The Periodic Table (29 page)

{5}
A character in Manzoni’s historical novel
The Betrothed
—TRANS.

{6}
This was the Republic of Salo, the puppet government set up by the Fascists in the north of Italy at Salo and under the protection of the Nazi army.

{7}
My two books on Auschwitz:
If This Is a Man
and
The Truce
(Penguin Modern Classics, 1979).

{8}
A character in Ibsen’s
Peer Gynt.

{9}
There are two untranslatable plays on words on this page. When the man says “titanium” Maria hears the Italian words
Titaglio
due to the slurring caused by his pipe; the words mean “I cut you.” When she muses over the similarity of Alice and Felice, it is because small anchovies are called
alice
and because the two names have a similarity to this and each other due to their Italian pronunciation, thus
ahh-lee-chay, fay-lee-chay
—TRANS.

{10}
In other words, the respectable, subservient middle class. The “illustrious namesake” is the writer, Carlo Levi, who expresses himself on this score quite eloquently and vividly in his book
The Watch
—TRANS.

{11}
The group, after the collapse of Mussolini’s government in September 1943, that supported General Badoglio, who in turn supported the King
—TRANS.

{12}
Reference to the German soldiers who die of the plague in Manzoni’s historical novel
The Betrothed
—TRANS.

{13}
English in original
—TRANS.