One, No One & 100,000

by Luigi Pirandello

  CONCLUSIONS:

  Just these two for now:

  1. I was finally beginning to understand why my wife, Dida, called me Gengè.

  2. I decided to find out who I was, at least to those closest to me, my so-called acquaintances, and to have some fun by vindictively dissecting the me that they saw and knew.

  BOOK TWO

  1 ~ Here I Am and Here You Are

  You might argue with me like this:

  “How come it never occurred to you, poor Moscarda, that everybody else was in the same boat? They couldn’t see themselves living, either, and just like others didn’t see you the way you’d been seeing yourself so far, well, maybe you didn’t see them the way they really are either, and so on and so forth.”

  My response would be: It did occur to me. But sorry, did it really occur to you as well?

  I wanted to think so, but I don’t believe it. Rather, I believe that if such a thought really had occurred to you, taking root in your mind the way it did in mine, each and every one of you would’ve done the same crazy things I did.

  Be honest—the thought never crossed your mind that you wanted to see yourselves living. You just go about your lives, and rightly so, without giving a thought as to how others are seeing you, not because you don’t care what others think—you actually care a great deal—but because you’re under the blissful illusion that everyone who sees you from the outside must see you the way you see yourselves.

  So then what if someone points out that your nose is bent just a tad to the right? Isn’t it? Or that you told a lie yesterday? Didn’t you? Just a tiny little white lie, no harm done. In short, if you occasionally just barely sense that others don’t see you the way you see yourself, what do you do? (Be honest now.) You do nothing, or practically nothing. At the most, with complete self-confidence, you decide everyone else has simply misunderstood you, misjudged you, and that’s that. If it bugs you, maybe you’ll try to set them straight with explanations, clarifications; if it doesn’t really matter, you’ll just let it go, shrugging your shoulders and exclaiming: “Well, at the end of the day, I know myself and that’s enough.”

  Am I right?

  Excuse me, my friends. Since you’ve just had to wrap your brains around such a complex concept, please allow me to plant a tiny, tiny thought in your minds—your self-awareness has nothing to do with this. I’m not going to tell you it’s worthless if it means everything to you. To make you happy, I will say that I have my own self-awareness and know that it’s worthless. Do you know why? Because I know you have one too. Absolutely. Totally different from mine.

  You’ll have to forgive me if I sound like a philosopher for a moment. But could self-awareness possibly be some absolute that can be enough on its own? If we were solitary beings, then maybe so. But in that case, my friends, there would be no self-awareness. Unfortunately, there’s me and there’s you. Unfortunately.

  Besides, what does it even mean that it’s enough for you to have your self-awareness? Does it mean everyone else can think about you and judge you however they want, even unfairly, because you’re secure and comfortable knowing you’ve never done anything wrong?

  Oh, for goodness’ sake, if others don’t give you that confidence and comfort, then who does?

  Do you give it to yourself? How does that work?

  Oh, I know how: you insist on believing that if everyone else were in your shoes and found themselves in your exact situation, they’d all do the exact same thing you did, no more, no less.

  Good job! But what makes you think so?

  Oh, I know that, too: when it comes to certain general, abstract principles—which generally and abstractly excludes particular concrete life situations—everyone can agree (easy enough).

  Meanwhile, how come everyone condemns you, or disapproves of you, or even laughs at you? Unlike you, they’re clearly incapable of recognizing those same general principles in your specific case, or of recognizing themselves in your actions.

  So, your self-awareness is all that you need for what? To make you feel alone? Lord, no. Solitude frightens you. So then what do you do? You imagine lots of heads, all like your own. Actually, all those heads really are yours. And with a given signal, drawn to you as if by an invisible thread, they all tell you yes and no, no and yes, whichever you want. And this comforts and reassures you.

  It’s quite a game you’ve got there, pretending your self-awareness is all you need.

  2 ~ And So?

  Do you know what everything is actually based on? I’ll tell you. On a presumption that God always watches out for you. The presumption that your personal reality must be, and is, exactly the same as everyone else’s

  You live inside it, and you walk outside it confidently. You see it, you touch it, and if you like, you even smoke a cigar in it. (A pipe? Fine, a pipe.) And you blissfully watch the plumes of smoke gradually disappear into the air, without the slightest suspicion that all that reality around you has the same consistency as that smoke as far as everyone else is concerned.

  You disagree? Take a look. I was living with my wife in the house my father had built after my mother’s premature death, so he could get out of the one he’d lived in with her, so full of excruciating memories. I was just a little boy then, and only later was I capable of realizing that right at the end my father had left that house unfinished and practically open to anyone who wanted to come in.

  That archway without a gate that crossed from one side to the other of the unfinished walls of the vast front courtyard, with the bottom threshold destroyed and the corners of the columns peeling away, now makes me think my father may have left it that way, empty and up in the air, because he thought that after his death the house would pass on to me, meaning it would belong to everyone and no one, and so the protection of a gate would be a waste of time.

  As long as my father was alive, no one dared set foot in that courtyard. Anyone passing by would see all the cut paving stones lying on the ground and their first thought would be that work had been briefly suspended but would soon be resumed. But as soon as the grass had started sprouting between the pebbles and along the walls, those useless paving stones suddenly looked old and crumbling. Some time after my father’s death, they became benches for the neighborhood gossips who, hesitantly at first, gradually dared venture into the courtyard looking for a shady spot where they could sit in peace and quiet. Later, seeing that no one said a thing, only their hens remained hesitant, and even that didn’t last long. The women began to consider that courtyard as their own domain, including the water in the central cistern. They would do their washing there, hanging the clothes out to dry, and with the sun cheerfully dazzling over all those white sheets and shirts fluttering on the clotheslines, the women would let their hair, shiny with oil, down onto their shoulders and “pick through” each other’s hair the way monkeys do.

  I never showed any annoyance or pleasure at their invasion, although I was especially irritated by the sight of one of the old biddies constantly clucking about some complaint, with her dried-up eyes and a hump on her back clearly visible through her faded green jacket. And I was nauseated by a fat, filthy, stinky woman dressed in rags whose horrific tit kept popping out of her bodice while she held a filthy brat on her lap, its enormous head covered with a disgusting case of cradle cap, visible through its reddish peach fuzz. Perhaps my wife benefitted in some way from letting them stay there, calling on them when she needed some help, in exchange for kitchen scraps or some cast-off clothing.

  The sloping courtyard was paved with pebbles just like the street. I picture myself as a boy, home for the holidays from boarding school, looking out from one of the balconies of the then-new house late one evening. What boundless suffering I felt at the sight of the vast leaden whiteness of all those pebbles on that slope, with that mysteriously sonorous cistern in the middle! Even then, the rust had nearly eaten the reddish paint off the iron handle at the top which controls the pulley for the line holding the bucket—the iron h
andle’s sickly, faded color looked so sad! Even the wistful squeaking of the pulley sounded sick, when the wind stirred the line at night, while above the deserted courtyard the light of the starry but overcast sky, in all its useless hazy splendor, seemed permanently stuck up there.

  After my father’s death, Quantorzo was tasked with looking after my affairs. It was his idea to partition off my father’s personal rooms to make a little apartment to rent out. My wife didn’t stand in the way. Not long after, a taciturn retiree moved in. He was always impeccably dressed, neat and clean, with the hint of a military bearing in the stiff posture of his slight build and in his energetic, somewhat time-worn face, like that of a retired colonel. He had two perfect fish eyes that looked like they were elaborately hand-drawn, and his cheeks were covered with a dense web of purple veins.

  I’d never paid any attention to him or even bothered to find out who he was or how he lived. Our paths had crossed on the stairs several times. Hearing his very civil “Good morning” or “Good evening,” I’d naturally decided my boarder was a very polite individual.

  My suspicions weren’t aroused when he complained about the mosquitoes that bothered him at night, which he believed came from the large warehouses to the right of the house, which Quantorzo, also after my father’s death, had converted into grimy carriage houses that were rented out.

  “Oh, right!” I’d exclaimed back then, in response to his complaint.

  But I perfectly recall the sadness in that exclamation—not so much about the mosquitoes annoying my boarder, but about all those clean, airy warehouses that I’d watched being built as a boy, and where, strangely exhilarated by the dazzling whiteness of the plaster and practically intoxicated by the dampness of the fresh construction, I used to run on the reverberating brick flooring, still dusted with lime. The sunlight pouring in through the huge iron-grated windows reflected blindingly on the walls, forcing me to shut my eyes.

  At any rate, those carriage houses for rent, with those old three-horse landau carriages, and saturated with the stench of manure and rotting straw, and blackened by the stagnant rinse-water from the troughs out front, made me think of the joy of carriage rides when I was a boy. We’d go on vacation along broad roads through open countryside that seemed specially designed to greet and spread the joyous sound of the harness bells. That memory seemed to make the proximity of those carriage houses tolerable. Besides, it didn’t matter that they were so close, because everyone knew Richieri was plagued by mosquitoes and every household generally used protective mosquito netting.

  Who knows what my boarder must have thought seeing the smile on my lips when his fierce little face shouted that he’d never been able to tolerate mosquito netting because it made him feel like he was suffocating? My smile certainly expressed surprise and pity at the notion he couldn’t tolerate the netting. I would’ve kept on using it even if every last mosquito had disappeared from Richieri! The delight it brought me, hanging from the ceiling, draping neatly around the bed, without a wrinkle. The room, visible but masked through that myriad of tiny holes in the gauzy tulle fabric, the isolated bed, the feeling of being wrapped in a white cloud.

  I paid no attention to what he might think of me after that encounter. I continued seeing him on the stairs and hearing him greet me with his usual “Good morning” or “Good evening,” and I kept thinking he was indeed a very civil, polite man.

  However, I assure you that at the exact same moment on the stairs when on the outside he was saying “Good morning” or “Good evening,” on the inside he was seeing me as a total imbecile because I tolerated that invasion of old busybodies out in the courtyard and that pungent stench of the wash troughs and the mosquitoes.

  I clearly would’ve stopping thinking “Oh, God, what a polite boarder I have,” if I’d been able to see the way he saw me—a way I could never see myself, that is, from the outside. He had his own personal perception of people and things, in which he had me pegged his way: as a total imbecile. Not knowing all this, I kept on thinking: “Oh, God, what a polite boarder I have.”

  3 ~ May I Come In?

  I knock on the door of your room.

  Please, please stay where you are, stretched out comfortably in your easy chair. I’ll sit here. No, you say?

  “Why not?”

  Oh, it’s the chair where your poor mother died many years back. Sorry, but I wouldn’t pay a dime for it, whereas you wouldn’t sell it for all the gold in the world—I totally get it. But anyone who sees it in your otherwise well-furnished room, without knowing, would definitely wonder how you could possibly keep something so old, faded, and worn like that in here.

  These are your chairs. And this coffee table couldn’t possibly be any more coffee table-like. That’s a window, looking out to the garden. And out there, those are pine and cypress trees.

  I know. Delightful hours spent in this room that seems so charming to you, with a view of those cypresses there. Meanwhile, this room ruined your friendship. He used to come visit you nearly every day, and now not only has he stopped coming, but he goes around telling everyone that you’re crazy—truly crazy to live in a house like this.

  “It’s got all those cypresses lined up in front,” he goes around saying. “My friends, there’s more than 20 cypresses—it looks like a cemetery.”

  He can’t give it a rest.

  You half-close your eyes. You shrug your shoulders. You sigh. “There’s no accounting for taste.”

  Because it literally does seem like a matter of taste to you, or of opinion, or habit. You don’t doubt in the least the fact that things you can enjoy seeing and touching right now are precious.

  Step away from that house and come back in three or four years and take another look with fresh eyes and a whole new perspective, and you’ll see more than your precious reality.

  “Ugh, look, is this the room? Is that the garden?”

  And for the love of God, let’s hope no other close relative has died, because then all those fine cypresses there would look like a cemetery even to you.

  Now you say this is common knowledge, that feelings change and that anyone can make a mistake.

  You’re right, it’s definitely old news. But I don’t claim to be telling you anything new. I’m just asking: “Good Lord, so why do you act like no one knew? Why do you keep believing that yours is the only reality, today’s reality, and why are you surprised and annoyed and yell that your friend is wrong, even though no matter how hard he tries, the poor guy will never feel the same way you do?”

  4 ~ Sorry, It’s Me Again

  Let me say one more thing then I’ll shut up.

  I don’t want to offend you. You talk about your self-awareness. You don’t want it questioned. I’d forgotten, excuse me. But I recognize—truly recognize—that as far as you’re concerned, deep inside, you’re not at all the way I see you from the outside. Not for lack of trying. I’d like to convince you of that, at least. You know yourself, feel yourself, and run your life your way, not mine. Again, you believe your way is right and mine is wrong. That may be, I won’t deny it. But could your way be mine and vice versa?

  Now let’s take it from the top!

  I can believe everything you tell me. I do believe it. I’ll offer you a chair—have a seat and let’s see if we can come to an agreement.

  After a good hour of conversation, we’ve come to understand each other perfectly.

  Tomorrow you show up, waving your hands in my face, screaming: “What? What did you mean? Didn’t you tell me such and such?”

  Yes, that’s exactly what I told you. But the problem, my dear friend, is that you’ll never know, nor will I ever be able to explain, how I interpret what you tell me. No, you weren’t speaking Greek, no. You and I were speaking the same language, the same words. So how is it our fault—yours and mine—if the words themselves are empty? Empty, my dear friend. You fill them up with your meaning as you say them to me and when I absorb them, I inevitably fill them up with my meaning. We th
ought we’d understood each other, but we didn’t understand each other at all.

  Yeah, yeah, same old story, I know. I don’t claim to be telling you anything new. It just comes back to the same question: “Good Lord, why do you keep acting like no one knew?”

  Talking to me about yourself when you know that for me to see you the way you see yourself, and for you to see me the way I see myself, I’d need to have the same inner reality you have, and vice versa—is that even possible?

  Alas, dear friend, no matter how hard you try, you’ll always see me through the lens of your reality, even honestly believing it’s the same as my reality—and it may be. I’m not going to say it isn’t, because maybe it is, but it’s a “my reality” that I don’t know and will never be able to know. Only you, seeing me from the outside, will truly know it, so “my reality” for you isn’t “my reality” for me.

  If only there were a master reality for each of us, outside of us, one that was independent, unvarying, immutable. But there isn’t. I have a reality in me, my reality, the one I create for myself. You have a reality in you, your reality, the one you create for yourself. These will never be the same, either for you or for me.

  So what?

  Well, my friend, we must console ourselves with this: my reality is no truer than yours, and whether it’s yours or mine, it only lasts but for a moment.

  Is your head spinning now? Well then… let’s end it there.

  5 ~ Obsessions

  Alright then, here’s the point I was trying to make: You need to stop saying it—stop saying that you have your self-awareness and that it’s all you need.

  When did you do that? Yesterday, today, a minute ago? And now? Oh, now you’re even willing to admit that you might possibly have acted differently? Why? Oh, God, the color is draining out of your face! Maybe now you’re even recognizing that you were someone else a minute ago?