should have been due to them.

The old woman was crying
on the mattress. He, Cinto,

was standing at the door,
ready to run away.

Then Valina had taken off
his belt and had begun to whip Rosina.

Rosina had thrown herself
against the table and was howling.

Then she had given
a louder scream,

the bottle had fallen and
Rosina had thrown herself

on the grandmother
and embraced her.

Then Valina had given her
some kicks - kicks in the ribs,

the stamped on her with his shoes,
Rosina had fallen to the ground,

and Valino had again given
her kicks in the face and in the stomach.

Rosina was dead, Said Cinto, she was dead and
was losing blood through her mouth.

"Get up" said the father,
"madwoman". But Rosina was dead,

and the old woman was silent now too.
Then Valina had sought him,

and he gone.
From the vineyard

no one was heard any more

except the dog who tugged
at the wire and ran up and down. After a while,

Valino had begun to call Cinto.

Then he had opened the knife

and had made for the yard. The father
was waiting at the door, black with rage.

When he had seen him with
the knife, he had said "carrion"

and tried to catch him.
Cinto had run away again.

Then he had heard that his
father was kicking at everything,

that he was cursing
and railing against the priest.

Then he had seen the flame.

The father had come out with the
lamp in his hand, without glass.

He had also set fire to
the hayloft, to the straw,

he had smashed the lamp against the window.
The room where they had the fight

was already full of fire.
The women didn't come out,

he seemed to hear
crying and calling.

The dog went mad,
barked and tugged at the wire.

The rabbits ran away.
The ox was burning in the stable.

Valino had run into the vineyard,
seeking him,

with a rope in his hand.

Cinto, still clutching the knife,
had run away to the shore.

There he had stayed hidden,
and he saw above him

against the leaves
the glow of the fire.

When Cinto had no longer heard
the dog or anything else,

he seemed to wake up at
that moment, he didn't remember

what he was doing on the shore. Then little by
little he had gone up towards the walnut tree,

clutching the open knife,
mindful of the noises

and of the glow of the fire. And under the vault
of the walnut tree he had seen

his father's feet dangling
and the ladder on the ground.

He had to repeat all this story to
the sergeant and they showed him

the dead father stretched out
under a sack, if he recognised him.

They made a heap
of the things found on the meadow

- the scythe, a wheelbarrow, the
ladder, the ox's muzzle, a sieve.

And the next day I heard it said
in the village that the mistress

was furious about her property,

that, seeing that Cinto was
the only one alive of the family,

she expected Cinto to compensathe her,
to pay her, they should lock him up.

The priest made it still better.
Since Valino had died in mortal sin,

he wouldn't hear of blessing him
in the church.

They left his coffin
outside on the steps,

while the priest inside mumbled over the four
blackened bones of the women,

tied up in a sack.

Everything was done
towards evening, secretly.

The old women from Morone,

their veils on their heads, went
with the dead to the cemetery,

gathering by the roadside
daisies and clover.

The priest didn't come.

So you're going away.

You aren't coming back
for the grape harvest?

Maybe I'll get on a ship,

I'll come back
for the feast another year.

I've even found you another son.

Don't you want us
to go to Gaminella,

up there?
Let's go, it's early.

I saw her once at the Sport Caf?,

she herself called me,
coming out to the door

I was keeping an eye
on the faces going in,

but it was a peaceful morning, a sunny Sunday
when people go to mass.

"You saw me when I was so high"

she said,
"you believe me.

There are bad people in Canelli.
If they could,

they'd set fire to me.

They'd like me
to have the same end as Irene,

to kiss
the hand that gives me a blow.

But I bithe it,
the hand that gives me a blow."

She was smoking cigarettes
that you couldn't find in Canelli.

"Take some" she had said,

"take them all.
You are so many

who have to smoke, up there..."

"You see how it is" she said,

"since I knew somebody once

and played the madwoman,

you too turned away towards
the shop-windows when I passed.

And yet
you knew mother, you know

how I am..
you took me to the feast...

Do you think that I am not
railing against these cowards too?

Now it is my due to live
by eating their bread,

because my work,

I've always done it,
no one has ever kept me,

but if I wanted to say my word...
if I lost my patience..."

I did everything
to understand if she was lying,

I even told her that these are
times when one has to decide,

either here or there.

I should have asked her
to act as our spy

at the command posts,
but I did not dare.

Instead, the idea came to her,

and she gave me much news
on troop movements, on

the bulletins of the command.

Another day she sent me word

not to come to Ganelli
because there was danger,

and the Germans did raid
the squares and the caf?s.

She said that she wasn't
asking anything, that they were

old cowardly acquaintances who
came to her to relieve themselves,

and that they'd have disgusted her

if it hadn't been
for the news she was thus able

to give to the patriots.

The morning that
the blackshirts shot the two boys

under the plone tree
and left them there like dogs,

she came on her bicycle to La mora
and from there to the Salto

and spoke with my mother,
she told her that if we had

a rifle or a pistol
we should hide them on the shore.

Two days later the black brigade
passed and turned the house upside down.

The day came when she
took me by the arm and told me

she couldn't stand it
any longer. To La Mora

she couldn't go back
because Nicoletto was unbearable,

and the employment at Canelli,
after all those deaths,

scalded her,
made her lose her mind:

if this life
didn't end immediately,

she'd lay her hands on
a pistol and shoot someone -

maybe herself.

"I'd go to the hills, too"
she said to me,

"but I can't.
They'd shoot me

as soon as they see me. I am
the one from the Fascist House."

Then I took her up to the shore
and got her to meet Baracca.

I told Baracca everything
that she had already done.

Baracca stood listening,
looking at the ground.

When he spoke, he said only:
"Go Back to Canelli!"

"Go back to Canelli
and wait for orders.

We'll give you some."

Two months later,
at the end of May

Santa
ran away from Canelli

because she had been warned
they were coming to take her.

The owner of the cinema
said that a patrol of Germans

had gone in to search the house.

Santa ran away to the hills
and joined the partisans.

When there was
the mopping up in June,

she defended herself
a whole night with Baracca

in a farm behind Soperga

and came to the door herself -
to shout at the fascists

that she knew them
one by one, all of them

and that they didn't scare her.

The next morning
she and Baracca ran away.

Then two boys came to take me,

at the Salto, one evening, armed.

Baracca told me that he had sent
for me to give me some news,

bad.
There were proofs that our Santa

was spying,

that she had directed
the mopping-up in June,

that she had brought about the collapse
of the committee at Nizza, that even

German prisoners had

carried her messages and reported
caches to the Fascist House.

Now the point was to seize her.
There was already the written order.

Baracca kept me
three days up there,

partly to make sure
that I wouldn't interfere.

One morning Santa came back,
accompanied.

When the partisans
had arrested her,

she was bringing news
about republican circulars.

It was no use. Baracca in our
presence made the calculation

of how many
had deserted at her instigation,

of how many caches we had lost,

of how many boys
had died because of her.

Santa was listening,
disarmed, seated on a chair.

Then Baracca read her the sentence

and told two men
to lead her outside.

She turned round at the door,

looked at me and
made a grimace like children.

But outside she tried to run away.

We heard a howl,
we heard running,

and a burst of
machine-gun fire which didn't end.

We went out, too,

she was stretched out on
that grass in front of the acacias.

Then Baracca saw to it.

He made us cut
a lot of twigs in the vineyard

and we covered her up
until it was enough.

We poured petrol on it
and set fire to it.

By midday
she was all ashes.

Baracca,
he died with those of the Ca'Nere.

Hanged?

Translation by
Dani?le Huillet

Original Timings by
COLOR FILM CENTER, The Hague

* in memory of Yvonne, without whom there
would have been no Straub-Films at all.