“Sorry, but don’t you think it’s really quite lovely, so very green, this woolen blanket?”
3 ~ Total Submission
I consoled myself with the thought that all this would make Anna Rosa’s acquittal more likely. But then, Sclepis, with his bony frame shaking violently, came running up several times to tell me that I’d made—and was continuing to make—his task of saving me all the more difficult.
How could I possibly not realize that I’d stirred up a huge scandal with my little misadventure, and right at the exact moment when I should have been demonstrating that I, more than anyone, had my head screwed on straight? Instead, didn’t I just demonstrate that my wife had good reason for running off to her father’s house, because of the disgraceful way I’d treated her? I was cheating on her, and the only reason I’d declared that I no longer wanted people in town calling me a usurious loan shark was just to look good in that impetuous girl’s eyes! And my guilty passion had so blinded me that I’d stubbornly persisted in dragging others along with me in my desire to drive myself to ruin, even though this guilty passion had nearly cost me my life!
At this point, facing unanimous outrage, Sclepis had no choice but acknowledge my deplorable misdeeds, and the only possible route to salvation he could see was for me to openly confess to all my sins. To prevent this confession from becoming dangerous, however, I’d have to simultaneously demonstrate a vital, urgent need of heroic atonement for my soul, so I could restore Sclepis’ courage and strength enough for him to ask everyone to sacrifice their personal interests.
I kept nodding my head at everything he said to me, without bothering to notice how much and how far all his dialectical reasoning was gradually heating up and becoming his sincere conviction. He definitely appeared increasingly smug, but perhaps with a hint of deep-seated perplexity as to whether his satisfaction was due a true charitable intent or to the shrewdness of his own intellect.
The decision was reached that I would provide an exemplary and highly dignified role-model of contrition and self-sacrifice by giving away everything, including my house and all my worldly goods, and with what I’d get from liquidating the bank, establish a home for the destitute with an attached soup kitchen open year round, not only for the benefit of those sheltered in the institution, but open to any and all poor people who might need it as well. There would also be a clothing bank for both genders and all ages, providing a certain number of articles of clothing annually. Finally, I myself would live in an ordinary room there, sleeping on a cot like any other beggar, eating soup from a wooden bowl like every everyone else, and wearing the same institutional clothing provided to everyone of my age and gender.
The thing that got under my skin the most was that my total submission would be interpreted as a true repentance—when in fact I was giving everything away with no objections because I was now light years away from anything that might hold some meaning or value to others, and not only was I totally alienated from myself and from everything, but I was horrified at the thought of still being someone, in possession of something.
No longer wanting a thing, I knew I could no longer speak. So I sat there quietly, watching and admiring that diaphanous old prelate who was able to want so much and to exert his will with such refined skill, and not for any particular personal benefit, nor perhaps even for the benefit of others as much as for the credit that would flow to that house of God to which he was an unfailingly faithful and zealous servant.
You see? For himself he was no one.
Could this be the path that anyone could take to becoming one?
But that priest was too full of pride in his own authority and knowledge. Despite living for others, he still wanted to be one for himself, clearly separated from others by dint of his wisdom and power, and also by his proven loyalty and greater zeal.
This is why, as I watched him—yes, I continued to admire him, but I also felt sorry for him.
4 ~ It Doesn’t Finish
Anna Rosa had to be acquitted, but I believe her acquittal was also due in part to the laughter that spread through the entire courtroom when I was called to give my testimony and made my appearance wearing the hospital cap, clogs, and turquoise smock.
I no longer looked in the mirror, and the desire to find out what has happened to my face and my overall appearance never enters my mind. My appearance to others must have changed a great deal, and in an amusing way, judging from the astonishment and laughter that greeted me. Nevertheless, they all still insisted on calling me Moscarda, despite that name now having a totally different meaning than before. They could have spared that poor addle-brained shell there, bearded and smiling in his clogs and turquoise smock, the bother of being obliged to respond to that name, as if it really belonged to him.
No name. No memory of yesterday’s name today or of today’s name tomorrow. If the name is the thing, if a name is the concept inside us of everything outside us, and without a name there is no concept, leaving things blindly inside us, indistinct and undefined—well then, let them take this name that I once bore among them and engrave it as an epitaph on the forehead of the image they had of me, then leave it there in peace and never speak of it again. Because that’s all a name is—an epitaph on a tombstone. Fitting for the dead. For someone who’s finished. I’m alive and I’m not going to finish. Life doesn’t finish. Nor does it understand names. This tree, quivering breath of new leaves. I am this tree. Tree, cloud; tomorrow book or breeze: the book I read, the breeze I drink in. All outside, wandering.
The institution stands in the open countryside, in an idyllic setting. I go out every morning, at dawn, because that’s how I want to nourish my soul now—in the fresh light of a new day when everything seems ripe for discovery, still imbued with the lingering nighttime chill, before the dazzling sunlight dries out its humid breath. Those swollen rainclouds there, leaden masses hanging above livid mountaintops, making that green stretch of sky seem broader and clearer amid the carmine sliver of shadow, final remnant of the night. And here these blades of grass, delicately damp as well, alive with freshness along the roadside. And that little donkey, left out in the open all night long, now gazing with blurry eyes and snorting at the silence that’s so close, but gradually, without surprise, seems to be moving away and brightening up around him with the light that’s just now flooding onto the stunned, deserted fields. And these carriage paths here, between the dark hedges and the low, cracked stone walls, with their deep ruts, are still there and don’t move. And the air is new. And everything, moment by moment, is what it is, coming to life in order to appear. I immediately look away to avoid seeing anything else freeze in place and die. That’s the only way I can live these days. Being reborn moment by moment. Preventing my thoughts from starting up again, and the void of meaningless constructs from rebuilding itself inside me.
The city is far away. At times, in the calm of the evenings, the sound of its bells reaches my ears. But now I no longer hear those bells inside me, but outside, ringing for themselves, perhaps quivering with joy in their resounding hollowness, in a fine azure sky drenched with warm sunlight, amid the chirping of the swallows or in the cloudy wind, heavy and high in their lofty belfries. Thinking about death, praying. There are still people who feel that need, and the bells give voice to that need. I no longer have this need because I’m constantly dying and coming back to life new and without memories, alive and whole, no longer in myself, but in everything out there.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR:
Kevan Houser began studying Italian independently in the 1970s as a high school student and continued a more traditional study at the University of Oregon, including a stint as an exchange student in Perugia, Italy, finally receiving his BA in Italian from San Francisco State University in 1994.
He now lives in Portland, and besides gainful work as a commercial/business translator, he has translated several genre novels and shorter fiction, providing an American voice for self-published Italian authors.
Yo
u can reach him at: [email protected]
Those interested in Italian literature may also enjoy Countess Baby, the first-ever commercially available English-language translation of Gerolamo Rovetta’s (1851-1910) novella. Be among the first to rediscover this classic Italian author!
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“Crafting this story amounts to verbal sculpture. In Italy the author, Gerolamo Rovetta, was well known in the 19th century and his works are still in print. Kevan Houser has given Rovetta's novella, Countess Baby, a lovely translation. The story, set in Verona among a tight circle of aristocrats, pits Count Andrea, naïve and passionate, with Countess 'Baby' (nicknamed because she behaves like one), who manipulates his devotion, in well told twists and turns. It's a tale of stylized fun.” — Lewis Ellingham, poet and author of Poet Be Like God: Jack Spicer and the San Francisco Renaissance and The Birds and Other Poems
As a writer, Kevan’s first original novel, Karma’s Envoy, has received overwhelmingly positive reviews:
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“Sardonic, sympathetic, harrowing, amusing, and more. A unique and multi-layered novel.” — SPR
Karma’s Envoy: A boy was murdered 50 years ago. Is it too late to save him?
Todd Woodside's entire San Francisco life suddenly disappears when he becomes an 8-year-old boy living in rural Oregon in 1962. Is he dreaming? Dead? Crazy?
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How can a little kid protect his fragile mother and defend himself? Will knowledge and experience from his original, future life be enough to save him from a horrific death?
Karma's Envoy blends suspense, mystery, and ironic humor in a unique, time-traveling journey of crime and punishment that lingers long after the book is done.
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ABOUT THE EDITOR:
Lewis Ellingham was born February 27, 1933, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. By age 21, he had migrated to San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood after living in Chicago and New York.
With Kevin Killian, he wrote a biography of Jack Spicer, Poet Be Like God (Wesleyan University Press [1995]).
He is perhaps best known for his haunting poetry. His The Birds and Other Poems was published in 2009 (Ithuriel’s Spear Press); new writing continues with a series of self-published books, the most recent of which is Black Sand.
His writing is available on his blog: “The Ellingham Digest,” which can be found at: http://lewellingham.wordpress.com
Much of his work is also available on Amazon.
The following new poem will be included in an upcoming book:
the faces, not the mouths
roars of a million tongues, and none knows what they mean*
the faces, not the mouths speak
five Russians on a sunny afternoon sitting on a lawn in a park — no telling them apart from the Anglos, Asians and Latinos around them, the clothes are the same, smudged bluejeans, torn T-shirts, chinos, sneakers, all the same, even the flesh, the sunscreen on it, the zits and pimples, the beauty, all the same — what blender gave them to this cityscape of weathers, grass and concrete, shades and shapes
roars, howls, and stifled murmurs never cease*
the bones and tendons, muscles and pauses will tell me if they love each other, themselves, the bugs on the grassblades, the palm fronds breeze-bending as if, as if
my muscles, tendons, pauses know a thing about it, the zits and beauty of the Russians, a family perhaps? they chat and sometimes smile
* John Clare (1793 – 1864), from Fragment (published, John Clare Poems (Richard Cobden-Sanderson, 1920; Poem-A-Day, 18 August 2018)
* earlier line, same poem
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION TO THIS TRANSLATION
WHY THIS TRANSLATION?
LUIGI PIRANDELLO, BRIEFLY
THE NOVEL: UNO, NESSUNO E CENTOMILA
BOOK ONE
BOOK TWO
BOOK THREE
BOOK FOUR
BOOK FIVE
BOOK SIX
BOOK SEVEN
BOOK EIGHT
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR:
ABOUT THE EDITOR:
One, No One & 100,000 Page 17
