Sound Of The Cicadas By Arturo Vivates
In Siena in the 1930s, Italian writer Arturo Vivante (born in 1923) encountered fascism during his school days. In this excerpt from his short story “The Sound of the Cicadas,” Vivante shows how fascism affected every aspect of life in Italy under Mussolini’s rule.
The government was trying to turn Italians into warlike people, and soon military training was added to our education, already burdened by two periods of gymnastics.As though this weren’t enough, the authorities tried to ingratiate themselves and at the same time indoctrinate us by getting us out of classes right in the middle of a lesson. We might be translating a passage of Italian into Latin when suddenly the bell would ring, the class would be dismissed, and we would hurriedly assemble in the halls. There the head boys would arrange us in threes and march us out of the school, with the professor of gymnastics, who by now had become very important, in the lead. . . . …show more content…
If we were lucky, we would just march down the main street, march back, and be disbanded. More often, though, there was some surprise—like a speech broadcast from Rome. Then, in a square in which not just our school but all the schools of Siena had assembled, after a long wait, we would have to listen to a mixture of voice and static carried at an incredible volume over the loudspeakers. Packed so tight we weren’t able to sit, we would wait the end with aching feet. . . .
At the beginning of my third year at the school, the professor of gymnastics, holding a large scroll under his arm, lined us up and told us there was something new in the program— calisthenics. He unrolled the scroll, stretched it out, and showed it to us. From where we were, we saw a series of little stick figures. “An exercise in sixty movements,” he said rather nervously. “You have the whole year to learn it. In June there’ll be a big rally, and I want you to know it perfectly by
The government was trying to turn Italians into warlike people, and soon military training was added to our education, already burdened by two periods of gymnastics.As though this weren’t enough, the authorities tried to ingratiate themselves and at the same time indoctrinate us by getting us out of classes right in the middle of a lesson. We might be translating a passage of Italian into Latin when suddenly the bell would ring, the class would be dismissed, and we would hurriedly assemble in the halls. There the head boys would arrange us in threes and march us out of the school, with the professor of gymnastics, who by now had become very important, in the lead. . . . …show more content…
If we were lucky, we would just march down the main street, march back, and be disbanded. More often, though, there was some surprise—like a speech broadcast from Rome. Then, in a square in which not just our school but all the schools of Siena had assembled, after a long wait, we would have to listen to a mixture of voice and static carried at an incredible volume over the loudspeakers. Packed so tight we weren’t able to sit, we would wait the end with aching feet. . . .
At the beginning of my third year at the school, the professor of gymnastics, holding a large scroll under his arm, lined us up and told us there was something new in the program— calisthenics. He unrolled the scroll, stretched it out, and showed it to us. From where we were, we saw a series of little stick figures. “An exercise in sixty movements,” he said rather nervously. “You have the whole year to learn it. In June there’ll be a big rally, and I want you to know it perfectly by