preserve their dignity and one and all—men, women and children—defend it jealously, tenaciously, fiercely. The men did not bow the knee. They fled into the mountains and the woods, they lived in caves, they fought like wolves against the invaders. They were fighting to avoid death. It was a noble, dignified, honest fight. The women did not throw their bodies on to the black market in order to buy lipsticks, silk stockings, cigarettes or bread. They suffered the pangs of hunger, but they did not sell themselves. They did not sell their men to the enemy. They were willing to see their own children die of hunger rather than sell themselves or their men. Only the prostitutes sold themselves to the enemy. Before their liberation the peoples of Europe suffered with a wonderful dignity. They fought with their heads high. They were fighting to avoid death. And when men fight to avoid death they cling with a tenacity born of desperation to all that constitutes the living and eternal part of human life, the essence, the noblest and purest element of life: dignity, pride, freedom of conscience. They fight to save their souls.
But after the liberation men had had to fight in order to live. It is a humiliating, horrible thing, a shameful necessity, a fight for life. Only for life. Only to save one's own skin. It is no longer a fight against oppression, a fight for freedom, for human dignity, for honour. It is a fight against hunger. It is a fight for a crust of bread, for a little fuel, for a rag with which to cover the nakedness of one's own children, for a handful of straw on which to lie. When men are fighting in order to live, everything, even an empty jar, a cigar-stub, a piece of orange-peel, a crust of dry bread rescued from the rubbish-heap, a meatless bone—everything has for them an enormous, decisive value. To live, men will perform the meanest actions; to live, they will stoop to every sort of infamy, every sort of crime. For a crust of bread we are ready, all of us, to sell our own wives, or own daughters, to defile our own mothers, to sell our brothers and friends, to prostitute ourselves to other men. We are ready to go down on our knees, to grovel, to lick the boots of any who can assuage our hunger, to bend our backs beneath the whip, smilingly to wipe our cheeks when men have spat upon us,; and all this with a humble, gentle smile, with eyes full of a ravenous, animal hope, a stupendous hope.
I preferred the war to the plague. Within the space of a day, within a few hours, all—men, women and children—had been infected by the horrible, mysterious disease. What amazed and terrified the people was the sudden, violent, fatal character of that fearful epidemic. The plague had been able to achieve more in a few days than tyranny had done in twenty years of universal humiliation, or war in three years of hunger, grief and atrocious suffering. These people who bartered themselves, their honour, their bodies and the flesh of their own children in the streets—could they possibly be the people who a few days before, in those same streets, had given such conspicuous and horrible proof of their courage and fire in face of German opposition?
When, on October 1st, 1943, the liberators reached the first suburban houses in the Torre del Greco district, the people of Naples, in a ferocious battle which lasted four days, had already chased the Germans from the city. The Neapolitans had previously risen against the Germans at the beginning of September, in the days that followed the armistice; but that first revolt had been suppressed with implacable ferocity amid a welter of blood. The liberators, whom the people awaited with eager longing, had at some points been hurled back into the water; at others, near Salerno, they resisted tenaciously with their backs to the sea; and the Germans had fought on with renewed heart and fury. Towards the end of September, when the Germans had begun to kidnap the menfolk in the streets,
But after the liberation men had had to fight in order to live. It is a humiliating, horrible thing, a shameful necessity, a fight for life. Only for life. Only to save one's own skin. It is no longer a fight against oppression, a fight for freedom, for human dignity, for honour. It is a fight against hunger. It is a fight for a crust of bread, for a little fuel, for a rag with which to cover the nakedness of one's own children, for a handful of straw on which to lie. When men are fighting in order to live, everything, even an empty jar, a cigar-stub, a piece of orange-peel, a crust of dry bread rescued from the rubbish-heap, a meatless bone—everything has for them an enormous, decisive value. To live, men will perform the meanest actions; to live, they will stoop to every sort of infamy, every sort of crime. For a crust of bread we are ready, all of us, to sell our own wives, or own daughters, to defile our own mothers, to sell our brothers and friends, to prostitute ourselves to other men. We are ready to go down on our knees, to grovel, to lick the boots of any who can assuage our hunger, to bend our backs beneath the whip, smilingly to wipe our cheeks when men have spat upon us,; and all this with a humble, gentle smile, with eyes full of a ravenous, animal hope, a stupendous hope.
I preferred the war to the plague. Within the space of a day, within a few hours, all—men, women and children—had been infected by the horrible, mysterious disease. What amazed and terrified the people was the sudden, violent, fatal character of that fearful epidemic. The plague had been able to achieve more in a few days than tyranny had done in twenty years of universal humiliation, or war in three years of hunger, grief and atrocious suffering. These people who bartered themselves, their honour, their bodies and the flesh of their own children in the streets—could they possibly be the people who a few days before, in those same streets, had given such conspicuous and horrible proof of their courage and fire in face of German opposition?
When, on October 1st, 1943, the liberators reached the first suburban houses in the Torre del Greco district, the people of Naples, in a ferocious battle which lasted four days, had already chased the Germans from the city. The Neapolitans had previously risen against the Germans at the beginning of September, in the days that followed the armistice; but that first revolt had been suppressed with implacable ferocity amid a welter of blood. The liberators, whom the people awaited with eager longing, had at some points been hurled back into the water; at others, near Salerno, they resisted tenaciously with their backs to the sea; and the Germans had fought on with renewed heart and fury. Towards the end of September, when the Germans had begun to kidnap the menfolk in the streets,
Similar Books
