The Day of the Owl (13 page)

He went home at about midnight, crossing the whole city on foot. Parma lay bewitched under snow, silent, deserted ... 'In Sicily it doesn't often snow,' he thought, 'and perhaps a civilization's character is conditioned by snow or sun, according to which is more prevalent.' He felt a little fuzzy in the head. But before reaching home he knew, with utter lucidity, that he loved Sicily and was going back.

'Even if it's the end of me,' he said aloud.

"Excuse the length of this letter," wrote a Frenchman or Frenchwoman of that great eighteenth century of theirs, "but I have had no time to make it shorter." I cannot make this excuse with regard to the golden rule that even a short story should be shortened. I took a whole year, from one summer to the next, to shorten this one, not working at it constantly of course, but side by side with quite other activities and preoccupations. What I hoped to achieve by pruning was not so much proportion, stripped essence and rhythm, as self-defence against the possible reactions of any who might consider themselves more or less directly attacked in it. In Italy, as is well-known, some things must not be made light of, so think what happens when one takes them seriously. In books and films the United States of America can have imbecile generals, corrupt judges and crooked police. So can England, France (at least up till the present), Sweden and so on. Italy has never had, has not and never will have them. That's how it is and, as Giusti said of those ambassadors whom Barnabo Visconti forced to swallow signet, parchment and seal, a fuss ought to be made about it. I don't feel heroic enough to face charges of libel and slander, not deliberately at any rate. So, when I realized that my imagination had not given due consideration to the limits imposed by the laws of the State and, more than by the laws, by the susceptibilities of those whose duty it is to enforce them, I began to prune and prune. In the first and second drafts the thread of the story has remained substantially unchanged: some characters have disappeared, others become anonymous, a sequence or two omitted. Maybe, even, the story has gained. One thing is certain, however: I was unable to write it with that complete freedom to which every writer is entitled (and I call myself a writer only because I happen to put pen to paper).

Needless to say, there is no character or event in this book which bears anything but a fortuitous resemblance to any real person or actual occurrence.

— Leonardo Sciascia

LEONARDO SCIASCIA (1921-1989) was born in Racalmuto, Sicily. Starting in the 1950s, he made a name for himself in Italy and abroad as a novelist and essayist, and also as a controversial commentator on political affairs. Among his many other books are
The Wine-Dark Sea, Equal Danger,
and To
Each His Own
(all published by New York Review Books), works in a genre that Sciascia could be said to have invented: the metaphysical mystery.

GEORGE SCIALABBA writes about books in the
Boston Globe,
the
Boston Review,
and other journals.

^{1}
Lupara
literally 'wolf-shot'. A cartridge loaded with five or seven ballbearings used for mafia killings. (Tr.)

^{2}
A prominent communist senator.

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CODA