La lettera di Ada — Ada's Letter

Letters, tu and lei

The move from lei to tu is one of the small rituals of Italian social life. It is usually proposed by the older or more senior person — «diamoci del tu», «dammi pure del tu» — and refusing it is unusual. Proposing it in writing, as Ada does, is a deliberate gesture: the letter becomes the place where the relationship changes. Handwritten letters are rarer now than they were, but they keep their weight. Some older Italians still write with the passato remoto, which in the South is common even in speech, and which elsewhere gives writing a literary, slightly distant tone. Triestine has its own spelling conventions, close to those of Venetian: for example «xe» stands for è, as in «xe bel» for è bello. Ada writes her message in Triestine and translates it herself.