Sandro Venturi, or rather Prof. Sandro Venturi, a widower, had retired to the Marche, after a long and honorable career as Professor of Italian Literature at the Lyceum Massimo D’Azeglio in his hometown Torino. "I want to live close to Recanati – he said – where my favorite Italian poet was born". The poet was of course Giacomo Leopardi. Besides, Prof. Venturi had also access to the famous library of Leopardi’s father Count Monaldo where he continued his research on ancient writers and manuscripts.

Since his move to Recanati, Sandro Venturi had developed a late-evening Christmas Eve habit or ritual. He first called his son and daughter who lived in other parts of Italy and exchanged wishes with them and their families and his grandsons. Then Sandro sat in his armchair in the living room, turned off the light and listened to the sweet, soft and somewhat somber Christmas tunes played on the radio. He now fell into a Dickensian mood and began a virtual biographical journey in reverse - recalling the ghosts of Christmases past, as he called them. He would try to remember images from this or that Christmas as they randomly came to mind. Each year the recollections were slightly different, one Christmas, or person, or event standing out more vividly on the stage of his mind theater. ‘Theater of the mind’ was another of his favorite metaphors for memory.

One recollection was always the same since he started the yearly Christmas Eve ritual. And when it came to mind his eyes filled with tears that he could not prevent or stop if he had wanted. And here is the story of that Christmas.

The year could have been 1949 or 1950 when he was about 9 or 10 years old and was returning home from school – the eve of Christmas Eve marking the beginning of the school holidays. The whole class had been in an understandably festive mood that he did not feel like sharing. Sandro loved his family but his home was filled with a fog of mutual anger and hostility that poisoned the grown ups and somewhat affected his perception of the world.

He was more withdrawn than the average boy of his age –psychologists would say that he built a defense wall to shut out the bitterness perceived in his family. Christmas’ festiveness does not agree with hostility and that explains his particular mood that day. Slowly, he started walking home in the misty grayness of that winter afternoon.

Torino was being rebuilt after the ravages of WW II, yet every so often some land would be cleared of rubble and bombs but still remain empty and abandoned to spontaneous plants and weeds. One such area was along the path of Sandro’s way home. He had just passed the lot when he heard a faint meow behind him – turning back there it was, a young cat that came out of the clearing. He was black and white with black face and white neck and nose tip. Sandro immediately thought of one of Dumas’ three musketeers and went back to pet him. Whereupon, having found a friend, the cat followed Sandro all the way home.

"Can we keep him?" – he asked his Grandmother Maria who opened the door. Maria, the mildest character in the family and the one who understood Sandro best, gave her assent. The cat, with customary elegance and diplomacy and after a detailed exploration of the surroundings made himself at home.

That evening at bed time, the cat jumped up on Sandro’s bed and lodged himself against his neck.

Across the street from Sandro’s house there was an old-fashion osteria – the type of establishment that in the years to come would change style and status and be then called a bar.

In the osteria, on Saturday nights and on the eve of festivities, the hall in the back would become a ballroom. A player piano fed by punched paper rolls supplied the music. At about 10.30 the music would stop and the men reassembled in the main room. Then, after a few extra glasses of wine, they organized an impromptu choir and sang old folk Piedmontese songs.

Piedmontese folk songs are (were) slow, melodious and sad. The Tuscan poet Carducci refers to them in his well-known Ode to Piedmont and calls them "the epic chants of your brave people" (gli epici canti del tuo popol bravo). The harmony and the melodies, softened by distance and filtered by the window in Sandro’s room became even more plaintive. On hearing them Sandro would often start crying. But that night with his new feline friend at his side Sandro did not cry and almost found the choir cheerful.

Christmas morning came and Sandro found by the nativity scene the erector set that he had hoped to get. Shortly later he started building his first set. The cat immediately participated in the construction. He first verified Newton’s law of gravity by moving the odd piece to the edge of the table and watching the piece fall on the floor. He would then jump on the floor and toss the piece in the air or move it around on the floor in soccer dribbling fashion. Sandro was delighted. Grandmother Maria noticed the new bond between Sandro and the cat. At dinner she put another chair close to Sandro especially for the cat. That little mask peeping now and then over the edge of the table created amusement for the whole family and triggered a mood of cheerfulness not observed before. And this extended well after dinner, in the living room. The cat played with the twine supplied by Grandmother. He stalked, punted and attacked a feather provided by an aunt. Sandro’s parents and his Grandfather too joined in by tossing crumbled paper balls that the cat chased and grabbed while occasionally somersaulting. Soon everyone was laughing and participating in the general amusement as if they had changed their character and suddenly become happy people.

This particular childhood Christmas was usually the last recollection during Sandro’s biographical, sentimental and virtual journey across his past Christmas eves. He could not explain to himself satisfactorily why this memory made him always cry. "I would not want to re-live my childhood anyway" – he thought - Besides I know all too well that "… everything that grows holds in perfection but a little moment…"

Still, on the night of our story, Prof. Venturi had the same last recollection accompanied by the usual tears. Then he remembered a passage at the close of Manzoni’s masterpiece novel ‘I Promessi Sposi’.

"If – went the passage – instead of striving to feel happy we attempted instead to do some good to others, we all would end up feeling better". That cat, without training or education and even without being "human" had done just that – he lightened the souls of his hosts. He did some good and by so doing he himself seemed very happy, as evident from his loud purring and the expression of sublime beatitude while stretched on Sandro’s bed that Christmas evening.

That’s what is moving – Prof. Venturi thought – to find more spontaneous humanity in a little "non-human" creature than many humans are capable of. And – we can add - details of the time and place where we were born and raised remain indelible. They may become obscured in the hustle and bustle of the roaring years (gli anni ruggenti). But those memories return later to remind us of how we were, of how we have changed and of what we lost.

"Guarda un po’ – said Prof. Venturi to himself (loosely translatable as "I’ll be darn") – here I am, at the 11.45pm mark of my life, still explaining myself to myself". He got up from his armchair, turned on the light for a moment, turned off the radio and retired for the night.

He had always loved cats throughout his life and continued to love them till the end.

-Shakespeare's Views on the News-

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