Eva Colombo, As light wherever touches shadow, third chapter , Rosetta
One gloomy January night in Turin Rosetta ( protagonist of Tra donne sole [
Women on their own ], novel written by Cesare Pavese, 1949 ) tries to die in a
cold, luxurious hotel. With a sky – blue evening dress and a witty grimace she
is just returned from a Carnival ball and she wants only to sleep. She has an
awful headache: she doesn’t want to see anybody, not even her face in the
mirror. She wants only narcotic darkness, so she turns off the light and
suddenly – miracle! – headache vanishes leaving her stretched out on the bed
miraculously happy. But soon a horrible reawakening pulls her away from that
dark happiness throwing her under an eyes – hurting hospital’s lamp. So she is
obliged to return back to her daily life, the life of a twenty – three years old
upper classes girl in sparkling post – war Turin. Rosetta is smart, sensitive
and eager for life but paradoxically she spends all her life doing nothing but
frequenting aboulic and superficial friends, a bunch of snobs incapable of
taking something seriously. Life is a joke to them and life seems to be a joke
even to Rosetta while she is in their company. But her grey, sharp eyes are made
of iron of a gate which lacerates her friends world, a world of mystifying
social masks. Beyond this gate the abyss of truth is wide open: Rosetta has been
there when, bolted senses windows, she sank inside herself to those dark
soundings where, embracing her true self, tasted moments of miraculous
happiness. But soon, too soon she was grasped by the hair and dragged to the
surface, forced to open her eyes again under a light which illuminated nothing
but that dull surface where her friends false lives slip leaving no traces.
Rosetta is eager for true life but she is incapable of living truly, so she
prefers to die truly. On spring she has finally succeed in committing suicide. A
sullen pout has replaced on her face the attempted suicide’s witty grimace: this
time Rosetta has taken something seriously. While she was truly dying she has
lived truly looking at her true face with closed eyes. |
