Home > Author > Louis de Bernières
181 " bear in mind that this time around it was impossible to become a senior officer by merit alone; it was done by browning the tongue. "
― Louis de Bernières , Corelli's Mandolin
182 " The DUCE diverted funds intended for the Fiume adventure, and used them for His own election campaign. He was arrested for the illegal possession of arms, sent parcel bombs to the Archbishop of Milan and its mayor, and after election was, as is well-known, responsible for the assassination of Di Vagno and Matteoti. Since then He has been responsible for the murders of Don Mizzoni Amendola, the Rosselli brothers, and the journalist Piero Gobetti, quite apart from the hundreds who have been the victims of His squadistri in Ferrara, Ravenna and Trieste, and the thousands who have perished in foreign places whose conquest was useless and pointless. We Italians remain eternally grateful for this, and consider that so much violence has made us a superior race, just as the introduction of revolvers into Parliament and the complete destruction of constitutional democracy have raised our institutions to the greatest possible heights of civilisation.Since the illegal seizure of power, Italy has known an average of five acts of political violence per diem, the DUCE has decreed that 1922 is the new Annus Domini, and He was pretended to be a Catholic in order to dupe the Holy Father into supporting Him against the Communists, even though He really is one Himself. He has completely suborned the press by wrecking the premises of dissident newspapers and journals. In 1923 he invaded Corfu for no apparent reason, and was forced to withdraw by the League of Nations. In 1924 He gerrymandered the elections, and He has oppressed minorities in the Tyrol and the North-East. He sent our soldiers to take part in the rape of Somalia and Libya, drenching their hands in the blood of innocents, He has doubled the number of the bureaucracy in order to tame the bourgeoisie, He has abolished local government, interfered with the judiciary, and purportedly has divinely stopped the flow of lava on Mt Etna by a mere act of will. He has struck Napoleonic attitudes whilst permitting Himself to be used to advertise Perugina chocolates, He has shaved his head because He is ashamed to be seen to be going bald, He has been obliged to hire a tutor to teach Him table manners, He has introduced the Roman salute as a more hygienic alternative to the handshake, He pretends not to need spectacles, He has a repertoire of only two facial expression, He stands on a concealed podium whilst making speeches because He is so short, He pretends to have studied economics with Pareto, and He has assumed infallibility and encouraged the people to carry His image in marches, as though He were a saint. He is a saint, of course.He has (and who are we to disagree?) declared Himself greater than Aristotle, Kant, Aquinas, Dante, Michelangelo, Washington, Lincoln, and Bonaparte, and He has appointed ministers to serve Him who are all sycophants, renegades, racketeers, placemen, and shorter than He is. He is afraid of the Evil Eye and has abolished the second person singular as a form of address. He has caused Toscanini to be beaten up for refusing to play 'Giovinezza', and He has appointed academicians to prove that all great inventions were originally Italian and that Shakespeare was the pseudonym of an Italian poet. He has built a road through the site of the forum, demolishing fifteen ancient churches, and has ordered a statue of Hercules, eighty metres high, which will have His own visage, and which so far consists of a part of the face and one gigantic foot, and which cannot be completed because it has already used up one hundred tons of metal. "
183 " What's the matter with you? How can you, a musician, an educated man, come here with your mandolin and make beautiful tunes to a Greek, when all around you the island is pillaged and despoiled? And don't give me any of that shit about the restoration of the Roman Empire. If you really want to know, it was Greece that educated Rome, and we didn't do it by conquest either. What's the matter with you? "
184 " I am ashamed. I play a diminshed chord because I am diminished. "
185 " This is a very ancient land, and we've had nothing but slaughter for two thousand years. Sacrifices, wars, murders, nothing but bad deaths. We've got so many places full of bitter ghosts that anyone who goes near them or lives in them becomes heartless or insane. I don't believe in God, Captain, and I'm not superstitious, but I do believe in ghosts. "
186 " They passed each other at the door, she going out, and he returning from work. Unselfconsciously she put one hand up to his left cheek and, in passing, kissed him on the other.He was astonished, and, by the time that she reached the entrance to the yard, so was she, because it was not until then that she suddenly realized what she had done. She stopped dead, as though having walked straight into a metaphysical but palpable stone wall. She felt her blood rising to the roots of her hair, and realised that she did not dare look back at him. Undoubtedly he too would be rooted to the spot. She could almost feel his eyes travelling from her feet to her head, finally settling upon the back of her head in the expectation that she would turn around. He called out, as she knew he would, 'Kyria Pelagia.''What?' she demanded curtly, as though an effort to be short with him could cancel out the hideously simple way in which she had betrayed her affection without even thinking about it.'What's for dinner?''Don't tease me.''Would I tease you?''Don't make anything of it. I thought you were my father. I always kiss him like that when he comes in.''Very understandable. We are both old and small.''If you are going to tease me, I shall never speak to you again.'He came up behind her and around her, and threw himself upon his knees before her. 'O no,' he cried, 'anything but that.' He bowed his head to the ground and moaned piteously, 'Have mercy. Shoot me, flog me, but don't say you'll never speak to me.' He grasped her about the knees and pretended to weep.'The whole village is looking,' she protested, 'stop it at once. You are so embarrassing, get off me.''My heart is broken,' he wailed, and he grasped her hand and began to smatter it with kisses.'Stupid goat, you are deranged.''I am tormented, I am burning, I am broken into pieces, my eyes spout forth with tears.' He leaned back and gestured poetically with his fingers to portray the extraordinary cascade of invisible tears that he intended her to envisage. 'Don't laugh at me,' he continued, having struck upon a new tack. 'O, light of my eyes, do not mock poor Antonio in his affliction.''Are you drunk again?''Drunk with sorrow, drunk with agony. Speak to me.''Did your battery win another football match? "
187 " I am ashamed. I play a diminished chord because I am diminished. "
188 " The goat herder was so unaccustomed to human company that he was short of words even in his inner speech.It was common knowledge that the Yugoslavs hated each other more than they could ever hate a foreigner or an invader.A guilty man wishes only to be understood, because to be understood is to appear to be forgiven.Atrocities are something nothing less than the vengeance of the tormented.The human heart likes a little disorder in its geometry.Love delayed is lust augmented. "
189 " It's true,' said the doctor. "I know you have not thought about it. Italians always act without thinking, it's the glory and the downfall of your civilisation. A German plans a month in advance what his bowel movements will be at Easter, and the British plan everything in retrospect, so it always looks as though everything occurred ass they intended. The French plan everything whilst appearing to be having a party, and the Spanish . . . well, god knows. Anyway, Pelagia is Greek, that's my point. So can it work? "
