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16
6.
Malwida von Strucker
Malwida von Strucker
La baronessa Malwida von
Strucker aveva una collezione
di biplani che pilotava
nel tempo libero. La mattina
presto, a ottantatré anni suonati,
prendeva l’autobus 97 barrato
per recarsi fuori città, da
cui scendeva al capolinea, dove
cominciavano i prati.
Da lì, che ci fosse il sole
o piovesse, procedeva a piedi,
per alcuni chilometri, lungo
un viottolo fra i campi
e i boschi. Infine, arrivava
all’hangar dove teneva quelli
che definiva "i miei ragazzi".
Prima di salire a bordo
e accendere i motori, stappava
una Perrier, sedeva sulla
sua Frog, l’unica seduta adatta
alla conformazione del suo
ischio, e leggeva qualche
aforisma del suo trisnonno,
von Clausewitz.
Baroness Malwida von
Strucker owned an assortment
of biplanes which she enjoyed
flying in her free time.
Even at her venerable age of
eighty-three, she liked to rise
at the crack of dawn, catch
the 97 bus out of town, and ride
till the very end of the line.
There, where the city turned
to countryside, she disembarked,
rain or shine, and walked for
a few miles down a path that
wended its way through fields
and forests. At last, she came
to the hangar where she stored
what she fondly called "her boys".
Before cranking the propeller
and clambering into the cockpit,
she would pop open a bottle of
Perrier, settle comfortably into
her Frog – the only armchair
that conformed to the structure
of her tailbone – and peruse
an aphorism or two from
the anthology written by her
great-great-great-grandfather,
the Baron Carl von Clausewitz.
