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Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

Book by Elena Ferrante · 10 quotes · Ferrante, Women, Elena

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Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay Quotes

“I didn’t realize that in his wish to transform me was the proof that he didn’t like me as I was, he wanted me to be different, or, rather, he didn’t want just a woman, he wanted the woman he imagined he himself would be if he were a woman. For Franco, I said, I was an opportunity for him to expand into the feminine, to take possession of it: I constituted the proof of his omnipotence, the demonstration that he knew now to be not only a man in the right way, but also a woman.”

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“You really work in those conditions?” She, irritated by the contact, pulled her arm away, protesting: “And how do you work, the two of you, how do you work?” They didn’t answer. They worked hard, that was obvious. And at least Enzo in front of him, in the factory, women worn out by the work, by humiliations, by domestic obligations no less than Lila was. Yet now they were both angry because of the conditions _she_ worked in; they couldn’t tolerate it. You had to hide everything from men. They preferred not to know, they preferred to pretend that what happened at the hands of the boss miraculously didn’t happen to the women important to them and that—this was the idea they had grown up with—they had to protect her even at the risk of being killed. In the face of that silence Lila got even angrier. "Fuck off," she said, "you and the working class.”

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“Posso chiederle una cosa?". "Dica". "Che studi ha fatto?". [...] "Nessuno". "A sentirla parlare - e gridare - non sembra". "Ѐcosì, ho smesso dopo la quinta elementare". "Perché?". "Non avevo le capacità". "Come l'ha capito?". "Ce le aveva Greco, io no". La Galiani scosse la testa in segno di dissenso, disse: "Se lei avesse studiato, sarebbe riuscita bene quanto Greco". "Come fa a dirlo?". "Ѐ il mio mestiere". "Voi professori insistete tanto sullo studio perché con quello vi guadagnate il pane, ma studiare non serve a niente, e nemmeno migliora, anzi rende ancora più malvagi". "Elena è diventata più malvagia?". "No, lei no". "Come mai?". Lila ficcò in testa al figlio il cappellino di lana: "Abbiamo fatto un patto da piccole: quella malvagia sono io".”

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“[…] e adesso mi divertiva farmi bella. Ma a volte, specialmente quando mi ero curata non soltanto per fare buona figura in generale, ma per un uomo, apprecchiarmi — era questo il vocabolo — m’era sembrato che avesse qualcosa di ridicolo. Tutto quell’affanno, tutto quel tempo a cammuffarmi quando avrei potuto fare altro. I colori che mi stanno, quelli che non mi stanno. I modelli che mi snelliscono, quelli che mi ingrossano. Il taglio che mi valorizza, quello che mi svaluta. Una lunga, costosa preparazione; un ridurmi a tavola imbandita per l’appetito sessuale del maschio, a vivanda ben cucinata perché gli venga l’acquolina in bocca. E poi, l’angoscia di non farcela. Di non sembrare bella. Di non essere riuscita a celare con destrezza la volgarità della carne, con i suoi umori e odori e deformità.”

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