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Signor Domani Mattina (Excerpt from La Bella Lingua)
When I arrived in Italy for the first time in 1983 I knew only one Italian sentence: "Mi dispiace, ma non parlo italiano" ("I'm sorry, but I don't speak Italian"). In my first minutes in the country, I repeated it half a dozen times, with ever-mounting panic in my voice, interspersed with pleas of "Stop this train!" Other passengers responded with concerned looks and torrents of incomprehensible Italian. Only the weary conductor followed my gaze as I pointed to my forlorn black suitcase, which the porter had left behind on the platform in Domodossola. "La sua valigia?" ("Your suitcase?") "Sì." I nodded, frantic that I would never be reunited with it again. "Non c'è problema," he announced loudly. "Domani mattina a Milano." The faces encircling me smiled in relief. "Domani mattina," they repeated reassuringly. "Domani mattina." Settling into my seat, I rolled the melodious syllables around my mouth. Yes, as soon as I arrived in Milan, I would find Signor Domani Mattina, and he would somehow retrieve my bag. In the colossal bleakness of the Milan station, I threaded my way down massive stone staircases. Late on a Sunday afternoon, everything was closed. I rushed to a man in a blue custodial uniform and entreated, "Signor Domani Mattina?" "No, signorina," he said, looking confused. I whipped out my pocket English-Italian dictionary to find the Italian word for "where," which I mispronounced as if it were the English name of a gentle white bird: "Dove?" "Doh-VAY!" he boomed before breaking into laughter. "No, signorina, the day after today. Domani mattina." My quest for the quixotic "Mr. Tomorrow Morning" launched my journey into the Italian language. Throughout that first semisilent excursion in Italy, I delighted in the beauty of what I saw, but I craved comprehension of what I heard. I wanted to understand the waiter's quip when he set down my cappuccino, the barzelletta (funny story) the shopkeeper told with a wink, the verbal embraces couples exchanged as they strolled at twilight. And so, unlike Italophiles who trek through frescoed churches or restore rustic farmhouses, I chose to inhabit the language, as bawdy as it is beautiful, as zesty a linguistic stew as the peppery puttanesca sauce named for Italy's notorious ladies of the night. [Dianne Hales, excerpted from La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair With Italian, The World's Most Enchanting Language, published by Broadway Books. To visit her blog, click here.] Want to learn Italian like Dianne? Get started here. Tags: book excerpt, Dianne Hales, Italian, La Bella Lingua, newsletter, travel story
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