Who He Is
Sebastiano Quantorzo is, together with Firbo, one of the two trusted friends to whom Vitangelo Moscarda handed the business after his father's death (chapter I of Book I), and he ends up as director of the bank his father founded (chapter VIII of Book III). It is the "paternal" Quantorzo who calls the boss "dear Vitangelo" (chapter VI of Book V): heavy, dark, sunk into the green sofa of the salon. What he wants is for the bank to run without shocks, with the name of Vitangelo's father intact in the town's credit. What he fears is liquidation, which would ruin the bank, Vitangelo's father-in-law, and his daughter (chapter VIII of Book V). What he knows, and Vitangelo does not, is how the bank works: where the papers are and who actually gives the orders (chapter V of Book IV). Where he is wrong, and why: he takes Vitangelo's question for a question about money, and the boss for a trustworthy and somewhat foolish partner, because that figure suits the bank; that is why he does not see that the decision to close the bank is not about the accounts (chapter VIII of Book V).
Trajectory
In chapter II of Book II, in charge of the business, he closes off with a partition the rooms that Vitangelo's father had reserved for himself in the unfinished house, and turns them into a small apartment, which he rents to an elderly retiree, the neighbor who greets the boss courteously and thinks him an imbecile. It is the first act of Quantorzo's that the book shows, and Vitangelo accepts it without noticing.
In chapter V of Book IV, when Vitangelo goes to the bank to look for the house papers, it is Quantorzo who drags him into the management room after he insults Firbo. Later it is to him that Vitangelo says, with a hand on his shoulder, that he is not his father, before sending Firbo to carry out the eviction of Marco di Dio:
T’avverto, caro mio, che non sono mio padre., I warn you, my dear friend, that I am not my father.
In chapter I of Book V, when Firbo wants to have him committed, Quantorzo replies that Vitangelo's father also had his indulgences of kindness, and that no one thought of having him declared incompetent. Vitangelo sees the hole in the defense, but also sees Quantorzo's reason: since the owner is absent, the real owners are the two of them, and his lack of sense serves them.
Ah, non c’è che dire, stava tutta dalla parte di Firbo la logica. Ma non stava meno, se vogliamo, dalla parte di Quantorzo, Ah, there is no denying it, the logic was entirely on Firbo's side. But it was no less, if you like, on Quantorzo's side.
In chapter VI of Book V he is in the salon with Dida, in conference, when Vitangelo enters, and it is there that the "dear Vitangelo" of one and the Gengè of the other appear as two figures the man does not recognize:
E poichè erano due a vedermi entrare, mi venne la tentazione di voltarmi a cercare l’altro che entrava con me, pur sapendo bene che il “caro Vitangelo„ del mio paterno Quantorzo non solo era anch’esso in me come il “Gengè„ di mia moglie Dida, And since there were two of them to watch me enter, I was tempted to turn and look for the other who was entering with me, though I knew very well that the "dear Vitangelo" of my paternal Quantorzo was not only also in me, like the "Gengè" of my wife Dida.
In chapter VIII of Book V Quantorzo is disturbed as soon as Vitangelo's eyes meet his, and Vitangelo understands that the visit is meant to tie him hand and foot, in agreement with Firbo, under the threat of leaving the management of the bank. He decides to disconcert him slowly. The complaint he makes is that of a man who cannot bear being called a usurer in the street:
La banca... la banca... Non sai veder altro che la banca, tu. Ma tocca a me poi, fuori, a sentirmi dare dell’usurajo!, The bank... the bank... You can see nothing but the bank. But it falls to me, out there, to be called a usurer!
Quantorzo replies with a furious pantomime of astonishment and points at his wife, who laughs until she comes apart. The laugh wounds Vitangelo at the vital point:
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.
When Vitangelo demands that the bank be closed that night, Quantorzo protests that the name is his father's, the money is invested, and his wife and father-in-law would be ruined, and asks, hands clasped, why. It is the question Vitangelo cannot answer in the language of banking.
In chapter II of Book VI he goes out with Dida, and in chapter IV of Book VII Anna Rosa tells Vitangelo that Quantorzo, Firbo, Dida, and the father-in-law gathered evidence to have him declared incompetent.
Themes Embodied
Quantorzo is Money and wealth seen by the one who manages it: for him the bank is a name, a credit, and an account, and Vitangelo's question about what the town calls usury is one the balance sheet does not record. In chapter V of Book IV what he sees is a boss who is going mad; in chapter I of Book V an absent boss who is better left absent; in chapter VIII of Book V a boss who threatens the bank's credit. In none of these scenes does he get the facts wrong; he gets wrong the assumption that the facts are enough to say who Vitangelo is. This is Appearance and reality in the office: Quantorzo's "dear Vitangelo" and Dida's Gengè are two fixed figures, made by those who live near him and by what he represents.
Where Dida builds the good-natured husband, Quantorzo builds the trusted and somewhat foolish partner, useful for the bank to run without shocks. The two puppets fall the same afternoon, in chapter VIII of Book V, and that is why the book puts them together in the room. The difference is that Dida's is made out of love, and Quantorzo's out of the habit of one who profits from the owner's absence.
Divergent Readings
The text supports two readings of Quantorzo. In one, he is the loyal administrator: he defends the bank with every accounting reason, reminds us in chapter I of Book V that the father also had his excesses without anyone having him committed, and protests in chapter VIII of Book V because the bank's ruin would drag the boss's family down with it. In the other, he is the one who profits from silence: Vitangelo presumes in chapter I of Book V, without having listened, that his indulgence is self-interested, and the salon scene, with the conference beside Dida, suggests there is an agreement against the owner. What the book does not show is his point of view, only Vitangelo's, and that makes the two readings undecidable.
What decides between them is what one expects of a trusted friend who becomes director. If loyalty is to the father's name, Quantorzo is consistent: the bank is the father's work and he protects it against the son. If it is to Vitangelo the person, he fails, because he never asks Vitangelo what he wants, only what he will do. Pirandello, who gives Vitangelo a voice to say that no one is one, does not give Quantorzo the chance to say who he is.
Relationships
- Vitangelo Moscarda: the boss he calls "dear Vitangelo" (chapter VI of Book V), who tells him he is not his father (chapter V of Book IV), and who orders the bank closed (chapter VIII of Book V).
- Dida: the salon conspirator (chapter VI of Book V), with whom he leaves the house (chapter II of Book VI), and with whom he gathers the evidence for the commitment (chapter IV of Book VII).
- Firbo: the other trusted friend, with whom he disagrees about committing Vitangelo (chapter I of Book V), and who, in chapter VIII of Book V, seems an ally in the threat to leave the management.
- Moscarda's father: the founder, whose name Quantorzo invokes to defend the bank (chapter VIII of Book V) and of whom he says that he too had excesses (chapter I of Book V).