Who She Is
Dida is the wife of Vitangelo Moscarda and the daughter of the man who, in Book VI, comes to demand an accounting from his son-in-law and flees from him, impeccably dressed and always pleased with himself (chapter IV of Book VI). They married when he was twenty-three (chapter VIII of Book III), and in the salon of Book V she is the slender, pale figure with a shaft of sunlight on her nape, like an arrow (chapter VI of Book V). Her remark about the nose sets off the crisis of the novel (chapter I of Book I), and she is the one who most deserves a close reading, because the book does not make her a villain: she wants the husband she loves, fears that he will change, knows him better than he knows himself, and is mistaken when she takes the Gengè she built for Vitangelo. She calls him Gengè every minute, from the first chapter onward (chapter III of Book I), along with the house and its news, and what the book does is show, scene by scene, that this name does not designate a disguise: it designates a man who exists for her in his entirety.
Trajectory
In chapter I of Book I, in front of the mirror, she sees her husband pinch his nostril and answers with a smile and a "darling," without malice, that his nose leans to the right.
Mi pende? A me? Il naso? - E mia moglie, placidamente: - Ma sì, caro. Guàrdatelo bene: ti pende verso destra., It leans? Me? My nose? And my wife, placidly: "But yes, dear. Look at it closely: it leans to the right."
In chapter VI of Book I she announces that she will go see her friend Anna Rosa, and it is enough for him to say he does not want her to go for her to put on her hat and hand him her fur to hold. The trick works, even with his smile in the mirror:
Quando voi non volete assolutamente una cosa, che fa vostra moglie? Dida, mia moglie, si piantò il cappellino in capo. Poi mi porse la pelliccia perchè gliela reggessi., When you absolutely do not want something, what does your wife do? Dida, my wife, planted her little hat on her head. Then she handed me the fur for me to hold up for her.
In chapter XII of Book II Vitangelo understands what she meant when she claimed to know what he liked and disliked: she built the Gengè, and she loves him truly, so much that she undoes the young woman's hairstyle with which Vitangelo had been dazzled, because her Gengè does not like him in it.
Tu me lo dici per farmi piacere. Ma io non debbo piacere a me, caro mio. Vuoi che non sappia come piaccio meglio al mio Gengè?, You say that to please me. But I am not supposed to please myself, my dear. Do you think I don't know how I please my Gengè best?
The turning point of the chapter is his discovery:
Ma sfido ch’ella conosceva quel suo Gengè più che non lo conoscessi io! Se l’era costruito lei! E non era mica un fantoccio. Se mai, il fantoccio ero io., but I bet she knew that Gengè of hers better than I did! She built him herself! And he was by no means a puppet. If anything, the puppet was me.
In chapter VI of Book III he goes looking for her to ask what his profession is. She looks at him as if she did not recognize him, laughs loudly, and calls him Gengè, and then blows into his eyes as if to put out a look that was no longer that of the husband she knows.
Tu lo sai, eh Dida, qual è la mia professione?, You know, eh, Dida, what is my profession?
In chapter II of Book V, after the eviction of Marco di Dio, she sits on his lap, scolds her Gengè for the joke in poor taste, worries about the danger he ran, and agrees with Firbo that such a pastime deserves an asylum.
Ma guarda un po’, se sono scherzi da fare! Lo sfratto sotto la pioggia; e assistervi, provocando l’indignazione di tutti, scioccone! A momenti t’accoppavano!, But just look, what kind of jokes are these to make! The eviction in the rain; and watching it, provoking everyone's outrage, you fool! They nearly killed you!
In chapter VI of Book V she confers with Quantorzo about her husband, and the two receive him together with a "there he is." In chapter VIII of Book V, when he complains of being called a usurer, her laughter wounds him where no image reaches, and only afterward does he have the bank closed:
da quella risata mi sentii ferire all’improvviso come non mi sarei mai aspettato che potesse accadermi in quel momento, nell’animo con cui un po’ m’ero messo e un po’ lasciato andare a quella discussione: ferire addentro in un punto vivo di me che non avrei saputo dire nè che nè dove fosse; tanto finora m’era apparso chiaro ch’io alla presenza di quei due, io come io, non ci fossi, e ci fossero invece il “Gengè„ dell’una e il “caro Vitangelo„ dell’altro; nei quali non potevo sentirmi vivo, from that laughter I suddenly felt wounded as I would never have expected it could happen to me at that moment, in the frame of mind in which I had partly put myself and partly let myself go into that discussion: wounded deep within me at a vital point that I could not have said what it was or where it was; so clearly had it seemed to me until then that I, in the presence of those two, I as I am, was not there, and that instead there were the "Gengè" of the one and the "dear Vitangelo" of the other; in whom I could not feel myself alive.
His answer is the most violent refusal of the puppet:
Finiscila tu, col tuo Gengè che non sono io, non sono io, non sono io! Basta con codesta marionetta! Voglio quello che voglio; e come voglio sarà fatto!, Stop it, you, with your Gengè who is not me, is not me, is not me! Enough of this puppet! I want what I want; and it will be done as I want!
In chapter I of Book VI, alone in the room, he acknowledges that she too is a vital point within him, and that he loves her knowing that he is loved as someone else:
Era anche lei - lo sentivo bene, ora che non la avevo più in casa - era anche lei un punto vivo in me. Io l’amavo, non ostante lo strazio che mi veniva dalla perfetta coscienza di non appartenermi nel mio stesso corpo come oggetto del suo amore., She too was - I felt it clearly, now that I no longer had her in the house - she too was a vital point within me. I loved her, despite the anguish that came from my perfect awareness of not belonging to myself, in my own body, as an object of her love.
In chapter II of Book VI she goes out with Quantorzo and leaves orders for the servants Diego and Nina to take her things to her father's house.
In chapter IV of Book VII Anna Rosa tells Vitangelo what he never knew: Dida considers him a fool, and she, Firbo, Quantorzo, and the father-in-law gathered evidence to have him declared incompetent. He sees an enemy Dida, and even so does not call her false:
Insomma un’altra Dida; una Dida veramente nemica. Eppure, sono certo certissimo che col suo Gengè ella non fingeva: era col suo Gengè quale poteva essere per lui, perfettamente intera e sincera. Fuori poi della vita che poteva avere con lui, diventava un’altra: quell’altra che ora le conveniva o le piaceva o veramente sentiva di essere per Anna Rosa., In short, another Dida; a Dida truly hostile. Yet, I am quite certain that with her Gengè she was not pretending: she was with her Gengè as she could be for him, perfectly whole and sincere. Outside, however, the life she could have with him, she became another: that other who now suited her, or pleased her, or whom she truly felt she was for Anna Rosa.
After Book VI she does not return to the scene: she exists only in Anna Rosa's accounts, in the first statement that Vitangelo supposes she gave to the court (chapter I of Book VIII), and in Sclepis's, who gives her reason for having fled (chapter III of Book VIII).
Themes Embodied
Dida is the domestic proof that the reality others give a person is real. In chapter XII of Book II the argument of Book II, that each person's reality is a form someone gives them, ceases to be an argument and becomes a marriage: the woman who kisses Vitangelo's lips is kissing those of another, and that other exists as much as he does. This is Identity seen from outside, and it is Appearance and reality as the ground of life as a couple. The puppet she builds is Gengè. In the scene of the laugh, in chapter VIII of Book V, she also represents Solitude and isolation for Vitangelo, because the one who laughs is the person closest to his body.
What the book does not give Dida is a point of view. Everything we know of her passes through Vitangelo, through Anna Rosa (chapter IV of Book VII), or through the testimony Vitangelo supposes she gave to the court (chapter I of Book VIII), and each one uses them as material for their argument. This takes away her right to be heard, and at the same time shows what the novel's thesis costs: Vitangelo sees her as the wife who loves the Gengè, Anna Rosa as his enemy, the court, as he supposes, as a witness to his love for another, and each time she is a different Dida, and equally sincere.
Divergent Readings
Two readings coexist in the text about what she feels. In one, Dida loves her husband truly, in her own way, and Vitangelo's crisis is a blow she has no means of understanding: she never knew why he changed, treats the act as a prank, and is frightened by the danger he ran, and when he pushes her into the armchair she finds herself in the arms of a stranger (chapter VIII of Book V). In the other, the Gengè suits her: her father, she, and the bank's partners have lived off the comfortable puppet-like existence they gave him, as Vitangelo himself sees in chapter V of Book VI, and it is through Anna Rosa's mouth that we learn she gathered evidence to have him declared incompetent (chapter IV of Book VII).
Non poteva ammettere, lui, ch’io gli levassi il genero (quel suo Gengè ch’egli vedeva in me, chi sa come) dalle condizioni in cui se n’era stato finora, cioè da quella comoda consistenza di marionetta che lui da un canto e la figlia dall’altro, e dal canto loro tutti i socii della banca gli avevano dato., He could not admit that I would take his son-in-law (that Gengè of his that he saw in me, who knows how) out of the conditions in which he had remained until then, that is, out of that comfortable consistency of a puppet which he on one side and his daughter on the other, and the bank's partners on theirs, had given him.
The two readings are not mutually exclusive, and the text itself brings them together. What she holds through love and what she holds through convenience do not separate, because both fall on the same Gengè, and that is why the episode in chapter IV of Book VII does not make her false to Vitangelo: with the Gengè she was not pretending, and with Anna Rosa she could be another. The divergence that remains concerns the moral weight of her departure, and the novel leaves it without a verdict.
Relationships
- Vitangelo Moscarda: the husband whose puppet she builds (chapter XII of Book II), loses (chapter VIII of Book V), and testifies about her to the judge (chapter I of Book VIII).
- Quantorzo: the ally in the salon conversation (chapter VI of Book V), with whom she leaves the house (chapter II of Book VI), and with whom she gathers the evidence for the commitment (chapter IV of Book VII).
- Firbo: agrees with him that the eviction deserves an asylum (chapter II of Book V) and is among those who gathered evidence (chapter IV of Book VII).
- Anna Rosa: the friend whom she has not heard from and goes to visit (chapter VI of Book I), and to whom she confides, smiling, that the Gengè feels a liking for her (chapter IV of Book VII).
- Marco di Dio: the evicted tenant, whose eviction she reproaches her husband for (chapter II of Book V).