Leo Lionni’s Love Story (Part 2)

The above book men­tionedAs the years went by, while Ada con­tin­ued to pour her pas­sion into the roman­tic strings of intel­lect and ideals, Nora, the younger sis­ter of Mafi’s fam­i­ly, with her avant-garde short hair and clear, vibrant life, began to qui­et­ly knock on Leo’s heart with a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent rhythm of life…

3. Nora: Towards Clear and Primitive Vitality (elemental vitalityThe quiet transfer

A portable record play­er blared British jazz as Nora and Leo danced the Charleston; Ada, mean­while, held a book, pre­tend­ing to be engrossed in read­ing. This was a scene from every­day life that Leo remem­bered. Then one day, he and Nora dis­cov­ered that they had fall­en in love.

Nora looked very dif­fer­ent from Ada and Mario. While her old­er sib­lings were tall and thin, she resem­bled a sculp­ture by Aris­tide Mail­lol, pos­sess­ing a rus­tic beau­ty, her legs firm­ly plant­ed, her body smooth and stur­dy. She did­n’t share the fam­i­ly’s pen­chant for intel­lec­tu­al dis­cus­sions, yet she was socia­ble, out­go­ing, and always will­ing to help. While Ada bus­ied her­self fix­ing her long braids, Nora’s bold­ly cut short hair and bangs would flut­ter in the wind.

She pre­ferred mag­a­zines to books, and she was frank about her likes and dis­likes. Some­times, when her fam­i­ly argued too fierce­ly at the din­ner table, she would run out of the din­ing room cry­ing. She loved to have fun, the sil­li­er the bet­ter. Leo was attract­ed to her straight­for­ward­ness, as well as her inner clar­i­ty and sim­plic­i­ty.

He used a musi­cal metaphor to illus­trate the dif­fer­ent feel­ings the two sis­ters evoked in him:

““Ada played roman­tic chords with pas­sion and ded­i­ca­tion, while Nora, with her gen­uine and sim­ple vital­i­ty, and her high-pitched and syn­co­pat­ed notes, stirred my nat­ur­al long­ing for life.””

How­ev­er, this shift was­n’t entire­ly easy. Leo and Nora care­ful­ly con­cealed their feel­ings for a time; his love for Ada still lin­gered, and he did­n’t want to jeop­ar­dize their shared friend­ship. He even tried to con­vince him­self that the sis­ters’ dif­fer­ences could form a moral­ly accept­able and com­plete rela­tion­ship. But this expla­na­tion clear­ly could­n’t hold up.

For­tu­nate­ly, the new feel­ings deep­ened grad­u­al­ly, and the old romance fad­ed away, with­out sud­den­ly erupt­ing into a com­plete break. Leo described the tran­si­tion as “quite civ­i­lized,” while also not­ing occa­sion­al scenes of jeal­ousy and sar­casm. Ada remained coura­geous, Nora was some­what con­fused, and tried to back down; Mario and Bruna would tease him, but remained tol­er­ant. Their shared friend­ship did not break down, but their indi­vid­ual pain was not brought out for pub­lic judg­ment.

Leo and Ada were still read­ing Proust, and he and Nora were search­ing for their own lit­tle haven: near the end of the cable car, on a shrub-cov­ered hill above the city. Win­ter lin­gered, and the two, wrapped in wool scarves, fol­lowed the wind­ing path to a gray bench, washed clean by the snow and now bask­ing in the sun, its sur­face engraved with the names of oth­er lovers. When spring arrived, Nora dis­cov­ered the first wild daf­fodils to bloom, mar­veling again and again at how much they resem­bled tiny teacups and saucers. Leo remem­bered her clear laugh­ter, which seemed to trav­el across the hills, through the city below, and all the way to the dis­tant, shim­mer­ing gold­en sea.

In his auto­bi­og­ra­phy, Leo wrote emo­tion­al­ly:

““I felt her clear, high-pitched laugh­ter echo­ing between the moun­tains and the city below us. When I saw it gen­tly glide over the gold­en trem­bling of the dis­tant sea, I prayed that the whole world could hear it, because I know and fear the fragili­ty of long-dis­tance love.””

Leo’s anx­i­eties about long-dis­tance rela­tion­ships soon became a real­i­ty. In the late spring of 1927, Mr. Maf­fei was trans­ferred to Milan, and his fam­i­ly also pre­pared to move away from Genoa.

In late April, he heard that Mafi’s father would be trans­ferred to Milan at the end of May, and he became fright­ened. He knew how frag­ile long-dis­tance love was. How­ev­er, the chil­dren did not leave imme­di­ate­ly, but fol­lowed their father’s arrange­ment to spend the sum­mer in the sea­side town of Cavi and then move to Milan in the fall.

Kav­i’s sum­mers were among the most care­free times in his mem­o­ry. The beach was­n’t yet teem­ing with bathing areas, and they had it all to them­selves on week­days. At night, they would go danc­ing in San­ta Mar­gari­ta with friends who had cars, then head into the moun­tains to find an old woman liv­ing in an old barn, knock on her door, and ask her to get up and bake focac­cia. Leo had a reg­u­lar seat at the din­ing table at Mafi’s house, and even his own sil­ver nap­kin ring. This small item reas­sured him that he was con­sid­ered fam­i­ly.

Autumn final­ly arrived. When he saw Nora off at the train sta­tion, he was busy with the ten­sion of pre-exam prepa­ra­tions, and the farewell even car­ried a touch of youth­ful exu­ber­ance. It was­n’t until sev­er­al hours lat­er, as her wav­ing hand­ker­chief dis­ap­peared along the curve of the tracks, that he tru­ly real­ized she was gone. He sat at his desk writ­ing love let­ters, con­tin­u­ing until dawn.

A week lat­er, Nora texted back, say­ing school was bor­ing, she missed Kavi, asked how his exams went, and end­ed with the ambigu­ous word “hug” (abbrac­ciHer hand­writ­ing still car­ried her vivac­i­ty, but the let­ter lacked the pas­sion­ate dec­la­ra­tion he had hoped for. He read it repeat­ed­ly, try­ing to find a hid­den mean­ing, but her writ­ing was as straight­for­ward as her speech. After­wards, their let­ters remained the same: his were long and fer­vent, while hers were short and sparse­ly sen­ti­men­tal. He even tried mak­ing a long-dis­tance call, send­ing a telegram specif­i­cal­ly to invite her to his uncle’s house to answer, but it took a long time to con­nect, and she said she knew noth­ing about it.

About three months lat­er, she stopped reply­ing. After sev­er­al more ago­niz­ing weeks, Leo board­ed an ear­ly morn­ing train to Milan. In front of her grey apart­ment build­ing, he hap­pened to bump into Nora rush­ing out. He grabbed her shoul­ders, looked at her, but could­n’t say a word. She low­ered her eyes, pulled away from him, whis­pered “I’m sor­ry,” and ran to a tall young man lean­ing against a nice car on the street. The two got in the car and drove away with the screech­ing of tires.

Mario came out, hugged Leo, and led him to a bench in the foy­er. He told him that Nora had become infat­u­at­ed with the boy in Ada’s class, and that she had always liked fan­cy cars. The auto­bi­og­ra­phy did­n’t explain it as a mis­un­der­stand­ing, nor did it offer any expla­na­tion for Nora. Leo only remem­bered his shock and frus­tra­tion at the time.

At his father’s insis­tence, he first enrolled in a high­er busi­ness school in Genoa, and the fol­low­ing week went to Zurich. His auto­bi­og­ra­phy explic­it­ly states here that he was nine­teen. Heart­break and the pur­suit of edu­ca­tion final­ly led him into yet anoth­er unfa­mil­iar world.

Lit­tle did he know that this heart­bro­ken jour­ney would lead him into that red-lit liv­ing room in Lau­sanne, Switzer­land, and ush­er in an unex­pect­ed vari­a­tion con­cern­ing poet­ry, romance, and beau­ty…

4. Colette: A passionate, exotic, and poetic variation.

In the win­ter of 1928, nine­teen-year-old Leo Lion­ni, a Dutch youth, was caught in a bound­less exis­ten­tial cri­sis. The pain of los­ing Nora, the heart­break­ing mis­un­der­stand­ing on the streets of Milan, and the absur­di­ty of fac­ing eco­nom­ics and util­i­tar­i­an stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Zurich trapped him on an island of iso­la­tion, “sur­prised by his own indif­fer­ence.” He wan­dered the clean yet cold streets of Zurich, play­ing the role of a stu­dent who had­n’t even been offi­cial­ly admit­ted, haunt­ed night by the specters of nos­tal­gia and envy.

It was at this time that his room­mate and friend at the board­ing house—Giorgio Cac­cia­puoti, a tall and gen­tle Ital­ian youth—brought an unex­pect­ed turn­ing point to this gloomy sit­u­a­tion.

Like an Indi­an match­mak­er des­per­ate to snag a once-in-a-life­time deal, George, with an almost anx­ious eager­ness, repeat­ed­ly showed Leo pho­tos of his sis­ter Colette vaca­tion­ing on the French Riv­iera. In the pho­tos, Colette was wear­ing a sim­ple swim­suit, lying on dark rocks. George went on and on prais­ing his sis­ter’s beau­ty, intel­li­gence, and humor, des­per­ate­ly hop­ing his best friend would fall in love with Colette and mar­ry her—in George’s view, this would not only pre­vent some fool­ish, acne-rid­den stranger from steal­ing his sis­ter away, but also ensure their friend­ship would remain strong for­ev­er.

With a touch of doubt and unease, Leo and George board­ed a train to Lau­sanne, Switzer­land, on Christ­mas Eve. Lit­tle did he know that the man­sion on the shores of Lake Gene­va in Lau­sanne was about to under­go a dra­mat­ic trans­for­ma­tion that would com­plete­ly upend his sens­es and aes­thet­ic world.

As the train pulled into Lau­sanne sta­tion, the scene that greet­ed Leo shat­tered all his expec­ta­tions. There to meet him were George’s deaf but incred­i­bly talk­a­tive blonde sis­ter, Yolan­da, and Natasha, a Russ­ian guest wrapped in a wool shawl and speak­ing with a heavy Russ­ian accent. And when the car drove into the Cac­cia­puoti fam­i­ly gar­den, a petite woman with fiery red hair and large, clear­ly vis­i­ble cobalt blue eyes—George’s mother—ran out to warm­ly embrace Leo.

To Leo’s dis­ap­point­ment, Colette was­n’t at the door. How­ev­er, just as they set­tled into the liv­ing room, Colette burst in like a whirl­wind.

She cheered and jumped into her broth­er George’s arms to kiss him, then leaped up and stood motion­less in front of Leo. She wore an extreme­ly seri­ous, dra­mat­ic expres­sion, with a “dead­ly beau­ty” qual­i­ty.femme fataleHe mur­mured sar­cas­ti­cal­ly, “And who is this charm­ing crea­ture?” Leo replied with the same sar­cas­tic tone, “It’s the man you love, dar­ling.”“

Colet­te’s stun­ning entrance com­plete­ly cap­ti­vat­ed the audi­ence. Leo Ou, in his auto­bi­og­ra­phy, praised her, say­ing that although her nose might be too promi­nent and her pos­ture too stiff, no one could deny that she pos­sessed an extreme­ly daz­zling beau­ty.

““What was com­plete­ly unex­pect­ed was her poise and the extra­or­di­nary way she took cen­ter stage. George was right—she was indeed stun­ning­ly beau­ti­ful. But her beau­ty defies expla­na­tion and descrip­tion.””

At the din­ner table, Colette dis­played remark­able con­trol. She led the con­ver­sa­tion with sharp wit, humor, and com­po­sure, teas­ing her tall broth­er with wit­ty jokes while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly using all her charm to soothe hurt feel­ings and reveal true emo­tions, mak­ing Leo feel relaxed and at home like nev­er before.

How­ev­er, the most cap­ti­vat­ing moment of the night occurred dur­ing the liv­ing room gath­er­ing after din­ner.

After din­ner, fam­i­ly mem­ber Natasha began rear­rang­ing the fur­ni­ture in the liv­ing room. Colette, arm in arm with Leo, whis­pered mys­te­ri­ous­ly in his ear, “Tonight is Moth­er’s big day. To wel­come you, we’re going to see a spe­cial per­for­mance… some­times it’s a play, some­times it’s her own philo­soph­i­cal reflec­tions, some­times it’s poet­ry. Moth­er is amaz­ing.”“

At that moment, on the sofa pushed against the wall in the liv­ing room, Colette sat beside Leo, her arm tight­ly clasped around his, her fin­gers tap­ping almost imper­cep­ti­bly to the rhythm of a march­ing melody beneath his arm. All the lights were grad­u­al­ly turned off, leav­ing only a wall lamp with a small red silk lamp­shade, cast­ing a rich, dream­like red glow upon Kacha­puti’s moth­er direct­ly oppo­site them. In the near­ly dark room, Kacha­puti’s moth­er’s red hair resem­bled a burn­ing torch.

The room fell silent. Com­plete­ly unaware of what was about to hap­pen, Leo felt uneasy, even wor­ried that it might be a séance or hyp­no­sis that would cause him to lose con­trol.

“It’s start­ing,” Colette whis­pered in Leo’s ear.

Kacha­puti’s moth­er slow­ly rose from her arm­chair, took a step for­ward, and announced in a slight­ly timid voice that she would recite a long poem by Albert Samain, a French poet of the same era as Baude­laire. She took anoth­er step for­ward, stop­ping in the cen­ter of the room, direct­ly oppo­site Leo, her large blue eyes fixed intent­ly on his. Sud­den­ly, with an extreme­ly firm and the­atri­cal­ly pow­er­ful voice, she recit­ed the poem that Leo would nev­er for­get:

It’s a beau­ti­ful thing. It’s a beau­ti­ful thing. It’s a beau­ti­ful thing. It’s a beau­ti­ful thing…
(“I shook my hair, shak­ing off the dream. A long shiv­er fol­lowed me, like the sound of wind blow­ing leaves, and my beau­ty radi­at­ed a light as bril­liant as armor…”)

As the last word fad­ed into the silence, Leo was utter­ly stunned. Goose­bumps rose all over his body; he want­ed to applaud, but his arms were too heavy to lift. The only thing he could man­age to utter was a bare­ly audi­ble mur­mur: “Incred­i­ble.“Incroy­able).

On that Lau­sanne night bathed in red light, Leo tru­ly under­stood and felt the soul-stir­ring pow­er of poet­ry for the first time. Kacha­puti’s moth­er, with a bliss­ful smile, closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair, while Colet­te’s breath­ing min­gled with the poet­ic atmos­phere of the liv­ing room, open­ing up a vast ter­ri­to­ry for Leo’s soul that he had nev­er before explored.

This Christ­mas hol­i­day in Lau­sanne, and the poet­ic inspi­ra­tion from Colette and her moth­er, became a cru­cial turn­ing point for Leo in over­com­ing his men­tal cri­sis. Short­ly after return­ing to Zurich, Leo wrote his famous “cri­sis let­ter” to his father.The Let­terHe con­fessed to the absur­di­ty and empti­ness of his stud­ies in Zurich and decid­ed to com­plete­ly re-plan his life.

In this pro­found reflec­tion on growth and awak­en­ing, Leo Ou gave Colette and this trip to Lau­sanne the high­est praise in his auto­bi­og­ra­phy:

““In the long run, the dis­cov­ery of French poet­ry may be more impor­tant to me than three years of Greek gram­mar. Learn­ing to live inde­pen­dent­ly may be more use­ful than two years of organ­ic chem­istry. Los­ing Nora and meet­ing young women like Colette will ulti­mate­ly make me more mature than a course in world his­to­ry.””

Colette was like a pas­sion­ate, strange, and fleet­ing cloud in Leo’s youth­ful sky. She did not become Leo’s life part­ner, but with her vibrant life force and French poet­ic sen­si­bil­i­ty, she com­plete­ly awak­ened the aes­thet­ic sens­es deep with­in Leo’s soul, res­cu­ing him from the gloom of heart­break and the mun­dane util­i­tar­i­an path.

As this vibrant and ful­fill­ing “poet­ic vari­a­tion” comes to a close, Leo, his pas­sion and sense of exis­tence rekin­dled, will soon cross the Mediter­ranean waves with a more mature, open, and res­olute heart to embrace his life­long des­tiny with Nora…

[To be con­tin­ued]

[Behind the Scenes]

Sis­ter ColetteHer future was also very promis­ing. Far from being “lured away by some fool­ish, acne-rid­den stranger” as her broth­er had feared, she had two remark­able mar­riages. Her first hus­band, Raf­fael­lo Rossel­li, was a promi­nent Ital­ian Jew­ish intel­lec­tu­al and a cousin of the famous Rossel­li broth­ers (Car­lo and Nel­lo), who fought a life-or-death strug­gle against Mus­solin­i’s regime. Her broth­er was cer­tain­ly very sat­is­fied with this broth­er-in-law, men­tion­ing him sev­er­al times in his auto­bi­og­ra­phy. Her sec­ond hus­band… Indro Mon­tanel­li She was even more famous in Italy. How­ev­er, what’s even more remark­able is that Colet­te’s own achieve­ments were equal­ly impres­sive. She was a pio­neer­ing chil­dren’s book author in Italy (pre­sum­ably even ear­li­er than Rodari), a self-illus­tra­tor of pic­ture books (more than a decade ear­li­er than Leo Lion­ni!), and a rep­re­sen­ta­tive fig­ure in main­stream Ital­ian cul­ture. After her death, a doc­u­men­tary was made in her hon­or.