The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni: Day 45
Chapter 34 (to end)
“Descending from one of those doorways and moving toward the convoy came a woman whose appearance suggested a youth that was advanced but not yet passed. She radiated a beauty that was shrouded and dimmed but not ruined by great emotion and fatal languor: the soft yet majestic beauty that runs in Lombard blood. Her gait was weary, but not unsteady. Her eyes were dry, but showed the sign of many tears. In her grief there was something peaceful and profound that attested to a soul fully aware of and alive to pain.”
Amid so much horror, Manzoni depicts one of the most heartbreaking scenes in the novel, which the Italians know as “The mother of Cecilia.”
During the pandemic I did a reading of this scene, for a wonderful online program “Tutti a Casa,” out of the NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò. As I read you will see the 1922 silent film of the novel directed by Mario Bonnard.
“Off he ran, clenched fist in the air, knuckles ready for anyone that got in his way.”
Primo Levi wrote an essay about this episode, titled “Renzo’s fist,” arguing that,
“It is completely unnatural to run while holding one's fist in the air. It is hampering, even for a few steps: it results in a greater waste of time than would be needed to clench and raise the fist a second time.”
Says one fussy writer to another.
Join us on April 10 for a virtual discussion of The Betrothed with Michael F. Moore.
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I like the way Manzoni once again employs another simile from nature. In the previous chapter he describes a riot of nature, while here he focuses in on a specific detail in the manner of Dante in describing the dying mother and child lying down together so that they might die in this position: "Just as the flower blooming on a stem and the unopened bud beside it fall with the same swipe of the scythe that levels all the grass in the field".
The other thing I liked is when the mob is chasing Renzo and he is forced to brandish his knife, saying: "Whoever's got the gut, come on! You want to be anointed, you swine? I'll anoint you alright!" His blade will puncture the obsessive fantasies and stupidities of his pursuers and demonstrate the real and concrete meaning of the word anoint (che l’ungerò io davvero con questo).
Renzo jumping onto a cart belonging to the monatti in order to make good his escape has a cinematic quality to it, as one sees in action films.
Oh my, how Manzoni has woven the threads of this novel to arrive at this breathtaking scene; the crafting is amazing, the author's ability to touch our hearts is just profound here.