Elisabeth

The first episode "Elisabeth" — starring Claudette Colbert and directed by Marcello Pagliero — tells the story of an American woman who goes to Europe in search of her husband’s body, after the end of the Second World War. After arriving in Rome, Elisabeth visits the cemetery where Anthony, her husband, is buried. She tells the undertaker that she managed to get an authorization to send the body back to the US eight years after the end of the war; "it is easier to take a man to war than to take his body back home" she says. In the end, after having visited the farm where her husband had spent his last days and finding out that he had had a son with a peasant named Angela, Elizabeth -who did not have any children of her own- decides that the best thing to do is to leave the body buried in Italy. Her encounter with the young peasant woman is particularly interesting; the boy’s mother says that she only slept with Anthony once.  She did not love him, but felt sorry for his suffering, just as she felt sorry for Elisabeth’s suffering, saying that "each woman must talk about her pain". This first episode starts with an epigraph by Voltaire - "all of men’s reasoning is not worth the sentiment of a woman" - and finishes by showing the solidarity among women. With their restrained tone and noble actions, the characters acquire a bit of a tragic stature, at the same time devoted to the heroism of men and revealing the irremediable consequences of war and the loneliness of young widows and orphans.