Setting aside the question of labels, Uno, nessuno e centomila is written like an extended monologue, one which frequently breaks the fourth wall, directly addressing the reader, and often going off on lengthy (but entertaining) tangents which illustrate his wild observations and theories. It’s a surrealistic, often absurd, depiction of the devastating identity crisis that results when the protagonist—a 20-something son of a deceased usurious banker—discovers that his wife (and others) see him quite differently from how he sees himself. He has one name, but countless identities—son, husband, friend, professional man, stranger passing by on the street. What is reality? What is illusion? He comes to a painful realization that leads him to totally rethink his life and make some drastic changes. Is he truly crazy? Or perhaps more sane than anyone else?
This philosophical exploration of the true nature of personality is a theme Pirandello explored in several plays published between 1918 and 1935 under the collective title Maschere nude (Naked Masks), a title reflecting Pirandello’s obsessive preoccupation with the question of identity. His take is that the self exists only in relation to others, and is the sum total of a myriad of changing aspects that conceal a mysterious void. A person isn’t what he thinks he is, but instead is “one, no one and a hundred thousand,” depending on how others perceive him—which is always different from the image of himself in his own mind.
A letter written by Pirandello, published in 1924, describes the novel as the “…bitterest of all, profoundly humoristic, about the decomposition of life: Moscarda one, no one and one hundred thousand.”
BOOK ONE
1 ~ My Wife and My Nose
“What are you doing?” my wife asked me, noticing I was taking an unusual amount of time in front of the mirror.
“Nothing,” I told her. “But look here, at my nose, in this nostril. It kind of hurts when I press on it.”
My wife smiled and said, “I thought you were looking because it’s crooked.”
I whipped my head around like a dog getting his tail pulled. “What? Crooked? My nose?”
My wife calmly said, “Yes, dear, take a good look. It’s bent to the right.”
I was 28 years old and up until then I’d always considered my nose to be, if not technically attractive, at least passable, like all my other body parts. That’s what made it easy for me to go around saying what anyone who was lucky enough not to wind up in a deformed body says—that it’s stupid to be vain about your looks. So this sudden, unexpected discovery bugged me because it felt like an unfair punishment.
My wife seemed to be a lot more savvy about how irritated I was, because she quickly added that if I was comfortable thinking I was perfectly flawless, I’d better get over it right away because not only was my nose crooked, but…
“What else?”
Oh, plenty, plenty! My eyebrows looked like those funny French circumflex accents. My ears were weird, one stuck out more than the other. And that was just off the top of her head…
“There’s more?”
Plenty more. My pinkie fingers. And my legs (no, don’t tell me my legs are crooked!)—the right leg was a tad more curved than the other one, towards the knee, just a tiny bit.
After careful examination I had to admit it was all true. And only when my immediate irritation turned to surprise and then to grief and humiliation, did my wife try to cheer me up by telling me not worry about it so much because even with all my flaws and defects, I was still a nice-looking man.
I did my best not to get too upset, choosing to accept as a generous concession what I used to take for granted as my divine right. I muttered a spiteful, sarcastic “thanks.” But there really was no reason to get upset or depressed, so I shrugged my shoulders and decided to take these tiny flaws in stride. The really amazing thing was that I’d gone all these years with a crooked nose, funny eyebrows, weird ears, mismatched legs—and never noticed any of it until my wife so kindly decided to point out all my flaws.
“Wow, go figure! Don’t you understand wives? Their main goal in life is to point out their husbands’ faults.”
True that. No argument from me. But in my defense, I’d like to add that back then I was so fragile that all it took was a single word or even just a housefly buzzing by, to knock me into a bottomless abyss of self-reflection and deliberation, gutting me emotionally and hollowing out my soul from top to bottom, like a molehill, so that I still looked exactly the same from the outside.
You’re probably thinking: “You’ve obviously had too much time on your hands.”
No, actually, that’s just how I was back then. But beyond that, yeah, I don’t deny I had a pretty easy life. I was well-off and my two trusted friends, Sebastiano Quantorzo and Stefano Firbo, watched out for me after my father died. That man had tried every trick in the book to motivate me, but I never got my act together. The only thing he managed to accomplish was getting me married at a really young age, possibly hoping that before long I’d at least have a son who was nothing at all like me. But the poor old guy didn’t even get that out of me.
I want to make it clear that I wasn’t opposed to following the path my father had laid out for me. In fact, he’d set out a path and I’d take it. Or at least I’d try. I’d make it a step or two, then stop. Every bump in the road became a major distraction, throwing me for a loop. I’d be amazed at how everyone else just seemed to breeze past me, apparently ignoring all those bumps that turned into insurmountable mountains for me. Some actually seemed to become entire worlds unto themselves, worlds where I could easily spend the rest of my life.
I kept getting stuck on the first steps of countless paths, my mind lost on worlds, or bumps in the road, same difference. But it didn’t really seem like those who’d passed me by and made it to the end were actually any smarter than me. Sure, they’d undoubtedly passed me, prancing along like a bunch of cocky colts, but what did they find at the end of the path? A cart. Their cart. They’d very patiently hitched themselves to it, and now they were stuck pulling it along. But I didn’t have a cart to pull, and so I didn’t have a bridle or blinders either. I could definitely see more than they could, but I had no idea where to go.
Getting back to the discovery of my little flaws, I was suddenly engrossed in thinking I really didn’t know my own body very well—was that possible? Not even the things that most intimately belonged to me: nose, ears, hands, legs. I started looking at myself again, checking everything one more time.
And that’s when everything started to go bad for me. It was a sickness that would quickly leave my mind and body so pitiful and desperate that I would’ve died or gone crazy if I hadn’t discovered the cure (as I’ll explain) to the sickness in the sickness itself.
2 ~ What About Your Nose?
Once my wife had made the discovery, I immediately figured that everybody must have noticed these physical flaws and that was all they saw when they looked at me.
“Are you looking at my nose?” I suddenly asked a friend that very same day when he’d stopped to talk to me about something, I’m not sure what, but probably something very important to him.
“No, why?” he asked.
With a nervous smile, I answered: “My nose is crooked, can’t you tell?” And I made him take a long, close look, like my nose was some irreparable malfunction in the grand scheme of the universe.
At first my friend looked at me a bit befuddled, then I’m sure he suspected I’d tossed out that impromptu, inappropriate remark about my nose because I wasn’t interested in talking about whatever it was he had brought up. He shrugged and started to walk away, but I grabbed his arm and said: “No, c’mon. I’d be glad to talk about your thing. But I’m afraid I’m not myself at the moment, sorry.”
“Are you really thinking about your nose?”
“I’d never noticed it was crooked before. My wife pointed it out this morning.”
“Oh, really?” my friend said. His eyes lit up as he smiled incredulously. And derisively.
I stood an
d stared at him like I’d stared at my wife that morning—that is, with a mix of humiliation, anger, and astonishment. So he’d been aware of it for a while, too? And who knows how many others besides him! And here I had no idea, running around unsuspectingly, thinking everyone saw me as a plain-old Mr. Moscarda with a straight nose, when in reality, everyone saw me as a Mr. Moscarda with a crooked nose. And who knows how many times I must’ve unwittingly mentioned some Tom, Dick, or Harry’s imperfect nose, making everybody in earshot laugh and think: “Get a load of this poor sucker talking about other people’s imperfect noses!”
It's true, I could’ve consoled myself with the thought that at the end of the day what happened to me was common and obvious, and only proved the well-known fact that we’re quick to notice flaws in other people but tend to ignore them in ourselves. But the initial seeds of my illness had already started to take root in my mind and I couldn’t take any consolation from that thought whatsoever.
Instead, the thought that others didn’t see me as I’d seen myself up to that point, got stuck in my brain.
For the moment I was just thinking of my body, and since my friend kept standing there with that look of derisive disbelief, I got back at him by asking if he happened to realize that the dimple in his chin was a little off-center, making one side seem to stick out more than other.
“My— What are you talking about!” he exclaimed. “Yes, I have a dimple, obviously, but it’s not like how you’re saying.”
“Let’s just go into that barber shop over there,” I immediately suggested, “and you’ll see.”
When my friend went into the barber shop, he was surprised to finally notice this little flaw and realized what I’d told him was true. He tried to hide his irritation, saying it was so trivial, it was hardly worth mentioning.
And yes, no doubt, it was trivial. However, following him from a distance, I saw him stop first at one store window, then again a little farther on, in front of another. Then later on he paused for a third time, for even longer to stare at his chin in front of a mirror in the entranceway of another store. And I’m sure that the second he got home, he ran to the bathroom mirror to take a good, long, leisurely look to get to know his new, defective self. Nor do I have the slightest doubt that, to exact his own revenge, or to pass on a joke he felt deserved to be spread far and wide, he’d asked one of his friends (like I’d done to him) if the friend had ever noticed his flawed chin, then had proceeded to notice some little flaw in that friend—maybe on his forehead or his mouth. Then that friend would in turn…
Yes, yes, I could swear that for several days in a row in our fine city of Richieri (unless it was all my imagination), I saw a stunning number of my fellow citizens moving from one store to the next, stopping to examine their faces reflected in every window. One guy would fixate on his cheekbone, the next on the corner of his eye, another his earlobe, another his nostril. After a week of this, a certain individual came up to me, looking lost, and asked if it was true that every time he started talking, he inadvertently tensed up his left eyelid.
“Yes, old friend,” I blurted out. “But look at me, why don’t you? My nose is bent to the right, but I already know it, there’s no need for you to remind me. And what about my eyebrows? They look like those weird French circumflex accents! And my ears, see? One sticks out more than the other. And this pinkie is crooked. And my legs—look at this one here—does it look like the other one? No, right? But I already know all this and you don’t need to remind me. See you later, take care.”
I took off. A few steps later, I heard him calling: “Psst!” Calm and collected, he motioned with his finger for me to approach so he could say: “Excuse me for asking, but did your mother have any more children after you?”
“No. None before me, none after me,” I replied. “I’m an only child. Why do you ask?”
“Just curious,” he said. “But if your mother had had another child, it definitely would’ve been another boy.”
“Yeah, really? How do you know?”
“Well, around here there’s an old wives’ tale that says when a baby’s hair ends in a little ducktail on the back of his neck, like the one you’ve got, the next baby will be a boy.”
My hand went to the back of my neck and with a cold sneer I asked: “Oh, so I have a… what did you call it?”
“A ducktail, my old friend, that’s what they call it here in Richieri.”
“Oh, that’s no big deal!” I exclaimed. “I can get it cut off.”
He wagged his finger at me, then said: “The mark stays with you for life, old friend, even if you get it shaved off.”
And this time, he left me standing there.
3 ~ A Fine Way to Be Alone!
From that day on, I had a burning desire to be alone, at least for an hour. Honestly, it was more than a desire—it was a necessity. A sharp, urgent, yearning need that progressed to anger when my wife was nearby, or even in the general vicinity.
“Hey, Gengè!” she hollered. (Unfortunately, my name is Vitangelo, and my wife somehow came up with that nickname and used it constantly, not without a good reason, as will be seen later on.) “Did you hear what Michelina said yesterday? Quantorzo has something urgent to talk to you about.”
“Look, Gengè, with my dress like this, does it show too much leg?”
“Gengè, the grandfather clock stopped.”
“Gengè, aren’t you going to take the dog out for a walk? She’s going to soil the carpets, then you’ll scold her. You really should, that poor little creature… I mean… You can’t expect… She hasn’t been out since last night.”
“Aren’t you worried, Gengè, that Anna Rosa might be sick? We haven’t seen her for three days, and she had a sore throat then.”
“Mr. Firbo was here, Gengè. He said he’d be back later. Do you have to see him here? Lord, he’s so annoying!”
Or else, I heard her singing:
E se mi dici di no,
caro il mio bene, doman non verrò;
doman non verrò...
doman non verrò...*
(* “And if you tell me no, my dear, tomorrow I won’t come, tomorrow I won’t come, tomorrow I won’t come…”)
So why didn’t you lock yourself in your room, maybe with earplugs?
Friends, that shows you don’t understand how I wanted to be alone.
My study was the only place where I could lock myself in, but even there I couldn’t bolt the door because that would arouse evil suspicions in my wife. I’m not going to call my wife a bad person, but she was very suspicious. What if she were to unexpectedly open the door and catch me in the act?
No. Besides, it wouldn’t have been worth the trouble. There weren’t any mirrors in my study. I needed a mirror. Anyway, just the thought of my wife being in the house was enough to keep me focused on myself, and that was the exact opposite of what I wanted.
For you, what does being alone even mean?
Hanging out by yourself with no one else around.
Well, yes, I can assure you that’s a good way to be alone. It opens a lovely little window into your memory, and between a pot of carnations and another of jasmine, you catch a glimpse of Titti, smiling, knitting a red wool scarf, oh my God, like the one that unbearable old Mr. Giacomino wears around his neck, and who you still haven’t written that letter for, recommending him to be president of the local charity association, your good friend, but so damned irritating, especially when he starts blabbing about the escapades of his private secretary, the one who yesterday—no, when was it?—the day before yesterday when it was raining and the piazza looked like a lake with all the glittering droplets and an optimistic glint of sunlight, and on the way, Lord what a mess, the fountain, the newspaper kiosk, the tram threading its way through the intersection, making a pitiful racket as it turned, that dog that was running away. Enough of that!
You ducked into a poolhall and there he was, the secretary to the president of the local charity association, laughing under his bre
ath—and under his bushy pepper-colored moustache—at your misfortune when you began playing with your friend Carlino, who everyone called “Moonface.” Then what? What happened next, when you were leaving the poolhall? Under a dim streetlamp, in the damp, deserted street, a poor, melancholy drunk was trying to sing an old Neapolitan song that all those years ago, you used to hear practically every night in that mountain village among the chestnut trees, where you’d gone on vacation to be close to your beloved Mimì, who later married the old Commander Della Venera and died a year later. Oh, dear, sweet Mimì! There she is, there she is at another little window opening in your memory…
Yes, yes, my dear friends, I guarantee that’s a good way to be alone!
4 ~ How I Wanted to Be Alone
I wanted to be alone in a completely new, unusual way. Quite the opposite of what you would expect—namely, without myself, and with some stranger nearby.
Does this already sound like an early symptom of insanity to you?
Maybe because you’re not really thinking it over.
Insanity may have already taken root in me, I don’t deny it. But I’m asking you to believe that the only way of being truly alone is the way I’m telling you now.
Solitude is never there with you—it’s always somewhere where you’re not, and it’s only possible with a stranger present. It doesn’t matter where you are or who the stranger is, whether they totally ignore you or you totally ignore them, all that matters is that your will and your consciousness remain in limbo and lost in harrowing uncertainty, and by completely silencing your mind, you’re destroying the very privacy of your own awareness. True solitude lies in a place that lives its own life, a place you can neither see nor hear, and where you are, therefore, the stranger.
One, No One & 100,000 Page 2
