Her Husband

by Luigi Pirandello

  Three minutes before the train left, Giustino was beset with a new problem. As if he didn’t have enough of them! Almost like a piece of paper, a rag, a clinging weed that sticks to the foot of a runner concentrating on the race in a crowded track. Senator Borghi, talking to Silvia through the train window, had asked her for nothing less than the script of The New Colony to publish in his review. Luckily he had been able to intervene in time to tell Borghi why that would not be possible. Already three of the best editors had made very lucrative offers and he was holding off all three, fearing that publication of the book might somewhat lessen the public’s curiosity in those cities waiting with feverish impatience to see the play. Then in its place, Borghi had made Silvia promise a story–a long one–for his literary review, Vita Italiana.

  “Excuse me, on what conditions?” Giustino said, as if the senator-director and onetime minister were sitting beside him, and not that disconsolate Signora Ely, who really couldn’t expose her eyes or converse in the state she was in. “What conditions? We have to see, we have to come to an understanding, then…. The days of House of the Dwarves have passed. What was enough for a dwarf, my dear signora–let’s be realistic–isn’t enough for a giant. Gratitude, yes! But gratitude … gratitude above all shouldn’t be exploited. What do you think?”

  Signora Ely nodded approval several times behind her hankie, and Giustino went on: “In my hometown, anyone exploiting gratitude would not only lose everyone’s esteem, but would be seen the same as … no, what am I saying? worse! seen as worse than someone who cruelly refused to lend a helping hand. Look, I’ll keep that as a good thought for the first album the senator sends me. Rather, I’ll make a note of it. So he can read it… .”

  He took out his notebook and jotted down the thought.

  “Believe me, if I don’t write things down … Ah, my dear signora, my dear signora! I should have a hundred heads, a hundred, but that wouldn’t be enough! When I think of all I have to do, I get dizzy! Now I’m going to go to the office and ask for six months’ leave. I can’t ask for less. And if they don’t agree to it? You tell me…. If they don’t agree to it? It will be a serious business. I’ll be forced to … to … What did you say?”

  Signora Ely said something into her hankie, something she didn’t want to repeat or indicate by gestures–she only twitched her shoulder slightly. And then Giustino said: “But, you see, against my will … You’ll see that they’ll force me to leave my job! And then they’ll begin saying–uh, I’m sure of it!–that I live off my wife. Me! Off my wife! As if my wife, without me … A laughing matter, that’s all there is to it! It’s obvious: look at her there, going on a holiday. And who stays here to work, to make war? It’s a war, you know? A real honest-to-goodness war … The battle has begun! Seven armies and a hundred cities! If I can just hold out… . And the office! If I lose my job tomorrow, whose fault will it be? I’ll lose it because of her…. Ah, well, better not to think about it!”

  So many things were on his mind that only by venting his feelings for a few moments could he forget the strain he was under. Nevertheless, just before reaching his house he couldn’t help thinking about Senator Borghi’s asinine request. It had upset him so, particularly because the senator should have come to him instead of his wife. But, then, for Christ’s sake! a little consideration! The poor little woman was going away to get well, to rest. If she wanted to think about something at Cargiore, it would be a new play, by heaven! Not some frivolous waste of time that earned nothing. A little consideration, for Christ’s sake!

  As soon as they reached home–pow! another obstacle, another inconvenience, another reason to be annoyed. But this one rather more serious.

  He found a lanky young fellow in the studio, with a forest of wild curly hair, a Van Dyke beard curving over his chin, mustache standing at attention, an old green silk kerchief at his neck that perhaps hid the lack of a shirt. A black jacket out at the elbows left his bony wrists exposed and made his arms and hands seem out of proportion. Boggiolo found him installed like the lord of the manor in the midst of an exhibition of twenty-five pastels placed around the room, on straight chairs, on armchairs, on the desk, everywhere: twenty-five pastels depicting final scenes of The New Colony.

  “Well, pardon me … pardon me … pardon me …” Giustino Boggiolo began saying as he entered, flustered and ill at ease with all those things cluttering the room. “Pardon me, but who are you?”

  “I?” said the young man smiling with a triumphant air. “Who am I? Nino Pirino. I am Nino Pirino, painterino, Tarentino. Therefore compatriotino of Silvia Roncella. You’re her husband, aren’t you? Pleased to meet you! I’ve done these things here and I’ve come to show them to Silvia Roncella, my illustrious compatriot.”

  “And where is she?” ventured Giustino.

  The young man looked at him, bewildered. “Where is who? What?”

  “My dear sir, she is gone!”

  “Gone?”

  “For heaven’s sake, all Rome knows it! All Rome was at the station, and you don’t know! I don’t have much time, pardon me.. .. But, wait a minute…. Pardon me, these are scenes from The New Colony, if I’m not mistaken?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And The New Colony belongs to everyone? You take the scenes and … appropriate them to yourself… . How? With what right?”

  “I? What are you saying? Not at all!” said the young man. “I am an artist! I have seen and …”

  “No, sir!” exclaimed Giustino with feeling. “What have you seen? You have seen my wife’s The New Colony… .”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And this is a deserted island, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where did you ever see it? Does this island exist in reality, on a map? You can’t have seen it!”

  The young man actually believed the whole thing a joke, and he was ready to laugh about it. But as it was turning out to be so different from what he expected, the laugh congealed on his lips. More bewildered than ever, he said:

  “With my own eyes? No, certainly not with my own eyes! I haven’t seen it. But I imagined it!”

  “You? No, sir!” Giustino pressed ahead. “My wife! My wife imagined it, not you! And if my wife had not imagined it, I tell you, you wouldn’t have had a thing to paint! The ownership …”

  At this point Nino Pirino succeeded in letting out the laughter that had been building up inside him for a while.

  “The ownership? Oh, yes? Of that island? Oh, great! Oh, fine! Oh, wonderful! You want to be the sole owner of that island? The owner of an island that doesn’t exist?”

  Giustino Boggiolo, feeling himself the butt of a joke, shook with anger and shouted: “Oh, it doesn’t exist? You say it doesn’t exist? It exists, it exists, it exists, yes, sir! I’ll show you it exists!”

  “The island?”

  “The ownership! My literary property rights! My rights, my rights exist. And you’ll see if I don’t know how to validate them! That’s why I’m here! Everyone is used to infringing on these rights that come from the sacrosanct law of the State, by heaven! But, I repeat, I’m here now, and I’ll show you!”

  “All right … but, look … yes, sir … calm down, look …” the young man said, distressed at seeing him so furious. “Look, I … I didn’t want to usurp any rights, any property. … If it makes you so mad … but I’m ready to leave all my pastels here and go away. I’ll give them to you and go away…. I had just wanted to please, to honor my fellow towns-woman. … Yes, I also wanted to ask her to … to .. . help me with the prestige of her name, because I believe I’m worth some help…. They’re beautiful, aren’t they? My pastels are worth a glance at least…. Not bad. I’ll give them to you and go away.”

  Giustino Boggiolo suddenly felt disarmed and ashamed in the face of that ragamuffin’s generosity.

  “No, not at all … thank you … excuse me … I was speaking of, I was arguing for the … her … my … rights, the ownership, that’s all. Believe me it�
�s serious business … as if it didn’t exist. … There’s constant piracy in the literary world…. I’m riled up, aren’t I? But because, look … these days I … I … I … get riled up easily. I’m dead tired of it all, and there’s nothing worse than being tired! I have to keep all sides covered, my dear sir. I have to protect my interests. You can understand that.”

  “Certainly! Naturally!” exclaimed Nino Pirino, taking a conciliatory tone. “But, listen … Please don’t get mad again. Listen … do you think I can’t make a painting, let’s say, of Manzoni’s The Betrothed? I read The Betrothed, I get an idea for the scene … can’t I paint it?”

  Giustino Boggiolo concentrated with great effort, smoothing his fan-shaped mustache with two fingers as he pondered: “Oh,” he finally said, “I really wouldn’t know… . Perhaps, dealing with the work of a dead author, already in the public domain for some time … I don’t know. I need to study the question. In any event, your case is different. Look! The fact remains that if tomorrow a musician asks my permission to put The New Colony to music, I’ll tell him that because I’m already negotiating with two of the best composers, and having the libretto done by others, he must pay me what I ask, and that’s not chicken feed, you know? Now, if I’m not mistaken, your case is the same. What applies to the musician for music applies to you for painting.”

  “Really … I see… .” Nino Pirino began, stroking his goatee, but then, suddenly, reconsidering: “Not at all! You’re wrong, you know! Look … that’s a different case! The musician has to pay because he uses the text for his opera, but if he doesn’t use it, if he expresses in music his impressions, his feelings aroused by your wife’s play, in a symphony or whatever, he won’t have to pay, don’t you see? You can be sure of that; he won’t have to pay anything!”

  Giustino Boggiolo parried with his hands as though to ward off danger or a threat of it.

  “I’m speaking academically,” the young man hastened to add. “I’ve already told you why I came, and, I repeat, I’ll be happy to leave my pastels here.”

  That gave Giustino an idea. Sooner or later the play would be published. They could make an expensive, illustrated edition, with color reproductions of those twenty-five pastels… . The book wouldn’t go through many hands, so he could keep that painter from profiting from his wife’s work. And it would also take care of the painter’s request for moral and material help, because the publisher would compensate him adequately for those pastels.

  Nino Pirino was enthusiastic about the idea and almost kissed the hands of his benefactor, who in the meanwhile had had another brain storm. He signaled for the young man to hold on while he brought it all out into the light.

  “Here it is. A preface by Gueli … And so all the gossips that go around cackling that Gueli didn’t like the play … Do you know he came this morning to pay his respects to my wife at the station? But they can also say (I know them so well!) that he came out of mere courtesy. If Gueli writes the preface … Wonderful, yes, yes, wonderful. I’ll go there today just as soon as I leave the office. But see how many worries I have, and how much more you’ve given me to do now? I don’t have much time! I have to leave for Bologna tonight. Never mind… . I’ll take care of everything. Leave your pastels here. I promise that as soon as I go to Milan … What is your address?”

  Nino Pirino squeezed his elbows into his waist and drew up his chest, ill at ease: “Well… when … will you be going to Milan?”

  “I don’t know,” Boggiolo said. “In two or three months at the most.”

  “Well, then,” smiled Pirino, “it’s pointless to give you my address. In three months I could have changed it at least eight times. Nino Pirino, General Delivery: that’s how you can write me.”

  3

  When Giustino Boggiolo came back home later (barely leaving time to hurriedly pack his suitcase), he was so tired, and in such a stupefied condition, that even stones would have taken pity. But he gave himself no pity.

  As soon as he entered the shadowy gloom of the studio, he found himself, without knowing how or why, in the arms and against the breast of a woman who gently caressed his cheek with a warm perfumed hand and said to him in a sweet, maternal voice: “Poor man … poor man … I know! … Keep this up and you’ll destroy yourself, darling! … Oh, poor man … poor man …”

  And without the slightest clue as to why Dora Barmis was here in his house, in the dark, or how she could have known that because of his troubles, because of the unpleasant encounters, and because of his tremendous tiredness, he had an overwhelming need for solace and rest, he let himself be stroked like a baby.

  Perhaps he had come into the study raving and complaining.

  He really couldn’t take it anymore! At the office his boss had listened to him with his ears cocked like a dog’s, and he had sworn he would no longer be able to call himself Gennaro Ricoglia if he didn’t wholeheartedly deny his request for six months’ leave. After that, in Gueli’s house … Oh, Lord, what had happened at Gueli’s house?… He didn’t know how to reconstruct it… . Had he dreamed it? But why? Hadn’t Gueli gone to the station that morning? He must have gone mad… . One of them was loony…. But perhaps in the middle of all that giddy confusion, something happened that he hadn’t noticed, and that was the reason why he couldn’t understand anything now, not even why Signora Barmis was here. … Perhaps it was right and natural for her to be here … and that compassionate and affectionate comfort was also appropriate, and–yes–deserved … but now … now enough of that.

  And he started to move away. Dora stopped him by pressing his head against her breast: “No, why? Wait… .”

  “I must… the … the suitcases …” Giustino stammered.

  “No! What are you saying!” Dora’s voice spoke to him. “You want to leave in this state? You can’t, darling, you can’t!”

  Giustino resisted the pressure of that hand. By now that comfort was beginning to seem too much and a little odd, even though he knew that Signora Barmis often forgot she was a woman.

  “But… but why?…” he continued to stammer, “without… without a light here? What has Signora Ely’s maid done?”

  “The light? I didn’t want it,” Dora said. “They brought it. Here, here, sit with me here. It’s nice in the dark … here… .”

  “And the suitcases? Who’s going to pack for me?” asked Giustino, miserably.

  “Do you have to leave?”

  “My dear signora …”

  “And if I keep you from going?”

  In the dark Giustino felt his arm squeezed tightly. More than ever bewildered, upset, trembling, he repeated: “My dear signora …”

  “You idiot!” she broke out with a quivering, convulsive laugh, taking him by the other arm and shaking him. “Stupid! Stupid! What are you doing? Don’t you see? It’s stupid … yes, stupid, your wanting to leave like this… . Where are your suitcases? They’ll be in your bedroom. Where’s your bedroom? Come on, let’s go, I’ll help you!”

  Giustino felt he was being coerced. He was reluctant, lost, stammering: “But… but if… if they don’t bring us a light…”

  A strident laugh at this moment rent the darkness and seemed to shake the whole silent house.

  By now Giustino was accustomed to Signora Barmis’s sudden bursts of mad hilarity. Dealing with her was always like skating on thin ice, never knowing how he should interpret certain actions, certain looks, certain smiles, certain words. At that moment, yes, it really seemed obvious that… but what if he were mistaken? And then … Forget it! Aside from the state he was in … Forget it! That would definitely be wrong, something he couldn’t do.

  With this knowledge of his incorruptible conjugal honesty, he found the courage to resolutely and with a certain contempt light a match.

  Another, more strident, wilder laugh seized and contorted Signora Barmis at the sight of him with that match burning between his fingers.

  “What’s the matter?” Giustino asked angrily. “In the dark … surely …”


  It took some time before Dora recovered from that convulsive laughter. She composed herself and wiped away her tears. In the meanwhile he lit a candle he had found on the desk after brushing aside three of Pirino’s pastels.

  “Ah, twenty years! Twenty years! Twenty years!” Dora shuddered finally. “Men, you know? To me they are toothpicks! Here, between the teeth, clean, and toss away! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! The soul, then, the soul, the soul… Where is the soul? God! God! My, how good it is to breathe… . Tell me, Boggiolo: according to you, where is it? Inside or out? I’m talking about the soul! Inside or outside us? Everything depends on it! You say inside? I say outside. The soul is outside, darling; the soul is everything in the world; and once dead we will be nothing anymore, darling, nothing, nothing more…. Go ahead with the light! To the suitcases at once … I’ll help you… . Seriously!”

  “You’re too kind,” Giustino said quietly, flabbergasted, moving ahead with the candle toward the bedroom.

  As soon as she entered, Dora looked at the double bed and looked around at the other more than modest furniture under the low roof: “Ah, here…” she said. “Yes, well… That nice odor of home, family, the provinces … Yes, yes … well… lucky you, darling! May it always be so! But you must hurry. When does the race start? Oh, right away … Hurry, hurry, without losing any more time …”

  And into the two bags open on the bed she quickly and skillfully packed the items that Giustino took from the drawer and handed her. While doing so: “Do you know why I came? I wanted to warn you that Signora Carmi… all the actors of the company, but especially Signora Carmi, are furious, my dear!”

  “Why?” asked Giustino, stopping.

  “Your wife, darling, didn’t you notice?” Dora responded, signaling with her hand for him to keep going. “Your wife… perhaps, poor thing, because she’s still… she received them very very badly.”