Wedding Night by Tommaso Landolfi

First published: "Notte di nozze," 1939 (English translation, 1963)

Type of plot: Fable

Time of work: The mid-twentieth century

Locale: Northern Italy

Principal Characters:

  • A young bride
  • A chimney sweep

The Story

The arrival of a chimney sweep brings a wedding banquet at the bride's house to an early end. As the sweep changes his clothes and proceeds to clean out the chimney in the kitchen, slowly working his way up the chimney shaft three times, the bride exits the kitchen in embarrassment. After the sweep finishes, he changes his clothes again, eats breakfast, and sends out to the bride, who is seated outside, a gift of a small bouquet of edelweiss. The family briefly converses with the sweep after his meal; then he leaves, after which the bride places the edelweiss bouquet under portraits of her dead relatives.