Cu nesci, arrinesci

Cu nesci, arrinesci is a Sicilian proverb meaning “Those who leave, succeed.” Set against the Florio family’s escape from earthquake-struck Bagnara and its arrival in Palermo, the saying gives departure the force of a possible future while exposing its costs: one person’s courageous beginning can look, to another, like abandonment or disgrace.

Meaning and First Appearance

The proverb opens the novel’s prologue, where it is presented in Sicilian and immediately translated as “Those who leave, succeed.” Its placement before the account of the earthquake on October 16, 1799 makes the saying more than a general maxim. A violent rupture begins in the sea and shakes the sleeping village; the proverb frames what follows as a question of whether leaving can turn disaster into opportunity.

The formulation is confident, but the narrative does not treat success as automatic. The words express a belief about what departure can make possible, while the people facing that choice have to reckon with danger, family obligations, and the uncertain life beyond their home. The novel’s opening thus makes the proverb a lens for migration, not a guarantee that every emigrant will prosper.

Departure Under Pressure

In the earthquake’s aftermath, Ignazio is restless about the family’s safety. Though Paolo dismisses the need to check on others, Ignazio sets off barefoot, wearing only his nightshirt, to look for his sister. His action establishes that the family’s ties to Bagnara are not merely a matter of residence: leaving a place also means leaving people whose welfare remains a personal responsibility.

Later, on the boat, Paolo tells Ignazio that he wants to leave Bagnara. The earthquake has strengthened a wish he has considered for a long time. He does not want Vincenzo growing up under the threat of a house collapsing on him, but danger is not his only reason: he has come to feel that the village and its life are no longer enough. He wants to go to Palermo, where the Barbaro and Florio families already have a spice shop. The choice joins protection and ambition: departure offers a safer future for his son and a wider field for his own aspirations.

For Ignazio, the announcement initially carries the threat of another loss. Mattia has her own family, and Paolo’s plan makes him fear being left alone. The proverb’s promise therefore begins in a scene of attachment and apprehension, not uncomplicated optimism. Paolo is not simply abandoning Ignazio, however. As Palermo comes into view, Ignazio understands that Paolo wanted him to come too.

Arrival and the Promise of Success

The arrival transforms Ignazio’s fear. When their skiff approaches Palermo’s harbor, he feels a pang in his stomach, smiles, and squeezes Paolo’s arm; Paolo returns the gesture. Asked whether he is happy, Ignazio nods, his eyes shining as he reaches toward the bowsprit. The city appears as a future he can enter alongside his brother, rather than as the place that has taken his family away from him.

He has left Calabria and what remained of his family there, yet the sight of sky and sea makes the future seem less frightening. The terror of solitude recedes. Ignazio touches his mother’s wedding band, worn on his right ring finger so he will not lose it. The ring keeps the absent mother emotionally near even as he moves away from the place where he grew up. In this moment, the proverb’s promise is attached not only to commercial possibility but to a changed relation to loss: departure does not erase memory, but it may give the survivor a way forward.

The Cost and Contested Meaning of Leaving

The proverb’s confidence meets resistance in Giuseppina Saffiotti’s response to the emigrants. She knows the people who left Bagnara, but the village’s language of judgment has taught her to see them as beggars and wretches who chose life elsewhere. She refuses that description for herself: she owns land, has a trousseau, and has a dowry. Her anger is bound to the humiliation of being treated as someone who must emigrate merely to obtain bread, when she believes her position should spare her that fate.

As Giuseppina falls behind the others on a narrowing street, she does not want to keep up. The movement through the unfamiliar streets makes the divide between departure as opportunity and departure as unwanted displacement concrete. To Ignazio, going to Palermo can open a future; to Giuseppina, the emigrants’ path carries the shame imposed by those who stayed and the distress of leaving the status and security she claims as her own. The proverb therefore contains competing social meanings: the same act may be praised as daring by one person and condemned as degradation by another.

Narrative Significance

Across these scenes, the saying connects the earthquake, Paolo’s decision, Ignazio’s fears, the brothers’ arrival, and Giuseppina’s resistance. It first sounds like an assurance that leaving leads to success, but the story complicates that assurance with the uneven emotional and social consequences of migration. Paolo leaves for both safety and a larger life; Ignazio discovers that he has not been left behind; Giuseppina experiences departure through shame and anger.

The proverb’s force lies in that difference of experience. It does not settle whether leaving is a triumph or a wound. Instead, it gives the novel an opening measure against which the characters’ choices can be read: departure can create possibility, but its promise is inseparable from whom one leaves, what one carries, and how others interpret the act.