BOCCIA DUEL

AluM"dro Pallolini jui"ed the FaICi8t Party in 1921, ,,'/,~n f1,c Im8 ~igllJcc",

and b~ca"ttl Party S~cretary jor Florence wltile Mill in h;~ twentiu. Harri·ng)OlUJllt 08 (J wl/mtter in Ih. Aby88inkm ,,'Or ill 1936, Ite 'NUl Italy's Mini81er ojPubuc E"ligllJellmnil a/l(l Propagallda front 1938 to 1!H3 and IIltln Editor ojRowe'. K.adi/iV 1Itl1l:..paper "n Meuaggero," A,rrul~d by BadDglio, he fm8 jreedby Ifle Germans and i8 11OU' S«relary Ge/lt"TlII of the Party and one oj lhe cW&eMcollabomlor8 oj tlte Duct. Bul apart fro'" all Ihi8, Pa"'()/i,,i i8 regarded 08 Ofte ojlite 0I/I8tandi"!! aulftor8 oj Fa8Ci8t [t«ly.

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WHEK Pirro amI Ermete played Boccia,the whole viUa.ge of Due \'ie stoodaround the alley looking on, Li DueVic really a village 1 It might be

more correct to say: a zone, a shallow valleyof vineyards, fields, and peach orcharilit. Onlydown at the bottom, where the d".c vi , thetwo roads, meet, cottugetl squat a little closertogether. There is a well there, too, stablesfor the cattle, llud two gas stations, but mostimportant of all there is the tobacco t\gencyof Ulpiano with a bar and a booc'a alIe:}" ,

Although Pirro and Ermete had knowll eachother from birth, they would never use thefamiliar" thou" when speaking to eaoh other.They had never lacked moti \"es for secretdisputes; they always managed to find someslight pretext for open ami emphatic ho.'itility.Typical was the affair of the famous range ofhills of Pomentino, on whioh (for reasons whioh,in spite of lengthy dillcuesion in Due Vie,have always remained a mystery) tbe peachesachieve /l. more exquisite fragrance than any­where else. 111 this ditlpute, Pirro had beenthe victor. Now be OWlIL-'d Pomelltino afterba.ving fought his way through an intricateand ooautifully confnsed network of mort­gages, loans, and marringcll to its f>08l'\C88ion.0" anot.her occasion conceming tbe group ofhouses at the crossroads and Ulpiano's shop,it wa.s Ermote who had succeeded by amasterpiece of trickery in the board of director..of the Agricultural Hank inooquiring the de. irable propertyfor himself.

In this way they had gradually­for the mOElt Pilot turn and turnabout--divided up among them·selvcs all that was nluable in Dueno: the fertile tracts, the mill,tho clay pit, the concession for thetwo ga.':I stations, and the insuranceagencies. To the unfortunate land­owners they had squeeud out"they gave loans, rented out thresb·ing rnl\.Chinc~, and sold fertilizer

and ferment!;. Only Ulpiano's inll 'was able­to hold its own, so thLllt it was considereda neutral ground on which the two adversariescould meet. Otherwise, aU the village in­habitants had more or lellS to pay tribute tothe two.

For a Pirro, tills was all astonishing achieve­llIent in life. He was the son of an estatemanager; having become an estate managerhimself, he ended up by gradually buying outhis master and moving into the latter's villa.

Ermete had started out as a sexton in asmall convent. Then he rose to the owner·ship of the convent vegetable garden until hegot the administration and later the wholeconvent into h", hands. He turned it into arest home for tired old ladies.

Maybe their wealth WM very modest, judgedby the standards of rich townspeople. Butto amass this fortune in that little comer ofthe world, nmong parsimonious people livingone on top of the other, needed the sametenacity and cunning lUI a Morgan or Ii

Rockefeller had needed for scraping togethertheir riches iu America.

However, the horizon of t,heir world stillWU8 the Pomentino rauge, It was not modestybut pride whioh kept them from lookingbeyond: as long as they remained in Due Vie,they were sure to remain the first. They didnot run aJter the greater, more remote pos­sibilities. That would have meant for each

of them to leave the field to titother and to acknowledge the vic­tory of the other side. Theypreferred not to give wayan inch:they were cllll.ined togethcl' bygreed and pnvy, but aJso by aualmo I. artistic passion which forcedthem constantly to challenge eachotlU'r or get the better of the otherwith a dry plea.sure. Hut ill ad­dition to thi. they were also boundto the world of "Due "ie bv tht'perfume of the pell('he' andgrape',

BOCCIA DUEL 155

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IT is for sucb natlU't's that the bocc'ill bowlssccm to have been cl'eaterl. The idea of thegame is toO drive out one's partner f!'Om his

position and to place oneself there. In playingboccia" the greatest thrill is not so much one'sown victory as the defeat of the other fellow.ThmlC heavy, dried·out, cracked wooden ballsnre your means, the cards of your game. theartiHel'Y of your campaign. You must try tobuild them aronnd the lit,tIe ball, the bocci·tw,known Illso as the "little chap." When youhave encircled the "little chap," you have won.

But.. my dear fellow, now it's my turn.Watch my bowl spL'Cding along, a nice, round,innocent thing. Listen how lightly it hits thegrollnd: YOll are right, perhaps with a slightlyhollow, spiteful thud. But how lightly it rollsalong, how innocently it approaches the sideof the alley, so innocently, as if it were notat all concerned with the alley, as if its urgcfor freedom were driving it· out of the alleyinto the tomatOl'S. Surely my uowl has nodesigns whu.tever upon your troops. But whatis it doing now~ It is whizzing along theedgc of the alley like a, racing cydistill the curve of the race track. Andnow-but that is not pOllsiblc!-yes,now it is crashing right into youI'posit,iou, by mere chance, of COUIse(but, listen how gleefully it handsout dry cracks on all sides). Strange,now it is actually pW3hing your mena.way; th~y have suddenly become(l'lite ha.rmless. But my bowl isgiving the"little chap" one last littledig in the side, which sounds to yOIllike a toast to your health, and thenit settles down right beside him.

Thc onlookl'rs stood admiring thill game­in that double obsequiousncss they OWl'd theirlords and masterll, More and more peoplc gath­ered arollnd Ulpiano's boccia alley: for, bl'­side pvcrything elsc', this game took for themthe plllcc of t.lll' theater and movies, of whichthere wt'rc none in Vue Vie anyway.

But a game is always also a theater per­formance. 1"01' the villagers the boccia alleybCCUDW, during those ra.re lllutchcti betweenI~rmet<' ami Pirro, the village itself. the valleyitst'lf. The wooden pla.nks bordered the alleyjust as the slopt's of the hills bordt'red thevalley; the howl:; lay there in all their fat glol'YliS did the melons and pumpkins all uver theva-Iley. The two cutthroats, finally, foughtthere with tht'ir throws for the spa,co aroundthe "little cbap" just as otbt'l'wise thC'y rolledtheir muncy for lJ, fa.l'ln.

ONE fine evening in spring a vt'ry natund,but m'vl'rtbeless \'l'ry t'xciting thing haJJ­pcned.

Up till then, Viola l:lpiano ha.d been forall guests at. the inn just a. little girl; askinny little t1't'e withuut fruit, at most with

a hiJ1t of that t,artness which gives an ink­ling more of the stone than of the juice.

In the valley of the peaches, however, aBingle season is all that is needed to ripen tomsturity, One day Viola put on for the firsttime a very thin pink blouse, and that sud­denly made the fact of her maturity evident,.Over night it had. become an obvious realitywhich everyone perceived, as if the light hadsuddenly been llwitched on, In thc heart ofDue Vie a woman had flared up like a light.

So att.ractive, so desirable djd she suddenlyseem to the people of Due Vie that they im­mediately went on to think, although reallyagainst their own will: Ermete and Pirromust fight it out for this girl.

And indeed, from now on the two bache­101'8 came more often to Ulpiano's shop; withloud voices they would remark in pa88ing onthe charms of the t.ime of betrotha.l and ofmarried life, As usual, here again the inteu­tions of one goaded on those of the other,Both of them, however, were in a certainhurry, as countless young fellows from the

neighborhood were also already buz­zing a.round t.hc girl.

Moreover, t.hese young men werenot nearly as respecUul toward wealthas were their fathers, uncle8, grand­fathers, or other older people of DueVie, These young men had grownup in times of strife and had seensomething of the world. They playedtheir gamcfoI no longer at the boecia.allev of Due Vie but at the stadiumin the city. Aucl when oue of the twogreat rivals appeared a.t Viola

Ulpiuno's, these young fellows did notregard it at aU as their duty to stand backrespectfully like theil' fathers.

Viola, incidentally, by no meanH disdainedthe two village grandees. She smiled just allswe.etly at the ex-sexton us at the tenant'sson; but she alsu smiled at the young fellows.She smiled almollt all the time, perhaps be,·calise she had good teeth; perhal)s also becausl',by stimulating ft little jealousy, she hoped toaccelerate the declarations of the two suitors,The older villagers, who had already madehigh bets on Yiola's cboice, praised this femininestrategy all wille.

It- was on a :::l11l\dav thn,t Ermetc and Pirl'Oullexpectedly met rigEl, ill £l'Ont of the girl.The cOllversatiou among the thret' was leavenedwith slight hints which were directed at aforulal demand for Viola's decision. Bllt insteadof wttitiug fur this decision, Ermete suddenlypl'oposed to his rival a game on the bocciaalley, to tako place a week frour then. ThereWl~ll of courllC, no dil'ect connect,ion betweenthis eha.))cnge and the preceding conversation.So the boccia game was not in the least to beplayed for Viola.. Nevert.heless, there was acrowd lining t.he boccia alley 011 the following

156 THE XXt.h CENTURY

Sunday. The old people were assembled infull. And when the "little chap" rolled lightlyon to the hard· beaten ground and lay therein the alley to give a meaning to the wholegame, they all looked at it with a certainamount of irony mixed partly with tenderness,partly with regret, because everybody presentthought of the pretty girl's fate.

It ha.ppencd to be a·n afternoon late in,July, hot, and never ending. Pirro squatted inhis shirt sleeves on the grass embankment,sweating like anything. But when he wantooto place Ilis bowls near the "little chap," hecould make his paws look wicked, tender, orexquisite-as the instant demanded. Pale, slimErmeto, on the other hand, applied to his!ihots, aimed at blasting away his opponent,that furious but steady power with which asIt boy he had pulled at the bell ropes for theAngelus.

The crushed old people, wbo followed thegame with humility and admiration, thoughtthat the two were courageous, shrewd, anddominating. How nobly they were combatingfor that last, perfect spice of their wealth thatwas to give meaning to their life and a contentto their life's work!

Ulpiano went back and forth with tbedrinks, frequently serving himself, too. Helooked a little depressed. Was it the alcohoHOh no, he was only thinking about bis Viola,who was so soon to leave his bouse. Mter all,t,hat is no small matter for a father. Violaherself was not to be seen. Such restraint andbasWulness were still appreciated in Duo Vie!

But toward evening Ulpiano could simplynot stltnd it any longer. He confided to thepostman that Viola had alreadynm away early in the morning,wit.h "one of those fellows there."

"I am desperate," Ulpiano

BOOK

Le Neolithlque de la Chine (The Neolithic Periodof China). by Pierre Tei/hard de Chardin and Pei Wen.(.'}ttmg. (1~el.:illg, 194-1. 1tl.slitut de Glob·t%gie, 100 pp.•2 maps.)

With its 100 pages, -18 illu!!trations, and 2 maps,this Jo'rench work provides a clear pict.ure of all tbatis knowu so far about. the neolithic period of China.Hence it should prove a welcome publicution not only

sobbed, moved to tears by his dejection. Butthen it was probably more the wine thanViola which was to blame for this dejection.

Now the postman told everybody the news"in strict confidence." He carried it from earto ear, just as otherwise he carried. his postcards from door to door. When the gameapproached its end, when Pirro and Ermetewere playing the most difficult, indeed, tbedecisive round of their lives, everybody knewalready what bad actually happened.

And this common secret was laid like adisenchanting chain around the vain suspenseof the two unsuspecting players. It madetheir wild gestures roll out senselessly into avacuum, like the gesticulations of rustic actorsbefore a cruel, sophisticated metropolitan public.

The two combatants seemed strangely agedto the onlookers; almost in a Hash peoplenoticed aU the wrinkles in their faces. Thetwo, however, kept on staring at the "littlechap" as if it were made of gold, and in theireyes dwelt the greed and rivalry of two lives.Silently the onlookers were anticipating themoment in which the two would finally realizethat in reality all their desperate struggle hadbeen aimed at nothing more than the maltreat·ment of a little ball of cracked wood, a worn·out ball of 110 value whatever.

Nevertheless, what rema.ined of tills eventwas something important: the delicious feelingof general revenge.

The bowls rolled on, while evening shadowscame to nest in the valley. The sun threw onelast ray at the royal peaches of Pomentino,but then it rapidly disappeared from thevalley of Due Vie. But it gilded the plain be·

yond the range of hills for a few mill·utes longer, as a salute to the prettyfugitive, who laughed more gailythat evening than ever before.

REVIEW

for experts but also for the layman. The work touchcson 80 JDany sides of t,he subject t hut it is impo!l8iblofor us to review them in detail here. Tl,ere is a mis·print on page 85. however, which we must point. out:according to t.he HongkollU NaJura/i.st (1032.19361, thearchaeological discoveries on Lnnllna Island were mndeby Pere D. J. Finn, not by P. FlytUl. - Dr. H.Hone.