Note: Translator Pauline Bancroft Flach died in 1966, less than 70 years ago. Therefore, this work is protected by copyright, restricting your legal rights to reproduce it. However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now. Read more about copyright.
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PAN EM ET CIR CENSES 193
II
PANEM ET CIRCENSES
In Diamante travellers are often shown two palaces
that are falling into ruins without ever having been
completed. They have big window-openings
without frames, high walls without a roof, and wide doors
closed with boards and straw. The two palaces
stand opposite each other on the street, both equally
unfinished and equally in ruins. There are no
scaffoldings about them, and no one can enter them.
They seem to be only built for the doves.
Listen to what is told of them.
What is a woman, O signore? Her foot is so
little that she goes through the world without
leaving a trace behind her.. For man she is like his
shadow. She has followed him through his whole
life without his having noticed her.
Not much can be expected of a woman. She has
to sit all day shut in like a prisoner. She cannot
even learn to spell a love-letter correctly. She
cannot do anything of permanence. When she is
dead there is nothing to write on her tombstone.
All women are of the same height.
But once a woman came to Diamante who was as
much above all other women as the century-old palm
is above the grass. She possessed lire by
thousands, and could give them away or keep them, as
she pleased. She turned aside for no one. She
*3
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