And this is why the men must go away to America. It is not the money. It
is the profound desire to rehabilitate themselves, to recover some
dignity as men, as producers, as workers, as creators from the spirit,
not only from the flesh. It is a profound desire to get away from women
altogether, the terrible subjugation to sex, the phallic worship.
The company of actors in the little theatre was from a small town away
on the plain, beyond Brescia. The curtain rose, everybody was still,
with that profound, naive attention which children give. And after a few
minutes I realized that _I Spettri_ was Ibsen's _Ghosts_. The peasants
and fishermen of the Garda, even the rows of ungovernable children, sat
absorbed in watching as the Norwegian drama unfolded itself.
The actors are peasants. The leader is the son of a peasant proprietor.
He is qualified as a chemist, but is unsettled, vagrant, prefers
play-acting. The Signer Pietro di Paoli shrugs his shoulders and
apologizes for their vulgar accent. It is all the same to me. I am
trying to get myself to rights with the play, which I have just lately
seen in Munich, perfectly produced and detestable.
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