‘Yes, show me, Pin. Spiders’ nests, just fancy.’
Pin takes him by his big hand, soft and warm as bread.
‘There, you see, here there were lots of doors into their little tunnels. That Fascist swine broke them all up. Here is a complete one still, d’you see?’
Cousin has knelt down nearby and is peering into the darkness. ‘My goodness you’re right, a little door that opens and shuts. And a tunnel inside. Is it deep?’
‘Very deep,’ explains Pin, ‘with bits of chewed grass stuck all round the sides. The spider is at the end.’
‘Let’s light a match,’ says Cousin.
They both kneel down, side by side, watching the mouth of the tunnel by the light of the match.
‘Here, throw the match inside,’ says Pin, ‘let’s see if the spider comes out.’
‘Why, poor little thing?’ says Cousin. ‘Don’t you see how much harm has been done to them already?’
‘Say, Cousin, d’you think they’ll remake their nests?’
‘Yes, I think so, if we leave them in peace.’
‘Shall we come back another time and see?’
‘Yes, Pin, we’ll pass by this way every month and have a look.’
How wonderful it is to have found Cousin, who is interested in spiders’ nests.
‘Say, Pin.’
‘Yes, Cousin?’
‘Say, Pin, there’s something I want to tell you. I know you understand these things. You see, it’s months and months since I’ve been with a woman … You understand these things, Pin. Listen, they say that your sister …’
Pin is grinning his old grin; he is the grown-ups’ friend, is Pin; yes, he understands these things and is proud to oblige his friends in this way when he can. ‘Hell, Cousin, you’ll be all right with my sister. I’ll show you the way. D’you know Long Alley? Well, it’s the door after the boiler-repairer’s, on the first landing. Don’t worry, you won’t meet anyone in the street. But be a bit careful with her. Don’t say who you are, nor that I sent you. Tell her you work at the “Todt” and are just passing through. Ha, Cousin, yet you’re always saying such awful things about women. Go on, then, she’s a big brunette, my sister is, and men like her a lot.’
A slight smile passes over Cousin’s big disconsolate features.
‘Thank you, Pin. You’re a real friend. I’ll be back soon.’
‘God, Cousin, are you taking your tommy-gun with you?’
Cousin runs a finger over his moustaches.
‘Well, you see, I don’t like going around unarmed.’
Cousin seems so embarrassed about this that it makes Pin laugh. ‘Here, take my pistol. Leave me the tommy-gun and I’ll keep guard over it.’
Cousin puts down the tommy-gun, thrusts the pistol into his pocket, then takes off his woollen cap and puts that into his pocket too. Then he tries to tidy his hair with two fingers wet with spittle.
‘You’re making yourself look your best, I see, Cousin. You want to make an impression. Be quick, now, if you want to find her at home.’
‘See you soon, Pin,’ says Cousin, and off he goes.
Now Pin is alone in the darkness, by the spiders’ nests, with the tommy-gun on the ground near him. But he is no longer in despair. He has found Cousin, and Cousin is the great friend he has sought for so long, the friend who is interested in spiders’ nests. Yet Cousin is like all other grown-ups, with that mysterious desire for women, and now he has gone to visit his sister and is embracing her on the unmade bed. Thinking it over, Pin decides that it would have been nicer if Cousin had not thought of that, and had stayed there with him instead looking at the spiders’ nests a little longer, and made his usual remarks against women which Pin approved and understood so perfectly. Instead of which Cousin is like all other grown-ups; there’s nothing to be done about it. Pin understands these things.
Shots, down in the Old Town. Who can it be? Patrols, perhaps, on their rounds. Shots, at night like that, are always frightening. Cousin was really rather rash to go alone into that nest of Fascists, just for a woman. Pin is worried he may fall into the hands of a patrol, or find his sister’s room full of Germans and get captured. Deep down, though, Pin feels that would be only just and he would be happy at that. What pleasure can he get from going with that hairy frog of a sister of his?
But if Cousin is captured, Pin would be all alone, alone with that tommy-gun which frightens him and he doesn’t know how to handle. He hopes Cousin won’t be captured, he hopes it with all his might, not because Cousin is the Great Friend he was looking for, no, he’s not that any more, he’s just a man like all the others, but because he is the last person Pin has left in all the world.
However, there’s still a long time to go before he need start worrying. Instead of which he now sees a shadow coming nearer, and there he is already.
‘How on earth were you so quick, Cousin, have you already done it?’
Cousin shakes his head with that disconsolate air of his.
‘No. You know, I got disgusted and came away without doing anything.’
‘Hell, Cousin, you got disgusted?’
Pin is delighted. He really is the Great Friend, Cousin is.
Cousin puts the tommy-gun back on his shoulder and hands the pistol back to Pin.
They walk off into the country, with Pin holding Cousin’s big soft calming hand, a hand as comforting as bread.
The darkness is punctured with tiny spots of light; numberless fireflies are flickering over the hedges.
‘Filthy creatures, women, Cousin …’ says Pin.
‘All of them …’ agrees Cousin. ‘But they weren’t always; now my mother …’
‘Can you remember your mother, then?’ asks Pin.
‘Yes, she died when I was fifteen,’ says Cousin.
‘Was she nice?’
‘Yes,’ says Cousin, ‘she was nice.’
‘Mine was nice too,’ says Pin.
‘What a lot of fireflies,’ says Cousin.
‘If you look at them really closely, the fireflies,’ says Pin, ‘they’re filthy creatures too, all reddish in colour.’
‘Yes,’ says Cousin, ‘but seen from this distance they’re beautiful.’
And they walk on, the big man and the child, into the night, amid the fireflies, holding each other by the hand.
THE BEGINNING
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PENGUIN CLASSICS
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd Registered Offices: 8o Strand, London WC2R ORL, England
www.penguin.com
First published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape 1998
Published in Penguin Classics 2009
Originally published in Italy as Il sentiero dei nid
i di ragno copyright © 1947 by Giulio Einaudi, Editore, Torino.
Original translation copyright © 1956 by William Collins & Sons Co. Ltd., London.
Translation of Preface and revised translation of text copyright © 1998 by Martin McLaughlin
Copyright © The Estate of Italo Calvino, 2002
The moral right of the translator has been asserted
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-0-141-88959-7
Chapter One
1 Gruppo Azione Patrioti. The smallest unit of the Italian partisan organization, usually in towns.
Chapter Three
1The Black Brigades were formed by the Fascists early in 1944 to hunt members of the Resistance.
1The German Todt organization was responsible for building defences, and Italian workers in it were exempted from military service.
1Servizio Informazione Militare – Military Intelligence Service – the term could apply to either side.
Chapter Five
1Lit. ‘The Red Flag will triumph.’
Chapter Eight
1On 8 September 1943 the announcement of the armistice between Italy and the Allies led to the period of the civil war and Resistance in Italy (1944–45)
Italo Calvino, The Path to the Spiders' Nests
(Series: # )
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