Patrik Ouredník - The Opportune Moment, 1855

The passage takes about two months. We set sail at a quarter past twelve.

Most of us stayed on board, watching the land fade into the distance until a thin strip was all that was left, but some people got seasick and didn’t last till the end. In fact almost everyone.

Achille Gallina

Pietro Riva

Cattina Dondelli

Mario Carosi

Domenico Codega

Pietro Colli

Paolo Costagli

Francesca Reboa

Achille Dondelli

Carla Mezzadri

Primo Crollanti

Domenico Parodi

Livia Dabrigi

Tristana Renzi

Manfredi Renzi

Cecilia Negri

Amos Vallone

Umberto Verona

(I’ll continue the list tomorrow.)

Below decks there’s almost no lighting at all and vomit everywhere. We’re divided into compartments of nine people each. The tickets say “second-class cabin” but they aren’t really cabins.

Aurelio Gattai

Rina Gattai

Pietro Gavarri

Antonio Massa

Eugenio Grassi

Eugenia Grassi

Carla Gaibi

Decio Boni

Giacomo Zerla

Alessandro Mansueto

Alessandro Mostaca

Giovanni Bossi

Rinaldo Garzino

Adele Servanti

Luigi Silano

Bruno Celli

(The end.)

This morning some of the sailors on deck were having an argument and failed to carry out the commands of the first officer quickly enough, so he took a pole from the windlass and began to beat them with it. One he hit so hard that he collapsed to the deck covered in blood. Achille Dondelli, Domenico, and Umberto tried to help the sailor, but the officer drove them back and ordered us to remain in our designated berths.

February 7th

The captain and the first officer are both Americans. The first officer is vicious and cunning, pelting the sailors with whatever comes to hand and kicking them constantly. The shipmaster is Portuguese and speaks a little Italian. The crew is made up of various nationalities and includes three Negroes, whom the officers beat like horses. When they want to speak with the captain, they have to wait by his cabin without knocking until someone else comes along and knocks on his door. The cook is a Negro, too. His name is Samba and his hair is white.

The Germans are poorer than us Italians, and most of them have hardly anything of their own. We’re worried that they might try to steal some of our things. Zeffirino suggested that we keep watch at night. But Decio disagreed. He said: We’re sailing towards a world where everything will be shared, including property and women alike. Zeffirino said that for property to be shared, first there has to be some, and if some scoundrels go and steal ours, the only thing we’ll have left to share is s—. And then he said: The women can look out for themselves. Cattina said she wouldn’t sleep with a German even if he begged her on his knees. Umberto said he would be happy to sleep with a German, and Cattina said that was just like him. Zeffirino suggested that only those who agreed with him keep watch, and that he would take the first shift. Fifteen people signed up. But Decio said majority rules and we didn’t leave the Old World behind so we could make the same mistakes and submit to the decrees of self-styled leaders. Zeffirino said he left to find freedom and wouldn’t take orders from anyone. Vito Ferroni said Decio was right, matters affecting everyone should be decided by majority, the settlement regulations said so. Zeffirino said we weren’t in the settlement yet, and once we were, the Germans would be there with us, but until then we had to look out for ourselves. Giacomo suggested we go below decks and see whether anything of ours was missing, and if so we keep watch, and if not we trust the Germans. The suggestion was adopted with a majority of thirty-seven votes. Giacomo and Zeffirino went to the first officer to borrow the key to the storeroom, but he said it was out of the question, they might steal something there.

Elisabetta is a year older than me, and after dinner we sit together in a cutter on the starboard side.

There are more than 200 passengers on board, mostly German, French, and Italian. The Germans are poor and filthy, and there are more of them than anyone else. Some of the Germans and the French live together, and Mr. Mangin goes above deck to sleep because he can’t stand the filth. There aren’t enough sailors, so the captain has hired on eight of the Germans. There are also two Americans on board, and a lady from Vienna with a female companion who chews tobacco, but they aren’t settlers. There are some other Austrians also, but it’s hard to tell them apart from the Germans, unless they stay in a different part of the ship. There are also a few Austrians who don’t speak German but some other language even the captain doesn’t understand. And there is one Swiss family with three children who stay in the first-class cabins. The captain speaks French and a little bit of German. Some of the Austrians are settlers, but not all. All of them are against the occupation of Piemont, though. One of the Germans told Agottani that the Austrians who don’t speak German speak a dialect from eastern Germany called Slavic. But Decio said it isn’t a dialect but the language spoken by Serbs. There’s also a Belgian man who’s short and fat and his name is Atlant. All of the food has a salty taste, and we each get 1.5 liters of water a day.

One of the Germans died. The sailors wrapped his body in canvas and tied a sack of rocks to his feet. Then they laid him on a plank, sprinkled him with dirt, and rolled the corpse into the sea. Almost all the men on board removed their hats, but not all. Manfredi had been wondering why we had rocks on board. One of the sailors said: Now you have your answer.

When the weather is nice we dine on deck with the French. After dinner they sing the Marseillaise or other songs. We sing a song that Paolo wrote. The chorus goes: We’re sailing to where they roast coffee, where they roast coffee, where they boast coffee. Elisabetta has a nice voice.

The Southern Cross is a four-master with no steam engine; the masts and bridges are mostly still made of wood. There are two sails on the first mast and one each on the others.

Some of the Germans are so poor that they’ve begun asking us for the potato peels we’ve been tossing into the sea.

Most of us Italians are anarchists, but most of the French are communists and are constantly calling meetings. They argue among themselves more than us Italians or the Germans and the Austrians, but every time an argument breaks out, five minutes later they’re all hugging each other again and singing the Marseillaise. They look down a little on us Italians, since there aren’t very many of us who have been in prison or had entanglements with the police, although Tranquillo Agottani was supposedly with the Carbonari. They call a meeting whenever someone has an argument, almost every day. They call their meetings “assemblies” and invite all the other settlers on the ship, except for the Germans, who don’t understand French, not many people go. Of us Italians the ones who go most often are Decio, Umberto, Giacomo, and Zeffirino. Decio got in an argument with one of the Frenchmen there whose name is Gorand, but they call him African, because he was in Africa and got a Legion of Honour there. Supposedly Gorand said that the nonexistence of marriage and the sharing of women in our settlement was not intended to gratify our desires, but to cultivate a new generation of children who would combine all their parents’ optimal qualities in themselves. Supposedly Umberto said in reply that his optimal quality was that he loves women, and that that was the most important thing for men, otherwise there was no point in establishing a settlement. Gorand said that that was a typical Italian anarchist attitude, at which point Decio inserted himself into the conversation, saying that anarchy was not quite what Gorand imagined it, and that communism was always trying to tell people what to do. Gorand said he had been a communist for eight years and no anarchist was going to tell him what communism was. And he said communism meant love, but not the way Italians and anarchists imagine it. And the first communist was actually Jesus Christ, who was a virgin. Decio said he didn’t know Jesus Christ personally, he had only heard about him in church, but from everything he’d heard, Jesus was a downright fool. Wasn’t he the one who turned the other cheek when somebody hit him? Gorand said that wasn’t the point, they were talking here about love. Then another Frenchman, named Haymard, stepped in, and said Friends, friends, why don’t we leave this for another time?