"The kiss of death", 1889.
Are well over one hundred works of this authentic and undefeated queen of Gothic, which enjoyed an enviable success with the public: an extraordinary machine bestseller. By contrast did not enjoy the favor of critics. Her novels, the first of which was "Rina ol'angelo of the Alps", 1877, saw various reductions film. "The kiss of death", as we will, boasts two transpositions: first in 1949 by Guido Brignone, the second in 1974 at the hands of Charles Infascelli. Both with the same title of the novel.
Another famous work is "buried alive", 1896, that it is closely connected, as is "Revenge of a Mad announced by the publisher as" the end result and the "kiss of death '" and output in 1894, interspersed with "The orphan Collegno, 1893.
"The kiss of death" opens with a long dedication to her husband Marcello Quinterno, to be reported to the delicacy of feeling and the debt of gratitude that the author acknowledges to her husband: "If my life sad, withdrawn , has a bright side, soft and warm is your goodness to me. To you I owe the inspiration for many of my works, ye waken in me the idea to rise somewhat from mediocrity. "
Alfonso married a woman of Andalusia, Ines has not heard of the Countess Clara Rambaldi, her sister. One day she receives a call for help when it comes to his house and learned the news that she died a few days.
Death will guide this story. It will always be present, since that Alfonso and Ines will visit the grave of his sister: "The solemn silence that reigns in this place, sacred to the rest of the dead, the great trees, crosses the funeral, everything is conducive to the most insane and delusional visions. This is death: in front, behind, beside us, beneath our feet, under the grass we walk on, you can not escape the thought. Even the strongest man, the more skeptical trembles, my heart feels squeezed by a cold pressure. The monuments take our eyes look strange, fantastic, bizarre, vague shadows, shaded, seem to hover in front of us, among the graves, in the air, a cold sweat flowing throughout the body, the lips become silent. "
The coffin, which is deposited in the chapel waiting for the burial is uncovered and we see a description of Clara that suggests blurring the boundary between life and death. Clara seems alive, its beauty is undiminished. We could call it dead or alive, either: "She was a beautiful celestial purity and under those white lace, with that white dress, looked like a virgin dormant in the thoughts of heaven." It's a key passage, which goes to the heart of inspiration and poetic author, closely linked to his time. The gothic and macabre aspect is reinforced here by a romance in some places even exasperated, but in those years and won over many readers praised. Not be ruled out in this relationship between life and death, in this correspondence of sentiments between the living and the dead, the suggestion of the work Foscolo "Tomb" in 1806.
The story takes place quietly, with a time never rushed, even tending towards a sort of expansion. It seems to be resulting from this expansion, while macabre in which we find ourselves immersed, the lightness of the story. If we except the style that pays tribute to his time off ("Clara took elbows on the balustrade and with the white and slender hands held the blonde head. You could not see her face, but by frequent sighs that raised the chest, you could see the anguish that was in his heart. "), you could say that the Gothic Invernizio is the opposite of horror fiction and invade the cinema today, so that the police of a Conan Doyle or un'Agatha of Christie are far from heavy and often violent yellow invade the shelves of libraries.
The plot also appear traces of that gruesome fairy (unwelcome children and away) that we find in many stories, from Cinderella to Sleeping Beauty in the woods, Tom Thumb, and so on, simply the most famous. But little or nothing to what we find important had just happened or was happening in France with authors such as Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert, Hugo, Maupassant, Zola, if an exception is made for Alexandre Dumas and Eugene Sue, which is responsible for paying the Invernizio some tax (eg "The Count of Monte Cristo, in camouflage Clara -" the Black Lady "- which visited Paris to get revenge on her husband and find their daughter Lily). The two authors beyond the Alps, in fact, very famous and popular, can not be ignored by Invernizio, which must have absorbed from them rather than by some minor, some fantasies.
When Clara came out of trance that made her believe dead, the story recounts the background to a great extent. Ie, Clara learns from an old and devoted servant of his late mother, Nemmo existence of his brother. It takes care, unbeknownst to the father, who believes it fell into a ravine as he told him, falsely, that the goatherd Ronco tended to him since birth, and makes an elegant and educated young.
The relationship between Alfonso and Clara, which ignores the fact that Guido is the first brother will cause misunderstandings and quarrels between the couple. How will the Nara, the charming and wicked dancer, who charmed the heart of Guido, the pod between him and his wife. This is one of the descriptions of her: "It was beautiful and beautifully dressed with elegant simplicity. Nothing more voluptuous in her eyes big, beautiful, the bright eyes: his dark complexion was quite animated: sensual lips, a vivid red, stood on the enamel of the teeth white, moist, like a child: the brown fuzz , throwing a kind of shadow on the corners of the mouth, demonstrate the spirited, passionate woman: her rosy nostrils dilated quivering: gaze had something undefined powers. "
Stirring occasionally macabre kind with the chivalrous, the author weaves a plot that goes gradually thickening and complications, as supported by a rich imagination undoubtedly very suggestive. Sciantose sorceress, counts, dukes and marquis, duels, escapes and reappearance, poisons, linking Invernizio the European currents of popular adventure novel.
You can not hide the fact that the weight of years rests until the end of the novel, true about writing more on that dark history, which, in fact, still keeps the threads of narrative theory. Daughter whole of his time (eg the use of certain words, such as guilt instead of innocence), we shall deliver to the tracks with a testimonial of habits and feelings completely changed today.
