The Skin by Curzio Malaparte

near the Ceppo di Forcella, in one of the most miserable and sordid quarters of Naples.
    "You are all rotten, in Europe," said Jimmy to me as we walked through the maze of alleys wliich wraps itself, like a coil of intestines, round the Piazza Olivella.
    "Europe is the land of men," I said. "There are no more virile men in the world than those born in Europe."
    "Men? You call yourselves men?" said Jimmy, laughing and slapping his thigh.
    "Yes, Jimmy, there are no nobler men in the world than those who are born in Europe," I said.
    "A lot of dirty bastards, that's what you are," said Jimmy.
    "We are a wonderful race of conquered men, Jimmy," I said.
    "A lot of dirty bastards," said Jimmy. "At heart you're glad you've lost the war, aren't you?"
    "You're right, Jimmy, it's a real stroke of luck for us that we've lost the war. The only thing that irks us a little is that it will be our job to rule the world. It is the defeated who rule the world, Jimmy. It's always like that after a war. It's always the defeated who bring civilization to the victorious countries."
    "What? Do you really think that you're going to bring civilization to America?" said Jimmy, looking at me with amazement and fury in his eyes.
    "That's just the way of it, Jimmy. Even Athens, when she had the good fortune and the honour to be conquered by the Romans, was forced to bring civilization to Rome."
    "To hell with your Athens, to hell with your Rome!" said Jimmy, looking at me askance.
    Jimmy walked through those filthy alleys, in the midst of that miserable populace, with an elegance and a nonchalance which only Americans possess. No one on this earth save the Americans can move about with such easy, smiling grace among people who are filthy, starved and unhappy. It is not a sign of insensibility: it is a sign of optimism and at the same time of innocence. The Americans are not cynics, they are optimists; and optimism is in itself a sign of innocence. He who is blameless in thought and deed is led not, to be sure, to deny that evil exists, but to refuse to believe in the necessity of evil, to refuse to admit that evil is inevitable and incurable. The Americans believe that misery, hunger, pain and everything else can be combated, that men can recover from misery, hunger and pain, that there is a remedy for all evil. They do not know that evil is incurable. They do not know, although they are in many respects the most Christian nation in the world, that without evil there can be no Christ. "No love, no nothin'." No evil, no Christ. The less evil there is in the world, the less of Christ there is in the world. The Americans are good. Faced with misery, hunger and pain, their first instinct is to help those who suffer hunger, misery and pain. There is no people in the world that has so strong, so pure, so genuine a sense of human solidarity. But Christ demands from men pity, not solidarity. Solidarity is not a Christian sentiment.
    Jimmy Wren, of Cleveland, Ohio, a Lieutenant in the Signal Corps, was, like the great majority of the officers and men of the American Army, a good fellow. When an American is good, there is no better man in the world. It was not Jimmy's fault if the people of Naples suffered. That terrible spectacle of grief and misery offended neither his eyes nor his heart. Jimmy's conscience was at rest. Like all Americans, by that contradiction which characterizes all materialistic civilizations, he was an idealist. To evil, misery, hunger and physical suffering he ascribed a moral character. He did not appreciate their remote historical and economic causes, but only the seemingly moral reasons for their existence. What could he have done to try and alleviate the appalling physical sufferings of the people of Naples, of the peoples of Europe? All that Jimmy could do was to take upon himself part of the moral responsibility for their sufferings, not as an American, but as a Christian. Perhaps it would be better to say not only as a Christian, but