82
PARTISAN REVIEW
same roof. The orphans left by the earthquake were dispersed
among various charitable organizations, so that we were sent to two
different boarding schools in Rome . Romolo was beginning the five
years of middle school while I had just the three years of high school
ahead of me. As his elder brother and his only close relative , I felt I
had to help and protect him. But he was still at high school in 1921
when I became a communist . At first we managed to keep in contact
but after fascism took over and drove the Communist Party under–
ground, things became more difficult for us. To meet me would have
been too dangerous. Letters were censored when not actually confis–
cated, and we certainly couldn't mention politics . I remember one of
his letters from the time of his military service , full of pride because
he had won an athletic contest for his regiment and his colonel had
congratulated him ."
"Did he take any interest in politics?"
"He was antifascist of course, but not a member of any party, at
least not then .
If
only he had been, if only he had consciously ac–
cepted the risks of resistance work from the beginning, the weight of
my responsibility would have been less terrible to bear. Instead he
was thwarted in everything because of me, and by then I was mostly
abroad . Just imagine, when he should have been taking his final
high school exams, the police locked him up for the crucial five days.
'And I assure you I'd studied hard,' he wrote to me . I advised him to
learn printing, and he did, but he was constantly harassed by the po–
lice and could get no regular work. It was clear that he had no future
in Italy . He had become engaged to a girl from Velletri and would
have liked to marry and settle down, but without a steady job he
couldn't hope to do so. I therefore suggested that he leave Italy and
continue his studies at the Zurich Polytechnic, which was his dream.
I would have managed it somehow or other. "
"But could you really have supported him?"
"Later on, when Romolo was in prison, I worked on building
sites so that he could have better food and warm clothes, though I
knew he would never get even half the money . To keep him at the
Polytechnic would not have been difficult. But you know all this,
why am I telling it to you now?"
"I knew only bits and scraps . You never talked much about it. I
can understand why. Like Agostino ."
"Agostino
?"
"Are you forgetting the characters of your own novels?
