Ennio Flaiano

The
Via Veneto
Papers

Translated from Italian by John Satriano

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

Villa Ulivi - Library
Via dei Bruni 27
50139Firenze

The Mariboro Press

 First EngUsh-language edition. Contents

Originally published in Italian under the title

LA SOLITUDINE DEL SATIRO
© 1973, 1989 RCS Rizzoli Ubri S.pA., Milan The Via Veneto Papers

Translation © 1992 by John Satriano

Occasional Notebooks
AU rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced 1956-1960 39
in any form without permission in writing from the publisher,
1963 157
except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in review
to be printed in a magazine or newspaper. 1969-1972 167

The publication of the present volume is made possible in part Concerning Satire, Boredom, Faith 237
by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 92-80360

Clothbound edition: ISBN 0-910395-66-7

Paperbound edition: ISBN 0-910395-67-5

The Mariboro Press

Mariboro, Vermont 05344
These notes were turitten at various moments and are not
here in chronological order. What I wanted to recollect is a
street, a film, an old poet: disparate things that are unclearly
mixed up with one another, not only in memory, but also in
a diary. The jumps from one time to another have, then, a
reason of their own.

June 1958

I am working, with Fellini and Tullio Pinelli, dusting off an old

idea of ours for a film, the one about a young provincial who
comes to Rome to become a journalist. Fellini wants to adapt
the idea to the present day, to paint a picture of this "cafe
society" that frolics between eroticism, alienation, boredom
and sudden affluence. It is a society which, the terrors of the
cold war now past and perhaps even in reaction to them,
flourishes a bit everywhere. But here in Rome, through a
mixing together of the sacred and the profane, of the old and
the new, through the en masse arrival of foreigners, through
the cinema, presents more aggressive, subtropical qualities.
The film will have LaDolce Vita as its title and we have yet to
write a single line of it; we are vaguely taking notes and going
to the different places around town to refresh our memories.
In these last few years Rome has expanded, become dispro-
portioned, got rich. Scandals explode with all the violence of
summer storms, the people live outdoors, they sniff about,
they study, they invade the restaurants, the movie theaters,
4 / ENNIO FLMANO THE VIA VENETO PAPERS / 5

the streets, they leave their cars in those very same piazzas the appearance of being—and at heart they are—just so many
which once upon a time enchanted us through their archi- bathers at the shore.
tectural splendor and which now resemble parking lots. Even the conversations are seaside resort: baroque and joc-
One of our locations will perforce have to be Via Veneto, ular; and they are concerned with an exclusively gastro-sexual
which is becoming more and more festive all the time; and reality. All that's missing is splashing water and beach ball
this evening I took a walk there on purpose, wanting to get a games.

clear picture of it. How changed it is from '50, when I used to

go there on foot every morning, crossing ViUa Borghesc, and December 1961
stopping at Rossetti's bookstore with Napolitano, Bartoli, Saffi, It is difficult these days to get to Via Veneto at all; and it is
Brancati, Maccari and the poet Cardarelli. The air was clean, also useless, it looks like another city. For a kilometer in every
the traffic was light (Brancati rode his bicycle), from the bak- direction there's nowhere to leave the car. I head for it on
cry shop came an odor of hot buns, there was a gay, rustic foot and count four Christmas trees along the way. The sea-
liveliness, journalists and writers would be drinking aperitifs, son's greetings are written in English. Snow, which paralyzes
the painters didn't have dealers yet, people were doing less the city for a week when it falls, is evoked in the shop win-
flying way up to the sky. At the barbershop I used to run into dows by flakes of cotton on the goods on display. There are
Mario Soldati, and he would say to me: "I'm writing a novel." stuffed animals three feet high in the bars and pastry shops: it's
How a street can change! Now that summer is coming on that American anthropomorphism which is asserting itself in
it's plain as day that this is no longer a street, but a beach. The the middle classes, with its animal friends of man, made in
cafes, which overflow onto the sidewalks—how many are man's image: goats, fawns, gun-toting cats, mice with little
there? six? seven?—have, each one of them, a different type of aprons, dwarfs. Coming out of a tobacco shop I'm struck by a
umbrella for their tables, like the ones at the seaside estab- curious sight. A girl is standing in front of the Cafe de Paris
lishments at Ostia: and they aren't just street umbrellas but and on her head she is wearing a hat in the shape of a Christ-
the sort you'd find at a fete galante. Some have tassels and mas tree; working a little switch which she has in her pocket
straw festoons like those in the Hawaiian islands, others make she turns the little colored lights in her hat on and off. Poor
one think of the Offenbach of La Vie parisienne, of the Great girl, she's pouting, disillusioned, like a little child who, at a
Exhibition, of the People's Progress; on every table are little masked ball for little children, suddenly bursts into tears. And
flags of the nations participating in the festival. the photographers who are bivouacked day and night in front
Proceeding with little forward thrusts, automobiles glide of the cafe look at her with a mbcture of compassion and
like gondolas toward the theater, and the public takes in the peevishness. Perhaps if some actor of note should pass by, or
fresh air and drifts hither and thither with the indolence of maybe Fellini, they could try a forceful solution. "I don't
seaweed and the false confidence of choir-singers. know," a photographer says to me, "maybe if somebody
Our destiny then remains upon the sea. So fond are we of slapped her in the face ... If it isn't dramatic, we won't take a
this idea that we have adapted it in the only way that our picture of it."
laziness will accept it, by transforming streets into seaside The girl has crossed the ocean to attempt, in the climate of
resorts, by elaborating a seaside style for houses, for automo- la dolce vita, a career as an actress, and now she is standing
bilcs, for attire and, finally, for citizens themselves, who have in front of the Cafe de Paris turning her little colored lights on
6 / ENNIO FIAIANO THE VIA VENETO PAPERS / 7

and off. Why don't they go for her gimmick? What does the
public want? Nothing? June 1958
One of the first scenes of the film ought to be the one in
April 1952 which the young provincial goes up Via Veneto on foot, with-
Every morning the poet Cardarelli goes and seats himself in out a penny in his pocket but overcome by the glamour of the
the only armchair in Rossetti's bookstore and is a positive crowd, repository of his high hopes. For in the rush of grati-
hindrance to trade not only with his witticisms but even more tude he feels toward the city he has already conquered, the
so with his gloomy silences, which make the customers un- protagonist believes that that crowd is a guarantee of life, of
comfortable. Rossetti seems not to take any of this amiss but love and also a hypothesis of freedom. Happy faces, laughing
rather to enjoy it. Yesterday a young woman writer came in mouths, pomp, elegance, nonchalance, a woman who looks at
and began browsing through a pile of books, all the while him and smiles. And the cafes, where he will even find a
uttering comments which betrayed a little nervousness on friend, a promise of work, a loan!
her part and also a desire to attract the poet's attention. Pick- The reality is better, in a certain sense: more chilling. The
ing up the works of Goethe published by Sansoni, she mur- cafes on the street have all been renovated and in such a
mured: "My God, now it's Goethe. What a bore!" Cardarelli, showy way that one thinks immediately of their winter soli-
who looked as if he had dozed off, in the sudden silence that tude when—the sunny weather over with—their gaiety will
ensued, said, as if to himself, "It may be, Signora, that you are remain in disuse and, like a Luna Park in the rain, will inspire
confusing him with Golden Gate" (which is a pastry shop on instead a feeling of melancholy. The dreadAil interior deco-
the same street). Today, all bubbling over with joy, another rating successfully interprets our thirst for pomp, and the
lady came in and asked Rossetti: "Do you have Le Diable au Cafe—erstwhile bulwark of the bourgeoisie—has become the
corps? I have just seen the movie and now I want to read the showroom of the furniture industry. Gone are the leather- and
book." And Cardarelli, astonished: "My, what an intense intel- velvet-upholstered seats, the mirrors that multiplied perspec-
lectual liveliness you manifest, Signora." Then a young poet tives, the deaf and venerable waiters and the marble-topped
came in who, after paying him all sorts of compliments, tables you could draw on. Now the cafes seem like alcoves,
begged him to say something in his favor to a certain maga- pagodas, nursing homes, family tombs.
zinc where there might be a chance he could get his poems
published. He handed him one so he could see for himself that April 1952
it wasn't cheap stuff. Cardarelli put on his glasses, extracting Things are starting to go to pieces. They are redoing the
them from out of the depths of his overcoat, and read the flower beds along Via Veneto, putting in great rims of cement
poem, while doing so wrinkling his forehead, as if he were around them. The ones they had before weren't good enough.
reading a telegram. And finally: "But this is good stuff, the very Mino Maccari is indignant and tries to pass himself off as a
best, the kind they should put in La Fiera LetterariaV Then, cabinet member, to see if he can talk the laborers into stop-
suddenly recalling that it is he himself who edits La Fiera ping what they are doing. It doesn't succeed. Then he pro-
Letteraria, he started to chuckle, silently, until his right eye poses to me that we start a journal together, which we will
began to fUl with tears. call either Obnoxious Tales or perhaps The Dotard Illus-
 8 / ENNIO FLAIANO THE VIA VENETO PAPERS / 9

trated. We sit down. He lapses into a few sudden and discon- July 1959
certing silences during which it seems he wants to say At a table of the Gaffe Rosati, in one of those rapid intro-
something important, who knows what, then he abmptly ductions in which nothing can be understood but during
starts to laugh. "Last night I thought for some time about which one smiles, I was presented to an American lady—
myself, trying to extract some sort of philosophy from my life. tanned, dried by the sun, slender, with something coleopter-
Everything I was able to understand about myself I wrote on ous in her eyes and in her iridescent green dress. Such was the
this little piece of paper. Here, read it." impression that came into better focus when a firiend of mine
This is what was written there: "1)1 don't know who not to explained to me—in that tone of gravity which redeems the
believe in. 2)1 have a couple of ideas, but they are confused. gossipiness of certain stories—that for three months each year
3)1 was looking for employment, instead I found work. 4)1 this lady, in full agreement with her husband, takes her sexual
have a family I have to support. 5) I try very hard to under- vacation in France and Italy. It seems that it's on her psycho-
stand, but I wind up understanding nothing." analyst's orders. The woman accordingly picks out her men,
sustained by her faith that she is getting better.
June 1958 In her purse she carries a little camera and with this she
So we've decided that the film will begin with the young takes pictures front and back of her subjects, preferably nude.
provincial going to a nightclub. He's already in a pretty good One documents as best one can. By now she has an archive,
job, he is making a living, he is one of those journalists a which perhaps serves to keep her from boredom during the
civilization of sensationalism has produced, that is, he reports winter months when the cure is suspended. But personally I
scandals, the damned fool behavior of others. He allows him- think that this archive of hers represents the tribute she pays
self to be adopted by the same society he despises, he is to that modern cult which makes a photographer out of every
unbothered at having to renounce his original ideals, which tourist, preoccupied with collecting evidence of his own ex-
now seem to him not only tiresome but useless to boot. istence (in order to have proof of his having existed).
Towards midnight the movie theater crowd wanders up
and at a few tables the talk is about cinema: the only discus- June 1958
sions, along with those about dififerent makes of cars, that A society as troubled as ours, which expresses its frigid will
reveal any difference of tastes and opinions. Towards three it's to live more by exhibiting itself than by truly enjoying life, de-
all over, there's nothing left under the big umbrellas, there are serves its petulant photographers. Via Veneto has been invaded
no further meetings with friends ( almost always De Feo, some- by these photographers. And our fUm will have one of its own,
times Carlo Levi, with that benevolent country doctor look of the invisible companion of the protagonist. Fellini has this
his), and it ends in front of the newspaper stand, the only character very clearly in his mind, he is acquainted with the
tranquil harbor for our nocturnal lunacy, the immense news- real-life model: a news agency reporter, about whom he tells
stand full of books and newspapers that never shuts down, me a passably atrocious story. This fellow had been sent to the
like a lighthouse. Some scrutinizing of the sky to see if we're funeral of a well-known figure who had been the victim of a
to have fair weather tomorrow or not. When I reached home, terrible accident—sent there to take pictures of the weeping
found a conch at the edge of the sidewalk widow. But through some carelessness the film was exposed to
light and the photographs didn't turn out. The director of the
10 / BNNIO FLAJANO THE VIA VENETO PAPERS / 11

news agency said to him: "Figure something out. In two hours anywhere which couldn't help but be distasteful to him, it
either you bring me the widow weeping or I'll fire you and see must certainly be this one. At the time we first became friends
to it you never find work again." Therewith our reporter hur- he never used to leave the Corso district—the shops of Piazza
ried olf to the home of the widow and found her just then re- del Popolo, the restaurants of Via del Gambero. Of an evening
turned from the cemetery, still in her widow's weeds, and his most audacious destination was Tito Magri's, a Tuscan
wandering from one room to another in a daze of grief and ex- wineshop on Via Capo, and now look at him on Via Veneto, in
haustion. To be brief: he told the widow that if he failed to get fact, in the best stretch of it, near Porta Pinciana, amidst that
a picture of her in tears he would lose his position and with his crowd of grand hotels, the whistles of doormen hailing taxis,
position the hope he had of getting married, for he had recently the film extras working in Quo Vadis? and letting their beards
become engaged. The poor lady wanted to chase him away: grow. Today he was out sunning himself and he was looking
you may imagine that after having wept so earnestly and for about at everything with apparent approval, like the old em-
such a long time she was in no mood for comedy. But at this igrant who has made his fortune and come back to the village.
point the photographer gets down on his knees, begins to beg So far as money is concerned he manages to put together
her not to ruin him, to be kind, to just cry for a minute, or even enough to pay for apensione and a male nurse. But he has the
to just pretend!—for just long enough for him to take her pic- self-assurance that enables him to feel rich. As for love of his
ture. It works. The noose of compassion once around her neck, true homeland, he has given vent to all of it in his books, and
the poor widow ends up getting photographed weeping on the there can hardly be much more left in him. He knows that this
matrimonial bed, at her husband's writing desk, in the front is his last port of call.
room, in the kitchen.
Now we will have to give this photographer an exemplary July 1958
name, because the right name helps a great deal and indicates I ran into an old fihn extra who for years now, in the midst
that the character will "live on." These semantic affinities of our cinematography's historico-biblico-mythological re-
between characters and their names drove Flaubert to de- birth, has been shuttling from one film to another without
spair. He spent two years finding Madame Bovary's first name, even changing his make-up. He is a wise man out of Thebes,
Emma. For this photographer of ours we don't know what to an archon of Athens, a counsellor at the court of Pharaoh, a
make up until, stumbling upon that golden little book of Babylonian priest. In Crete he is watchman at the Labyrinth,
George Gissing's titled By the lonian Sea, we discover the upon Olympus he is Saturn, in Galilee an apostle. He asks me
prestigious name "Paparazzo." The photographer will be for a small loan. I ask him: "Aren't you working?" He extends
called Paparazzo. He will never know that he bears the hon- his arms, desolate. "I may be a Senator—but in September!"
ored name of a hotel keeper from somewhere in Calabria,
about whom Gissing speaks with gratitude and admiration. May 1952
But names have a destiny of their own. Cardarelli, I remember having mn into him in Piazza Ca-
vour right after the war—all by himself, reduced to despair by
May 1952 the prolonged solitude he had undergone and happy to have
It may seem strange that Cardarelli chose Via Veneto of all returned, that very day, to Rome. He was counting on the help
places to live out the last years of his life. If there is one street of a few friends and especially Velso Mucci's, who was pre-
12 / ENNIO FLAJANO THE VIA VENETO PAPERS / 13

paring an essay for the new edition ofProloghi. I remember wards eight must have forgotten about him. In fact, he arrives
that we sat on the edge of a fountain outside the Palace of a little later and puts on a little show of surprise: "What's this?
Justice; and that little by little he was starting to resume, No, still here? But I thought..." They go through the gate
together with his calm, his dark mood. "Pretty soon now I'm slowly, weaving this way and that, with a list, like two deca-
going to die." "Nonsense. Right away?" "I'd like to die here, at dent epicureans after a night's revelry.
once, but without doing it on purpose," and he was smiling. A At times it seems to me that there is a connection between
few days before, Bruno Barilli had stopped in front of the Gaffe Cardarelli and the protagonist of our rejected story. A con-
Greco. He had lifted up the hem of his duffel-coat and showed nection which falls apart immediately. Cardarelli, very young
me a little roll of twine: "It's the rope I'm going to hang mysetf and poor at the time, also came to Rome from his native town
with." And that's how these two poets began life again in that with the intention of becoming a journalist. When in a con-
marvelous post-war period that so encouraged everyone's fidential mood, he used sometimes to talk about his first steps
hopes, feeling themelves undone now that the outcome they in Umbertine Rome as a reporter forAvantif. He wrote about
had yearned for had come about. everything, furiously. Crimes interested him, ritual bloodlet-
Now Barilli has died (in princely fashion, requesting a tings, tragedies of passion. He signed himself Simonetto, Ca-
comb); and CardarelU spends his days on Via Veneto. There is landrino, Calibano! Then sudden illness, a long confinement
something to meditate upon in this choice of his, a kind ofchal- in the same hospital ward where his father had died. The furor
lenge to the rules of the game which require the old elephant of youth vanishes, he becomes another, he looks within him-
to go off' and hide himself far away, in order to die. This poet, self, discovers poetry, makes it his creed and begins to write
however, loves to show himself, to impose his presence, with all over again. His first prose works are already perfect. Re-
an air about him of spoiling the fun for everyone else. reading them today, almost prudently and perhaps with the
unconscious hope of finding them old, I become aware that if
September 1958 there is an old man around here, it isn't he. A great deal older
In three months, at the sea, we have finished writing La and wrinkled are these literary troupers who play clownish
Dolce Vita, and now we're running into the usual problems. games with success... I myself feel very much older.
The producer refuses to do the film. He has given the script to
four or five critics and now they are giving us sorrowful looks
June 1962
and shaking their heads: the story is rambling, false, pessimis- Via Veneto— ever more unrecognizable, swept away now
tie, insolent, whereas the public wants more cheerful stuff. by its own fame, abandoned to tourists, easy encounters and
"No," Eliot said somewhere, "the public only wants a little to cinematography. The "intellectuals" have followed the
striptease, but what counts is what we get away with doing painters to Piazza del Popolo, topographically protected
behind its back, without it noticing." from the assaults of fashion by its ample spaces, by the ab-
It's almost midnight and, passing through Via Veneto, I see sence of large hotels in the vicinity, by the few cafes. They
Cardarelli all by himself, sitting at the last table of the Caflfe no longer come to Via Veneto in the evening, but in the
Strega. "They haven't come to pick me up," he says. He seems afternoon, to the presentations of new books, and not al-
like a giant who has lost all his friends and missed the bus. The ways even then. Three or four times a week, new books are
doorman who has the job of accompanying him home to- presented at Golden Gate or at the Einaudi bookstore. Ev-
14 / ENNIO FLAIANO THE VIA VENETO PAPERS ,15

eryone is writing. Whoever isn't writing is collecting mate- Amerigo Bartoli presented me with a drawing today which
rial. If the cultural miracle keeps on progressing, we will shows Cardarelli at the cafe together with the doorman of his
have a writer for every hundred inhabitants. building, the same one who goes to get him in the morning
Women especially—certain women—are showing them- and who brings him back in the evening. Oftentimes the door-
selves implacable. Never mind: you can't have a bacchanal man sits modestly beside the poet, and he also gazes out upon
without bacchantes. I have a feminine manuscript here on the that same animated coming and going, upon the swarms of
table that I should be reading, just to give an opinion, but I'm pretty girls. BartoU's drawing shows Cardarelli and the door-
not doing it. I know what's in store for me: tumid, sentimental, man who, by mistake, have exchanged headgear. The door-
sexual, autobiographical adventures. For this sort of woman man has the poet's fedora and the poet the doorman's berretto.
writing a novel means telling badly about the very things Bartoli's friendship with Cardarelli is of long standing,
which she succeeded so well in hiding when she did them. their fondness for one another is very great but does not
exclude reciprocal digs. For example, Bartoli, talking about

July 1957 Cardarelli, says that he is "the greatest of dying poets." A

I made a long detour to avoid Cardarelli. I was in a hurry and few days later a lady from his own province stops to greet
so I committed this little act of cowardice, but others of his Cardarelli and inquires: "And Bartoli? How's Bartoli doing?"
friends do it too. At about eight in the morning, Cardarelli de- With a sorrowful face the poet responds: "He's not growing,
scends from hispensione, which is over the Caffe Strega, and Signora, he's not growing!" And pursuing his allusion to the
sits at the first table of the cafe itself, in front of the portal of the painter's diminutive stature, he adds: "At night, he's nervous,
house. The waiters don't mind; they're happy because they he can't sleep, so he paces back and forth underneath his
know that he is a great poet and that he won the Strega Prize bed."

in 1948. They explain this when the customers show some cu- Nevertheless, Cardarelli does nothing but keep on the look-
riosity about that gentleman sitting over there with his over- out for Bartoli's arrival, in a frenzy if he's late. But as soon as
coat and hat on at the very height of the heat wave. A strange he sees him appear at the corner of Via Sardegna, he turns his
illness that chills his legs obliges Cardarelli to put on his entire head in the opposite direction, like a lover who has decided
wardrobe each time he leaves his house and has to abandon the to break oif a romance, and pretends not to see him.
stove to which he is practically attached. In short, the waiters Today I was witness to this little interview:
respect him, and the owner of the cafe has given instructions "Cardarelli, what do you think about the literary prizes?"
that he be charged prices that would seem ridiculous to any- "Don't ask me stupid questions."
one else but which don't disturb Cardarelli in the least, because "All right, you're against literary prizes?"
he doesn't know the price of anything and is perhaps con- "If it's a question of a gift, no. If it's a question of a judgment,
vinced that the prices are the same in the other cafes too. yes. I find it indecent that several writers should get together
Cardarelli is there for the entire day, obserying a precise to pass judgment on the work of another writer. Howwer ...
schedule: from eight till one; then a one-hour break for lunch; if you do wish to award prizes to the best writers, then every
and then two till eight. At eight he retires to his room, gets so often you have to give a cudgeling to a few of the worst."
into bed and begins his titanic struggles with insomnia, which "But what about the great prizes? The Nobel Prize, for ex-
abandons him at dawn. ample?"
16 / ENNIO FLA1ANO THE VIA VENETO PAPERS / 17

"The great prizes are never given to the writer. They're rifically funny. I laughed so hard I p— in my pants." And she
given to his readers. Poor beggars, they deserve them." doesn't even lower her voice, seeing as we're on Via Veneto.
"Have you decided whom to vote for in this year's Premio The gentleman who is with her adds politely and with the air
Strega?" of someone who keeps himself up to date: "My dear, you
"Yes, but I haven't read anything of 'his'. It would take—" should have your urine psychoanalyzed."
"Really? Never anything at all? You're doing it on trust?" Such a society is no longer in need of anything: it knows as
"No. These votes are cast out of a certain contempt." much as will suffice to keep it refined and a la mode: and it
Evening descends upon Via Veneto with a feverish haste. has a certain faith in vulgarity as a means of defense against
During certain silences in the traffic you hear the Villa anything higher than its own material interests.
Borghese sparrows flying about in flocks before settling in the
tops of the pine trees. I was sitting at the cafe and I was intent May 1955
upon divining the arrival of night in the face and in the eyes Raffaella Pellizzi has decided to put a little order into Car-
of Cardarelli, as you can sometimes succeed in divining it in dareUi's life; and she has begun by tidying up his room. She
a lake, and in me this brought on a feeling of deep melancholy, was telling me today that while she was clearing off his work
almost as if that face reflected my own and my lost day, ren- table (where he hasn't sat in months), among an absurd heap
dered more distressing by the certainty of another day and of books, bottles, notebooks, letters he hasn't sent, letters he
then another on this dead-end street. Out of inattentiveness, has received and never opened, among old mufflers and med-
and in order to utter one of those model sentences that now- icines of every description she found eight fountain pens and
adays distinguish a boring conversation, Raffaella Pellizzi, who six pairs of scissors. The drawer of the night table was open
was sitting next to Cardarelli, said with a sigh, "Ed e subito and filled with books that rose like a tottering tower, and
sera." Cardarelli shook his head, and murmured: "What a pro- among the books were the slippers whose disappearance the
found concept. And what pleasure it must afford." poet had, for some time, been lamenting. She found no work
These are the only moments when one has the opportunity of his, neither books nor manuscripts. Cardarclli hasn't been
of seeing him smile. He would like to go on but he hasn't the writing anything for years now. He doesn't even like anyone
will for it; he hasn't the will for anything, not even to die. to speak to him about poetry or literature, they have lost their
value, like dead things, trash, they leave him gasping for air,
September 1957 and if the conversation happens to turn in that direction it's
The fashionable sort of success is obtained with publicity almost as if he were chewing on some fruit that had a taste of
and is paid for by prostituting oneself to the crowd. Success ashes. His body is outliving his spirit, it is with resentment he
doesn't change by inverting the order of factors, "suffering" sees himself live on, in life perhaps seeking extreme degrada-
may perhaps render it more lasting. Success obtained through tion, curious to see how far the spirit that sustains him may
merit and paid for with indifference annoys the public at large decay along with his body, maintaining the stoic implacability
and, for some time now, everybody else too. of someone who remarks: "I told you so."
Today an elegant lady, who in her speech imitates a certain On these sunny mornings, Via Veneto sparkles with a beauty
temperamental actress (she always performs in her undergar- that is a little offensive, opulent, tenderly crowned with the
ments), said, talking about a musical she had gone to: "Ter- green of the few trees that carelessly punctuate the flower
18 / ENNIO FLAIANO THE VIA VENETO PAPERS / 19

beds, amidst the continuous flow of automobiles, the indolent repeat that Industry is beautiful, and to conclude the day with
:strian flow, the somnolent bliss of the people who are a shot from a pistol ..."
sitting at the tables of the cafes. This is the hour when the We were crooning in like fashion, Fellini and I, driving
ladies go in and out of the shops, the hour when the journal- down Via Veneto, when a trafl&c cop blew his whistle and had
ists bump into each other and ask: "What are you up to?" The us pull over to the sidewalk. We had gone straight through a
morning mist is dissolving under a glorious sun that pushes red light—fine: three thousand lire. "I don't have a dime,"
the clouds towards the west. It is still the hour when you keep Fellini said, "but I can write you a check." The officer looked
asking yourself whether today isn't the day to go out to the at us severely. "One second," Fellini continued, "you seem to
country for lunch, and then to decide that it isn't. Well we know who this man is. Let's do it like this. You lend us five
know what sort of afternoon will ensue: carefree, empty, then thousand lire, we pay the fine and we'll come back tomorrow,
back to the city. Better to stay right here. same time, same place, and give you back the five thousand."
Today a photographer who works for a French magazine Since the ofi&cer was looking at us uncomprehendingly, Fellini
requested me to pose for him. He had me sit at a table and repeated the proposition: "What can you lose? If we pay the
asked me to speak and act naturally. Someone stopped and fine, you'll make a good showing with your superiors and
observed the scene, which was, for me, one of keenest em- we'll be able to get a little gasoline. If you don't lend us the
barrassment. And all the while the photographer jumping money, what happens instead? We can't pay." "I don't have
from one spot to another, looking at the sun, adjusting his five thousand lire," said the officer. "Come on, let's not kid
lens. I begged him to shorten the torture and, taking me under each other," Fellini said. "Do you expect us to believe you've
the arm, he pushed me towards Villa Borghese, where we never done anything wrong? Come on, be a good guy." The
would be able to continue unobserved. Leaning against the officer looked at us, shaking his head all the time, then, sigh-
trunk of a tree and under the continuous gaze of the photog- ing, said: "Go on, go on."
rapher, I felt a hand on my shoulder and heard a voice saying It seems certain that his film will never be made. Even so,
to me: "Ah, ha! Caught you by surprise!" I turned around and FeUini never wearies of thinking about it and spends all his
there was a certain man whose name I am never quite able to time talking to actors, choosing types, sending out telegrams,
remember. And so there we stood: I with a silly smile on my acquainting himself with the equivocal underbrush of Via
face, he shaking his head from side to side, and the photog- Veneto and its surroundings. He wants to portray an unreal
rapher saying: "Wonderful, move just a little, just like that, Rome, to reconstruct everything, or to concede that little to
wonderful." reality which is already unreal itself: Trevi Fountain, Saint
Peter's, the Roman countryside.
November 1958
"Oh, how marvelous it is to feel yourself profoundly intel- July 1957
ligent, to rave about Sex, to remain indifferent towards wom- These people don't walk to their destinations, they saunter
en... To respond to every enquiry, to always have an opinion, by, brushing past the tables, lingering, as if they were in the
to sign petitions, to interpret the situation... Oh, how won- main square of a little town during some holiday. Those at the
derful to be in step with fleeting fashion, to be constantly tables sit with their eyes fixed upon the stream of people that
attuned to mass culture... To swear by commercial art, to flows by on the sidewalks, while the passersby stare at the
20 / ENNIO FIAIANO THE VIA VENETO PAPERS / 21

animated banks of tables. It's as if everybody were tacitly rest of the world. And then, resigned and in their own back-
acquainted with one another, a criss-crossing of friendly and ward way, they also make love."
befogged glances, which hide—and at this hour, what else 'Yes, it's really interesting. What then?"
could it be?—an erotic assessment. I'm sitting at a table with "Elsewhere, in the big cities, where poetry, painting and
Ivella, .who never gets tired of watching. He has just come music have become by this time forms of applied art (art is
back from America, and had forgotten all about this crowd. something with which one dresses oneself), there are other
Finally he bursts out: "What gets me is that Italians are all problems for these unhappy societies to worry about: the
different from one another. It isn't a race, it's a collection! Just correct utilization of time, the elimination of waste, total ia-
look! Just look!" surance coverage, diet.. . Pornography (in literature and the
movies) enjoys a period of technical splendor because every-
March 1961 one reads about and looks at things that he doesn't want or
"Are you working on anything good? Something for the that he simply can no longer do. The protagonist of my com-
movies?" edy, who lives in one of these cities, is obliged to make a trip
"No, I'm writing a comedy, it's for the stage." to that little provincial town I was just telling you about.
"That's interesting. Would it bother you if I asked you to There, he has a girl cousin, who candidly confesses to him
tell me a little about the plot, the problem, the theme?" that she spends all of her time painting and making love. Our
"Not at all. This in a nutshell is what it's about this." (He friend feels awfully sorry for her, he tries to find a way to cure
pauses.) "Okay ... everything leads one to believe that in the her. To be brief, he too winds up painting and making love. He
future, as the population increases, man will be increasingly discovers that certainty is in uncertainty, repose is struggle,
more alone, especially in the big cities. Increasingly more etc. He discovers this through a 'backward' woman -who re-
alone, increasingly restrained by inhibitions, by laws, by re- introduces him first to love and then to art. However, one day
ciprocal controls, by the tyranny of machines, by the neces- he says to himself that these two activities will fmally cause
sity to succeed, by the enigma of the future, by the terror of him nothing but troubles. He leaves his little cousin and goes
a war. And then, one day, even art will end, in the same way back to the city, where, naturally, he kills himself."
that love will end." "Very interesting. And when will this comedy of yours be
"Very interesting." finished?"
"But in some provincial backwater, in some sort of de- "Never."

pressed zone, the one and the other are still alive, love and art.
The people feel awkward about it, especially about love. It's September 1954
so provincial! 'But other than that,' they say, justifying them- Barilli, Brancati ... it seems that death is going by alpha-
selves, 'what can you do here in this little one-horse town?' So betical order. It wouldn't surprise me. I've always imagined
they cultivate art and love. They write terrible books, they death as a hardheaded school-teacher, scouring his attendance
paint, and, in the wee hours of the night, when they're just sheet in order to call upon the pupils who arc the least pre-
getting home, they play electronic music, which by now is pared. Now, Vitaliano Brancati. A few evenings ago I ran into
utterly outdated, in fact, it's been completely forgotten by the him as he was leaving his favorite cafe—in a hurry. We barely
 THE VIA VENETO PAPERS / 23
22 / ENNIO FIAIANO

nod to one another, then he feels the need to come right back these people. Captures them just as they are. Today, the result

and, shaking my hand, he says: "I'll be gone before long and will satisfy you, in ten years you will find it all old, in twenty
I'm not sure that we'll see each other again. I wanted to say ridiculous, in fifty you will exclaim: what a wonderful docu-

goodbye." I said a few words in reply, joking. He was going to ment! Moral: every dramatic fUm slowly sets out to be com-

Turin to have an operation ... Now we're in the freightyard at ical."

the station in front of a wagon loaded with a casket. We are "And do the directors know these things?"

almost all there, all of his night-time friends, our faces a little "Yes, I think so. They know."

pale thanks to the sirocco. Someone speaks and eulogizes A long pause, during which the two friends look at the
Brancati, the man and writer. Cardarelli is also there, im- people who are passing by and are looked at in their turn, for

mersed in his overcoat with the fur collar. When it's over, we a summary erotic assessment.

go away like thieves after a job that has turned out badly, "Let's see how far we understand each other. What, accord-

sneaking away, avoiding comments, while two porters throw ing to you, is a director?"

wreaths and clusters of flowers into the wagon and close it up. "In the exceptional cases, the director is an artist, a tem-
porary poet, who is never sure that he won't lose his job. The

March I960 true poet, the true artist, advancing in years, getting older,

Is another reality at all necessary? Is this rosy Roman reality improves his production, rarifies it, refines it, rids it of dross,

not sufficient? Certainly, it is hard to live and be judged in a enriches its spirit. This is possible because he works by him-

city where the one industry is cinema. One ends up believing self and for himself, and his experience with life inevitably
that life is in function of the cinema, one becomes the pho- brings him to an intuitive understanding of ever new myster-

tographic eye, one sees reality as a reflection of what lives and ies. A director on the other hand declines after a certain age,

palpitates on the screen. A dog bites his tail. He ends up because his art has an immediate need of public approval, the

finding it tastes pretty good. basis for which has in the meantime changed. That reality

The night is calm. One overhears conversations that go like which he believes he is portraying is no longer operative, it's

this: over with, it no longer has customers. And now the problem

"In other words, you don't like cinema." arises: at what age does it become necessary to kill a good

"No, I do like it, I even respect it, I make use of it, I am even director?"

something of a slave to it, as I am to all modern comforts. But "Look. There's De Feo, Ercole Patti, Arbasino and Carlo

cinema isn't art or, rather, it is an esculent art, which satisfies Levi. Let's go over there and join them."

a momentary hunger. The trouble is that it pretends to por-

tray reality. So the best film affects me for, say, a year, for September 1954
three, for ten, then it reveals its limits, its true nature, the Cardarelli spoke to me at length about a cinematographic
emotional necessities that produced it... Later on, the pass- project of his. He would like to write, or he would like some-

ing of time turns the reality which the film presumed to fix one to write, a film about 1911. "Of course," he adds, "he

forever into something clumsy and absolutely incomprehen- would have to do research; but I have that year in front of my

sible. The best film challenges a generation and then becomes eyes, just like a film. It's the fiftieth anniversary of National
a document, unbeknownst to itself. It looks at this street, Unity and in Rome they're preparing grandiose festivities: the
24 / ENNIO FLAIANO THE VIA VENETO PAPERS / 25

International Exposition of VaUe Giulia, the Regional Ethno- son." In other words: is it my fault if Vice in Rome quickly
lie Show... The monument to Victor Emmanuel is ded- becomes rational and utilitarian? And my fault if, when not
icated. the Ponte Vittorio Emanuele, the Palace of Justice, in fueled by passion, it becomes simply an external feature, a
short, everywhere, the chintziest architecture imaginable. The costume, a source of satisfaction, a fashion?
Zoological Gardens are also dedicated. Pincio and VUla Borgh- It seems to me that one of the reasons, perhaps the main
ese are joined together, the Capitoline palaces are joined to-
reason, that keeps Rome from being a city of great vices is its
gether with galleries of papier-mache ... And again with
profoundly familiar character, even in the area of corruption.
papier-mache they built a pavilion in Piazza Colonaa, where
It owes this character to its being an agglomeration of large
there's a gallery today. There were cafes, restaurants, a nick-
villages, horrible towards the periphery, all gathered around
elodeon. Here, on Via Veneto, the Excelsior was dedicated.
the nucleus of the ancient city—villages inhabited by first or
Where we're sitting now there was a shop that sold butter
second generation emigrants who have preserved their pro-
and eggs. In Valle Giulia Zuloaga, Franz von Stuck, Mestrovic,
vincial habits and customs. So, in Rome, every great "vice"
Sartorio, Michetti, Klimt, Sergent and a number of other
takes on the trappings of a passtime which becomes boring
pompieroni were triumphant. It is the apotheosis and the
once its novelty wears off. When it comes to vices no one is
liquidation of the whole of the European pompierismo, the more dUficult than the provincial: none agrees with him very
triumph ofpapier-mache and floral-decorated reinforced con-
well, and he ends up by finding them all ridiculous or expen-
crete. Can't such a film be made out of all these triumphs?"
sive, without counting what they do to one's health.
"Yes, very interesting. But, you see..."
The Vice capitals of the world base their fame on alcohol,
"And in addition all the bands are playing to empty seats,
on drugs, on violence, on great passions and, above all, on
because the French newspapers are spreading the word that
Remorse, that is, upon the somber reflections of Sin. In Rome
there is cholera in Rome. All protests are useless. No one is
today no one drinks except at mealtime. To run into a drunk
coming to Rome, the deficit is enormous. The beginnings of
on the streets in the middle of the night is becoming more
our patriotic melancholies coincide precisely with the failure and more unlikely. In some bar on the city's outskirts you may
of the festivities. We pass the most squalid of summers and in
run into one, but now look at him: he's not causing a ruckus,
autumn we go to war in Libya. Another series of disasters
he's not threatening anyone, he's not being thrown out like a
begins. Can't a fUm be done about fumbled triumphs and
sack of potatoes: instead, he's talking soccer with a group of
disasters?"
ironic young men, and that's how they'll round out their
"Cardarelli, that's just what we're doing."
evening. In the bars at the center the city, in Via Veneto bars,
we know who the hard-core drinkers are, there are perhaps a
December I960
hundred of them all told, and after a time they become ob-
Every so often I still find someone who more or less indi-
jects of admiration because they reveal themselves to be sea-
rectly reproaches me for having had a hand in portraying
soned travellers, familiar with the European way of life. Rather
Rome, in La Dolce Vita, as a sink of iniquity. Strange, because
than vice-ridden they feel themselves privileged—they enjoy
I think just the opposite. I would like to answer these people
the esteem of the barmen, and every dispute which involves
with the words of my friend Frassinetti: "There is a kind of
either alcohol or the usages of the bel mondo is deferred to
madness which consists in the loss of everything except rea-
their judgment. The other customers drink coffee, orange-
26 / ENNIO FLAIANO THE VIA VENETO PAPERS / 27

ade and even milk. With many people, uncertainty over ply to comfort their friend by giving it their approval. And you
what to order assumes desperate forms until they finally find will see young men, who wouldn't exert energy for anything
enough courage to say to the waiter, with a profound sigh in the world, wearing themselves out testing the clutch, slam-
that points to an equally profound want of vices: "A coflfee ming the doors to listen for rattles, opening the hood to look
with a little .. . milk." And when the waiter moves off, underneath.
they call him back to remind him: "Cold! Make sure the We were talking about drugs. Certainly, there would be a
milk is cold!" Now these people are not abstemious because better market for them if Romans could buy them without any
they have decided to combat Evil or because they have no risk, just for the novelty. And if their wives and mothers would
money: they are abstemious because they haven't anything do their shopping for them, for when it'a a question of price,
to forget and they want to remain lucid, rational—to give they're the only ones in the family who know how to buy
themselves up to vice, yes, but all the while keeping one wisely. Then, in the pharmacies, cocaine would be sold in
eye open. "family sizes,"and everyone would have a bit of white powder
Drugs haven't fared very well either. They hark back to the on his necktie; perhaps in the exact spot where now, after
other post-war era and are therefore silly; and the joking the dinner, they all have a bit oftalcum. Petrolini ever remains the
sect's few adepts do about their weakness discourages any- poet of this society: "Rina / lei per me la cocaina / se la prende
body from imitating it. Finally, the Roman doesn't need to feel a colazione / pensando a Gastone."
that he is different from what he is, to exalt himself; he ad-
mires himself enough already, he always wears his best clothes May 1962
when he goes for a walk, he takes in everything, he considers Here's something that will make Mario Soldati happy. I saw
himself unsurpassable in at least two principal activities of the his novels and his latest volume of poems, Le canzonette,
mind: film criticism and automobile criticism. These two are displayed in his barber's shop window on Via Veneto. Though
more than suflficient to support the ambitions of his particular it isn't exactly the barber who is displaying them (you can't
superego. If you see two young men talking at the same time have everything in life, Mario). This is what happened: the old
in front of this very cafe at two o'clock in the morning you can barber retired from business and ceded the premises to a
almost bet money on it that they are taking turns explaining Milan publisher, who transformed the "salon" into a book-
why Ingmar Bergman is an already outdated director and store, nay, into an exposition of his products. Where lotions
which of his too many films is sincerely stupid or theatrical. If, were before, behold Arpino, Butor, Tobino, Soldati. For my
instead, you see a little group of young men loitering like part, I was touched. I used to come here too to get my hair
gangsters around an automobile and you fear for the people cut, and Tennessee Williams must have come here as well,
inside, don't be alarmed: those young men are discussing the because he mentions it in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone.
speed, the rate of acceleration, the gasoline mileage of this The interior design was in the solid style of Ducrot 1920, in
model compared to its predecessor. If another young man mahogany and marble. Now, it being a question of Via Veneto,
happens to come by in an ordinary economy car, a new one, the architect knew very well how to give the same tone to the
and announces that he just bought it, all his friends will strug- decor that all the other stores are taking on. And so I'd say this
gle up out of their armchairs to take a look at this utility car is the one and only bookstore that is furnished with the mir-
with which they are already thoroughly well acquainted, sim- rors and vestiges of a beauty parlor. The industry of culture is
28 / ENNIO FLAIANO THE VIA VENETO PAPERS / 29

reaching out to a new pubUc that is sensitive to "gifts" and thizers, but also its very numerous mercenaries, a species of
wrapping-paper. But this may be a nice expression of two manual laborer nowadays being supplied even by the rural
very flagrant characteristics of our contemporary literature: areas. It gives rise to no great amount of spiritual trouble, only
autobiography and vanity. gossip and an occasional horror story for the newspapers.
Back at home, I spent the evening reading Le canzonette, "Responsible" pederasts have this shortcoming: taken one at a
and finally I think I began to understand why Soldati left Rome time, they are all likable, witty, intelligent, drawn to the arts,
once and for all: because the city had begun to appear to him studious; put them together and they make you think of gyp-
like a good-natured demon, accomodating and rational, which sies and mountaineers who immediately form a group, start to
was crushing his idea of sin into pulp: that is, like the worst of sing in harmony or to speak in dialect: unbearable.
demons. What other vices do we have in this dolcissima Roma of
ours? Literature? But the Roman literati are models of practi-
December I960 (continuation, and end) cally every virtue, a healthy exhibitionism not excluded. And
Great passions, great errors? The Roman never commits in what other town have prizes for literature assumed so mod-
great errors and doesn't forgive them in others. He who ex- est and familiar a tone as in Rome, where the prizes are
aggerates is "a fanatic." Rome has no cours de miracles, it awarded right in the house? And where else do there exist the
does not have an undue number of vagrants, the beggars have fine organized excursions on the order of "One day in Capri,
become parking lot attendants, and theirs is a corporation Blue Grotto included," which bring the Reader together with
more closed than the notaries'. Even in the outskirts the sub- a Writer of his choice, offering him his book plus a hot lunch,
proletariat aspires to "redemption," to stable employment all for around 3,000 lire (wine extra)? And where else can
and, lacking anything better, it imparts a seasonal rhythm to anyone, whoever he is, establish an award and give it time and
its enterprises: in winter, it's automobile theft, in spring, purse- time again to whichever writer makes himself easiest to read,
snatching, in summer, hub-caps and spare tires. It takes imag- thereby assuring himself of the understanding of all con-
ination to find this sort of existence arduous and violent. cerned?
Perhaps Rome lacks compulsive gamblers, rebels, go-it- And then there's prostitution. But the appearances which
aloners, idealists, those who will have nothing to do with this activity is obliged to assume are so exhaustingly hypo-
money—personages who add salt to a society. It lacks false critical that, in the end, it turns into pure and simple work,
messiahs, unpublished poets (everybody publishes some- providing to certain families their sole source of income, a
thing), gloomy visionaries, mad speculators, Sunday painters, windfall to tourism, to small business, to short-term lenders,
wandering philosophers: they wouldn't have a public. It lacks, security to the elderly and an occupation to pimps: something
in other words, great sinners. Nay, sin, which is clearly, par with a stronger appeal for the economist than for the moralist.
excellence, carnal sin, is its only true diversion. How much Add it all up and lo! a serene panorama, dominated by
drama and remorse can it possibly be the source of? Rather, it reason. The only great attraction remains Sex which, again par
will be the source of memories and regrets in the old, of new excellence, is Woman. But this leaning the Roman has to-
schemes and new hopes in the forever adventurous young. wards Woman never takes on the aspect of a minous vice, or
Certainly, pederasty has its active participants and sympa- of passion. Sex is a comfort, even vaguely para-familial. Last
50 / ENNIO FLAIANO THE VIA VENETO PAPERS / 31

summer Lily Niagara came to Rome to do her strip-show. tower he was happy, but the next day he was crestfallen when
After four days, in the place where she was performing, mem- the doorman, whom he had sent off to see what he could get
bers of The National Association for Assistance to Workers for that pound or so of silver, returned almost immediately. It
were getting in at reduced prices. wasn't silver.

I accompanied Cardarelli up to his room. The stench was

March 1962 unbearable, I opened the window which looks out onto one
Today, towards seven, the cafes along Via Veneto were al- of those dark, viscid courtyards, inhabited by cats and shel-
most deserted and the basement of Einaudi's bookstore was tering a little cesspool. Here, Via Veneto is only a facade. You
chock-full of critics and writers who had come from every no sooner enter these old buildings than the old Rome of
section of the city, and even from other cities, for the public narrow portals, of dark stairways, of corridors smelling of
presentation of Giorgio Bassani's new novel. The presenting cabbage and mustiness grabs you by the throat. Once upon a
of new books in this fashion, the way kings used to stand on time, towards the end of the century, the gardens of the Lu-
their balconies and present the newly born crown prince to dovisi and of the Boncompagni were here—the tree-lined
the crowd, is recent: a few years ago it would have led to an avenues, the vineyards, the little woods adorned with statues.
author's being covered with ridicule; today it is accepted as a Those in charge of city planning didn't go for that stuff though
form of manifest persuasion, a postulate of mass culture. Five (and they still don't go for it) and decided that Via Veneto
writers, who have read the novel in galley proofs, have woven (then called Via del Cappuccini) would be the central street
together a eulogy. Most acclaim it. Others, with clenched in a district of low-cost housing. The quarter of the rich bour-
teeth, admit that it's a fine novel, well written, but it raises no geoisie, of the high officers of State, of the Piedmontese con-
questions, indeed, it's "built out of memories." Proust is cited. querors, would be instead the Esquiline. "Nunc licet Exquiliis
Soldati even cites himself. On the way out, pushing through a habitare salubribus ..." Accordingly, they gave Piazza Vittorio
crowd (which reminds one of those in the catacombs), some- Emanuele porticos, like those in Turin, with immense build-
one murmurs in my ear the first mindless epigram of the ings, balconies, caryatids. Along Via dei Cappuccini they put
evening: "Isn't it lovely / to live in a place / where Bassani is up tenements. Then, with time, as in a quadrille, rich and poor
mistaken for Proust?" changed places: the poor went into the houses of the rich and
Via Veneto became the fashionable street. It filled up with
April 1959 hotels, with cafes.. . But here in this courtyard you get the
Whenever he's invited to some official party or other, Car- feeling that everything started out badly. The poet's room is
darelli borrows his evening attire—a tuxedo—from the waiter narrow, with a toilet stuck in one corner. His table in a state
at the Gaffe Strega. His latest sortie was yesterday, April 25, to of precarious order. "I don't have anything anymore," Car-
Villa Madama, where he was invited to a dinner in honor of a darelli says with a hint of satisfaction. I see only two photo-
writer who had won the Penna d'Oro. Cardarelli himself also graphs, groups of friends from his faraway youth. Next to the
won a prize recently, the Torre, which is given fairly often, window, the stove. Cardarelli sits on the bed, with his great-
and almost to everybody, in a restaurant close to the Campi- coat on, like an emigrant who is waiting for the ship's depar-
doglio. At the moment in which they gave him his silver ture, or like an earthquake victim who, sitting on the only
32 / ENNIO FLAIANO THE VIA VENETO PAPERS / 33

piece of furniture that he has left, in this way implies that he getting off their shifts, cab drivers just beginning theirs, abu-
is its owner and won't get up from it because he doesn't want sive parking lot attendants, married couples emerging from
to see it carried away. movie houses discussing Antonioni, photographers, tail, gan-
gling Americans, the entire crews ofjet-liners, townsfolk, stu-
May 1959 dents, girls with ruffled hair, young men with high collars,
It had to be two o'clock in the morning, but there was a prostitutes, pimps, street types, playboys. All were applaud-
reflected light from the clouds, which were flying low. Via ing, without knowing for what or for whom. At the wheel of
Veneto was deserted, as if asleep since the beginning of time, his 1937 Fiat 500, the poet Juan Rodolfo Wilcock was de-
its buildings shut tight, dark, with those squalid facades which claiming his immortal verses: "Every morning at dawning,
advertising is unable to brighten up. I heard a rattling of drums this light of violets / sends up a fragrance in the motionless
coming from Porta Pinciana and behold! out from under the little gardens / turns back from the roof of the first cars it
vaults emerges a parade. Leading it were a dozen majorettes, encounters / and enlivens the broken glass scattered among
with bare legs and white suspenders. They were beating on the flowers." I didn't see Pasolini. Where was Pasolini?
their drums, and a tail long-legged girl was rwirling a baton Could his shyness have kept him at home? No, there he was
and catching it in mid-air. Behind them—smiling, responding too, in the middle of a group of young poets and calm,
to the greetings of an invisible crowd—came a group of peo- haughty directors. They were following swarms of girls, ac-
pie whom I seemed to recognize as they passed by: poets and tors, actresses, directors, the juries of literary prizes, worker-
writers, a few painters. An old man, borne upon someone's writers, worker-painters, worker-critics, fellow travellers,
shoulders and closely surrounded like a saint in a procession, misanthropes, sons of celebrities, wives of painters, the
was protesting amiably to his admirers: 'Tou lunatics, what whole one gay confusion.
are you doing, just let me down," and he swayed this way and Flowers were raining down from above. "Where are you
that. I saw Sandro Penna who waved to me, as if apologizing going?" I shouted to De Feo, who was walking along the side-
for having to go on. He would be back, later. SinisgaUi was walk, keeping himself a little out of sight. He answered with a
driving a pretty little jalopy in which all his manuscripts and vague gesture. Running, I found myself once more at the head
drawings—more than a few of them unpublished—were dis- of the parade, which all of a sudden had come to a halt. In the
played behind the windshield. I saw Bassani arm in arm with middle of the street was a man and he was waving his hand to
Alberto Moravia, and Goffi-edo Bellonci between Alberto Ar- indicate that he wanted to speak. It was Cardarelli. In his
basino and Italo Calvino: they were singing. Mario Soldati was somewhat hoarse and subdued voice he was saying: "Friends.
imitating himself, running from one group to another and I have asked you for too much, and you have given me too
reciting a few lines he had written: "About life I am learning little. It has been a marriage of convenience and incompati-
the meaning, / how bitter and how hard it can be: / wisdom is bility. We have not understood each other and we have been
got only by suffring, / much too late, alas, does one see..." unable to communicate. We have suffered so much being
The street, meanwhile, was suddenly filling up with peo- together! But now we must go our separate ways."
pie—as when in Labiche's plays the guests come on stage: In the procession's front rank someone asked: "Who is he
from side streets poured forth swarms of tourists, waiters anyway? What does he want?"
34 / ENNIO FLAIANO THE VIA VENETO PAPERS / 35

Cardarelli was going on: "But you don't know what it is laughing at it. On page 121 and following, De Feo speaks for
that's useful to life. Your word doesn't bear witness. What do example of Via Veneto: "So tonight it's Via Veneto. The spec-
your silences say? There is no system in your silences or in tacle of a charnel house under a green marquee is exactly
your words ..." what it is, but undoubtedly my nerves have been chafed by
"Down in front!" someone shouted. the wind and have made me exaggerate its obscenity and its
"You don't know that words, if they have any value at all, grotesqueness. If I had the strength to do anything at all, I
have it only by virtue of their implications.. ." would start to laugh, the way I laugh when I come to those
"Enough! Music, let's get going again. Long live culture!" moments in the stories of the Marquis de Sade where the
'Tour measure is lacking in freedom and miseriy in author goes too far overboard ..."

hope..." The green marquee ... I forgot all about the latest things:
"Take olGF! Cuckold! Police!" the big umbrellas of the cafe tables have disappeared from Via
"You cannot imagine all the duplicities and sorceries and Veneto, those very umbrellas which made it resemble a beach.
abuses of intelligence among men!" They have replaced them with long marquees of iron covered
"Silence! Beat the drums! Continue!" with cloth and also with shingles of transparent material.
"We have shared a consciousness without horizons. It has When evening comes, neon lights go on under the marquees.
forever covered us over and exhausted its continuity. Upon
every new occasion, when we have separated, we have been June 1959
curt and threatening. And now it's time for us to bid each Yesterday, the 15th of June, Cardarelli died at the Poly-
other farewell." clinic, where he had been for a month. A great devotee of
At this point the procession started to move on again, Leopardi, he also died (almost) like Leopardi, through an
squawking and clamoring. And at this point I woke up. indigestion caused by ice-cream, which then degenerated into
bronchial pneumonia. For a month he had been unable to
June 1962 speak: only every so often, when someone came into his room,
I am reading Sandro De Feo's Gli inganni. The story takes he would say, softly: "Tedious people."
place in Rome, in a single day. Perhaps on account of some- Fellini is finally shooting La Dolce Vita at Cinecitta. In a
thing insistent and breathless in the narrative, it is like a gust studio, he has put together a piece of Via Veneto, not the
of wind that gathers up dust, leaves, waste paper, and even corner where the poet lived but the more recent and crowded
some precious and imponderable material, our own life, our corner by the Cafe de Paris. Standing in front of that impla-
useless illusions, an dfort of years, a love for a city which is cable reconstruction I almost started laughing, but immedi-
unique and that leaves one loving it and despising it, depend- ately afterwards a biting melancholy took hold of me. In a
ing on the moods and the sights it oflfers. The true Rome is in projection room, I saw a few clips from the film. Fellini's
shadow, it shows itself with the years and becomes a land- elated portrait, his ampUfication of that world of Via Veneto
scape of the memory, a part of ourselves: the most secret and recalls the wax museum, the images of Lenten preachers as
unique part, from which a certain salvation can come to us. they describe the flesh putrifying and corrupting. It reminds
The other Rome can irritate us, but it reveals too much of its me of those big paintings of Valdes Leal that are at the Hos-
complacent game to become really dangerous. One ends up pital de la Caridad in Seville, where ornamental scrolls float
36 / ENNIO FLAIANO

over the cadavers of bishops and read: Pints gloriae mundi.

Fellini a Lenten preacher? It's a tempting hypothesis. "Perhaps
I could put Cardarelli in a corner, like a sort of premonition
lying in wait." "He died yesterday," I say to him. "Sure, you
see?"

Occasional Notebooks