Collected Works of Italo Calvino -- Our Ancestors

Author: Italo Calvino
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-09-01
Features: Our Ancestors was published in 1960, combining three novellas: The Baron in the Trees, published in 1952; The Prince Who Was a Knight, published in 1957; and The Nonexistent Knight, published in 1959. Once upon a time, there was a war with the Turks. My uncle, the Marquis of Terralba, rode across the Bohemian plain straight to the camp of the Christian army. A groom named Curzio followed him. Great flocks of white storks flew low in the murky, sluggish air. "Why are there so many white storks?" the Marquis asked Curzio. "Where are they flying to?" My uncle had just arrived then. He had just joined the army, and some of the dukes in our neighborhood had gone to war, so he had to join in for the fun. He was assigned a warhorse and a groom at a castle under Christian control, the closest to the battlefield, and hurried to the imperial camp to report.