The kiss of a corpse

"The kiss of death", 1889.

Are well over a hundred works of this authentic and undefeated queen of Gothic, which enjoyed an enviable success with the public: an extraordinary machine best seller. By contrast did not enjoy the favors of criticism. His novels, the first of which was "Rina, ol'angelo of the Alps", 1877, saw various reductions films. "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 "The Buried alive" of 1896, which is closely linked to it, as it is "the revenge of a mad" announced by the publisher as "the end result and the" kiss of death ' " and output in 1894, interspersed with "The little orphan Collegno" of 1893.
"The Kiss of Life" opens with a long dedication to her husband Marcello quire, to be reported to the delicacy of feeling and for the debt of gratitude that the author acknowledges to her husband: "If my life sad, withdrawn , has a bright side, it is your tender and warm kindness for me. To you I owe the inspiration of many of my works, ye woke up in me the idea to rise somewhat from mediocrity. "
Alfonso, married to a woman of Andalusia, Ines, no more news of the Countess Clara Rambaldi, his 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.
The death will be the guide to this story. It will always be present, since the visit of Alfonso and Ines will the grave of his sister: "The solemn silence that reigns in this place, sacred to the repose of the dead, the big trees, crosses, funeral, everything is conducive to the most insane and delusional visions. This is death: in front, behind, beside us, beneath our feet, beneath the grass that we tread, it is impossible to escape from his 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, between 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 tomb is uncovered and we see a description of Clara who advocates blurring the boundary between life and death. Clara seems alive, its beauty is undiminished. We could call it dead or alive, either: "She was beautiful, a heavenly purity, and under those white lace, with that white dress, like a virgin dormant in the thoughts of heaven." It's a key passage, which goes to the heart of inspiration and the poetics of the 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 "The Descent of Man," 1806.
The story takes place quietly, with a time never hurried, even tending towards a sort of expansion. It seems that it is precisely from this expansion resulting, although the macabre in which we find ourselves immersed, the lightness of the story. Apart from the style that pays tribute to his off time ( "Clara took his elbows leaning on the railing and one of the white and slender hands held the blonde head. You could not see her face, but by frequent sighs that lifted the chest, you could see the anxiety that weighed upon the heart. "), you could say that Gothic's Invernizio is the opposite of the horror that invade the narrative and film today, so that the police of a Conan Doyle or of un'Agatha Christie are far from heavy and often violent yellows that invade the shelves of libraries.
Also appear in the plot traces of that gruesome fairy (children unwelcome and spaced) that we find in so many stories, from Cinderella to Sleeping Beauty in the woods, Tom Thumb, and so on, to limit ourselves to the most prominent. Instead, we find little or nothing of importance to what 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 the camouflage of Clara - the "Black Lady" - which went to Paris to get revenge on her husband and find their daughter Lilia). The two authors beyond the Alps, in fact, very famous and popular, can not be ignored by Invernizio, which must have absorbed from them than from some minor, some fantasies.
Since when Clara came out of trance that made her believe dead, the story recounts the background to a great extent. Namely, Clara learns from an old and devoted servant of the deceased mother, nemme existence of his brother. It cares, unbeknownst to the father, who believes it fell into a ravine as he has told, falsely, the goatherd Ronco who looked after from birth, and makes an elegant young and educated.
The relationship between Alfonso and Clara, who was driving the former is aware that brother will be cause for misunderstandings and disputes between the two spouses. How will the Nara, the charming and wicked dancer, who, charmed the heart of Guido, we interpose between him and his wife. This is one of the descriptions of her: "She was beautiful and beautifully dressed with elegant simplicity. Nothing more voluptuous in her eyes big, beautiful, bright eyes by: her 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 his mouth, to demonstrate the spirited, passionate woman: her rosy nostrils dilated ominous: in his eyes was something indefinite Empire. "
Stirring occasionally macabre with that kind of chivalry, the author weaves a story that is being gradually thickening and complicated, as it is supported by a rich imagination undoubtedly important suggestions. Bewitching chanteuse, counts, dukes and marquis, duels, escapes and resurgence, poisons, linking Invernizio currents European novel adventurous and popular.
You can not hide the fact that the weight of years rests on the novel until the end, in true more on writing than on the grim history, which, in fact, still keeps the threads of narrative theory. Daughter whole of his time (consider the use of certain words, such as guilt instead of innocence), they deliver to us the tracks with a testimonial of habits and feelings now completely changed.