From the novel "Marcovaldo" by Italo Calvino.
I want to keep it on my blog like flowers in a vase.
The night lasted twenty seconds, and twenty seconds the GNAC. For twenty seconds you could see the blue sky of variegated dark clouds, the golden crescent of the Crescent Moon, highlighted by an impalpable aura, and then the stars that looked over the more pungent thickened their smallness, until the dusting of the Milky Way, everything This hastily written, every detail on which we stopped was something of all that was lost, because twenty seconds and ended immediately began the GNAC. The GNAC
was a part of writing advertising SPAAK COGNAC-facing roof, which was twenty seconds and twenty turned off, and when it was on you could not see anything else. The moon faded and the sky suddenly became uniformly flat black, the stars lost their sparkle, and cats and cats that ten-second launch howled languid love moving towards each other along the eaves and cornices, now, with GNAC, crouched on the roof sleeping upright in glowing neon light.
Overlooking the attic where he lived, the family of Marcovaldo was crossed by opposing currents of thought. There was the night Isolina, who was now a big girl, she was transported to the moonlight, her heart was dying, and to the more muted croak of radio from the lower floors of the building came as the toll of a serenade, was the GNAC and the radio seemed to seize another rhythm, a rhythm
jazz, and Isolina thought of dancing lights and all you poor thing up there alone.
Pietruccio Michelino and stared into the night and let ourselves be overcome by a warm, soft fear of being surrounded by forests full of robbers, then, the GNAC! and snapped with the thumbs and index theory, one against the other: - Hands up! Nimbus are Kid! - Domitilla, mother, go out to each of notte pensava: “Ora i ragazzi bisogna ritirarli, quest’aria può far male. E Isolina affacciata a quest’ora è una cosa che non va!” Ma tutto poi era di nuovo luminoso, elettrico, fuori come dentro, e Domitilla si sentiva come in visita in una casa di riguardo.
Fiordaligi, invece, giovinotto malinconico, vedeva ogni volta che si spegneva il GNAC apparire dentro la voluta del “gi” la finestra appena illuminata d’un abbaino, e dietro il vetro un viso di ragazza color di Luna, color di neon, color di luce nella notte, una bocca ancor quasi da bambina che appena lui le sorrideva si schiudeva impercettibilmente e già pareva aprirsi in un sorriso, quando tutt’un tratto dal buio risaettava out of the ruthless "gi" the GNAC and face losing the edges, was transformed into a light shadow flakes, and mouth girl no longer knew whether he had responded to his sorriso.In midst of this storm of passion, Marcovaldo chased ' teach the children the position of celestial bodies.
- What is the Big Dipper, one two three four and there the helm, that is the Little Dipper, and Polaris marks the north.
- And that, what marks?
- That marks "us". But it has nothing to do with the stars. It is the last letter of the word COGNAC. The stars instead mark the cardinal points. North South East West. The Moon has a hump in the west. Gibbous, Crescent moon. Hump \u200b\u200bto the east, Moonset.
- Dad, then the cognac is flat? The east has the hump!
- not about growing or declining: it is a sign placed there by Spaak.
- And the Moon that the company has made?
- The Moon has not made a firm. It is a satellite, there is always.
- If there forever, because it changes the hump?
- I quarters. He sees only a piece.
- COGNAC Even if they only see one piece.
- Why is the roof of the building Pierbernardi that is higher.
- The higher the moon?
So at every turn on the GNAC, the stars of Marcovaldo going to be confused with land trades and turned a sigh Isolina nell'ansimare of a mambo hummed, and the girl dell'abbaino disappeared into the ring beam and cold, hiding his response Fiordaligi the kiss that had finally had the courage to send her fingertips, and Michelino Filippetto and played with his fists before his face to the strafing aircraft - Ta-ta-ta-ta ... - against the neon, that after twenty seconds was extinguished.
- Ta-ta-ta ... Have you seen my father, who turned it off with a single burst? - Filio said, but already out of the neon light, his fanaticism warrior was gone and his eyes were filled with sleep.
- Maybe! - Said he fled to his father - went to pieces! We'd see the Lion, the Twins ... - The Lion! - Michelin was seized with enthusiasm. - Wait! - He had an idea. He took the sling, the Office of the gravel which always had a reserve in his pocket and fired a hail of stones with all their might against the "GNAC".
He felt the hail fall on the roof tiles littered the front, on the plates of the gutter, the clink of glasses of a window, hit, beat the gong of a pebble down the bowl of a lantern, a voice in the street. But the message light on your time off the shot he had at the end of his twenty secondi.E all in the attic began to mentally count: one two three, ten eleven to twenty. They counted nineteen, drew his breath, counted twenty, twenty-one twenty-two counted for fear that he had counted too fast, but no, nothing, "GNAC" does not restore power, remained a black braided decipherable scrawl evil to his castle of support as the vine the pergola.
- Aaah! - Cried all the hood of infinitely starry sky got up on them.
Marcovaldo, stopped to slap the raised hand that he wanted to give to Michelin, he felt as projected into space. The darkness that now reigns at the roof was like a dark barrier that excluded the world where there were still whirling hieroglyphs yellow, green and red traffic lights and twinkling eyes, and bright sail empty trams, cars and invisible push ahead the cone of light of the lanterns. From this world did not rise above that widespread phosphorescence, wanders like a smoke. And to raise our eyes no longer dazzled, it opened the prospect of space, the constellations dilated in depth, the dome rotated in every direction, the sphere that contains everything and does not contain any limit, and only one of its vacant plot, as a breach, opened to Venus, for make it stand alone, above the frame of the earth, with its firm stab of light exploded and concentrated in one spot. Suspended in the sky, the new moon rather than flaunt the appearance abstract Crescent revealed its nature as a sphere around the mat bias and illuminated rays of the sun from the earth lost, but while retaining - as can be seen only on certain nights of the first summer - the warm color.
Marcovaldo And look at that cut across narrow side of the moon between shadows and light, felt a longing to reach as miraculously remained a sunny beach in the night. So she stood by the attic, the children frightened by the enormous consequences of their act, as Isolina kidnapped in estasi, Fiordaligi che unico tra tutti scorgeva il fioco abbaino illuminato e finalmente il sorriso Lunare della ragazza. La mamma si riscosse: – Su, su, è notte, cosa fate affaticati? Vi prenderete un malanno, sotto questo chiaro di Luna! Michelino puntò la fionda in alto. – E io spengo la Luna! – Fu acciuffato e messo a letto.
Così per il resto di quella e per tutta la notte dopo, la scritta luminosa sul tetto di fronte diceva solo “SPAAK-CO” e della mansarda di Marcovaldo si vedeva il firmamento. Fiordaligi e la ragazza Lunare si mandavano baci sulle dita, e forse parlandosi alla muta sarebbero riusciti a fissare un appuntamento.
Ma la mattina del secondo giorno, sul tetto, tra i castelli stood out in neon slim slender figures of two electricians in overalls, who checked the tubes and wires. With the air of the old men who provide the local weather, Marcovaldo put his nose out and said
- Tonight will be another night of "GNAC".
Someone knocked on the attic. Opened. He was a man with glasses. - Excuse,
I could look from their window? Thank you, - and introduced himself:
- Dr. Godifredo, advertising agent
light.
"We're ruined! They want us to pay damages, "thought Marcovaldo and already ate with the children's eyes, oblivious of his astronomical abductions. "Now look at the window and realized that the stones may not have been drawn to this place." He tried to get my hands on: - You know, I'm young, so they pull, the sparrows, stones do not know I never went to fail the written Spaak. But I punished them, eh, if I punished them! And you can be sure that does not happen again.
Dr. Godifredo made a careful face.
- Actually I work for the "Cognac Tomawak," not the "Spaak". I came to study the possibility of a warranty claim on this bright roof. But tell me, tell me the same, I'm interested.
Marcovaldo Thus, half an hour later, concluded a contract with the "Cognac Tomawak, the main competitor of" Spaak ". The children had to pull the sling against GNAC each time the writing was reactivated.
- should be the straw that breaks the camel's back - the doctor said Godifredo.
was not mistaken: already on the brink of bankruptcy due to strong advertising expenses incurred, the "Spaak" saw the continued failure of its most beautiful light réclame as a bad omen. The message said that now
COGAC hours Conac hours CONC spread the idea among the creditors of a bankruptcy, at some point, the advertising agency refused to make any other repairs unless the arrears were paid; had written off the growing alarm among the creditors, the "Spaak" failed. In the sky
Marcovaldo tondeggiava the full moon in all its glory. It was the last quarter, when the electricians came back ramp on the roof opposite. And that night in letters of fire, and characters which are twice as thick as before, we read TOMAWAK COGNAC, COGNAC TOMAWAK, COGNAC TOMAWAK that light up and off every two seconds. The hardest hit of all was Fiordaligi; the garret of the Moon girl had disappeared behind a huge, impenetrable "vu" double.
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