SOURCE: "The Woman with the Hoarse Voice," in An Absurd Vice: A Biography of Cesare Pavese, edited and translated by Mario Pietralunga and Mark Pietralunga, New Directions, 1983, pp. 62-77.

In the excerpt below, originally published in Italian in 1960, Lajolo discusses Pavese's portrayal of women in his writings.

During his final university years, Pavese had an encounter that would affect his entire existence. He met the only woman he would ever really love. Until then his relations with women, although followed by acts of desperation and fainting fits, were manifestations of his exaggerated emotion, not of love. It was with this woman that Pavese experienced the fullness of his feelings. He was captivated by her from the day they met.

We shall give no other name to this woman than the one used by Pavese in the poems of Work Wearies: "the woman with the hoarse voice." The harmony...