Passo d'addio

Passo D’addio is a novel written in 1986 by Giovanni Arpino. Many consider the book, which presents the theme of euthanasia, as a sort of spiritual last will and testament of the author, who died of cancer a year after the publication.

Plot

The novel consists of 11 chapters. Giovanni Bertola is an 85-year-old ex professor of mathematical logic; he's ill and feels faint pretty often. He's been living for many years in a rent room at the twins Mimì and Violetta Rubino, melomaniacs, who are twenty years younger than him. Every Sunday he receives a visit from his former student Carlo Meroni, who is also a mathematical logic professor. They play chess, a game in which Bertola always loses, and discuss about philosophy. Bertola and the twins jokingly invite the former student to find a girlfriend, but he replies that Bertola should enjoy life more, and that he should relax.

Meroni loves having dinner at the restaurant of Nino Zaza. The owner is a pizza chef but also a philosopher, and they often find themselves discussing about the downfall of morality. Meroni has a thought in his mind that torments him: he promised the professor to kill him during one of his moments of weakness caused by his illness. At this purpose, he hides in the chess box a syringe that is meant to be used in order to provoke an embolus to Bertola. Meroni doesn't want to do it, but he fears that Bertola will attempt committing suicide, because he wishes to die before he loses his mind.

For the twins he's still a strong man, but he's not able to be happy with what he has and sees himself weaker and weaker. The twins know about Bertola's plans and defend Meroni when he talks bad about the young man. They also avoid any chance for the professor to commit suicide by taking small precautions, for example locking the kitchen door to keep him away from the gas. At the twins’ place arrives a new flatmate, evicted from her previous house: her name is Ginetta, an accountant still not in her thirties. She's the twins’ niece and only relative, but they consider her kind of morally questionable: moreover she never visited them. On the other hand, the professor finds her interesting and plans to make her and Meroni meet.

On a Sunday, after they have lunch by the Rubino twins, Ginetta and Meroni take a stroll through the city. They are polar opposites: Meroni loves classical music about which Ginetta knows nothing; he has a refined way of talking, while the girl is quite vulgar. However, Ginetta manages to make him invite her over at his house, where they have an intercourse before she goes back to sleep at the Rubino twins’. Ginetta keeps the relationship going by searching the man, and he then talks to her about the pact with the professor.

Ginetta and Meroni are phone called by Mimì Rubino while they're having dinner at Zaza's restaurant. She tells them that the professor had disappeared for a couple of hours. The couple, with Zaza and Mimì, search everywhere for the man, but the search turns out in no news of Bertola. Only in the morning Zaza learns from the baker that he'd seen an elegantly-dressed man sitting on the ground near the wholesale market, and then hosted by the baker himself. In fact it's Bertola, who's brought home. However, the professor is exhausted: he seems not able to speak anymore, and must be spoon-fed to make him eat.

During the search for the professor, Meroni asks himself if he would have preferred finding the old man dead: he feels as if he should keep up to the promise made. He can't even look at Bertola in the eye, because he knows he would just receive a look full of betrayal. The professor finds some vitality when Ginetta starts taking care of him. Meroni keeps on visiting the old man, but he's always feeling nervous, and this brings him also to have arguments with Ginetta. But it's the girl herself that finds the bravery to flip the situation around: she's the one giving a mixture of sleeping pills to Bertola. The doctor attributes the cause of his death to a collapse. Ginetta doesn't take part to the funeral. Meroni searches her in the bank where she works, and she tells him that they'll see each other eventually.

Meroni feels lonely, and thinks he's forever going to be envious of Bertola, who died in the girl's embrace.

Edition

• Giovanni Arpino (1986). Passo d'addio. Einaudi. p. 157. ISBN 88-06-59360-9.