Leo Lionni’s Love Story (Part 2)

As men­tioned above, Leo’s room­mate George’s wish was not ful­filled, and the auto­bi­og­ra­phy does not fur­ther explain how Leo and Colet­te’s rela­tion­ship devel­oped (but we know that Colette lat­er had two remark­able mar­riages and was a pio­neer in the Ital­ian pic­ture book world and a celebri­ty in Ital­ian cul­ture). What remains is a girl who will for­ev­er be vivid in mem­o­ry and that poet­ic night bathed in red light. To bor­row a line from Xu Zhi­mo’s poem, Colette became “a cloud in Leo’s sky,” but ulti­mate­ly, they each went their sep­a­rate ways…

5. Nora: Twists and turns, trials… sealing a lifelong vow of love.

In the spring of 1931, twen­ty-one-year-old Leo Lion­ni awoke from the roman­tic rever­ie of Zurich and Lau­sanne. Fol­low­ing that red-lit poet­ry night in Lau­sanne, Leo wrote his famous “cri­sis let­ter” to his father, decid­ing to com­plete­ly aban­don his unin­ter­est­ing, util­i­tar­i­an stud­ies and return to Genoa. Although Colette in Lau­sanne brought him a dra­mat­ic shift in French poet­ic style, deep with­in his soul, the name that had bro­ken his heart yet remained insep­a­ra­ble was Nora Maf­fi.

In the six months pri­or, they had endured cru­el estrange­ment and mis­un­der­stand­ings: a fleet­ing encounter on the streets of Milan, a res­olute fig­ure stand­ing beside a lux­u­ry car, and a self-imposed exile to Zurich. How­ev­er, the pas­sage of time and the test of dis­tance did not extin­guish Leo’s yearn­ing for Nora’s “pri­mal vital­i­ty.”

Dur­ing the East­er hol­i­days of 1931, Leo, filled with trep­i­da­tion, board­ed the slow train at 4:15 and arrived at the sea­side town of Cavi. As he stepped onto the plat­form and heard the sta­tion­mas­ter shout, “The whole Maf­fei fam­i­ly is here,” his steps quick­ened, and his heart pound­ed.

In the Maf­fi fam­i­ly’s pink sea­side vil­la, Papa Maf­fi, who had been impris­oned for a long time for his anti-fas­cist stance, was being held under house arrest after his release. The whole fam­i­ly was immersed in the joy of their long-await­ed reunion. Just as the mer­ri­ment was in full swing, famil­iar foot­steps came from the stairs. Nora, head down, slow­ly descend­ed the steps.

There was no dra­mat­ic expla­na­tion, no tears, no blame. As Nora passed by Leo, she glanced at him quick­ly and furtive­ly, and whis­pered an extreme­ly soft word:

““Hel­lo(Ciao）。”

In his auto­bi­og­ra­phy, Leo recalled that a shiv­er ran down his spine at that moment, and he real­ized how thor­ough­ly he under­stood her. That sim­ple “Ciao” instant­ly soothed all the pre­vi­ous heart­break and sus­pi­cion, melt­ing all the unful­filled long­ing into the warm breeze of the Lig­uri­an coast.

That evening, the group of young peo­ple drove to the Savoy Hotel in San­ta Margheri­ta for a ball. The ball­room was bright­ly lit and the atmos­phere was live­ly. Nora sat at anoth­er table with her back to Leo, radi­ant.

Sud­den­ly, the band in the cor­ner start­ed play­ing the pop­u­lar jazz song that swept Amer­i­ca in that era, “…“You Are My Lucky Star(You Are My Lucky Star) – This piece comes from Leo Kit­t’s mem­o­ries, because it was­n’t actu­al­ly going to be released for anoth­er four years…

The moment the melody began, Leo felt as if his will and thoughts had been instant­ly emp­tied. He walked straight to Nora and whis­pered almost inaudi­bly, “Let’s dance.”“

Nora rose from her chair and walked towards him. Leo put his arm around her waist, and the two glid­ed onto the dance floor. They were nat­ur­al-born dance part­ners, spin­ning around the floor in silence. Leo brought his lips close to Nora’s ear and whis­pered in a voice bare­ly audi­ble to either of them:

““will you mar­ry me?””（“Will you mar­ry me?”)

Nora straight­ened up, look­ing direct­ly into Leo’s eyes with clear eyes. With­out the slight­est hes­i­ta­tion, she gave her answer with the same straight­for­ward­ness and puri­ty:

““I do.””（“Yes.”)

Then, Nora gen­tly rest­ed her head on Leo’s shoul­der. They danced in silence until the music end­ed. In that moment, immersed in the tran­quil­i­ty after their emo­tions had been exhaust­ed, they sank into the cush­ions of the white wick­er arm­chair, feel­ing absurd­ly yet bliss­ful­ly iso­lat­ed from the world.

Decem­ber 23, 1931Twen­ty-one-year-old Leo and nine­teen-year-old Nora offi­cial­ly reg­is­tered their mar­riage in Lavagna, presided over by the may­or. As Nora lat­er often joked, their com­bined age at the time was exact­ly forty.

After enjoy­ing a deli­cious bowl of ravi­o­li pre­pared by Annet­ta, the head chef at the Mafia restau­rant, a show­er of rice, a sym­bol of good for­tune, fell at the Cavi train sta­tion as the new­ly­weds board­ed the Rome Express to Flo­rence for their hon­ey­moon. Dressed in brand-new clothes, they looked like two man­nequins who had just escaped a depart­ment store win­dow, step­ping into their unknown mar­ried life with great antic­i­pa­tion. Even dur­ing their hon­ey­moon, they enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly took a ride in an old Lan­cia to Viter­bo prison to vis­it their cousin Bruno, who was impris­oned by the fas­cists, spend­ing an unfor­get­table half-hour vis­it filled with laugh­ter and joy.

Mar­ried life was far from smooth sail­ing. To ful­fill his promise to his father-in-law to “find a prop­er job,” Leo took a job as an assis­tant cashier at Foltzer Oil Com­pa­ny. Every day, he oper­at­ed the hum­ming addi­tion machine that resem­bled a cof­fee grinder, but behind the enor­mous ledgers, he secret­ly wrote sur­re­al movie scripts on the back of old checks in extreme­ly tiny hand­writ­ing.

Their first child, Man­nie, was born in Novem­ber. Upon hear­ing the nurse say, “The father can come up now,” Leo instinc­tive­ly took a step back, want­i­ng his own father to go first. The new iden­ti­ty of father­hood, it turned out, required a grad­ual learn­ing process. After the child’s birth, the fam­i­ly felt inse­cure about their liv­ing sit­u­a­tion, income, and his par­ents’ relo­ca­tion plans. He lat­er quit his job at Fuldz and decid­ed to ded­i­cate him­self ful­ly to paint­ing again, but life con­tin­ued to push him towards new choic­es.

After that, they lived in Milan, migrat­ed across the Atlantic to Amer­i­ca before the war, and trav­eled back and forth between Europe and Amer­i­ca. The promise they made in their youth slow­ly trans­formed into more than six­ty-five years of liv­ing togeth­er.

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[Epilogue] A Miraculous Reunion with Lily—The End of Memories and the Closure of Life

On a cool evening in 1990, at their home in Por­cig­nano, Tus­cany, Italy, the 80-year-old Leo Lion­ni and his wife Nora were enter­tain­ing some close friends. After enjoy­ing Nora’s acclaimed cur­ry cream and dried fruit dessert, every­one moved to the liv­ing room to relax. Leo, hold­ing a glass of grap­pa, sat down next to his friend Hansa Fish­er and began to recount his first sum­mer romance at the age of thir­teen, as if telling a fairy­tale:

“Oh, Hansa, have I told you about my first love? She was Czech, just turned twelve, and I was thir­teen…”

When Leo, with a heavy accent, read out the address that had been etched into his mind for six­ty-sev­en years, that had count­less times become a sym­bol of suf­fer­ing in the night­mares of the Holo­caust—Jirassek Platz 1, Moravs­ka Ostra­va(At Ilasek Square, Ostra­va, Moravia) Hansa sud­den­ly stood up:

““No way! That’s my home­town! I know that house!””

Two days lat­er, Hansa called with an incred­i­ble mir­a­cle: Lily had not only sur­vived the Holo­caust, but had also moved to New York with her hus­band two years ear­li­er and was run­ning a pic­ture fram­ing busi­ness on West 90th Street!

Two weeks lat­er, Leo and Nora returned to New York as usu­al. With a pound­ing heart, eighty-year-old Leo dialed that num­ber. How­ev­er, when he cau­tious­ly probed and gave his name, there was a long silence on the oth­er end, fol­lowed by a painful, muf­fled whis­per:

““I don’t remem­ber.””

After hang­ing up the phone, Leo buried his head in his crossed arms and cried like a child, filled with deep dis­ap­point­ment. At that moment, it felt as if the ground of his­to­ry had col­lapsed beneath his feet, and he felt as if his mem­o­ries had been ruth­less­ly aban­doned, leav­ing him utter­ly alone and strand­ed on a strange, desert­ed island.

How­ev­er, four days lat­er, the phone rang again. A clear, cheer­ful, and sur­pris­ing­ly young voice came from the oth­er end—Lily was talk­ing to her sis­ter in Cal­i­for­nia, who clear­ly remem­bered that vaca­tion in Marien­bad and the Dutch boy who always pulled Lily to dance.

They agreed to meet at Les Pleiades, a French restau­rant on 71st Street in New York.

When eighty-year-old Leo entered the dim­ly lit restau­rant, he saw the old woman at a cor­ner table—a woman with slen­der bones, a freck­led face, and dark red hair. They stood up, embraced, and sat down silent­ly, search­ing for frag­ments of the dis­tant past in each oth­er’s eyes.

Near­ly sev­en­ty years of laugh­ter and fear have rolled by, those long years when fate swept them into one of the most chaot­ic whirlpools in the his­to­ry of civ­i­liza­tion, grad­u­al­ly heal­ing through recount­ing and tears. Leo expe­ri­enced an almost uncon­trol­lable surge of emo­tion, like being “deeply in love.” How­ev­er, at the peak of this emo­tion­al tur­moil, rea­son and time brought a pro­found epiphany:

“I felt an intense aware­ness that I could no longer bear. It was very much like falling deeply in love with­out think­ing. How­ev­er, I real­ized that the woman sit­ting across the table, lean­ing towards me so as not to miss a sin­gle word, was a com­plete stranger.”

At three o’clock in the after­noon, Leo called a taxi for Lily. They embraced tight­ly in a long, silent hug. Leo walked home in a daze, know­ing clear­ly in his heart: this reunion span­ning near­ly sev­en­ty years had come to an end; he would nev­er see Lily again…

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Leo’s long life was a con­stant jour­ney between Europe and Amer­i­ca, between art and com­merce. He savored the inno­cent first love Lily brought him in the forests of Marien­bad; immersed him­self in Proust’s lit­er­ary phi­los­o­phy with Ada in his board­ing house in Genoa; and lis­tened to soul-stir­ring French poet­ry with Colette in the red-lit liv­ing room of Lau­sanne. But ulti­mate­ly, it was Nora who firm­ly anchored his sen­si­tive, fick­le, and nihilis­tic soul to real­i­ty.

When Leo returned home from the restau­rant on 71st Street, he was greet­ed by Nora’s warm and famil­iar embrace. In this mirac­u­lous reunion span­ning near­ly sev­en­ty years, Nora demon­strat­ed a pro­found under­stand­ing based on long-stand­ing trust and clear-head­ed ratio­nal­i­ty. She not only ful­ly embraced her hus­band’s search for child­hood mem­o­ries but also, with her unwa­ver­ing clar­i­ty and open­ness, safe­guard­ed the strongest anchor of their fam­i­ly.

In his auto­bi­og­ra­phyBetween WorldsOn the title page of the book, Leo wrote this final ded­i­ca­tion:

““Of course, I ded­i­cate this book to Nora, the guardian, anchor, and light of my world for over six­ty-five years.””

[Behind the Scenes]

Matthew’s Dream (1991) is a late work by Lionel Leo Lion­ni. Just how late? (See ref­er­ence…)His life and chronol­o­gyCoin­ci­den­tal­ly, this hap­pened right after Lionel and Lily’s farewell and reunion…

While trans­lat­ing this book, I strong­ly felt that *Mashu’s Dream* had a very strong auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal ele­ment, espe­cial­ly for an 81-year-old artist. But who exact­ly was “Niket­ta,” the woman who spent her life with Mashu?

Ini­tial­ly, when trans­lat­ing this book in 2009, I insist­ed on using a com­plete­ly West­ern­ized translit­er­a­tion of “Nico­let­ta” to retain its “Ital­ian fla­vor,” because at the time I felt that “Nico­let­ta” was clear­ly Nora, just as “Mashu” was Leo. How­ev­er, after recon­sid­er­ing Leo’s roman­tic his­to­ry, I sud­den­ly real­ized that per­haps my under­stand­ing was some­what nar­row. Per­haps this “Nico­let­ta” encom­pass­es a com­bi­na­tion of Lily, Ada, Nora, Colette… and so on. Of course, for Leo, in the end, it is still Nora.

How­ev­er, the most inter­est­ing thing is that, tech­ni­cal­ly speak­ing, “Nico­let­ta” is actu­al­ly the exclu­sive name of Colette! More­over, this name was known to every­one in the Ital­ian art cir­cles at the time, which means that Nora must have known the ori­gin of the name, and Leo did not try to hide it at all.

To elab­o­rate, Colette Cac­cia­puoti (1911–1996) was born into a promi­nent fam­i­ly in south­ern Italy, but her moth­er (the angel­ic fig­ure who recit­ed French poet­ry that night) was Eng­lish and an orphan. This moth­er clear­ly loved French poet­ry and Ital­ian cul­ture; she hired a promi­nent French woman as her daugh­ter’s god­moth­er, who gave the girl the dis­tinct­ly French name Nico­lette (said to be used by sev­er­al famous women in French cul­tur­al his­to­ry). How­ev­er, because her fam­i­ly was Ital­ian, her nick­name at home was Colette. Colet­te’s first hus­band, Raf­fael­lo Rossel­li, was an engi­neer and a promi­nent fig­ure in Ital­ian Jew­ish cul­ture. He suf­fered per­se­cu­tion dur­ing the Mus­soli­ni regime. Colette res­olute­ly refused to change her sur­name to Rossel­li after mar­riage, but for the sake of liveli­hood and pub­lish­ing chil­dren’s books, she used “Nico­let­ta” as a pseu­do­nym (also to con­ceal her iden­ti­ty), adapt­ing the sto­ries she told her daugh­ter into pic­ture books she wrote and illus­trat­ed her­self.

The ear­li­est pic­ture books writ­ten under the pseu­do­nym “Nico­let­ta” were pub­lished in Italy in 1941. Although they were pub­lished dur­ing the Mus­soli­ni regime, they were quite avant-garde and sub­ver­sive, main­ly because they were almost entire­ly on the side of chil­dren. There­fore, when Yel­la Lep­p­mann found­ed the Inter­na­tion­al Chil­dren’s Book Fair after the war, she also includ­ed her works in the cat­a­log.

In oth­er words, the pen name “Nico­let­ta” is artis­tic, child­like, mod­ern, and also has a strong sense of resis­tance!

In *Mash’s Dream*, Mash’s choice of “Niklet­ta” as the name of the Dream­ing Girl like­ly car­ries a sense of homage. After all, Leo Lion­ni entered the world of pic­ture books (1959), eigh­teen years after “Niklet­ta” did!

Life is tru­ly won­der­ful!

Com­piled by A‑Jia in Octo­ber 2026