A solemn confession

By: Meritan Spahija (preface to the new edition of the work "Divine Comedy - Hell", Florentia, Shkodër 2019)

Since I can't remember, very early on, they told me, one of my greatest pleasures was going to my uncle's... Early on, this pleasure was motivated by my grandmother's caresses towards me. Whenever I went there, whether for holidays, Saturdays, or summer vacations, the first person I met was my grandmother. As he hugged me, he said:

- See what I saved you...

And she would take out from her bag, which she hid in a secret place and very dear to me, a handful of sugars (by this she meant dried candies), some dried figs or some plums. I don't know how to describe the happiness I felt when I went there, not because I was the only grandchild, but because I was surrounded by her love...

Then, when I got a little older, it wasn't that I missed sugar or plums, but there was something else that attracted me there: the big yard... At the wall, which separated the house from the neighbors', until somewhere near the well (which I later learned that it was Venetian style), we lived at the gates... In this period of my childhood, I remember that when I went there, I met my grandmother, who put some plums in my pocket, I went to call my friends. If we made noise, or if we broke a sax, we were never late at all. But what I had noticed was that, more and more often, every time I went, the younger uncle said to the older one:

- This one came!

Over the years, you grew up, other motives were added to the early ones.

In that great house, which was a veritable maze of rooms and corridors, there was a room which was always locked, and when I seldom found it open, I saw that it was half-lit, which gave me a feeling of dread at first, then , with the passage of time, the great...

There was also another room, which had nothing in common with the first. It was in the trapazan. I climbed the stairs that led to the upper floor of the house and, as soon as I took two or three steps, I found myself, not as in my house, but as in my kingdom. Between the beams that supported the roof, an alcove had been created, I don't know by whom or when, which seemed very comfortable to me. There were no projects there, which made me feel comfortable. There was constant dust and the walls were not whitewashed, but covered with old newspapers. Now that I remember, I often ask why the walls were covered with newspaper. But what surprises me the most is that, since I was a child, then a teenager, why have I never asked about such a thing. Now, I don't have anyone to ask anymore... Anyway, I went inside, immediately went to the window and... looked out. It was a miracle to stay there. The thick, castle-like walls made it possible for me to sit on the windowsill, lean against its side walls, and look out. What I saw was not important at all, but what I experienced kept calling me there. What made the party an adventure were the old binoculars of my grandfather, who had died before I was born. When I first went there, I could stretch my legs to the length of her threshold. The summer breeze caressed my face, giving me a feeling of peace and happiness. The more years passed, the longer and more frequent were my parties in that room, so much so that, when someone remembered me and asked where I could be found, he received this answer:

- I'm in trouble!

The only thing that, not that it bothered me, but that somewhere in the unconscious gave me the vague feeling of shortening a time that is ending, was that, more and more, my legs, from maximally stretched on the threshold of that window as from the castle, they became more and more...

***

One day, while I was sitting on the bench, sitting at my window, with slightly bent knees and binoculars pointed somewhere in the outskirts of the city, I heard footsteps on the wooden stairs. I turn my head and see my great uncle.

- Come after me.

I immediately got up and went back to him. We went down the stairs, crossed the corridor, at the end of which there was an arch that separated the two parts of the house, opened the door and found ourselves in the corridor that led to... the room was locked. He pushed slowly, as if with solemnity, her door and we found ourselves wandering. Once at the beginning, because of the darkness, but more because we were coming from a place with more light, I could not distinguish anything and the room looked like complete darkness. Then, as a few seconds passed, I noticed its interior, which I had never seen before. What I saw was that the pages of that room were lined with shelves, endless shelves of books. My uncle, who had taken me by the arm and seemed to push me from time to time and urged me forward, was accompanying me from one shelf to another, as if this were a ritual that I must fulfill, so that I could I was part of the clan.

- If you want to read a book with me, you can come.

It was part of the clan to be able to come in here and pick up a book, read it, put it back in its place, and only then could I pick up another one. The terms of membership were very feasible. But that was not all. Uncle, considering my young age, made another condition: every time I took a book to read, I had to tell him whether it was suitable for me or not. This was not unfeasible either. First, he chose a book for me. I got it. We both got out of there and I headed... to the bar. Now, as long as I stayed there, I spent our time, until I forgot, reading. Since that day, that room is closed and semi-dark, I have called it the Book Room.

***

Every time I finished reading a book, I felt a great sense of nostalgia. I couldn't give it up. I reopened the book in different parts and re-read our fragments or pages. Then somewhere else. Everything was similar to the separation of two people at the train station. They hug each other endlessly, but finally the moment comes when she has to get on the train. There is no other way to do it. Inevitably, this happened to me as well. It was time to finally close the book. Extending the share moment does not work indefinitely.

I had just finished reading The Count. After I had re-read, in places, even our chapters, the moment of separation had come. I got up. I got the four volumes in hand. It was impossible that, at such a stage of separation, one of them should be absent. I headed to the book room. I put them in their place. I put them with such determination, as the traveler decides to turn his back on the guide, from whom I have longed.

After I had conveyed one, now came the next difficult moment. Who should I choose?! It was not such an easy job, because I had to choose one, and not by chance, but as I had read every line, either of the book or of its preface, to take it, go to the head of the clan and I showed him... And he, after taking a look, could say:

- It's not for you!

And everything started from the beginning.

I was behaving in the room. Who should I take? I got one. I left it in place. I got another one. Back. Bana money. Somewhere near the Iliad, I saw another. I got it. I read the title: La divina commedia. The title meant nothing to me. Dante Alighieri. Neither does the author. I opened it and read this:

In the middle of our life's journey
I found myself in a dark forest,
for the straight path was lost.

Quite intuitively, as if I had read a preface, a shudder ran through my body. I took another look at the following verses:

Alas, it's hard to say which one it was
this wild, harsh and strong forest
che nel pensier renewed la paura!
Another wave of grunts…
Tant' è amara che poco è più morte;
ma per trattar del ben ch'i' vi trovai,
dirò de l'altre cose ch'i' v'ho scorte…

What does this cuckoo have to experience, except death? I closed the book and immediately headed to the gym to sink into it, not a week, or two, or a month. No! Not even to read and reread it, until one day I closed it and said: I have read this book. No! In my ignorance, in my pre-adolescent youth, I did not understand many things, but as if in a providential way, I had opened a book that I would never close throughout my life... At that moment, in that semi-dark book room, I had not opened a book, but the spark that would set fire to my passions.

It is pointless and worthless to describe what I experienced after reading every verse, stanza or song. It is useless to say what happened to me when I first read it. As worthless as it is, tell me what I experienced when I read it recently, which will by no means be the last time. But what surprises me today is why and what attracted my attention or curiosity in those few verses. What did I know about their meaning, or their symbolism, to be consumed now, so young and so long?!

They never gave me a convincing answer, because such a thing has now begun to tire me, I have learned to leave this matter in the hands of Providence: only God knows!

As I said above, it is completely pointless to go in and do an analysis of the text or mention its values, because this is simply not the purpose. It is useless to analyze the characters or the messages that come to us through them, the myths or the poet's contemporaries, it is useless to talk here about Franceska, Chako, Brunet Latini, Farinata, Cavalcante Cavalcante, who in his misery of Hell, mourned for him the son who thought he was dying; it is useless to talk about the centaur Chiron, Capaneus, Ulysses who sacrificed everything for the sake of knowledge. But what they told me is that, at that young age, so fragile, so unformed, so ignorant, I had found Dante. The Church found the man who crucified and numbed his time, the man who publicly rebelled against dogmas that produced sterility, mediocrity and, inevitably, hypocrisy; I had found the man who was the cause of a spiritual and intellectual awakening, the main reference for all time, not only for his time. I had found what, with the war declared against falsehoods, had become one of the sparks that ignited the Renaissance.

And the Renaissance could not be ignited without pain. It took a lunatic or a group of lunatics to accuse and not only, but to put a finger in the wound, with doubt and disbelief towards empty dogmas, you broke them and thus opened the way for rationalism and knowledge, you dispelled the fog of ignorance who rules and crushes servile hypocrisy. Men were needed to strike with the sword as a solitary at the rotten parts of civilization, which caused pain, but inevitably projected healing. Renaissance could not come with mediocrity, with cowards and balloons of hypocrisy and incompetence. The awakening of Western civilization, the awakening of nations, had to come from men like Dante, who feared neither the sword, nor persecution, nor death of the thorny kind. The awakening had to come from men who spoke their word, even if it cost; the awakening had to come from men accusing nobles, popes and false prophets, without distinction, the first doge, just as it came…

That the Renaissance is recently painting, or sculpture, or architecture, but first it is the liberation of thought, the breaking of lines, the exit from the repulsive molds of mystical dogmas, which impose for truth what enslaves and suppresses the word. Rebirth is with me first, once to myself, and then to others, a simple question: Why?! The famous Why that frees the argument, The Why that opens the way of thought, The Why that breaks down the barriers of ignorance, The Why that costs dearly, but makes the sun brighter... You find your reason in such motives , Dante was among the first to divorce the Middle Ages…

Thus, many times, when I had just entered the rough forest of this life, just as Virgil had appeared to him, against his will, to bring him out of the world of the dead, so I, against my will, had found the man of suitable to introduce me to the world of poets.

After so many years, after many men are no longer in this world and after many places have remained empty in my life, I solemnly confess that this is the only book I have read without permission. /Magazine "Palimpsest"/