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It is raining and Ghisola ( female protagonist of Con gli occhi chiusi
[ With closed eyes ] novel written by Federigo Tozzi, 1919 ) is feeling as she
were choking: rain doesn’t succeed in clearing her soul of too many cumbersome
things. It is almost midnight and she is hanging about the empty tavern owned by
Domenico Rosi, her boy – friend’s father. She isn’t even twenty and too many
cumbersome things obstruct her liquid nature’s stream. Ghisola is native of
Sienese countryside in a miserable family of tenant - farmers at Domenico Rosi
farm: Domenico’s son, Pietro, is Ghisola’s coeval and he is in love whit her
since they were children; when they are fifteen Pietro, shy and irresolute,
dares to declare his love to her and Ghisola seems to reciprocate but in an
elusive and teasing way as elusive and teasing are her eyes << black like the
two most beautiful olives of the branch >>. Domenico puts an end to this teenage
romance throwing Ghisola out of his farm; only a few years later Pietro will be
able to find her out. Ghisola is now the mistress of a crockery merchant but she
is very able to make Pietro believe that she is only a honest maid: when she
receives from him a letter where he formally asks her hand Ghisola herself goes
to see him. The black of her eyes has << that washing which the things assume
when they are plunged into the water >>: the look of these washed – black pupils
mortifies and strikes dumb Pietro. The girl accepts Pietro’s proposal only by
reasons of mere convenience: she doesn’t like that inept boy of a wealthy
family. Ghisola is an attractive and sensual young woman with a strong and
independent temper who wishes to live in her peculiar way but, being a woman
coming from a poor family of farmers, self – realization is a luxury she can’t
afford. So that rainy night in Domenico’s tavern Ghisola is feeling as she were
choking: rain is pelting down in her soul but it doesn’t succeed in removing the
obstacles that prevent her nature from freely flowing. Complying with Pietro’s
wish, she returns back to his father’s farm where she is grown up in expectation
of the marriage but soon she realizes that she can’t stand this arrangement: her
relatives are strangers to her, farm’s workers pester her with malevolent
gossip. One evening she is waiting for Pietro on the threshing floor. She is
lying down on a low wall staring at a bright star: it seems to her that this
star begins to jump here and there ripping her temples. She is feeling as she is
getting crazy so she stops to stare at the star and she sits down. A well is lit
up by moonlight: suddenly Ghisola feels as that well is dragging into the water
herself and the moon. No, Ghisola will neither commit suicide nor she will be
Pietro’s wife. Her liquid nature will keep on flowing elsewhere: somehow she
will freely flow in despite of Pietro, in despite of men society, in despite of
everything. |
