Luigi Pirandello

“ THE MANAGER. Very well,—but where does all this take us?
THE FATHER. Nowhere! It is merely to show you that one is born to life in many forms, in many shapes, as tree, or as stone, as water, as butterfly, or as woman. So one may also be born a character in a play.
THE MANAGER (with feigned comic dismay) . So you and these other friends of yours have been born characters?
THE FATHER. Exactly, and alive as you see! (Manager and actors burst out laughing) .
THE FATHER (hurt) . I am sorry you laugh, because we carry in us a drama, as you can guess from this woman here veiled in black. ”

“ Do you suppose those chairs get any pleasure out of imagining who the patient is to be who will next sit down in them, waiting for his turn to see the doctor?—what disease he will have?—where he will go?—what he will do after he has been examined? . . . No pleasure at all! And so it is with me. . . . No pleasure at all! So many patients come, and they are there, poor chairs, to be sat on! . . . Well—my job in life is something like theirs. ”

“ SIGNORA SIRELLI. The way to answer you is to refuse to talk with you. See, I turn my back on you! I am going to move my chair around and pretend you aren't in the room. Why, you're driving me crazy, crazy!
LAUDISI. Oh, I beg your pardon. Don't let me interfere with your party. Please go on! Pray continue your argument about Signora Frola and Signor Ponza—I promise not to interrupt again!
AMALIA. You're right for once, Lamberto; and I think it would be even better if you should go into the other room.
DINA. Serves you right, Nunky! Into the other room with you, into the other room! ”

“ LANDOLPH. You wait and see how we'll manage this doctor!
BERTHOLD. It looks as if I were going to get into a nice mess right away.
JOHN. If the gentlemen would allow me to speak ... they want to come here into the throne room.
LANDOLPH (surprised) . What? She? The Marchioness here?
HAROLD. Then this is something quite different! No play-acting this time!
LANDOLPH. We'll have a real tragedy: that's what!
BERTHOLD (curious) . Why? Why?
ORDULPH (pointing to the portrait) . She is that person there, don't you understand?
LANDOLPH. The daughter is the fiancée of the Marquis. ”

“ PREFECT. You're right, you're quite right, Signora Frola, but as I told you, I understand!
SIGNORA FROLA. Yes, governor, that's it! If he compels us to live this way—well, what does it matter. That doesn't do anybody any harm so long as we're satisfied, and my daughter is happy this way. That's enough for me, and for her! But you'll look after us, governor. They mustn't spoil anything. Otherwise there's nothing left for, me except to leave town and never see her again—never, not even from a distance. You must not irritate him. You must leave him alone. ”

“ HAROLD. The gentleman means the Abbot. Very good! Hugh of Cluny.
LANDOLPH. —He's often been here before!
DOCTOR (amazed) . —What? Been here before?
LANDOLPH. —Don't be alarmed! I mean that it's an easily prepared disguise....
HAROLD. We've made use of it on other occasions, you see!
DOCTOR. But....
LANDOLPH. Oh no, there's no risk of his remembering. He pays more attention to the dress than to the person.
DONNA MATILDA. That's fortunate for me too then.
DI NOLLI. Frida, you and I'll get along. Come on Tito!
BELCREDI. Ah no. If she (indicates the Marchioness) stops here, so do I! ”

“ BERTHOLD. Her Highness the Countess Matilda of Canossa! (Frida enters, magnificent and beautiful, arrayed in the robes of her mother as "Countess Matilda of Tuscany," so that she is a living copy of the portrait in the throne room) .
FRIDA (passing Berthold, who is bowing, says to him with disdain) . Of Tuscany, of Tuscany! Canossa is just one of my castles!
BELCREDI (in admiration) . Look! Look! She seems another person....
DONNA MATILDA. One would say it were I! Look!—Why, Frida, look! She's exactly my portrait, alive!
DOCTOR. Yes, yes.... Perfect! Perfect! The portrait, to the life. ”

“ THE MANAGER. Yes, please stop it, for Heaven's sake.
THE STEP-DAUGHTER. But imagine moral sanity from him, if you please—the client of certain ateliers like that of Madame Pace!
THE FATHER. Fool! That is the proof that I am a man! This seeming contradiction, gentlemen, is the strongest proof that I stand here a live man before you. Why, it is just for this very incongruity in my nature that I have had to suffer what I have. I could not live by the side of that woman (indicating the Mother) any longer; but not so much for the boredom she inspired me with as for the pity I felt for her. ”

“ Good is no name for it, my dear sir. You can't imagine all he does for me! Kind, attentive, solicitous for my comfort, everything! And as for my daughter—I doubt if any girl ever had a more affectionate and well-intentioned husband. No, on that point I am proud of myself! I could not have found a better man for her.
SIGNORA SIRELLI. Well then.... What? What? What?
SIGNORA CINI. So your son-in-law is not the reason?
AGAZZI. I never thought it was his fault. Can you imagine a man forbidding his wife to call on her mother, or preventing the mother from paying an occasional visit to her daughter? ”

“ I am the daughter of Signora Frola, and I am the second wife of Signor Ponza. Yes, and—for myself, I am nobody, I am nobody....
PREFECT. Ah, but no, madam, for yourself ... you must be ... either the one or the other.
SIGNORA PONZA. Not at all, not at all, sir! No, for myself I am ... whoever you choose to have me. (Without removing her veil, she proudly casts a sweeping glance around at the company, and withdraws. They all stand looking after her. Profound silence on the stage) .
LAUDISI. Well, and there, my friends, you have the truth! But are you satisfied? Hah! hah! hah! hah! hah! hah! ”

“ HENRY IV. That was also a joke, probably!
DONNA MATILDA. But who did it? Who was behind us, then?
HENRY IV. It doesn't matter who it was. All those that went on feasting and were ready to leave me their scrapings, Marchioness, of miserable pity, or some dirty remnant of remorse in the filthy plate! Thanks! (Turning quickly to the doctor) : Now doctor, the case must be absolutely new in the history of madness; I preferred to remain mad—since I found everything ready and at my disposal for this new exquisite fantasy. ”

“ Look here, sir, our temperaments, our souls....
THE MANAGER. Temperament, soul, be hanged! Do you suppose the spirit of the piece is in you? Nothing of the kind!
THE FATHER. What, haven't we our own temperaments, our own souls?
THE MANAGER. Not at all. Your soul or whatever you like to call it takes shape here. The actors give body and form to it, voice and gesture. And my actors—I may tell you—have given expression to much more lofty material than this little drama of yours, which may or may not hold up on the stage. But if it does, the merit of it, believe me, will be due to my actors. ”

“ AGAZZI. Well, we'll let you laugh all you want. In the meantime let's see.... (He steps to the door at the left and calls) : Amalia, Signora Sirelli, won't you come in here a moment?
(The ladies enter with Dina) .
SIGNORA SIRELLI (catching sight of Laudisi and shaking a finger at him) . But how is it a man like you, in the presence of such an extraordinary situation, can escape the curiosity we all feel to get at the bottom of this mystery? Why, I lie awake nights thinking of it!
AGAZZI. As your husband says, that man's impossible! ”

“ SIGNORA FROLA. But my dear sir, how can you help hurting me when you force him to give almost publicly an explanation which is quite absurd—ridiculous I might even say! Surely people like you can't seriously believe what he says? You can't possibly be taking me for a lunatic? You don't really think that this woman is his second wife? And yet it is all so necessary! He needs to have it that way. It is the only way he can pull himself together; get down to his work again ... the only way ... the only way! Why he gets all wrought up, all excited, when he is forced to talk of this other matter ”

“ And you, Peter Damiani, how could you be a friend of that man?...
LANDOLPH. Majesty!
HENRY IV. (at once) . No, I won't name him! (Turning to Belcredi) : What did you think of him? But we all of us cling tight to our conceptions of ourselves, just as he who is growing old dyes his hair. What does it matter that this dyed hair of mine isn't a reality for you, if it is, to some extent, for me?—you, you, my Lady, certainly don't dye your hair to deceive the others, nor even yourself; but only to cheat your own image a little before the looking-glass. I do it for a joke! You do it seriously! ”

“ DOCTOR. Quite right! Because a portrait is always there fixed in the twinkling of an eye: for the young lady something far away and without memories, while, for the Marchioness, it can bring back everything: movements, gestures, looks, smiles, a whole heap of things....
DONNA MATILDA. Exactly!
DOCTOR (continuing, turning towards her) . Naturally enough, you can live all these old sensations again in your daughter.
DONNA MATILDA. He always spoils every innocent pleasure for me, every touch I have of spontaneous sentiment! He does it merely to annoy me. ”

“ SIGNORA FROLA. Selfishness? Perhaps! But a selfishness, after all, which offers itself wholly in sacrifice. A case where the selfish person gives all he has in the world to the one he loves. Perhaps it would be fairer to call me selfish; for selfish it surely is for me to be always trying to break into this closed world of theirs, break in by force if necessary; when I know that my daughter is really so happy, so passionately adored—you ladies understand, don't you? A true mother should be satisfied when she knows her daughter is happy, oughtn't she? ”

“ Get out of here! Go home at once! Home! Home! Go home!
SIGNORA FROLA. Yes, Yes! Home! I am going home! Oh dear, oh dear!
(She backs out the rear door, looking beseechingly at the company, as though urging everyone to have pity on her son-in-law. She retires, sobbing. The others stand there looking at Ponza with pity and terror; but the moment Signora Frola has left the room, he regains his normal composure, an air of despairing melancholy, and he says coolly, but with profound seriousness) :
PONZA. I hope you good people will excuse me for this scene. A scene it really was, I suppose! ”

“ HAROLD (very pleased at the chance for another joke) . Oh, it's John, it's old John, who comes every night to play the monk.
ORDULPH (rubbing his hands) . Yes, yes! Let's make him do it!
HENRY IV. (at once, severely) . Fool, why? Just to play a joke on a poor old man who does it for love of me?
LANDOLPH (to Ordulph) . It has to be as if it were true.
HENRY IV. Exactly, as if true! Because, only so, truth is not a jest (opens the door and admits John dressed as a humble friar with a roll of parchment under his arm) . Come in, come in, father! ”

“ But he does that to keep her from seeing her daughter!
LAUDISI. How do you know that? How do you know that the old lady, rather, does not prefer this arrangement, just to have more elbow room for herself?
DINA. No, no, Nunky, you're wrong. Everybody knows that it is he who is doing it.
AMALIA. See here, Lamberto, everybody understands, if a girl, when she marries, goes away from her mother to live with her husband in some other town. But supposing this poor mother can't stand being separated from her daughter and follows her to the place, where she herself is also a complete stranger. ”

“ SIGNORA FROLA. Oh, I understand—of course! But you know, I have a feeling that a young man and a young woman who have married should be left a good deal to themselves.
LAUDISI. Quite so, quite so! They should be left to themselves. They are beginning a life of their own, a life different from anything they have led before. One should not interfere in these relations between a husband and a wife! ”

“ LAUDISI. Oh, you women! I say, making that complaint is a dirty trick. By Jove! If people see fit to keep to themselves in their own houses, haven't they a right to?
AMALIA. Yes, but you don't understand! We were trying to do her a favor. She is new in the town. We wanted to make her feel at home.
DINA. Now, now, Nunky dear, don't be so cross! Perhaps we did go there out of curiosity more than anything else; but it's all so funny, isn't it! Don't you think it was natural to feel just a little bit curious?
LAUDISI. Natural be damned! ”

“ THE STEP-DAUGHTER. Sometimes she can close them no more: when she no longer feels the need of hiding her shame to herself, but dry-eyed and dispassionately, sees only that of the man who has blinded himself without love. Oh, all these intellectual complications make me sick, disgust me—all this philosophy that uncovers the beast in man, and then seeks to save him, excuse him ... I can't stand it, sir. When a man seeks to "simplify" life bestially, throwing aside every relic of humanity, every chaste aspiration, every pure feeling, all sense of ideality, duty, modesty, shame ... ”

“ THE STEP-DAUGHTER. Absurd! How can I possibly be expected—after that—to be a modest young miss, a fit person to go with his confounded aspirations for "a solid moral sanity"?
THE FATHER. For the drama lies all in this—in the conscience that I have, that each one of us has. We believe this conscience to be a single thing, but it is many-sided. There is one for this person, and another for that. Diverse consciences. So we have this illusion of being one person for all, of having a personality that is unique in all our acts. ”

“ SIGNORA FROLA. I know he did; and I also know how it pained him to be obliged to say such a thing of me. It is a great pity, Commendatore! We have made continual sacrifices, involving unheard of suffering, I assure you; and we could endure them only by living as we are living now. Unfortunately, as I well understand, it must look very strange to people, seem even scandalous, arouse no end of gossip! But after all, if he is an excellent secretary, scrupulously honest, attentive to his work, why should people complain? You have seen him in the office, haven't you? He is a good worker, isn't he? ”