HIDDEN INSIDE THE SHADOW

HIDDEN INSIDE THE SHADOW

It must have been because of the great country house where she had been living alone for over ten years____it was an old house surrounded by trees: cypresses, chestnuts, lime trees, but there was also hazelnuts _____that Elvira had developed the conviction, that is, she firmly believed, that in the shadows , of the trees, of the things, of the houses, even in the shadows of human beings, as well as of animals, was hiding something, indeed someone. And when she thought of something or someone hiding in the shadows, she didn’t think at all that this something or someone had something to do with the tree, with the house, or with the animal, with the person of which it was the shadow. No, the something or the someone which was crouching in her shadow, as in that of the cypress, was something or someone completely extraneous to that cypress as to her, completely extraneous in the most total sense, in the sense that she, as the cypress, was completely aware of its __or his__existence.

It even happened that Elvira hinted at this conviction of hers when someone , who went to visit her, launched into appreciations  for the peace, the tranquility, the quiet of the place where she lived, among the greenery, with her house surrounded by those luxuriant , high trees_____ah, how wonderful these trees, how it is relaxing, comfortable to be able to stay in their shade____happened that somebody said, and then Elvira could reply : “ Eh, you can never know who is hiding inside the shadows”, or even: “ Eh, we have to be on guard against  who is hiding inside the shadows” People understood these statements of Elvira in their own way, ignoring what she really wanted to mean. Since she believed not only that something or someone, at all unknown, really was or lived inside the shadows, but also that this unknown someone, who was crouched into the shadows, whose existence no one suspected, could at any moment come out, jump out of the shadow.

Nobody gave weight ( no one paid attention to) to what Elvira said, that is to what , time to time ,she happened to say, indeed she happened to let come out from her mouth , on shadows and on who was hidden inside shadows.

One day, as she had done with others, Elvira happened to mention her belief regarding the shadows, all inhabited by someone, to Kitty, the daughter of one of her friend. Oh, how enthusiastic the girl became, hearing Elvira speaking about shadows and their Inhabitants !

Of course the girl, she too, understood ( took) the words of Elvira in her own way, oh but she seemed not only delighted , but also enlightened, or inspired at her speeches. So that she, Kitty, all exultant, started to talk of the shadows theater. Oh, but of course , that old country house, among all that greenery, surrounded by those high, magnificent trees, oh , her old house, with its decrepit walls, on, yeah, its walls were almost decrepit, but , ah, it was the ideal  stage for

a show entirely of shadows. Oh, she was thinking of a theater ( a stage) where shadows of human, and living, beings were cast , that she was not at all interested in Chinese shadows, Kitty wanted to point.

Oh, she knew exactly a company of actors who did research theater. They had been in Japan where they had taken courses of Theater No, Kitty continued to say, more and more enthusiastic.

These actors, who were her friends, couldn’t wait to be able to stage the shadows theater, they had learned in Japan, also in Italy. Unfortunately up to now they had not found a suitable place for the staging of their show with shadows. But she, Elvira, would have had no difficulty in making her great , old house available to them, would she? Kitty had asked. Ah, Elvira , not that she could feel comfortable hearing of theater with shadows ! She had also tried to make Kitty understand WHO KNOWS WHO CAN BE HIDING INSIDE THE SHADOWS? But Kitty had burst out laughing. “ Oh, Elvira, my mother always tells me that you are a bit…a bit particular, let’s say “ she claimed, nonchalantly. “ Here, in the No theater, it is no question of who is hiding in the shadows, since the shadows are those of the actors, or those of their bodies. Well, the shadows of the actors , they are in the stage, instead of the actors. That is, the shadows of the actors are what we can see on the stage, instead of the actors. What is to fear from the shadows of the actors?” Kitty had insisted stubbornly.

Elvira had ended up agreeing, albeit with considerable apprehension, making her home available to the company of actors, called Flowers in Light, which  would have set up the shadows show for a chosen audience. The actors had decided the stage where their shadows would have appeared

It was the largest room of Elvira house, which was at the ground floor. She, Elvira, had always called that room ___the wide drawing room___ , but she hardly ever used it.                                          Since before going on stage in front of the audience the actors needed a few days for rehearsals, Elvira, prayed by Kitty, had had to host them_____they were eleven in all____for over a week.

They were very busy days, even almost tiring and agitated for Elvira, those during which the actors of the Flowers in Light were busy rehearsing the show. The actors rehearsed all day , and at night they started singing, dancing , accompanied by a music very terrible to listen to, a music made unpleasant metallic sounds, which seemed those of iron sheets crumpled. They, the actors, said that they needed to relax, they had to have fun.

She, Elvira , leaves the house at night , to escape the unbearable rattle of that terrifying music, and she started to walk around there, among the fields.  Those were moonlit nights , the moonlight cast shadows around her, so that she expected at any moment to see someone jump out of the shadow of a tree, but also from her shadow. She could not avoid in those day always being in a heartbeat.

Finally it arrived, the day that ( when) the show would have gone on stage. Everything was ready.

The shadows show had to go on  at night, but the spectators began to arrive since early in the afternoon. The actors, but also Kitty and her friends, said that there were very big ones among them, oh, big ones of great intellectual, cultural , social importance , very important people, whose names Kitty and the others  even mentioned, but which she, Elvira, did not know.

The play , indeed the drama, represented by shadows was a rather tangled story, with many deaths, many killings. There was a princess imprisoned in a castle , and there were knights who came to free her and who were all killed. At the end the princess threw herself from the castle walls and died she too.

The actors claimed that it didn’t matter so much the story in that show. What really mattered was what the shadows could have evoked, suggested.

The show lasted three hours. The audience watching the show seemed enthusiastic about it.

The representation was about to end when Elvira, sitting among the spectators, left the room and went outside. Nobody seemed to be paying attention to her.

Elvira had gone out driven by an irrepressible impulse. While she was watching the shadows moving on the stage, it had seemed to her that one of those shadows was the same  she happened to meet in her nights walks.

Elvira didn’t come back home that night, and she didn’t even come back when it was day again. She never came back, just as she had followed that shadow or, perhaps, she too had become a shadow.