Her Husband

by Luigi Pirandello

  The old signora was worm-eaten, too. Not so much by the solitary worm of literature as by the termite of history and the moth of erudition. She was attentive to Giustino Boggiolo, making a continual and insistent fuss after Giustino allowed her a glimpse of the mirage of an editor in the distance, and perhaps even a translator (German, of course) for her voluminous unpublished work: On the Last Lombard Dynasty and on the Origins of the Popes’ Temporal Power (with unpublished documents), in which she clearly demonstrated how the unfortunate family of the last Lombard kings had not completely died out after Desiderius’s imprisonment or with Adelchi’s exile to Constantinople, but instead how the family had returned to Italy, hiding behind a false name in a corner of this classical land (Italy) to save it from the ire of the Carolingians, and there continued to live on for a very long time.

  Signora Ely’s mother had been English, as could still be seen by the blond color of the curly wig her daughter wore over her forehead. She had never married because she had been too sharply critical as a young woman, paying too much attention to the slightly crooked nose of this suitor, or to the fat fingers of that one. Regretting, too late, such fastidiousness, she was now all honey around men. But she wasn’t dangerous. Yes, she wore that little wig over her forehead and built up her eyelashes with mascara a little, but only in order not to frighten the mirror too much and to induce a small smile of compassion. That was enough.

  “Good morning, Signor Ippolito,” she said, entering with many bows and squeezing a smile from her eyes and little mouth. She need not have bothered since Roncella had solemnly lowered his eyes to avoid looking at her.

  “Good morning to you, Signora,” he replied. “I’ll keep my hat on as usual and not get up. All right? Make yourself at home… .”

  “Certainly, thank you … don’t get up, for heaven’s sake!” Signora Ely hastened to say, holding out her hands full of newspapers. “Is Signor Boggiolo still in bed? I came in a hurry because I read here … Oh, if you only knew how many many nice things the newspapers say about yesterday’s banquet, Signor Ippolito! They report Senator Borghi’s magnificent toast! They announce Signora Silvia’s play with the greatest anticipation! Signor Giustino will be so happy!”

  “It’s raining, isn’t it?”

  “What did you say?”

  “It’s not raining? I thought it was raining,” Signor Ippolito grumbled, turning toward the window.

  Signora Ely was accustomed to Signor Ippolito’s habit of giving brusque turns to the conversation. Nevertheless it left her a bit bewildered this time. Then she understood and rallied quickly: “No, no. But perhaps it will. It’s cloudy. So beautiful yesterday, and today. Oh, yesterday, yesterday, a day that will never be … A day … What did you say?”

  “Gifts,” shouted Signor Ippolito. “Gifts, I say, from Our Eternal Father, my dear Signora, freely given for men’s happiness. How are the English lessons going?”

  “Ah, very well, indeed!” the old woman exclaimed. “Signor Boggiolo shows an aptitude for learning languages, an aptitude that never before … He’s already mastered French fairly well and he’ll speak English well in four or five months (oh, even sooner!). Then we’ll begin German.”

  “German, too?”

  “Oh, yes … he has to! It’s so useful, you know?”

  “For the Lombards?”

  “You’re always joking about my Lombards, you naughty man!” said Signora Ely, gracefully threatening him with a finger. “It will help him read the contracts, to know who to trust with the translations, and also to keep abreast of literary trends, to read the articles and criticism in the newspapers . ..”

  “But Adelchi, Adelchi,” bellowed Signor Ippolito. “How’s this business with Adelchi going? Is it really true?”

  “True? But there’s a tombstone, didn’t I tell you? I discovered it in the little church of San Eustachio at Catino near Farfa by a fortunate coincidence, around seven months ago while I was on vacation. Believe me, Signor Ippolito, King Adelchi did not die in Calabria as Gregorovius says.”

  “Died in a canteen?”

  “At Catino! Irrefutable evidence. The tombstone says: Loparius et judex Hubertus.”

  “Well, here’s Giustino!” Signor Ippolito interrupted, rubbing his hands together. “I recognize his footsteps.”

  And very speedily he puffed out five or six large mouthfuls of smoke.

  He knew his nephew couldn’t stand him to be there at the desk. Actually, he had his own room, the best in the apartment, where no one would disturb him. But he preferred to stay here and fill the little cubbyhole with smoke.

  (“Olympus Cloudmaker!” he snickered to himself.)

  Boggiolo did not smoke. Every morning when he appeared in the doorway he would close his eyes and wave away the smoke, blow and cough. Signor Ippolito would pretend not to notice. In fact, he would draw more smoke into his mouth, just as he was doing now, and let it waft thickly in the air without puffing.

  However, that smoke was no more intolerable to Giustino Boggiolo than the way his uncle-in-law looked at him. That look seemed to him almost a sticky substance that impeded not only his actions but also his thoughts. And he had so much to do there in that room in the few hours his office left him free! In the meantime he’d have to have the English lesson in the dining room, as though he had no study.

  However, that morning he had something to tell Signora Faciolli in secret and he couldn’t do it in the small dining room next to the bedroom where Silvia stayed until late. Therefore he summoned his courage and, greeting his uncle with an uncustomary smile, asked him to have the goodness to leave him alone with Signora Ely for a moment.

  Signor Ippolito frowned. “What’s that in your hand?” he asked.

  “A piece of bread,” was Giustino’s reply. “Why? I use it to clean my tie.”

  He took off his tie, the kind that’s already knotted, and showed how he rubbed the bread over it.

  Signor Ippolito nodded approval. He got up and seemed about to say something else but stopped himself. Head back, he puffed smoke first one way and then the other, and, making the ribbon on his hat swing, he went out.

  The first thing Giustino, puffing and blowing, did was to throw open the window, and he angrily tossed out the piece of bread.

  “Have you seen the papers?” Signora Faciolli asked him immediately, taking little hopping steps, sprightly and happy as a little sparrow.

  “Yes, Signora, I went out to get them,” answered Giustino sulkily. “You brought them, too? Thank you. I still have many more to buy. I must send a lot away. But did you see what a mishmash … what a muddle these journalists … ?”

  “It seemed to me that …” ventured Signora Ely.

  “No, Signora, I’m sorry!” interrupted Boggiolo. “When they don’t know something, they shouldn’t talk about it, or, if they want to say something they can first ask someone who knows something about it. As if I weren’t there! I was there, confound it, ready to give all the explanations, make all the clarifications…. Why pull things out of a hat? For example, Lifield here … no, where is it? In the Tribuna … has become a German editor! And then, look: Delosche … here, Deloche instead of Desroches. I’m sorry … I’m really sorry. I have to send the papers to him, too, in France, and …”

  “How are you, and how is Signora Silvia?” asked Signora Faciolli, in an effort to play another tune.

  It played worse than the previous one.

  “Don’t ask!” blustered Giustino, turning his back and tossing the papers on the desk. “Bad night.”

  “Perhaps the excitement …” she attempted an excuse.

  “What do you mean, excitement!” Boggiolo reacted in irritation. “That woman … excited? The Heavenly Father couldn’t budge that blessed woman. So many people there for her, the cream of the crop, you understand? Gueli, Borghi… do you think that made her happy? Not at all! You saw how I had to drag her there, didn’t you? And I swear to goodness, Signora, that this banquet came along on its own. What
I mean is that it was Raceni’s idea, and his alone. I had nothing whatever to do with it. Anyway, I think it turned out well.”

  “Very well! Of course!” Signora Ely immediately agreed. “There’ll never be anything like it again!”

  “Well, according to her she made a bad impression,” Giustino said with a shrug of his shoulders.

  “Who?” shouted Signora Faciolli, clapping her hands. “Signora Silvia? Oh, for heavens sake!”

  “Yes! But she laughs when she says it.” Boggiolo continued, “She says it means nothing to her. Now do we socialize with the others or not? I do what I can … but she has to help. I’m not the writer; she is. When something works, why shouldn’t we do all we can to see that it works as well as possible?”

  “Certainly!” Signora Ely agreed once more, completely convinced.

  “That’s what I say,” Giustino continued. “Yes, Silvia may have talent. She may know how to write, but believe me there are things she doesn’t understand. And I’m not talking about inexperience, mind you. Two books tossed away like that before she married me, without a contract. Incredible! As soon as I can I’ll do everything possible to reclaim them–I’ll do everything in my power for her books. I don’t have so many illusions now. Yes, the novel is selling, but we aren’t in England or even France. Now she’s written a play. She let herself be talked into it and wrote it right away, I have to say, in two months. I’m no expert…. Senator Borghi read it and says that … yes, he couldn’t predict the outcome, because it’s something … I don’t know how he put it … classical, it seems to me… . Yes, classical and new. Now I say, if we hit it big, if we do well in the theater, you understand, my dear Signora, it could make our fortune.”

  “Oh, certainly! Oh, certainly!” exclaimed Signora Ely.

  “But we have to be ready,” he added angrily, clasping his hands together. “There’s anticipation, curiosity…. After this banquet. I could see they liked her.”

  “Very much!” seconded Faciolli.

  “Look,” Giustino continued. “Marchesa Lampugnani has invited her to her home. I’ve heard she is one of the important ladies. That other one has also invited her, the one who has a much sought-after salon…. What’s her name? Signora Bornè-Laturzi. Silvia has to go, doesn’t she? To be seen. Many journalists and drama critics go there. She needs to see them, talk to them, let them know her, appreciate her. Well, you can imagine how much trouble it will be to convince her!”

  “Maybe it’s because,” Signora Ely risked, feeling uncomfortable, “maybe it’s because of her … condition?”

  “Not at all!” Giustino Boggiolo disagreed at once. “For two or three months more it won’t show. She’ll be very presentable! I told her I’d have a beautiful dress made. … In fact, that is exactly what I wanted to ask you, Signora Ely: if you know a good dressmaker who wouldn’t be too pretentious, too frivolous. That is, because .. . wait, excuse me, and then if you would help me pick out this dress and … and also persuade, yes, persuade Silvia that, for heaven’s sake, she should listen to reason and do what she needs to do! The play will open toward the middle of October.”

  “Oh, so late?”

  “It’s late, I agree. But I really don’t mind this delay, you know? The ground isn’t well enough prepared yet, I know so few people, and then the timing won’t be right in a few weeks. The real problem is Silvia, and Silvia is still so difficult. We have around six months ahead of us to prepare and put all these things right and other things, too. Now, I’d like to make a little plan. There’s no need of it for me, but for Silvia. It gets my goat, believe me, that she should be the biggest obstacle. It’s not that she rebels against my suggestions, but she won’t make any effort to play her part, to make the kind of impression she should, in other words, to overcome her own character… .”

  “Bashful … yes!”

  “What did you say?”

  “She’s too bashful, I said.”

  “Bashful? That’s what it’s called? I didn’t know. She lacks know-how. Bashful, yes, the word sounds right. She just needs a little basic, everyday instruction. I’ve noticed that … I don’t know … there’s something like an … an understanding among so many that … I don’t know … they pick something out of the air … just say a name … the name … wait, what is it?… of that English poet who lived on Piazza di Spagna, who died young …”

  “Keats! Keats!” Signora Ely shouted.

  “Keezi, yes … that one! As soon as they say Keezi … they’ve said it all, they understand each other. Or if they say … I don’t know … the name of a foreign artist … There are four or five names they all know, and they don’t even need to talk … a smile … a look … and they make a great impression, a great impression! You are so well educated, Signora Ely, could you do me this favor? Help me to help Silvia a little.”

  And why not? Signora Ely happily promises she will do everything she can, and the best she can. She knows a dressmaker, and as for the dress–a nice black dress, a shiny material, all right?–it has to be made in such a way that gradually …

  “Naturally!”

  “Yes, it can be done.”

  “Naturally in three … four months … Shall we go tomorrow to buy it together?”

  That settled, Giustino pulled out some albums from a desk drawer and grumbled: “Look, four today!”

  A serious business, these albums. They rained down from every direction on his wife. Admirers who, directly or through Raceni, or even through Senator Borghi, asked for a thought, a quotation, or a simple autograph to be written in them.

  Silvia would waste a lot of time attending to each one. It’s true that she didn’t have much to do right now, considering her condition. But she kept occupied with some little piece of work or another in order not to be completely idle and to answer the small requests of various newspapers.

  Giustino Boggiolo was saddled with the bother of those albums: he wrote in them instead of his wife. No one would be the wiser because he knew how to imitate Silvia’s handwriting and signature exactly. He copied excerpts from her already published books; or rather, in order not to have to leaf through them every time to find one, he had copied some into a notebook, and had even inserted some thought of his own here and there. Yes, some thought of his own that could pass among the many … At times he was tempted to secretly make some tiny little change in the quotations from his wife’s work. Reading articles in the newspapers by refined writers (as, for example, Betti, who had found so much to laugh about in Silvia’s prose), he had noticed that (who knows why) they capitalized certain letters. And so he too found something capitalizable in Silvia’s thoughts every once in a while, such as life, death, etc. There, a nice L, a magnificent D! If you can make a better impression with such little effort …

  He skimmed through the notebook and, with the help of Signora Ely, chose four thoughts.

  “This one … Listen to this! ‘We always say: Do what you should! But our inner Duty often affects those around us. What is Duty for us can be harmful to others. Therefore do what you must, but know what you are doing.’”

  “Stupendous!” exclaimed Signora Ely.

  “It’s mine,” said Giustino.

  And he transcribed it into one of those albums following Signora Ely’s dictation. “Duty” with a capital letter, twice. He rubbed his hands and then looked at his watch. “Ugh, I have to be in the office in twenty minutes. Lectio brevis, this morning.”

  They sat, teacher and student, at the desk.

  “Why do I do all this?” Giustino sighed. “Tell me.”

  He opened the English grammar and handed it to Signora Ely.

  “Negative form,” he began to recite with his eyes closed. “Present tense: I do not go, thou dost not go, he does not go.”

  3

  Thus began Silvia Roncella’s school for greatness: head maestro, her husband; temporary assistant, Ely Faciolli.

  She submitted to it with admirable resignation.

  She had always shru
nk from looking deep into her soul. On some rare occasions when she tried it for an instant she almost feared going insane.

  Entering into herself meant stripping her soul of all the usual pretenses and seeing life in a dry, frightening nudity. Like seeing that dear, good Signora Ely Faciolli without her blond wig, without makeup, nude. God, no, poor Signora Ely!

  Then was that truth? No, not even that. Truth: a mirror that by itself sees nothing, and in which each person looks at himself, as he believes he is, as he imagines himself to be.

  Well, then, she had a horror of that mirror where the image of her own soul, stripped of every necessary pretense, must also necessarily appear to her deprived of every glimmer of reason.

  Many times when she couldn’t sleep, and while her husband and maestro was sleeping peacefully beside her, she would be suddenly attacked in the silence by a strange, unexpected terror that cut her breathing short and made her heart pound! What was very clear in the context of her daily existence would be rent in a second, allowing her to glimpse a very different reality, deprived of sense and purpose, when suspended in the night and in the emptiness of her soul. It was a horrible reality in its impassive and mysterious rawness in which all the ordinary fictitious connections of feelings and images separated and disintegrated.

  Right at that terrible moment she would feel she was dying. She would feel all the horror of death and with a supreme effort would try to reestablish the ordinary awareness of things, to reconnect ideas, to feel alive again. But she no longer had faith in that ordinary awareness, in those reconnected ideas, in that usual feeling of life, since she now knew they were illusions to enable one to live, and that underneath there was something else that cannot be seen except at the expense of dying or going insane.

  For many days everything seemed different; nothing stimulated her desire anymore. In fact, nothing in life seemed desirable anymore. Time stood before her empty, gloomy, and somber, and everything in it, as though dumbfounded, waited for decay and death.

  Often, as she meditated, she would arbitrarily fix her gaze on an object and closely observe it in detail, as though that object were of particular interest to her. At first her observation was merely mechanical: her physical eyes stared and concentrated on that object alone, as if to ward off every distraction and to help her mental eye in the meditation. But gradually that object would begin to take over. It would begin to live by itself, as though suddenly becoming conscious of all the details she had discovered, and it would detach itself from all connection with her and with things around it.