From Valley is a singular acrid sulphurous steam, shaking his throat, and the nakedness of barren coastline extends to loss of sight.
The owner of 'a sulfur mine, who received us, and the engineer who was with me, accustomed for many years to see the sulphurous, remained indifferent, and they consider them each in their own point of view: for the engineer is a geological event, important, for others, a source of wealth, but for me it was something else. Although I knew the mine in the northern Black, also from that dismal desert tinte smorte che mi appariva per la prima volta, mi faceva spavento.
Il proprietario ci fece gli onori della sua miniera pregandoci di fermarci dinanzi una macchina che dalle profondità della terra porta alla superficie del suolo i grandi pezzi di zolfo. A me peraltro premeva poco di vedere una macchina, che qui è una cosa eccezionale; io volevo vedere la vera solfatara, nella quale ci si penetra per una scala ripida e scabrosa, ove dei disgraziati, carichi di enormi pesi, salgono e scendono continuamente.
Adagio adagio eravamo giunti, nella profondità dell'immensa cerchia, davanti all'entrata d'una miniera parata da un piccolo fabbricato.
La galleria principiava a discendere, fin dalla soglia per scomparirne nelle tenebre.
Mi chinai su quella nera gola spalancata e l'ingegnere mi disse:” Ascoltate, non sentite?...
Prestai bene l'orecchio e mi parve che da quell'abisso venissero fuori confusi lamenti; poi vidi vacillare in fondo qualche luccicare, che metteva in quelle ombre delle punteggiature di un chiarore pallido assai; poi quei luccicori si spensero. Poi mi si disse d'osservare ancora, e questa volta mi vidi ai piedi, a gran distanza però, dei lumi mobili che rischiaravano con una luce incerta profili umani.
Di quando in quando salivano, uniti all'atmosfera malsana e soffocante, gemiti spezzati da singhiozzi, e a volta a time, the lights disappeared, for that ascending the moans filled the darkness.
State to hear what they say those poor carusi, rising their everlasting Calvary, as they fall twenty times in the bottom of the mine and climb huge loads of pieces of sulfur, had reached the penultimate journey and being Sunday, the work ended at noon:
and Stu viaggiu cci lu vaju to 'ppizu: A la
vinuta them Bob and tozzu!
"I make this trip when my clothes, and date back will take up a morsel of bread"
Meanwhile, the moans and sobs continued .... If I fell in
quell'ipogeo, if I had interned at the bottom of the mine, in the bowels of the earth cursed, I heard that the pick off pieces of sulfur with the pick, exclaim with unutterable despair: "Cursed be the mother that bore me! ... Damn the priest who baptized me! ... It would have been better to me that Christ had given birth to pigs; at least the end of 'year, I would cut his throat! ...
That wretch is constantly working naked, with 40 degrees of heat in an atmosphere saturated with noxious fumes, it stops every now and then the hard work and with a wooden scraper, it keeps the sweat dripping from his arms, chest and legs. often creeps in and you lose and low winding tunnels, in which he can not enter or leave it on all fours crawling on the ground. There, in the silence of the atmosphere burning, you do not hear the shots of his fiercest pickaxe against the walls, her shortness of breath, or rather his gasp and then .... cursing and swearing. Suddenly she stops and offers to the Lord in the painful work off their sins, and soon after was seized by a grim despair and curses him .... When the pick
sweating drinks, says: "I drink to the death." When he ate he adds: "I am poisoned." Expressions of deep pain, because by eating and drinking with, he takes in life, and life is for him a deadly poison! ...
many painful thoughts assail me livid over the land, before the dark opening in the bottom of agitated in a world of wretches. Under the same ground had taken place shortly before an explosion of firedamp and a large number of miners were dead. That air full of sulfur fumes, which, with its corrosive action destroys any vegetation in the surrounding mountains, and the desolation of nature on which weighed a threatening sky that day, contributed much to aggravate my sorrow.
If the action of sulphurous air is harmful to plants, for men must be deadly! And in fact, the sulphurous Miners have the symptoms of 'a decline early, quickly lose their teeth and hair, become asthmatic and remain weakened by the constant and profuse sweating. The epidemics
make slaughter, and changes in temperature are disastrous for them, the mortality in this place is terrible. It said that the damned are our peers, our brothers ... What a great thing down there in the land of the primitive faith, the maximum fine of Christ the priests teach again? "All men are brothers, love one another."
In Sicily fate of those generous men with admirable maxims on the lips, with the thought of helping the oppressed peasants, starving and dying miners and condemned to die ... ... .... Meanwhile carusi finally emerged from the bowels of the earth came out one by one from the antrum dark, along with whiffs of stinking. They said
"Once again we see again le stelle.” Così esclamava anche Dante all'uscio dall'inferno: “E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.” Si avanzavano un dopo l'altro, barcollando sotto gli enormi pesi, seminudi, grondanti di sudore, ansimanti e sparuti; erano ragazzi e giovanotti, ma io non avrei potuto indovinare la loro età, perché tutti parevano giovani e vecchi al tempo stesso.
In quei visi si leggeva un'espressione di malinconia selvaggia, da me non mai scorta prima in nessuna faccia umana, e i loro occhi smarriti parevano uscir dalle orbite. Alla fine si riposavano, appoggiavano il carico al muro, sbuffavano rumorosamente e poi andavano a gettare i pezzi di zolfo in un dato luogo.
I più piccini, i ragazzi, sbarazzati dei loro fardelli, tutti contenti di riveder la luce, incuranti de' propri mali e dimentichi delle lagrime sparse, sgambettavano, o intingevano un boccon di pane duro nell'olio della lampada e lo rosicchiavano avidamente; poi andavano a cavarsi la sete sotto i ginisi, resti di zolfo in fusione.
La maggior parte di loro erano pallidi e magri con le palpebre rosse per l'azione corrosiva dei vapori solforosi e per il piangere; alcuni avevano il collo torto. Il loro corpo deforme riposava su esili gambe dai ginocchi smisuratamente grossi; avevano le carni flosce e l'andatura incerta, a molti, già curvi, si vedeva una piccola gobba sulla spalla sinistra, marchio indelebile del triste mestiere.
Quella vita in un'atmosfera corrotta, la mancanza of nourishment, effort continued under heavy loads, produce profound changes in the early health of those poor guys.
Coming up in the school of pain, mood becomes dark, and intelligence, good intentions and hearts go out soon in each other. Grow bad, because they consider life as an unfair punishment, and thus can not be surprised if the miners of solfataras always increase the quota of the criminals in Sicily!
succumb young, old and already decrepit, finished work not only excessive but also deleterious poisoned by gas, not surprising to see even an old man in those mines, and women are all sterile.
... When we walked towards Caltanissetta it was already late, and as he made the climb I turned a last look at that damn place where I had lived a day. The countless Calcarone cones sulfur preparations to merge, they smoked slightly, spreading through the air pestilential vapor that kills people and plants.
The day was over and the herd of painful carusi he came up from the depths to be reduced at home. The poor children sold by poor families, could not hope for any kindness, no joy in the domestic hearth. In the shack where they went, they would find nothing but a bowl of bean soup or pasta, and a shelter to rest your bones weaken from the great work. And tomorrow ...? Sudden death due to hydrogen sulfureo o per un'esplosione di grisù li libererebbe forse.... o pure la vita seguiterà ad esser per loro una lenta agonia!...
I nuvoloni enormi, minacciosi correvano ancora in silenzio nelle solitudini dello spazio; i dorsi oscuri dei monti lontani si inerpicavano verso il fosco orizzonte e la maledetta terra delle solfatare mostrava la sua lividura di piaga morbosa sotto il cielo di piombo.
