Cesare Pavese and America: Life, Love, and Literature

Four. Einaudi, Fernanda, and World War II

FOUR Einaudi, Fernanda, and World War II R Between 1930 and 1936 the major part of Pavese’s creative energies went into translations, critical essays, and poetry, while beginning with 1936 his efforts went mainly into short stories, novels, and editing . He did continue to translate to support himself. He translated four books in 1937, all of which were published in 1938: John Dos Passos’s The Big Money, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders, and Gertrude Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. Teaching would have been a natural choice for more income, but his expulsion from the Fascist party and his confino barred him now from both state and private schools. In terms of teaching, personal tutoring remained the only possibility, and at that he had some success.1 Nonetheless, he still could not get by without his sister. When the telephone company informed him in 1937 of a rate change—from the residential to the more expensive professional category—he wrote them, “In my capacity as Doctor of Letters, expolitical confinee, not a member of the National Fascist Party, nor, therefore, inscribed in the professional registry, I cannot undertake, even privately, the type of work I should. Presently I am a lettarato [emphasis in original], which means I more or less live off the sister with whom I reside, who pays her telephone bill and mine.”2 Between his return to Turin in March 1936 and the end of 1937, Pavese wrote thirteen short stories, none of which he submitted for [฀฀86 ] EINaUDI, FERNaNDa, aND WORLD WaR II [฀87 publication in his lifetime. Yet one sees in them, even in a travesty like “La draga,” signs of his mature, compactly efficient style. Pavese wrote no poetry in 1937 until after august thirteenth. Given the traumatic august conversation with Pizzaro and his consequent feelings about himself, it is not surprising that the nine poems he wrote in the remainder of the year, all short, bitter, and resigned, center on situations past and now remembered: old men recall their women who have run off (“Gelosia”), young men remember last summer’s affair (“Estate”), and broken country prostitutes remember the lovely feel of the sun when they were young (“La puttana contadina”).3 In 1938 he regularized his work situation. He had worked as a paid consultant for Einaudi since Giulio Einaudi founded the house in 1933. By 1938 Giulio Einaudi finally felt the firm had become secure enough financially to take Pavese on as a salaried employee. It was Pavese’s first and, as it turned out, only full-time job of his life. Giulio Einaudi’s april 27, 1938, letter contained the terms of Pavese’s employment and shows why augusto Monti would later call him the “workhorse” of the firm.4 “Dear Pavese,” wrote Giulio: I am happy you will be working full-time for the Einaudi publishing firm as of May 1 of this year. Your responsibilities will be the following: a) Translation from English of about 2,000 pages per year. (Naturally this figure represents a maximum and it is most unlikely that I will ask you to reach it.) B) Editing of manuscripts and proofs of English translations done by others. C) Examination of works, including unpublished works, both Italian and foreign, for which it is felt your opinion would be useful, with your opinions expressed in writing when appropriate. D) Miscellaneous necessary drafting and editing of English correspondence, for which you will be required to come into the office during mutually convenient hours once or twice a week.5 For all this, he was to be paid one thousand lire a month. This annual salary of twelve thousand lire represented a considerable improvement over his 1937 earnings, which we can estimate at between seven and nine thousand lire.6 Leone Ginzburg played a more important role 88 ]฀CHaPTER FOUR in the earliest years of Einaudi, but Ginzburg (who had returned from jail at about the same time Pavese returned from confino) was, as a convicted criminal and a Jew, sent to confino in 1940 when Italy entered World War II. The years 1936–40 saw Einaudi beginning to create its distinctive character and profile; it was growing in influence and prestige , if not in profitability.7 Ginzburg’s forced departure in 1940 increased Pavese’s workload, but, despite his grumblings, Pavese loved his job...