First report on the Earth by
“Special Reporter” from the Moon: a novella by Alberto Moravia
(Racconti Surrealistici e Satirici)
Primo rapporto
sulla Terra dell' “Inviato Speciale” della Luna
Strange country. It is inhabited by two
distinct races, both morally and, to some extent, physically: the
race of the so-called poor and that of the so-called rich. These two
words, rich and poor, are obscure to us, and due to our inadequate
knowledge of the language of this country, we were not able to verify
their meaning. However, our information mostly comes from the rich,
far more approachable, talkative and hospitable than the poor.
The rich say that the poor have come
from nobody knows where, have settled in this country from time
immemorial and, since then, have
done nothing but reproduce, always maintaining
unchanged their unpleasant character. Nobody, after having
familiarized with their character, could not deplore it and disagree
with the rich. First of all, the poor don't like cleanliness and
beauty. Their clothes are filthy and ragged, their houses squalid,
their furniture worn-out and ugly. But due to their strange and
perverse tastes, they seem to prefer rags to new clothes, poor houses
to villas and palaces, inexpensive furnishings to designer items.
Who in fact, the rich ask, has ever
seen a poor person dressed nicely and living in a beautiful house
with luxury decorations?
What is more, the poor don't like
culture. You hardly ever see a poor person reading a book and going
to a museum or a concert. The poor know nothing of the arts and they
easily take an imitative painting for a masterpiece, a statuette from
Lucca for one of Praxiteles' works, a vulgar popular song for a
prelude of Bach. If it were for them, the Muses, who offer some sort
of consolation to men, would have long abandoned the world.
As far as entertainment is concerned,
the rich explain that the poor engage in the most unsophisticated
activities one could imagine: drinks, popular dances, bocce or ball
games, boxing matches and other similar pastimes. As a matter of
fact, the rich affirm, the poor prefer ignorance to culture.
Furthermore, the poor hate nature.
During the warm season, the rich travel, go to the beach, the
countryside, the mountains. They find it rejuvenating for the body
and the mind. They enjoy the nice blue water, the pure air and the
mountain tranquillity. The poor, on the other hand, utterly refuse to
leave their squalid neighbourhoods. They don't care about seasonal
changes, nor do they feel the need to mitigate the cold weather with
the warm, and the warm with the cold. They prefer the municipal pools
to the sea, the dirty suburban fields to the countryside, and their
own balconies to the mountains. Now, the rich wonder, how can you not
love nature?
At least, while remaining in town, the
poor could lead a social life. Not at all. The only gathering place
that they seem to know are the so-called factories. And these
factories are the gloomiest place imaginable: sinister vessels made
of cement and glass, populated by deafening machines, smoky and
dirty, ice-cold in the winter and burning hot in the summer.
There are even some poor people who
don't live in the city but in the loneliness of the countryside.
Their only occupation, as well as pastime apparently, is to turn over
soil by means of primitive and heavy iron tools, from dawn to dusk,
during all seasons, rain or shine. And to think, the rich say, that
there would be plenty of other things to do in this world, much more
intelligent and pleasant.
There are likewise even more
extravagant poor people who prefer darkness to sunlight, and the
bowels of the earth to the sky. They sink into very deep tunnels, and
down there, in the darkness, they derive pleasure from extracting
rocks. These underground places are called mines. The thought of
going down into a mine would never even enter the mind of a rich
person.
All this is described by the poor as
“work”, another term whose meaning is obscure and
incomprehensible to us. The poor are so fond of this work that, for
some reason that we were not able to verify, when the factories are
closed and the mines inactive, they protest, scream and threaten to
start riots and violent actions. As the rich say, how can anyone
understand such behaviour? And wouldn't it be easier, more desirable
and comfortable to participate in some social gathering or
respectable circle?
Furthermore, as far as food is
concerned, the poor don't know about delicious dishes, aged wines and
delicate desserts. They prefer by far plain food, such as beans,
onions, turnips, potatoes, garlic and stale bread. When they
occasionally adapt to eat meat and fish, you can guarantee it will be
the most unpalatable fish and the toughest meat. As for wine, they
only like it sour and watered-down. They don't like early produce,
and they wait to have green peas when they are powdery, artichokes
stringy and asparagus fibrous. In other words, it is impossible for
the poor to appreciate the joys of good food.
With respect to tobacco, these poor
fools disdain both the fine products of the Orient and the more
savoury ones from America, and they smoke this black, bitter and
completely unpleasant garbage that makes you cough. They dislike a
nice Cuban cigar or a delicate Turkish cigarette.
Another peculiar fact about the poor:
they don't care about their health. One couldn't think otherwise
considering the carelessness with which they expose themselves to
adverse weather and their negligence in taking care of themselves
when they are ill. They don't buy medicines, don't go to the hospital
and even refuse to stay in bed when necessary.
The rich explain that the poor neglect
their own health due to the fact that they wouldn't want to miss a
single day in the factories, the mines and the fields, for which they
have an absurd passion. Bizarre as it may seem, this is the reason.
One could go on and on talking about
the poor and their attachment to such rough, harmful and extravagant
habits. Hence, we shall now examine something more interesting,
namely the reasons behind such a preposterous behaviour.
The rich inform us that in-depth
studies on the poor have always been conducted, during all times.
There are primarily two groups of scholars: those who attribute the
character of the poor to some sort of deliberate perversity, and who
think they could be corrected and changed; and those who think that
no remedy is possible, being the character of the poor innate. The
former suggest an active predication and persuasion; the latter, more
skeptical, only police action, and they seem to be right, since all
that preaching on the advantages of cleanliness, beauty, luxury,
culture and leisure has produced no results so far. Quite the
opposite in fact: despite the care and concerns shown by the rich,
the poor, extremely ungrateful, don't like the rich. It must be
acknowledged, however, that the rich are not always able to hide
their disgust for the lifestyle of the poor.
As we customarily do during our
voyages, we wanted to hear the other side of the story as well. We
therefore asked the poor. It was not easy, as they ignore any
language different from that of their country. However, we were
finally able to obtain this extraordinary answer: the difference
between them and the rich is that the rich have something called
money, which the poor almost always lack.
We wanted to find out more about this
money, able to produce such enormous differences. We discovered that
it mostly consists of little pieces of coloured paper or round pieces
of metal.
Considering the well-known inclination
of the poor to hide the truth, we doubt that this so-called money
could be the main source of such peculiar effects.
A strange country indeed, we must
conclude.
- The End -
