Four and Twenty Minds/Chapter 24
XXIV
GIOVANNI PAPINI[1]
I
Giovanni Papini does not need to be introduced to our readers. Every one knows, his friends with even more certainty than his enemies, that he is the ugliest man in Italy (if indeed he deserves the name of man at all), so repulsive that Mirabeau would seem in comparison an academy model, a Discobolus, an Apollo Belvedere. And since the face is the mirror of the soul, as the infinite wisdom of the race informs us in one of its proverbial condensations of experience, no one will be surprised to learn that this Papini is the scoundrel of literature, the blackguard of journalism, the Barabbas of art, the thug of philosophy, the bully of politics, the Apaché of culture, and that he is inextricably involved in all the enterprises of the intellectual underworld. It is also well known that he lives sumptuously and gorgeously, and of course like a Sybarite, in an inaccessible castle; and that he derives his usual means of sustenance from theft, blackmail, and highway robbery. We may add, though it is scarcely necessary, that his favorite food is the flesh of fools and his favorite drink is warm, steaming human blood.
It is a matter of common knowledge that this creature is the worst of all the churls and boors that feed on Italian soil: rumor has it that he has sworn a Carthaginian hatred against every past or future treatise on good behavior. This shameful rascal goes even so far as to say what he actually thinks. Worse still, he has the audacity to turn on the critics when they annoy him:
Cet animal est très méchant:
Quand on l’attaque il se défend!
This Giovanni Papini, this sinister chameleon of the zoölogy of the spirit, has just published a new book, a thick book, an abominable book. If our eyes were not veiled by that natural kindliness which always dominates a well-bred soul, and if our severest words were not shut deep down in our throat and our ink-well by the practical necessity of defending a colleague, we should be tempted to say that not even in the most decadent and vituperative periods of our literature has any one ever applied such a boundless flow of ribald and perfidious terms to men who in spite of their moments of weakness (due, no doubt, to the influence of Homer's nods), honor the name and genius of Italy among ourselves and before the world. Disgust assails us, nausea overwhelms us, scorn conquers us, indignation stifles us, wrath shakes us, and rage consumes us when we see this miscreant of the pen, this bandit of paper, this outlaw of ink, move to the assault of persons whom the country honors, universities approve, academies reward, foreigners admire, and the bourgeoisie respects without knowing why.
Who can witness such an atrocious spectacle without shuddering? Who can be content to stand aside with folded arms? Never shall it be said that filibusters and libelers may devastate with impunity the hortos conclusos, the gardens of Armida, the ivory towers and the terrestrial paradises of our literature. Our voice is weak, and modest is our strength. But we rise to protest (with dignity, with nobility, but with energy) against this shameful degeneration of criticism.
II
The volume in question, which the author shamelessly entitles Slashings, opens appropriately with several pages of "Boasts," in which Papini insinuates that indignation as well as love may lead to knowledge, since only our enemies clearly perceive our defects and our failings. But this Tamerlane of literary warfare does not keep to the promise of his title. Of his twenty-four chapters, in fact, there are only eleven that can fairly be called "slashings." The other thirteen are either eulogies of men alive or dead, or cordial presentations of men famous or unknown. And this again is scandalous, and sheds the clearest electric light on the fundamental dishonesty of Papini. Any one who has been so unfortunate as to spend five lire in the hope of witnessing a massacre (and in view of the common human instincts one cannot deny a priori that such a purchase is possible) would be justified in suing the slasher for an attempt to collect money under false pretenses. For this wretched book contains pages so steeped in affection and so warm with love—and this not only in the chapters in which he is talking of his friends—that it is hard to believe them written by the same murderous hand that wrote the other pages. If the men praised were acquaintances of Papini, the phenomenon might easily be explained as a case of bribery or blackmail. But in almost all these instances the men are dead, and in many cases they have been dead so long that Papini cannot possibly have known them. We confess that we are powerless to solve this enigma, and we console ourselves with the thought—an ancient and excellent idea—that the soul of man is an abyss where lights and shadows mingle in conflict, to the confusion of the psychologists.
But we must not let this impudent Proteus deceive us. We must not forget that he spends more than fifty pages in an onslaught on that Benedetto Croce, whom the young men of forty-five and fifty years regard as their standard and their lighthouse, that Croce whom all revere—from the Giornale d'Italia to the Senate, from Pescasseroli to Texas—as the ultimate intuition and expression of the truth. We must not forget that this Zoilus in the form of Thersites allows himself to attack Gabriele d'Annunzio, our great national poet, novelist, dramatist, and orator, our champion intellectual importer, who, like Ferrero, his only rival in this respect, lives on the results of a most profitable exportation. In this same book he maltreats that Luciano Zuccoli whom all Italian ladies adore; that Sem Benelli whom all Italian second galleries have applauded; that Guido Mazzoni, permanent secretary of the Academy of the Crusca, whose Bunch of Keys has admitted him into the Golden Book of Poetry; that Emilio Cecchi who will long remain the dearest hope of young Italian criticism; that Romain Rolland who has undertaken to write a twenty-volume novel, and will sooner or later be declared an honorary citizen of Switzerland. The devouring hunger of this hyena is so boundless that he has even attacked unreal beings, imagined by the fancy of peoples and of poets. Incredible though it may seem, there are pages here in which, with an unprecedented refinement of malignity, he tears to bits the learned Dr. Faust and the melancholy Prince Hamlet.
The case is all the clearer since the men whom he praises are themselves calumniators: Swift, who calumniated man; Weininger, who calumniated woman; Cervantes, who mocked idealism; Remy de Gourmont, who performed the autopsy on Philistine thought; Tristan Corbiere, who ridiculed the whole of humanity, including himself.
Giovanni Papini knows only hatred. His one motive is wrath. He deals only in invective; he delights only in blasphemy. He has gathered the filth of Aretino, the drivel of Annibal Caro, the sinister humor of Antonfrancesco Doni, has beaten up this mess of infection with the whip of Baretti, and then tries to make us swallow it. But we writhe in revolt against the drink, for we, like the child of Tasso, desire a sweet draught, especially now that all these troubles are plunging the world into the darkness of grief.
It is perfectly right that boneheads should be given a drubbing, that undeserved reputations should be reduced to their true level, that the mediocre should be exposed, that bubbles should be pricked, and so on. That is all right. But this is not the way it should be done. "And the way offends me still," as the Divine Poet makes Signora Francesca da Rimini remark.
The author of this detestable book is still young, and has given evidence of ability to do things not so bad as this. We will remind him, therefore, of a great truth which our fathers have handed down to us, and which we shall entrust as a precious thing to our sons: "Criticism is easy, but art is difficult." And if this stubborn wretch should reply that even criticism may be art, and should persist in his wickedness, we shall retort with a saying of the immortal Manzoni, a saying that is somewhat out of date, but still convenient: "Don't worry, poor creature, it will take more than you to turn Milan upside down."
FINIS
- ↑ Written soon after the publication of Stroncature (“Slashings”), Florence, 1916.