The roses that weren't our roses: letters of Sibilla Aleramo and Dino Campana

Literary Review, Summer, 2002 by Minna Proctor

My love my love--the island of Gorgona is an abandoned haunch in the distance where the sunsets are. Now that you know me we can live apart as long as your thoughts don't abandon me. In Sardinia once I entered a house lit outside by an old iron lantern hanging off the granite wall. It stood on a path that descended along the rocky coast from the upland plain to the sea. This memory is powerful in me! The white sandstone cliffs were drunk in the gloomy red sunset closing in on the island and then there was that rusty lantern and the stars over the upland plain shining on me and on Garcia. I still don't know why I kissed the granite wall without thinking. I remember that it was the Sardinian wife of a drunken friend of the friend of our friend who lived in that house. We drank the brackish white Muscat wine of Sardinia and it's idiotic that I remember all of this. My landlady comes from the Island of Giglio where I would certainly consider going to live for at least a year. Does that seem like a possibility to you?

We should still try to go see the Alps. Nietzsche descended from there to the sea with his challenge. Alas Rina--why won't you let me die? There is no edelweiss in D'Annunzio and his Dora descended into tumult and the softest of kisses is still a creation--like when I said

   Like towers made of steel
   In the evening,s brown heart
   My soul creates itself
   For just a sullen kiss

Oh the poverty of these repetitions. Can you love me? Still? Still? Still? I won't write you. My letters were written to be burned.

28 February 1917 Sibilla Aleramo to Dino Campana

Dino,

You said: "Sibilla will endure one week, then she'll start smothering me with letters, letters sent express ..."

It's been a month since you left, and I'm writing you--for the first time. I haven't heard anything at all about you, except that you were feeling "well and almost happy." Then Cesarino stopped writing me, too.

I'm not expecting anything more.

But I'm writing to you because there's a truth that I wish I'd told you, that you might let into your breast now if I tell you from a distance and without the hope of ever seeing you again.

Dino, it would have been impossible for us to have loved each other any more than we did, impossible for anyone to ever love that much again.

Dino, the pain isn't important, and death isn't important.

I've already passed out of life, even if I still cry.

Dino, try to preserve in your soul the memory of our love, then, as you didn't know how to hold onto love in life, try to carry it with you into eternity, as I will!

Dino, may God watch over you.

Sibilla

5 March 1917, Lastra Signa Fanny Campana [Dino's mother] to Sibilla Aleramo

Honorable Lady,

Your letter surprised me, as I believed you were in Turin too. I won't hide that it was that very thought which calmed me down regarding Dino. So much so, that we were surprised to receive a card from Dino in Piemonte on the 4th of February. He just asked for his allowance because it was cold and the firewood cost extra. His father wired him 30 lire for two weeks, and I added a few lines to the card, asking you why you'd been silent about his departure since the two of you were together.