The unsettling muse who wrote on walls

One might assume this is being improvised on the spot, given that autobiography and writing have merged and collapsed in therapy. One might dismiss this infinitesimal piece of private testimony.

It could happen, and it would be wonderful if it did; because texts have always existed to create vertigo, abysses and encounters. Protests and collapses.

Will all this continue to exist in an age of artificial voices and definitive opinions? In an age of non-universal judgements?

When asked to contribute a short story about De Chirico’s ‘Le muse inquietanti’, I remained silent, thinking only: I already know.

There is an unforgettable moment in Victor Hugo’s The Last Day of a Condemned Man. At one point, the condemned man is allowed to see his daughter again, whom he has not seen for a year: it will be the last time, as in a few hours the guillotine will do its duty. However, she does not recognise him: she calls him ‘sir’. He tells her that no, it cannot be her father, because her father is already dead. The pain is too much for the condemned man. He therefore decides to leave a note for her, in the hope that one day she will be able to read it. The note is entitled: MY STORY. In it, he will tell his daughter everything – but also us, the readers. He will also explain how he ended up in that situation, and what led to his final sentence.

It is the only chapter to have a title. For the first and last time, however, another voice intervenes in the book: it is a ‘publisher’s note’, nothing more than a figment of Victor Hugo’s imagination. It states that ‘the pages connected to this one have not yet been found’. The book then continues, still narrated by the man condemned to death. Readers will never learn his story, yet they encounter Hugo’s genius, which urges them not to be captivated by the narrative’s enchantment but instead to plunge into the abyss of truth, pain, and human essence: red blood and salty tears.

At secondary school, the art teacher had two defining characteristics. The first was that he was an alcoholic. The second was that he hated me. He did not just hate me, but a small group of pupils, all boys. He hated them for deep-seated and long-standing reasons, of a naturally psychopathological nature. His passion for Cynar – you could often find him sipping it quite naturally at the bar next to the school at 8 o’clock in the morning – drove him to commit heinous and utterly unjustified acts.

Like this.

One day he walked into the classroom and, for no reason at all, said to me: “Gentile, get out.”

I ask him what the reason is for this ill-conceived and pre-emptive punishment, and I already know I won’t get an answer. At most, he’ll respond with his most cutting aphorism: ‘Because I say so’.

And yet, not this time.

He turns round angrily, as if my question were an unnecessary addition. As if it were legitimate to throw someone out of the classroom for no reason at all, without warning, and not to expect even a single question. But this time it’s different: he plants his feet firmly on the floor to feign a stability he cannot possess, moves his arms in a somewhat theatrical manner, addresses the class, seeking their support, and then looks at me again, furious, and says: “You’re a disturbing muse. Get out!”

It was only years later that I realised that definition came from De Chirico, and this made him, years later, when he had by then retired, seem even vaguely likeable to me: or at least, I was able to feel a certain pietas towards him. A pietas which, however, I did not feel at the very moment I was sacked. It was certainly not the first time. Something within me made me more forgiving than in the past, because there was a certain solemnity to the description of a ‘disturbing muse’ (not everyone can be a muse) which indicated that his was a surreal, rivalrous hatred: or perhaps pure, alcohol-fuelled Dadaism. Nevertheless, on that occasion—admittedly not the most vicious one—it spurred me, for reasons I cannot explain, to take action.

And so I did.

Organising the logistics was not straightforward, but I ultimately succeeded. Employing considerable persuasive skills and a measure of manipulation, I convinced a friend who was already fourteen and therefore had a scooter to pick me up at night. As a parent today, I cannot fathom how straightforward it was to run away from home in those days—to do what seemed not only necessary but actually life-saving: to go to the teacher’s house, which stood in the middle of the countryside.

After taking a few wrong turns and feeling a bit scared in the dark, there we were, standing in front of his gate, holding a black spray can that I’d nicked from my eldest brother, who used to go to the stadium.

Accordingly, I proceeded to write on the wall opposite her house, in large letters, with my friend’s tacit approval: PROF, YOU ARE A DISTURBING MUSE. We were about to depart, but at the last moment I chose to append a colon, followed by a second word, rendered even larger: INFAMOUS.

We fled into the night, feeling like the city’s most legendary and haunting muses.

As for what will happen at school the next day, I shall draw on Victor Hugo’s technique.