“A Love Letter” by Dino Buzzati (Italian, 1906 – 1972)
Enrico Rocco, 31 years old, manager of a trading company, in love, closed the door of his office. The thought of her had become so powerful and agonizing that he found the strength to do it. He would write to her, casting aside any shred of pride or modesty.
“Excellent signorina,” he began, and at the mere thought that she would see the marks left by his pen on the paper, his heart began to race. “Gracious Ornella, my Beloved, dear soul, my light, fire that burns me, obsession of my nights, smile, little flower, my Love…”
Ermete the office boy entered. “Excuse me, Signor Rocco, there is a gentleman who’s come to see you. His name,” (he looked at the card in his hand) “is Manfredini.”
“Who, Manfredini? Never heard of him. Besides, there’s no time now, this is very urgent. Have him come back tomorrow or some other time.”
“I think, Signor Rocco, that he is a tailor. He must be here for a fitting.”
“Oh, Manfredini! Well, tell him to come tomorrow.”
“Yessir, but he said you were the one who summoned him.”
“That’s true, true…” he sighed. “So, ask him to come in, but tell him to hurry it up, two seconds.”
The tailor Manfredini came in with a suit. It could be called a fitting – Rocco put it on for a few moments and then removed it, giving the tailor only enough time to make two or three marks with his chalk. “Forgive me, but I’ve got something extremely important to do right now. Goodbye, Manfredini.”
He sat down again eagerly at his writing desk and began to write again: “Holy spirit, creature, where are you in this moment? What are you doing? I think of you with such strength that my love must reach you, no matter how far away you are, even on the other side of the city, that seems to me a remote island across the seas…” (How strange this is, he thought – how can you explain a positive man like me, an organizer of commerce, all of a sudden beginning to write things of this sort? Is this some kind of madness?)
Just then the phone at his side began to ring. It was as if a saw of freezing metal had ripped across his back. “Hello?” he gasped.
“Ciaooo,” said a woman in an indolent miao. “What a deep voice you have… Tell me, it seems I’ve misunderstood something.” “Who is it?” he asked. “Oh, you’re impossible today, look…” “Who is it?” “But wait at least for me…” He hung up the receiver and took up his pen to continue writing.
“Listen, my love,” he wrote, “outside there is fog, a humid, freezing fog smelling of oil and pollution, but did you know that I envy it? Did you know that in a moment I would change…”
“Brrr” went the telephone. It gave him a jolt like a 200-volt burst of electricity. “Hello?” “But Enrico!” said the voice of a minute ago. “I’ve come to the city just to greet you, and you…”
He hesitated, still somewhat disoriented. It was Franca, his cousin, a nice girl and pretty too, who for the last few months had been showing an interest in him – who knows how the idea had got into her head. Women are well-known for constructing unlikely romances. Of course, there was no decent way to tell her to scram.
But he stifled his impulse to do so. Anything in order to finish the letter. It was the only way to calm the fire that burned inside him, by writing to Ornella, who seemed to have entered his life in some way. Perhaps she would read it to the end, would smile and place the letter in her purse, and the page that he was covering with senseless phrases might soon have come in contact with the lovely small perfumed things that were miraculously hers, with the lip pencil, the embroidered handkerchief, with all the enigmatic trinkets laden with disturbing intimacy. And now, bewilderingly, here was Franca.
“Say, Enrico,” said the voice on the phone, drawling. “Do you want me to come meet you at the office?” “No, I’m sorry but I have loads to do here.” “Oh, no need to be overly polite – if I bore you, forget I suggested it. See you later.” “God, don’t take me wrong – I’ve just got some things to do. So, come a bit later.” “Later as in when?” “You can come… in two hours.”
Slamming down the receiver onto its cradle, it seemed to him as though he was hopelessly behind now. The letter should be mailed by one, otherwise it would only reach its destination the next day. No, he would send it express mail.
“…in a moment I would change into it,” he wrote, “when I think that this fog surrounds your house and moves in undulations to your room, and if it had eyes – who knows, perhaps even the fog may see – it could contemplate you through the window. And don’t you think there might be a crack, a tiny interstice to enter through? A miniscule sigh, no more than that, a light breath like imperceptible cotton that caresses you? That’s all the fog needs, all love…”
Ermete the office boy was at the door. “Pardon me…” “I already told you that I’ve got an urgent job to do. Tell them I’m out and I’ll be coming back this evening.”
“But…” “But what?” “Downstairs, Commander Invernizzi is waiting in his car.”
Damn, Invernizzi was the site inspector at the shop where there had been a fire. The meeting with the appraisers – damn him for not thinking of it, he had totally forgotten. No one was a saint.
The agony that burned inside him, just around his sternum, reached a level he could hardly stand. Should he tell them he was sick? Impossible. Finish up the letter in its current state? But he still had so many things to tell her, very important things. Discouraged, he put the letter in a drawer. He grabbed his hat and left, the only thing to do was to try to take care of it quickly. In half an hour, with God’s help, he might be able to return.
In fact it was twenty to one when he got back. He saw three or four new people sitting in the waiting room. Panting, he leaped into his office, sat down at his writing table and opened the drawer. But the letter was no longer there.
The tumult in his heart almost took his breath away. Who could have been rummaging around his desk? Or was he mistaken? On a whim he opened the other drawers one by one.
Thank God – he had gotten confused, the letter was there after all. But it would be impossible to post it before one. Never mind – and his reasoning (on such a simple and banal topic) galloped ahead in his mind, alternating in an exhausting way between anxiety and hope – never mind, if an express mailing arrived in time to be delivered on the last run of the evening, or… even better, he could give it to Ermete to carry, no no, better not to involve the office boy in this delicate matter, he would carry it himself.
“…so little is necessary in love” he wrote “to conquer space and cross…”
“Brrr,” the telephone again, rabidly. Without dropping the pen, he raised the receiver with his left hand.
“Hello?” “Hello, this is the secretary’s office of His Excellency Tracchi.”
“Go ahead.” “This regards the import license for the supplying of cables to…”
Blast it! This was an enormous affair, his future depended on it. The discussion lasted twenty minutes.
“…cross” he wrote, “the Great Wall of China. Oh, dear Orn…”
The office boy at the door again. Enrico lit into him savagely. “Did you understand that I’m not able to see anyone?” “But it’s the Inspec…” “No one, nooo oone!” he howled like an animal. “The Inspector of Finances who says he has an appointment.”
He felt his strength ebb away. To send the inspector away would be insane, a kind of suicide, his undoing. He received the inspector.
Now it was one thirty-five. There was the cousin Franca who had been waiting for three quarters of an hour. And then the engineer Stolz, who had come especially from Geneva. And the lawyer Messumeci, about the dockyard workers. And the nurse who came every day to give him his injection.
The telephone. “Commendator Stazi from the Ministry of Commerce here.” The telephone. “This is the secretary of the Confederation of Consortia…”
“Oh my lovely Ornella” he wrote “I’d like you to kn…”
The office boy Ermete at the door to announce Doctor Bi, vice-prefect.
“…to know” you wrote “th…”
The telephone: “The head of the General Staff.” The telephone: “This is the private secretary of His Eminence the Archbishop…”
“…that I wa…” he wrote feverishly with his last breath.
“Brr, brrr,” the telephone. “This is the first president of the Court of Appeals.” “Hello, hello!” “The Supreme Counselor here, Senator Cormorano.” “Hello, hello!” “This is the first aide-de-camp of His Majesty the Emperor…”
Overwhelmed, he was carried away by the waves. “Hello, hello! Yes, it’s me, your Excellency, I’m immensely grateful! But of course, right away, yes General, I will provide it in no time, my infinite thanks. Hello, hello! Certainly, your Majesty, at once, with undying devotion…” The pen, abandoned, slowly rolled to the edge of the desk, stopped for a moment, poised there, then plummeted to the ground, breaking its nib, and there it lay.) “Please make yourself at home, come right in, no, if you permit me, it might be better if you sat in that very comfortable armchair, but what an unexpected honor, absolutely, oh thank you, a coffee, cigarette?”
How long did the whirlwind last? Hours, days, months, millennia? As night fell he found himself alone, finally.
But before leaving the office, he wanted to bring a semblance of order to the pamphlets, folders, projects and protocols that had accumulated on his desk. Under the immense pile he found a sheet of paper with someone’s handwriting on it. He recognized it as his own.
Out of curiosity, he read it. “What nonsense, what idiotic phrases. Who knows when I might have written this?” he asked himself, searching his memory in vain, with a sense of annoy