Who He Is
Vitangelo Moscarda is the narrator of One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand: he is twenty-eight, rich, idle, and married to Dida, heir to the bank his father founded in the provincial town of Richieri, with the business entrusted to two trusted friends, Quantorzo and Firbo (Chapter I of Book I). His father never made him finish anything, except marrying young; he accepts all the roads pointed out to him, but at every step stops around a little stone that others pass without seeing. He tells everything in the first person, after the crisis, speaking to the reader as to "gentlemen" whom he asks for leave to sit in the armchair, and he speaks from the almshouse for beggars where the last chapter leaves him (Chapter IV of Book VIII). What he wants changes over the course of the book: first to see himself as others see him, then to dismantle the self that acquaintances have of him, then to be "one" for himself, finally to be nothing that a name can fix. What he fears is being looked at, because each look hands him an image that he can neither know nor prevent. What he knows, and no one around him knows, is that each person who knows him carries a different Moscarda. Where he is mistaken: he believes that one act would suffice to change the image others have of him, and the first experiment shows that the act only exchanges one label for another.
Trajectory
In Chapter I of Book I, in front of the mirror, he presses a nostril, and Dida tells him calmly and with a "dear" that his nose leans to the right. The hurt is not the defect: it is having lived years with the same nose without knowing, and needing a wife to find out.
Mi pende? A me? Il naso? - E mia moglie, placidamente: - Ma sì, caro. Guàrdatelo bene: ti pende verso destra., Leans? On me? The nose? And my wife, placidly: Why yes, dear. Look at it carefully: it leans to the right.
In Chapter II of Book I he asks a friend whether he is looking at his nose, discovers that the friend already knew, and concludes that he was never, for anyone, the straight-nosed Moscarda he supposed himself to be. Hence the idea that no longer leaves him:
Mi si fissò invece il pensiero ch’io non ero per gli altri quel che finora, dentro di me, m’ero figurato d’essere., there fixed itself in me, instead, the thought that I was not for others what until then, inside myself, I had imagined myself to be.
In Chapters III and IV of Book I he wants to be alone for an hour, and by solitude he means the opposite of what the reader would understand: being without himself, with a stranger who ignores him. Walking with Firbo, he catches himself in a street mirror, does not recognize himself, and from there draws the count that gives the novel its title:
con la scoperta dei centomila Moscarda ch’io ero non solo per gli altri ma anche per me, tutti con questo solo nome di Moscarda, brutto fino alla crudeltà, tutti dentro questo mio povero corpo ch’era uno anch’esso, uno e nessuno ahimè, with the discovery of the hundred thousand Moscardas that I was not only for others but also for myself, all with this one name of Moscarda, ugly to the point of cruelty, all inside this poor body of mine that was one as well, one and no one, alas.
In Chapters V, VII, and VIII of Book I he tries to catch his own face in naturalness in front of mirrors, closes his eyes to see his body as a stranger's and, in the wardrobe mirror, sees a body with no name and no owner, which sneezes at a thread of air. The method he formulates is a contradiction taken seriously:
Il mio sforzo supremo deve consistere in questo: di non vedermi in me, ma d’essere veduto da me, con gli occhi miei stessi ma come se fossi un altro: quell’altro che tutti vedono e io no., my supreme effort must consist in this: not to see myself in me, but to be seen by myself, with my own eyes but as if I were another: that other whom everyone sees and I do not.
Book I closes with the decision that drives the next: to discover who he is for his acquaintances and to amuse himself by dismantling, out of spite, that self.
che mi proposi di scoprire chi ero io almeno per quelli che mi stavano più vicini, così detti conoscenti, e di spassarmi a scomporre dispettosamente quell’io che ero per loro., so that I set myself to discover who I was at least for those who were closest to me, the so-called acquaintances, and to amuse myself by spitefully dismantling that self that I was for them.
In Book II he argues with the reader that each person's consciousness is not enough, that words are empty, and that man constructs himself like a house. The proof comes from inside the house, in Chapter XII of Book II: the Gengè whom Dida loves was built by her, and it is he, Vitangelo, who is the puppet.
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 of course she knew that Gengè of hers better than I knew him! She had built him! And he was by no means a puppet. If anyone, the puppet was I.
The jealousy that then seized him is not of himself, but of an intruder who occupies his body:
non di me stesso, signori, ma di uno che non ero io, di un imbecille che s’era cacciato tra me e mia moglie, not of myself, gentlemen, but of someone who was not I, of an imbecile who had thrust himself between me and my wife.
In Chapter II of Book III he hears his own surname as the buzzing of a fly and discovers that even the idleness he thought himself the owner of was his father's money. In Chapters III, IV, and V of Book III he sees Moscarda's father from outside: the banker of school conversations is, for the town, a usurer. When he asks Dida, in Chapter VI of Book III, what his profession is, she laughs, and the laughter undoes the horror without giving him anything back:
Ah, ecco - un usurajo, per gli altri; uno stupido qua, per Dida mia moglie. Gengè io ero; uno qua, nell’animo e davanti agli occhi di mia moglie, ah, there it is: a usurer, for the others; a fool here, for Dida, my wife. Gengè I was; one here, in the mind and before the eyes of my wife.
Books IV to V are the experiment. In Chapter I of Book IV he chooses as guinea pig Marco di Dio, his father's enemy, and in Chapter II of Book IV he announces the result before telling it:
O per dir meglio, quest’orrore: la coscienza della pazzia, fresca e chiara, signori, fresca e chiara come una mattinata d’aprile, e lucida e precisa come uno specchio., or rather, this horror: the awareness of madness, fresh and clear, gentlemen, fresh and clear as an April morning, and lucid and precise as a mirror.
In Chapter V of Book IV, at the bank, he insults Firbo by recalling the wife the latter keeps locked in the madhouse, kneels on the floor before the two of them, and understands the quarrel as a general case:
è qui tutto, - pensavo, - in questa sopraffazione. Ciascuno vuole imporre agli altri quel mondo che ha dentro, come se fosse fuori, e che tutti debbano vederlo a suo modo, e che gli altri non possano esservi se non come li vede lui., it is all here, I thought, in this overpowering. Each one wants to impose on the others that world he has inside, as if it were outside, and that everyone must see it in his way, and that the others cannot be in it except as he sees them.
In Chapter VI of Book IV he steals the house papers from himself and sees himself a thief. In Chapter VII of Book IV he deliberately watches the eviction of Marco di Dio in the rain, when the notary's clerk announces the gift of the house; he awaits the transfiguration, and the crowd, which does not understand, calls him mad.
Perchè avevo voluto dimostrare, che potevo, anche per gli altri, non essere quello che mi si credeva., because I had wanted to demonstrate that I could, for others too, not be what I was believed to be.
In Chapter I of Book V the bank splits over committing him. In Chapter II of Book V, in Dida's lap, he feels the embrace of two strangers, and in Chapter III of Book V he confesses to the dog Bibi, on an empty lot, that he can no longer bear being looked at. In Chapter IV of Book V he formulates the law that sustains the rest:
Ove la vista degli altri non ci soccorra a costituire comunque in noi la realtà di ciò che vediamo, i nostri occhi non sanno più quello che vedono; la nostra coscienza si smarrisce, perchè questa che crediamo la cosa più intima nostra, la coscienza, vuol dire gli altri in noi; e non possiamo sentirci soli, when the sight of others does not come to our aid, in some way, to constitute in us the reality of what we see, our eyes no longer know what they see; our consciousness gets lost, because this which we believe the most intimate thing in us, consciousness, means the others in us; and we cannot feel alone.
In Chapter VI of Book V he counts eight people where Dida and Quantorzo count three, and in Chapter VIII of Book V, the longest chapter of the book, Dida's laughter wounds him where no image reaches:
Fuori d’ogni immagine in cui potessi rappresentarmi vivo a me stesso, come qualcuno anche per me, fuori d’ogni immagine di me quale mi figuravo potesse essere per gli altri; un “punto vivo„ in me s’era sentito ferire così addentro, che perdetti il lume degli occhi, outside every image in which I could represent myself alive to myself, as someone also for me, outside every image of me such as I imagined it might be for others, a “vital point” in me had felt itself wounded so deeply that I lost the light of my eyes.
The answer is not argument, it is will, and it does not itself withstand examination:
So un corno io di queste cose! So che voglio, “voglio„ capisci? voglio ritirare i miei denari, e basta così!, I don't understand a thing about all this! I know that I want, “want,” do you understand? I want to withdraw my money, and that's that!
He orders the bank closed, refuses the usurer at the price of ruin, and pushes Dida into the armchair:
Ebbene, ma questo, proprio questo, era il “punto vivo„ ferito in me, che m’accecava e mi toglieva in quel momento la comprensione di tutto: che usurajo no, quell’usurajo che non ero mai stato per me, ora non volevo più essere neanche per gli altri e non sarei più stato, anche a costo della rovina di tutte le condizioni della mia vita, well then, but this, precisely this, was the “vital point” wounded in me, which blinded me and took from me at that moment the understanding of everything: that a usurer, no, that usurer I had never been for myself, I now no longer wanted to be even for others and would no longer be, even at the cost of the ruin of all the conditions of my life.
In Chapter I of Book VI he feels "one" for the first time, and soon asks who this one is. Dida has left with Quantorzo, the house empties in Chapter II of Book VI, and the question becomes to whom to say "I":
A chi dire “io„? Che valeva dire “io„, se per gli altri aveva un senso e un valore che non potevano mai essere i miei; e per me, così fuori degli altri, l’assumerne uno diventava subito l’orrore di questo vuoto e di questa solitudine?, to whom to say “I”? What was the use of saying “I,” if for others it had a meaning and a value that could never be mine; and for me, so far outside the others, taking one on at once became the horror of this emptiness and this solitude?
The next morning, in Chapter III of Book VI, he winks an eye at the Moscarda in the mirror and sees the other wink back. In Chapter IV of Book VI he offers his father-in-law the professions of doctor, lawyer, teacher, and deputy, and his father-in-law flees shouting that he is mad. In Chapter V of Book VI he says he would have left Gengè in peace, if he could have gone away with another body and another name.
In Book VII, in Chapter I of Book VII, Anna Rosa summons him, the revolver goes off at the Abbey (Chapter III of Book VII), and Dida's friend tells him that his wife, Firbo, Quantorzo, and his father-in-law already have proof to commit him (Chapter IV of Book VII). In Chapter V of Book VII he names the vital point:
Quel punto vivo che s’era sentito ferire in me quando mia moglie aveva riso nel sentirmi dire che non volevo più mi si tenesse in conto d’usurajo a Richieri, era Dio senza alcun dubbio: Dio che s’era sentito ferire in me, Dio che in me non poteva più tollerare che gli altri a Richieri mi tenessero in conto d’usurajo., that vital point that had felt itself wounded in me, when my wife laughed on hearing me say that I no longer wanted to be considered a usurer in Richieri, was God, without any doubt: God who had felt himself wounded in me, God who in me could no longer tolerate that others in Richieri should consider me a usurer.
In Chapter VI of Book VII he visits the bishop, Monsignor Partanna, and in Chapter VII of Book VII, when the prelate calls harmless the madman who wants to fly on the terrace opposite, a "like me" escapes him. In Chapter VIII of Book VII, at the house of Anna Rosa, he teaches her the lesson that cost him the whole book, and shortly afterward is shot:
Lei non vuole che il suo sentimento sia cieco. Lo obbliga ad aprir gli occhi e a vedersi in uno specchio che gli mette sempre davanti. E il sentimento, subito come si vede, le si gela. Non si può vivere davanti a uno specchio., you do not want your feeling to be blind. You force it to open its eyes and see itself in a mirror that you always set before it. And the feeling, as soon as it sees itself, freezes within you. One cannot live in front of a mirror.
In Book VIII, he gives the judge the version of an accident, with a lie he considers obligatory to spare Anna Rosa (Chapter I of Book VIII), refuses to repeat his reflections on life and shows a green blanket (Chapter II of Book VIII), and silently accepts Sclepis's plan to hand over everything and live in the almshouse (Chapter III of Book VIII). The town reads the surrender as repentance; he lives it as the opposite:
non solo alienato assolutamente da me stesso e da ogni cosa mia, ma con l’orrore di rimanere comunque qualcuno, in possesso di qualche cosa., not only absolutely alienated from myself and from everything that was mine, but with the horror of remaining, in any way, someone, in possession of something.
In Chapter IV of Book VIII he no longer looks at himself in any mirror, names the name as an epitaph, and calls himself tree, cloud, book, wind:
Non mi sono più guardato in uno specchio, e non mi passa neppure per il capo di voler sapere che cosa sia avvenuto della mia faccia e di tutto il mio aspetto. Quello che avevo per gli altri dovette apparir molto mutato e in un modo assai buffo, a giudicare dalla maraviglia e dalle risate con cui fui accolto., I have not looked at myself in a mirror again, and it does not even cross my mind to want to know what has become of my face and all my appearance. What I had for others must have seemed very changed and in a rather comical way, to judge by the wonder and the laughter with which I was received.
The last sentence of the novel closes what the book opened:
Io non l’ho più questo bisogno, perchè muojo ogni attimo, io, e rinasco nuovo e senza ricordi: vivo e intero, non più in me, ma in ogni cosa fuori., I no longer have this need, because I die every instant, I, and am reborn new and without memories: alive and whole, no longer in me, but in every thing outside.
Themes Embodied
Vitangelo is Identity put on stage as an experiment: the novel does not discuss whether there is a self, it makes a man try to find it and records each result. The instrument is the look of others, and he tests it on everything that belongs to him, the nose (Chapter I of Book I), the name (Chapter II of Book III), the father and the money (Chapter V of Book III), the wife (Chapter XII of Book II), the house (Chapter VII of Book IV). This is why he also embodies Appearance and Reality: for him reality is the form someone gives it, and none is truer than the others. Madness is the social verdict that follows him from scene to scene, from the crowd's shout (Chapter VII of Book IV) to the madhouse that Firbo speaks of (Chapter I of Book V), and Loneliness and Isolation is the price: to be alone is to discover that consciousness is the others in us (Chapter IV of Book V). Money and Wealth comes to him from his father and is what others see first, and the end of the book gives it up (Chapter III of Book VIII). In God and the Divine he recognizes the vital point that Dida's laughter wounded (Chapter V of Book VII).
What he never does, at any moment, is choose a form. When he feels "one" for the first time, in Chapter I of Book VI, he defines himself by what he has ceased to be, usurer and Gengè; when he offers his father-in-law the professions, in Chapter IV of Book VI, it is mockery; when he accepts the almshouse, in Chapter III of Book VIII, it is because there is nothing left to defend. The only time he wants firmly (Chapter VIII of Book V) is to refuse, and the refusal does not return a self to him, it returns a will, which the narrator himself suspects is only another borrowed solidity. The novel leaves open whether this insistence on having no form is lucidity or the impossibility of living among others.
The mechanism that drives him is the same in every scene: someone hands him back an image of himself and he tries to undo it. He responds to his friend's dimple (Chapter II of Book I), to his father's trade (Chapter VI of Book III), to the reputation as a usurer (Chapter VII of Book IV), to the bank (Chapter VIII of Book V), to the image of son-in-law (Chapter IV of Book VI), and to Anna Rosa's role as mirror (Chapter VIII of Book VII). Each time the image returns under another name: usurer, madman, fool, penitent. The image the novel uses to say this, and which it applies to the man, is the house; the puppet that others build in his place is that of Gengè; the object in which he looks for what he does not find is the mirror; the ending puts in their place the tree and the cloud; and the object that wounds him, in the middle of everything, is the revolver.
Divergent Readings
The last chapter can be read in two ways, and the text sustains both. In one reading, Vitangelo is freed: without name, without mirror, and without memory, he ceases to be captured by any image, and the life he describes, instant by instant, is the only one that does not age in form. In the other, he disappears: the identification with the tree and the cloud happens only after there is no longer a self left to oppose it, and what he called fullness is the absence of anyone to answer for him. The text itself gives both clues, the dawn in which things have not yet taken form and the plea that the image he had be left in peace.
Conviene ai morti. A chi ha concluso. Io sono vivo e non concludo. La vita non conclude. E non sa di nomi, la vita. Quest’albero, respiro trèmulo di foglie nuove., it suits the dead. Whoever has concluded. I am alive and do not conclude. Life does not conclude. And it knows nothing of names, life. This tree, a trembling breath of new leaves.
For Otto Maria Carpeaux, in History of Western Literature - 10.1 - The Modernist Revolts, the consequence of this dissolution of personality reaches the genre that Balzac fixed:
Pirandello destroyed the "état civil" that Balzac had introduced into literature.
The novel can be read as the last piece of this thesis, and it is also where Vitangelo parts from it: in The Late Mattia Pascal, another Pirandello novel, the character must invent Adriano Meis in order to lose himself, and here it is enough for someone to tell him that his nose leans. Against the reading that takes him for a victim of others, it is worth remembering that he begins the experiment by choice (Chapter VIII of Book I) and repeats it, when he could already stop, in a last, desperate experiment with Anna Rosa (Chapter II of Book VII). Against the one that takes him for sick, that he is, from scene to scene, the one who sees the others' game most clearly, and that the text calls his awareness of madness lucid (Chapter II of Book IV).
Relationships
- Dida: the wife who calls him Gengè and builds him (Chapter XII of Book II), laughs at the question about his profession (Chapter VI of Book III), laughs again in the living room at home, in front of Quantorzo (Chapter VIII of Book V), leaves with Quantorzo (Chapter II of Book VI), and gives a first deposition that dates his love for Anna Rosa from long before, as Vitangelo supposes (Chapter I of Book VIII).
- Quantorzo: the bank director who calls him "dear Vitangelo" (Chapter VI of Book V), Dida's ally in the drawing-room conspiracy (Chapter VI of Book V) and in the visit that ends in rupture (Chapter VIII of Book V), and one of those who gather proof to commit him (Chapter IV of Book VII).
- Firbo: the legal adviser who accompanies him on the mirror walk (Chapter IV of Book I), whom he insults at the bank (Chapter V of Book IV), and who wants to commit him (Chapter I of Book V).
- Marco di Dio: the guinea pig of the first experiment (Chapter I of Book IV), evicted and then granted the house (Chapter VII of Book IV).
- Moscarda's father: the banker whom the town calls a usurer (Chapter V of Book III), from whom he separates himself at the bank, by telling Quantorzo that he is not his father (Chapter V of Book IV).
- Anna Rosa: Dida's friend who summons him to the Abbey (Chapter I of Book VII) and shoots him (Chapter VIII of Book VII).
- Monsignor Partanna: the bishop he seeks out to escape commitment (Chapter VI of Book VII).