“They settle in two houses.The seasonal colleagues who already live there come to welcome him, there are about fifteen.The other quarrymen, they tell him, are local, but almost all of them originate from Garfagnana or Lunigiana.Years ago, they came there for work, just like them, and then they met girls, got engaged and married.In all, there are more or less two hundred and fifty working in the quarries, but in the 1930s there were more than a thousand, and only in the nearby quarries, those of Muzzerone.They also tell him that there are a dozen Spartans… "" Spartans?In the quarries?What do they have to do with it… Grandpa !? "He smiled. “I would have bet you would have interrupted me.The Spartans were the roughest quarrymen of Carrara, all great and big.Strong as bulls.They were the ones who, with hammer blows, squared the blocks with the subbia, which is the chisel for working marble.They didn't sign contracts, worked long enough to get the essentials up for the day, got paid and walked away, but at work they were unmatched.They were all anarchists, they said that everything belongs to everyone and nobody and therefore they did not recognize a "master", they exchanged their toil for what they needed to live and slept in the shacks of the quarries. ""Beautiful, I like them."«But think about it, I never would have imagined… Anyway, Ardito and the others just arrived eat something and lie down to sleep, the next morning they would have started to work.The work is hard, dangerous.There are pits, tunnels, explosions of mines made with black powder which is not at all reliable, often causing more damage than useful cracks in the wall of the quarry from where you want to extract the blocks.It is difficult to calibrate it properly, he thinks that with one kg of black powder the bank would move on average by one millimeter, with three kg of a palm.And then you have to work with wooden wedges and wet them to make them swell in the crack, or with iron.You know?Imagine what it must be like to hammer iron wedges with heavy mallets to remove tons of marble from a wall, and then again, until it is the best possible piece.Portoro is precious, nothing is wasted.Do you think that the pieces they detached divided them by size, and they had given them strange names: man's head, horse's head ... and then there were the smaller pieces that would have been used for the Palladian women, which are those floors made of many pieces of different marble, or for inlay work or baseboards, and the "cocciame" with which they made the grit tiles. ""Is this portoro?"he asked, showing him a pebble that he had polished by dint of rubbing it between his fingers."Yes," the old man said."Beautiful, is not it?""A lot, if I find another I want to make two charms for mum and dad's car keys, with the scubidù."“Sounds like a good idea to me.I'd love to have one too, but no one thinks of a poor grandfather. "She looked at him smiling and shaking her head "What a silly grandfather I have ... Come on, go on with the story of Ardito, beautiful name Ardito."«The children of the anarchists you recognize immediately by the name.In the places where he was born, they all had names like this: Awakening, Utopia, Rebel, one even Ordigno, and then Libertario, Atheo, Negadio, Lavoro, and three brothers who were called Rivo, Luzio and Nario. "She laughed "And if only two were born?""Let's say it went well for him."“Look, another piece of portoro.This one has more golden veins. ""Hey there!It really is first choice.There are five quality levels, which correspond to the five layers, step, counter, under counter, base and under base.I would say that this is just a little bit of a step, the best. "She put it in her pocket continuing to scan the stones of the happy path, proud to have found it.She then she stopped and became serious: “You said it was a dangerous job.Did Ardito get hurt? "«No, not him, others do, however, and quite often.There was a friend of hers who lost a leg, his name was Carlino, a block slipped on the wrong side and he was where he shouldn't have been. "“But it's terrible.What a horrible scene that must have been. "And she imagined the blood and the screams."Yes, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have ..." "But were there any deaths too?""Not when Ardito was there, but on 8 December 1937 there was a landslide at the Crocetta quarry, right in Portovenere and four quarrymen were overwhelmed."The girl saddened and looked down.Then there was a noise and a little goat appeared from her bushes, she opened her eyes wide and it seemed that the little animal was doing the same.They looked at each other for a moment then the little goat ran away.She turned to her grandfather and stared at him as if to say: did I see right?"You haven't dreamed of little girl, for some years there have been some beautiful goats on Palmaria, we don't know who brought them to us but over time they became many, too many for this small island, so they started to capture them and take them elsewhere, to places safe.But it's not easy to catch them, some are still there and one of them wanted to meet you. "She smiled and looked at her where she had fled, then, without turning around, she became serious again: "Has anyone else been hurt, some friends of Ardito?"Copyright © - 2022 - Publisher: Liguria News Srl - PI 01383400114Newspaper registered in the Press Register of the Court of La Spezia.RAA 59/04, Conc 5376, Reg. Sp 8/04.Advertising: commerciale@ligurianews.com