The Monster of Florence

by Douglas Preston

Up to this time Italians had considered serial killers a northern European phenomenon, something that happened in England, Germany, or Scandinavia—and, of course, in America, where everything violent seemed to be magnified tenfold. But never in Italy.

Around one curve of the winding road, the headlights of her old Fiat 127 spotlighted a whitish thing in the middle of the narrow road. The “thing” spread itself, becoming enormous. It detached itself from the asphalt and rose, noiselessly, like a dirty sheet carried off by the wind, revealing itself to be a great white owl. Torrini felt a tightening of her stomach, because Italians believe, as the Romans did before them, that it is an ugly omen to encounter an owl in the nighttime. She almost turned around.

In the days following 9/11, many commentators on television and in the newspapers pontificated on the nature of evil. Literary and cultural lions were called upon to express their grave and considered opinions. Politicians, religious leaders, and psychological experts all waxed eloquent on the subject. I was struck by their perfect failure to explain this most mysterious of phenomena, and I began to feel that the very incomprehensibility of evil might be, in fact, one of its fundamental characteristics. You cannot stare evil in the face; it has no face. It has no body, no bones, no blood. Any attempt to describe it ends in glibness and self-delusion. Maybe, I thought, this is why Christians invented the devil

The old monk began by making a powerful play on words of the fact that the Italian word for “evil” and “sickness” is the same, male, and that the word for “speech” and “study” is also the same, discorso. “ ‘Pathology’ can be defined as discorso sul male [study of sickness (or evil)],” Brother Galileo said. “I prefer to define it as male che parla [evil (or sickness) that speaks].

“There is no longer true communication among us, because our very language is sick, and the sickness of our discourse carries us inevitably to sickness in our bodies, to neurosis, if not finally to mental illness. “When I can no longer communicate with speech, I will speak with sickness. My symptoms are given life. These symptoms express the need for my soul to make itself heard but cannot, because I don’t have the words, and because those who should listen cannot get beyond the sound of their own voices. The language of sickness is the most difficult to interpret. It is an extreme form of blackmail which defies all our efforts to pay it off and send it away. It is a final attempt at communication. “Mental illness lies at the very end of this struggle to be heard. It is the last refuge of a desperate soul who has finally understood that no one is listening or ever will listen. Madness is the renunciation of all efforts to be understood. It is one unending scream of pain and need into the absolute silence and indifference of society. It is a cry without an echo. “This is the nature of the evil of the Monster of Florence. And this is the nature of the evil in each and every one of us. We all have a Monster within; the difference is in degree, not in kind.”

“Dietro—behind. Logia—the study of.” The count spoke grandly, as if still in the lecture hall, his plummy English accent echoing in the cavelike interior of the restaurant. “Dietrologia is the idea that the obvious thing cannot be the truth. There is always something hidden behind, dietro. It isn’t quite what you Americans call conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theory implies theory, something uncertain, a possibility. The dietrologist deals only in fact. This is how it really is. Aside from football, dietrologia is the national sport in Italy. Everyone is an expert at what’s really going on, even… how do you Americans say it?… even if they don’t know jack shit.”

the hatred of your enemy is such that he has to be built up, made into the ultimate adversary, responsible for all evil.

A journalist asked him how he felt. He answered: “Like someone who has fallen into a film, knowing nothing of the plot or characters.”