Circles of the Inferno

The atmosphere in Rome's Viminale Palace was somewhat like the first circle of Hell.

Diverse lingue, orribili favelle,

Parole di dolore, accenti d'ira,

Voci alte e fioche, e snon di man con

elle. . . .

((Differing tongues, horrible outcries, words of pain, tones of anger, voices deep and hoarse, and the sound of hands amongst them. . . .)

Premier Ivanoe Bonomi, 71, and the secretaries of four cooperating political parties (Liberals, Christian Democrats, Labor Democrats, Communists) were trying to reconstitute an Italian cabinet. Well might the sharp eyes of Palmiro Togliatti, Communist Secretary and the most powerful man present, glint through his glasses. The politicians were closer to agreement than they had been for over a week.

Suddenly in rushed Socialist Secretary Pietro Nenni, waving a paper. Hard on his heels dashed the Action Party's leader, Emilio Lussa. The paper was the text of Secretary of State Stettinius' announcement that the U.S. intended the Italians to form a cabinet "without influence from outside." All hailed the statement as a U.S. rebuke to Britain for its opposition to Count Carlo Sforza as premier or foreign minister. (Of Sforza Winston Churchill had said: "We do not trust the man and we do not think he is true and trustworthy. Nor would we put the slightest confidence in any government in which he is a dominating member.")

Since the U.S. and Britain are jointly responsible for liberated Italy's government, Churchill's statement had' the force of a command, Stettinius' statement had the force of a fragmentation bomb. The immediate effect it produced was like the second circle of Hell:

Di qua, di l`a, di giu, di su, gli mena.

Nulla speranza gli comforta mai,

Non che di posa, ma di minor pena.

(Hither & yon, up here, down there, it leads them. No hope really comforts them, either of rest or even of less pain.)

Hopes for solving the Cabinet deadlock blew up with a bang. The Socialists and Actionists, who consider Bonomi a British tool, were less than ever inclined to enter a Bonomi Cabinet. For a while it looked as if even Secretary Togliatti might write up some small Communist capital by writing off Bonomi. But later he rallied to the aging Premier. At last Bonomi (and Italy) had a new cabinet. No. 2 man in it (as Vice Premier) was Comrade Togliatti.

With Dante, Italians, oppressed with physical hunger and spiritual despair, could say:

lo sono al terzo cerchio della piova

Eterna, maledetta, fredda e greve;

Regola e qualit`a mai non l'e nova.

(I am in the third circle [of Hell], that of the eternal, accursed, cold and heavy rain; its law and quality are never new.)

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