The Nonexistent Knight (14 page)

“He will leam too ... We ourselves did not know we existed ... One can also learn to be...”

12

BOOK, now you have reached your end. These last pages I found myself writing away at breakneck speed. From one line to another I have leapt about among nations and seas and continents. What is this frenzy which has seized me, this impatience? It’s as if I were waiting for something. But what can nuns await, withdrawn here so as to be outside the ever-changing happenings of the world? What else can I await except new pages to cover and the routine ringing of the convent bells?

There, I hear a horse come up the narrow track. Now it stops right at the convent gates. The rider knocks. I can’t stretch far enough out of my little window to see him, but I can hear his voice. “Hey, good sisters, listen!”

But is that his voice, or am I mistaken? Yes, 'tis Raimbaut's voice which I have so long made resound over these pages! What can Raimbaut want here?

“Hey, good sisters, can you please tell me if an Amazon has found refuge in this convent, the famous Bradamante?”

Yes, searching for Bradamante throughout the world, Raimbaut was bound to reach here one day.

I hear the Sister Guardian’s voice reply, “No, soldier, there are no Amazons here, only poor holy women praying for your sins.”

But now I run to the window and cry, “Yes, Raimbaut, I’m here, wait for me, I knew you’d come, I’ll be down, I’ll leave with you.”

And hurriedly I tear off my cloistral bands, my nun’s skirt, pull out of a drawer my little topaz-colored tunic, my cuirass, my helmet, my spurs, my periwinkle blue robe. “Wait for me, Raimbaut, I’m here, I’m here, I, Bradamante!”

Yes, my book. Sister Theodora who tells this tale and the Amazon Bradamante are one and the same. Sometimes I gallop over battlefields after adventures of duels and loves, sometimes I shut myself in convents, meditating and jotting down the adventures that have happened to me, so as to try and understand them. When I came to shut myself in here I was desperate with love for Agilulf, now I burn for the young and passionate Raimbaut.

That is why my pen at a certain point began running on so. I rush to meet him. I knew he would not be long in coming. A page is good only when we turn it and find life urging along, confusing every page in the book. The pen rushes on, urged by the same joy that makes me course the open road. A chapter started when one doesn’t know which tale to tell is like a comer turned on leaving a convent, when one might come face to face with a dragon, a Saracen gang, an enchanted isle or a new love.

I’m hurrying to you, Raimbaut I’m not even bidding the abbess good-bye. They know me already and know that after affrays and affairs and blighted hopes I always return to this cloister. But it will be different now ... It will be...

From describing the past, from the present which seized my hand in its excited grasp, here I am, O future, now mounting the crupper of your horse. What new pennants wilt thou unfurl before me from towers of cities not yet founded? What rivers of devastation set flowing over castles and gardens I have loved? What unforeseeable golden ages art thou preparing—ill-mastered, indomitable harbinger of treasures dearly paid for, my kingdom to be conquered, the future...

THE END

BOOKS BY ITALO CALVINO
Visit
www.hmhbooks.com
to find more books by Calvino, including:

The Baron in the Trees
The Castle of Crossed Destinies
Cosmicomics
Difficult Loves
If on a winter's night a traveler
Invisible Cities
Italian Folktales
Marcovaldo, or The seasons in the city
Mr. Palomar
The Nonexistent Knight and The Cloven Viscount
t zero
Under the Jaguar Sun
The Uses of Literature
The Watcher and Other Stories