The Cloven Viscount

Italo Calvino

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780544130098
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

When a nobleman is split in two, his separate halves pursue different adventures in a fantastically macabre tale by the author of Invisible Cities. It is the seventeenth century, and the Viscount Medardo of Terralba must go into battle against the Turks. But the inexperienced warrior is soon bisected lengthwise by a cannonball. Through a miracle of stitching, one half of him survives, returning to his feudal estate to lead a lavishly evil life. But soon his other, virtuous half appears—also very much alive. When the two halves become rivals for the love of the same woman, there's no telling the lengths each will go to in order to win. Now available in an independent volume for the first time, this deliciously bizarre novella of is Calvino at his most devious and winning.

1

There was a war on against the Turks. My uncle, the Viscount Medardo of Terralba, was riding towards the Christian camp across the plain of Bohemia, followed by a squire called Kurt Storks were flying low, in white flocks, through the thick, still air.

“Why all the storks?” Medardo asked Kurt. “Where are they flying?”

My uncle was a new arrival, just enrolled to please ducal neighbors involved in that war. After fitting himself out with a horse and squire at the last castle in Christian hands, he was now on his way to report at Imperial headquarters.

“They’re flying to the battlefields,” said the squire glumly. “They’ll be with us all the way.”

The Viscount Medardo had heard that in those parts a flight of storks was thought a good omen, and he wanted to seem pleased at the sight. But in spite of himself he felt worried.

“What can draw such birds to a battlefield, Kurt?” he asked.

“They eat human flesh too, nowadays,” replied the squire, “since the fields have been stripped by famine and the rivers dried by drought. Vultures and crows have now given way to storks and flamingos and cranes.”

My uncle was then in his first youth, the age in which confused feelings, not yet sifted, all rush into good and bad, the age in which every new experience, even macabre and inhuman, is palpitating and warm with love of life.

“What about the crows then? And the vultures?” he said. “And the other birds of prey? Where have they gone?” He was pale, but his eyes glittered.

The squire, a dark-skinned soldier with a heavy moustache, never raised his eyes. “They ate so many plague-ridden bodies, the plague got ’em too,” and he pointed his lance at some black bushes, which a closer look revealed were not made of branches, but of feathers and dried claws from birds of prey.

“One can’t tell which died first, bird or man, or who tore the other to bits,” said Kurt.

To escape the plague exterminating the population, entire families had taken to the open country, where death caught them. Over the bare plain were scattered tangled heaps of men’s and women’s corpses, naked, covered with plague boils, and, inexplicably at first, with feathers, as if those skinny legs and ribs had grown black feathers and wings. These were carcasses of vultures mingled with human remains.

The ground was now scattered with signs of past battles. Their progress slowed, for the two horses kept jibbing and rearing.

“What’s the matter with our horses?” Medardo asked the squire.

“Signore,” he replied, “horses hate nothing more than the stink of their own guts.”

The patch of plain they were crossing was covered with horses’ carcasses, some supine with hooves to the sky, others prone with muzzles dug into the earth.

“Why all these fallen horses round here, Kurt?” asked Medardo.

“When a horse feels its belly ripped open,” explained the squire, “it tries to keep its guts in. Some put bellies on the ground, others turn on their backs to prevent them from dangling. But death soon gets ’em all the same.”

“So mostly horses die in this war?”

“Turkish scimitars seem made to cleave their bellies at a stroke. Further on we’ll see men’s bodies. First it’s horses, then riders. But there’s the camp.”

On the edge of the horizon rose the pinnacles of the highest tents, and the standards of the Imperial army, and smoke.

As they galloped on, they saw that those fallen in the last battle had nearly all been taken away and buried. There were just a few limbs, fingers in particular, scattered over the stubble.

“Every now and again I see a finger pointing our way,” said my uncle Medardo. “What does that mean?”

“May God forgive them, but the living chop off the fingers of the dead to get at their rings.”

“Who goes there?” said a sentinel in a cloak covered with mould and moss, like a tree bark exposed to the north wind.

“Hurrah for the Holy Imperial crown!” cried Kurt.

“And down with the Sultan!” replied the sentinel. “Please, though, when you get to headquarters, do ask ’em to send along my relief, because I’m starting to grow roots!”

The horses were now at a gallop to escape the clouds of flies surrounding the camp and buzzing over heaps of excrement.

“Many’s the brave man,” observed Kurt, “whose dung is still on the ground when he’s already in heaven,” and he crossed himself.

At the entrance they rode past a series of canopies, beneath which thick-set women with long brocade gowns and bare breasts greeted them with yells and coarse laughter.

“The pavilions of the courtesans,” said Kurt. “No other army has such fine women.”

My uncle was riding with his head turned back to look at them.

“Careful, Signore,” added the squire, “they’re so foul and pox-ridden even the Turks wouldn’t want them as booty. They’re not only covered with lice, bugs and ticks, but even scorpions and lizards make their nests on them now.”

They passed by the field batteries. At night the artillerymen cooked their ration of turnips and water on the bronze parts of swivel guns and cannons, burning hot from the day’s firing.

Carts were arriving, full of earth, which the artillerymen were passing through sieves.

“Gunpowder is scarce now,” explained Kurt, “but the soil of the battlefields is so saturated with it that a few charges can be retrieved there.”

Next came the cavalry stables where, amid flies, the veterinarians were at work patching up hides with stitches, belts and plasters of boiling tar, while horses and doctors neighed and stamped.

The long stretches of infantry encampments followed. It was dusk, and in front of every tent soldiers were sitting with bare feet in tubs of warm water. As they were used to sudden alarms night and day, they kept helmet on head and pike tight in fist even at foot-bath time. Inside taller tents draped like kiosks, officers could be seen powdering armpits and waving lace fans.

“That’s not from effeminacy,” said Kurt, “just the opposite. They want to show how they’re at ease in the rigors of military life.”

The Viscount of Terralba was immediately introduced into the presence of the Emperor. In his pavilion, amid tapestries and trophies, the sovereign was studying future battle plans. Tables were covered with unrolled maps and the Emperor was busy sticking pins in them, taking these from a small pincushion proferred by one of the marshals. By then the maps were so covered with pins that it was impossible to understand a thing, and to read them, pins had to be taken out and then put back. With all this pinning and unpinning, the Emperor and his marshals, to keep their hands free, all had pins between their lips and could only talk in grunts.

At the sight of the youth bowing before him, the sovereign let out a questioning grunt and then took the pins out of his mouth.

“A knight just arrived from Italy, Your Majesty,” they introduced him. “The Viscount of Terralba, from one of the noblest families of Genoa.”

“Let him be made lieutenant at once.”

My uncle clicked spurs to attention, while the Emperor gave a regal sweep of the arm and all the maps folded in on themselves and rolled away.

 

Though tired, Medardo went to sleep late that night. He walked up and down near his tent and heard calls of sentries, neighs of horses and broken speech from soldiers in sleep. He gazed up at the stars of Bohemia, thought of his new rank, of the battle next day, of his distant home and of the rustling reeds in its brooks. He felt no nostalgia or doubt, or apprehension. Things were still indisputably whole as he was himself. Could he have foreseen the dreadful fate awaiting him, he might have even found it quite natural, with all its pain. His eyes kept straying towards the edge of the dark horizon where he knew the enemy camp lay, and he hugged himself with crossed arms, content to be certain both of the distant and differing reality, and of his own presence amidst it. He sensed the bloodshed in that cruel war, poured over the earth in innumerable streams, reaching even him, and he let it lap over him without feeling outrage or pity.

2

Battle began punctually at ten in the morning. From high on his saddle Lieutenant Medardo gazed over the broad array of Christians ready for attack, and raised his face to the wind of Bohemia, swirling with chaff like some dusty barn!

“No, don’t turn round, Signore,” exclaimed Kurt, now a sergeant, beside him. And to justify the peremptory phrase he murmured, “It’s said to bring bad luck before battle.”

In reality he did not want the Viscount to feel discouraged, for he knew that the Christian army consisted almost entirely of the line drawn up there, and that the only reinforcements were a few platoons of rickety infantry.

But my uncle was looking into the distance, at an approaching cloud on the horizon, and was thinking: “There, that cloud contains the Turks, the real Turks, and these men next to me, spitting tobacco, are veterans of Christendom, and this bugle now sounding is the attack, the first attack in my life, and this roaring and shaking, this shooting star plunging to earth and treated with languid irritation by veterans and horses is a cannon ball, the first enemy cannon ball I’ve ever seen. May it not be the day when I’ll say—‘And it’s my last.’”

Then, with bared sword, he was galloping over the plain, his eyes on the Imperial standard vanishing and reappearing amid the smoke, while friendly cannon balls rotated in the sky above his head, and enemy ones opened gaps in the Christian ranks and created umbrellas of earth. “I’ll see the Turks! I’ll see the Turks!” he was thinking. There’s no greater fun than having enemies and then finding out if they are like one thought.

Now he saw them, saw the Turks. Two came right up, on mantled horses. They had round little leather shields, black and saffron striped robes, turbans, ocher-colored faces and moustaches, like someone at Terralba called “Micky the Turk.” One of the two was killed and the other killed someone else. But now numbers of them were arriving and the hand-to-hand fighting began. To see two Turks was to see the lot. They were soldiers, too, all in their own army equipment. Their faces were tanned and tough, like peasants’. Medardo had seen as much as he wanted to of them. He felt he might as well get back to Terralba in time for the quail season. But he had signed on for the whole war. So on he rushed, avoiding scimitar thrusts, until he found a short Turk, on foot, and killed him. Now that he had got the hang of it he looked round for a tall one on horseback. That was a mistake, for small ones were the most dangerous. They got right under horses with those scimitars and hamstrung them.

Medardo’s horse stopped short with legs splayed. “What’s up?” said the Viscount. Kurt came up and pointed downwards. “Look there.” All its guts were hanging to the ground. The poor beast looked up at its master, then lowered its head as if to browse on its intestines, but that was only a last show of heroism; it fainted, then died. Medardo of Terralba was on foot.

“Take my horse, Lieutenant” said Kurt, but did not manage to halt it as he fell from the saddle, wounded by a Turkish arrow, and the horse ran away.

“Kurt!” cried the Viscount, and went to his squire, who was groaning on the ground.

“Don’t think of me, sir,” said the squire. “Let’s hope there will be some schnapps in the hospital. A can is due to every wounded man.”

My uncle Medardo flung himself into the melee. The fate of battle was uncertain. In the confusion it seemed the Christians were winning. They had certainly broken the Turkish lines and turned some of their positions. My uncle with other bold spirits even got close up to the enemy guns as the Turks moved them to keep the Christians under fire. Two of the Turkish artillerymen were pivoting a cannon. With their slow movements, beards, and long robes, they looked like a pair of astronomers. My uncle said, “I’ll see to them.” In his enthusiasm and inexperience he did not know that cannons are to be approached only by the side or the breech. He leapt in front of the muzzle, with sword bared, thinking he would frighten the two astronomers. Instead of which they fired a cannonade right in his chest Medardo of Terralba jumped into the air.

After dusk, when a truce came, two carts went gathering Christian bodies on the battlefield. One was for the wounded and the other for the dead. A first choice was made on the spot. “I’ll take this one, you take that.” When it looked as if something was salvageable, they put the man on the wounded cart; where there was nothing but bits and pieces they went on the cart of the dead, for decent burial. Those who hadn’t even a body were left for the storks. In the last few days, as losses were growing, orders had been given to be liberal about wounded. So Medardo’s remains were considered those of a wounded man and put on that cart.

The second choice was made in the hospital. After battles the field hospital was an even ghastlier sight than the battle itself. On the ground were long rows of stretchers with poor wretches in them, and all around swarmed doctors, clutching forceps, saws, needles, amputated joints and balls of string. From body to body then went doing their very best to bring every one back to life. A saw here, a stitch there, leaks plugged, veins turned inside out like gloves and put back with more string than blood inside, but patched up and shut. When a patient died whatever good bits he still had in him went to patching up another, and so on. What caused most ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Copyright
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• Read More from Italo Calvino
• About the Author
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