"I Would Write You Mad Words"

A Love Correspondence from the summer of 1899

That white veil is here with me, and I think it still holds the faint perfume of your beloved little person.

The author has no doubt: he can still smell his lover's scent on the white veil he holds.

These words appear on the fourth page of a Venetian local newspaper on June 21, 1899, among the classified ads.

Under the heading "Amor Bianco" (White Love, the likely recipient's code name) unfolds a sequence of ten coded messages published between May and August of that year.

It is a one-way correspondence: she writes letters, while he can only respond through the newspaper.

Two distant lovers, and almost certainly secret ones.

This is the story of their love, played out in the summer of one hundred and twenty-six years ago.

May: how to write you without being discovered

The first ad date back to May, 1899.

He seeks an alternative way to communicate: he asks for instructions and wonders if he can send a letter in a friend's name, because — he writes — "It disgusts me to write here everything I would like to say and that you guess."

But there seems to be no other way: "I laugh and tremble thinking that I have to write on the fourth page of a newspaper."

Ad after ad, the geography of their love also emerges: she is in Rome, and he is in Florence. When they can, they meet in Bologna, which they reach by train.

The chosen newspaper, however, is published in Venice. A choice perhaps dictated by the need for discretion.

Meanwhile, the first coded phrases appear:

"Colomba when?"

"A thousand of those two verbs of yours from the end."

"Write me at the usual address and abandon the new address. I will explain why."

The writer knows the other will understand.

A third party will also appear in May: Haasenstein & Vogler, the advertising space concession company. Its messages, addressed to advertisers, mainly serve to settle accounting matters:

P.S. You remain our creditor for L. 0.60. Haasenstein and Vogler.

In Amor Bianco's case, however, Haasenstein and Vogler will appear several times, not only to talk about money. It will become, despite itself, a character in the story.

June: “Verrà l’amor nervoso?”

In June, his tone changes. The messages become longer, more heated, and at times overflowing. When she is silent, he insists. He writes every few days, sometimes twice in the same week.

The initial embarrassment about using the newspaper vanishes: he tells, remembers, gets agitated, confesses. Writing becomes a way to hold onto desire and not stop feeling.

I rewarded you by sending the Bologna train. You'll have half a day! (June 3)

Love, what are you doing? I warn you I received Friday morning note and then nothing more. (...) Could we ever forget? Write me, tell me no. (June 14)

On June 3 Haasenstein & Vogler reappears:

P.S. Your credit L. 1.45; in future please calculate the remainders yourselves. Haasenstein and Vogler.

The ads are purchased by correspondence, paying in advance (5 cents per word), and he has miscalculated for the second time.

On June 17, Haasenstein & Vogler goes further: it decides not to publish the message, writing only

Be a little calmer in expressing yourselves, and then we will publish. Haasenstein and Vogler.

Not just accounting, then, but censorship.

It's possible he went too far: the italicized words that appear in many messages (Colomba, Ricompensa, Manifestazione…) suggest intimate formulas, perhaps sexual ones. Possibly, on June 17, he lost all modesty and wrote too much.

Then comes the message of June 21, the longest: almost four hundred words.

It is a tense text full of omissions and withheld objects, like the white veil that "still bears the faint perfume of your beloved little person."

I report it here in full:

I used terms too vivid in railing against the slavery of this kind of correspondence in this newspaper. Result: suppression of the correspondence and an invitation to calm... anonymous.

This little fact put me in a good mood Saturday because I thought that if it were known... and we understand each other, don't we? This morning I received your letter, a love of a letter like its author; sweet, affectionate, dear, as I understand you.

I have finally found all of yourself again and more than ever I have thought of our torture, of this common martyrdom that has lasted so long, and that lasts because we have not wanted to defy the prejudices and comments of our society. I am remorseful for not having been more energetic, then, and perhaps, for other reasons, it could not have been done differently. Fatality!

I have had the blackest days; I wanted without fail to make the trip to Rome to see how things stood, I even thought of writing everything and clarifying a position that is increasingly difficult for me. But then... the thought of your consequences held me back now, as then.

Today is the 20th; do you remember where we were returning from months ago? That white veil I have here with me and it seems to me it still has the faint perfume of your beloved little person. How much more I would say and write, if it were not for the instinctive repugnance of making public what constitutes the most intense and beautiful elevation of our souls! I would write you little mad words, I would repeat to you that you are all my life, that I see nothing, feel nothing, breathe nothing but you, that I think of you in all the minutes, the moments of my day..........

And at least let letters continue to arrive in which I guess that you are well and that you do not let yourself be overcome by sadness. The other letter had so saddened me! (By the way, as you imagined, I did not receive that intimate letter!)

Perhaps more easily now you will be able to have occasion to make some trip to Bologna. Your punctuality means health to me, but I don't want to demand impossible things, in any case I try to do the impossible to make this time seem less horribly long and gloomy to the one who is you, to the one who responds with all the tenderness and ardor to that double... manifestation (the word is ugly but you understand equally) of love that will live mythical and strong, eternally.

One last word. I want it to be in everything like you. Only then will it be a great love. Do we understand each other?

On June 24, at the end of another ad, Haasenstein & Vogler reappears:

P.S. Now your account is balanced.

An administrative detail that sounds almost like a promise: he has paid enough, and the wait is about to end. From the correspondence emerges the possibility that they might see each other again soon.

My love write me and if you love me so much, try to hurry. (June 28)

July and August: the epilogue

After June 24 the messages get shorter and the rhythm changes.

A sentence, a date, an hour.

In July, no ads. I checked several times through the pages of the old newspaper: it really is so.

Perhaps he and Amor Bianco finally met, and words on printed paper were no longer needed?

This seems to be confirmed by a very brief message from August 4:

Usual time.

Nothing else.

The newspaper now only serves to fix the appointment.

The rest happens elsewhere.

Who was this man who spent considerable money to say "I love you" through a German company? The ads reveal neither his name nor his profession, but the way of writing betrays something: the culture, the class, and the time in which he lived.

In 1899 Italy was changing fast and so was the way of loving.

I will speak of this in my next article.