The Garden of the Finzi-Continis Read Free Page B

glittering bosom, it was equally true that al gatt, and he alone, had got together the thousands of acres in the bassa,*[ * The part of the Po delta which is in the province of Ferrara.] between Codigoro, Massa Fiscaglia and Jolanda di Savoia, on which even today most of the family’s wealth was based. The monumental tomb in the cemetery: that was the only mistake (of taste, above all) of which you could accuse Moise Finzi-Contini. But besides that, nothing.
    This was the way my father talked: especially at Passover, during the long dinners that still took place in our house even after the death of my grandfather Raffaello, which about twenty relations and friends attended; but at Kippur as well, when the same friends and relations came to us to end their fast.
    But I remember a Passover supper in the course of which, to the usual criticisms-bitter and general and always the same, and made above all for the pleasure of reviving the old stories of the Jewish community-my father added something new and surprising.
    It was in 1933, the year when the Fascist Party was opened to everyone.
    Thanks to the “clemency” of the Duce, who suddenly, as if inspired, had decided to open his arms to every one of “yesterday’s agnostics and enemies”, the number of Fascist Party members had risen suddenly to 90 per cent, even in the circle of our Jewish community. And my father, who was sitting there at his usual place at the head of the table, the place in which my grandfather Raffaello had presided for many years with a very different authority and severity, had not failed to welcome the event. The rabbi, Dr. Levi-he said-had been quite right to mention it in his sermon recently at the Italian synagogue, when, in the presence of the highest city authorities-the Prefect, the Federal Secretary, the Podesta* the commander of the local garrison-he had commemorated the granting of the constitution.
    And yet Papa wasn’t entirely happy about it. In his boyish blue eyes, brimming withpatriotic ardour, I saw a shadow ofdisappointment. So something must be needling him, some small unexpected and unpleasant obstacle.
    And, as a matter of fact, having started counting on his fingers how many of us, how many of us judim in Ferrara were still “outside”, and having at last reached Ermanno Finzi-Contini, who had never joined the party, it was true, but considering what an important landowner he was, it wasn’t really very easy to see why not; suddenly, as if sick of himself and his own discretion, he decided to tell us about two odd things that seemed to have no connection-he said-but were no less significant for all that.
    The first was that when Geremia Tabet, the lawyer, had, as a SansepolcristaJ and intimate friend of the
    * The head of the municipal administration under the Fascists.
    t This was the Constitution granted in 1848 by Carlo-Alberto, King of Sardinia, to his Piedmontese and Sardinian subjects and then adopted in 1861 by the kingdom ofltaly.
    J Those who had become fascists before the March on Rome in 1922 were referred to by this name, which is derived from a meeting held in piazza San Sepolcro in MUan in 1919; in a sense this meeting marked the birth of Italian fascism.
    Federal Secretary, gone to Barchetto del Duca just to offer professor Ermanno a membership card, already filled in, it had not only been returned to him, but shortly afterwards, very politely of course, but quite firmly, he had been shown out.
    “But how did he get out of it?” someone asked plaintively. “I never heard that Ermanno Finzi-Contini was all that tough.”
    “How did he get out ofjoining?” said my father, laughing violently. “Oh, the usual stuff: that he’s a scholar (I’d like to know what the hell he’s working at!), that he’s too old, that he’s never taken any part in politics, etc. etc. Anyway, he was pretty cunning about it, our friend was. He must have noticed Tabet’s black look