Discussion Questions

Moscarda says that his whole life he lingered around every little pebble while others passed by. Why does his wife's remark about his nose become, for him, a pebble bigger than the rest?

The friend, after seeing the dimple on his own chin, stops at three shop windows before going home, and the whole city imitates him. What does each person look for in the shop windows that they did not look for before Moscarda showed them a flaw?

Moscarda asks the reader to define what it is to be alone and answers that staying in one's own company is "a fine way" of being accompanied. What company, according to the chapter's sequence of memories, fits inside someone who is alone with himself?

Moscarda says that true solitude exists only with a stranger around, and that the stranger he pursues is himself. What does he want to see in himself that others see and he does not?

Moscarda admits that no grimace before the mirror can be true, because true emotion ceases when he sees it. Why, knowing this, does he not give up?

Moscarda forbids his wife to go out so that she will go out. Dida notices his smile in the mirror and goes out anyway: what does she understand of the scene, and what does he assume she understands?

Moscarda closes his eyes to see the stranger in the mirror without being seen, and when he opens them he sees only himself. What changed in the mirror between the first image, scowling, and the nameless body that appears after the shout?

Moscarda closes the Book with two conclusions: to understand why his wife calls him Gengè, and to dismantle, for pleasure, the self that acquaintances have of him. What does the first already suggest about the second?

Over the course of Book I, Moscarda's doubt moves from a flaw in the nose to a hundred thousand Moscardas, and then to a body that no one inhabits. At what point, and why, does the doubt about the body become doubt about the whole of him?

Moscarda says that the reader, when he finds himself alone, imagines many heads like his, which answer yes or no as he pulls the thread. What does that image say about the consciousness that "suffices"?

Moscarda lets the neighborhood women use the courtyard and says nothing; the neighbor, looking at the same courtyard, finds him an imbecile. What does each of the two see when they see the same scene?

The friend sees a cemetery where the reader sees a garden, and Moscarda says that in three or four years the reader himself could see what the friend sees. What, in the house, stops being the same at each look?

Moscarda and the reader talk for an hour and understand each other perfectly; the next day the reader accuses him of having said something else. At what point in the conversation, and whose doing, did the same word stop being the same?

Moscarda calls the ways of being of today and tomorrow fixations. What distinguishes a fixation from a character?

The little creature of the chapter grew tired standing, hurt itself on the ground, and kept asking the tree and the animals for more comfort. At what point does the story stop being about a chair and become about what man does with whatever is not himself?

The reader gets irritated when Moscarda reminds him that the furniture comes from the beeches, walnuts, and firs of the mountain. What, in that reminder, threatens what he feels to be his own?

Moscarda says that the peace of the countryside is in us and comes from having left a constructed world. What does the reader stop holding up, on leaving the city, in order to feel peace?

Moscarda hears the reader say "clouds and wind" and replies that recognizing that it is a cloud is already too much. What, in recognizing the cloud, takes the reader away from the rest he was seeking?

Moscarda says that the reader, lying in the grass, orders the man to stop flying, and that in the city he will understand why man flies. What does the city give man that the countryside takes away?

Moscarda says that each person's construction lasts as long as the cement of the will and the constancy of the feelings do. What happens, in his reasoning, to someone who sees the cement give way?

Dida says she does not need to please herself, but her Gengè, and she undoes the hairstyle that pleased Moscarda. What does she sacrifice, and to whom, in this scene?

Throughout Book II, Moscarda argues with the reader that each person's reality is a form that someone gives. At what point does the wife move from example to proof?

Moscarda says he can only act incoherently because he never built a Moscarda of his own. What does his rebellion aim to destroy, if there is no Moscarda in him to defend?

Moscarda says he thought himself a man in life, and that is enough, and then discovers that his body, his name, and even his idleness were given to him by others. Of this list, what could he refuse?

In the vision, the father's tender smile turns into a cold, hidden grimace. What has changed: the smile, or the one who looks at it?

Moscarda describes father and son looking at each other as strangers, the son ashamed of his birth and the father with spite. What does each see in the other in that look?

For the son the father was a banker; for the city, a usurer. What word did the son use at school for the same trade, and what did that word leave unsaid?

Dida laughs at the question about her husband's profession and then blows into his eyes as if to put out a look. What does she want to erase, and why?

Moscarda says that every act practices only one of the many we are, and that judging a person by it is an injustice. What act, in Moscarda's life up to now, would be judged this way, and by whom?

Each of the five finds Moscarda an imbecile for a different reason, sometimes opposite ones. What is left in common among these five imbeciles?

Moscarda says he does not presume the reader is as he represents him, but also that the reader is not the one who represents himself. Which of the two images of the reader, Moscarda's or his own, is closer to being true?

The reader sends away his old friend when the new one arrives, and Moscarda says that he sent away himself. Which of the two "yous" would the reader prefer to keep, and who decides?

Throughout Book III, what Moscarda discovers about his name, his body, and his father brings him closer to, or further from, the idea that there is a Moscarda of his own?

Moscarda asks whether Marco di Dio, for so many honest acts, was not also the good lad the master said he was, and answers with Caesar, Calpurnia, and Nicomedes. What part of the man should a single act of one instant condemn, and who decides?

Moscarda says the game should have given him madness, or rather the consciousness of madness. How does the consciousness of madness differ from madness, and what does he gain or lose with the difference?

Moscarda says the reader shouts at his friend that he is blind when the friend does not see what the reader sees, and that the friend thinks the same of the reader. On what recent occasion was the reader someone's blind man, without knowing it?

Moscarda says he is mad because he is aware of the road of madness, and that the readers are wise because they walk it without noticing. What criterion separates the madman from the wise in this reckoning, and who applies it?

Moscarda shouts at Firbo that it suits him to keep his wife locked up as "mad," and then kneels before him. Why is he horrified at the thought that people will think he knelt for Firbo, and before someone who says everyone should be like this?

Moscarda sees in the hands that open the cabinet his father's hands, waxen and ringed, and then hides them behind his back. What does he fear they will do, or what do others see in them?

The same people who called Moscarda a usurer during the eviction call him mad after the gift. What changed in what the crowd sees, and what did not change in the way it sees?

Throughout Book IV, Moscarda tries to be, all at once, another for everyone, and the result is a new label. What does the experiment prove about the idea that a single act is enough to change the image others have of someone?

Firbo and Quantorzo discuss what to do with Vitangelo without his taking part. What does each one want to protect, and what does that say about Vitangelo's place in the bank that bears his father's name?

Dida takes Vitangelo's act for a prank and scolds him affectionately, while he feels horror at being embraced. What is each of the two seeing when they look into each other's eyes?

Vitangelo hides in an empty lot and talks to a dog because he can no longer bear being looked at. What does the animal offer that a person does not?

When he tries to imagine his own death, Vitangelo sees that his eyes are not enough to say how he sees himself. What does he mean by "the sight of others," and why does its absence frighten him more than the idea of dying?

Vitangelo denies the kick at Bibi, attributing it to a boy lost in the countryside, and in the same moment wants to kick everyone. What makes him pass from one impulse to the other?

Vitangelo answers "no one, dear" to Dida's question and counts eight where the others see three. Who are the eight, and who is left out of the count?

Vitangelo keeps in parentheses the thought that everyone should always look with the horror of their own solitude. Why does he not say it to Dida and Quantorzo?

Vitangelo accepts the ruin of the bank so as to be no longer, not even for others, the usurer he never was for himself. What does he gain from this decision, and what does he lose?

Quantorzo makes a furious pantomime and Dida laughs. What, in her laugh, reaches Vitangelo more than his pantomime does?

Across the eight chapters of Book V, Vitangelo goes from hiding from everyone to commanding everyone. What changes in him between the dog in the lot and the order to close the bank?

Vitangelo feels himself "one" after pushing Dida and soon asks "one, who?" What did the violence give him, and what remains unanswered?

Dida leaves with Quantorzo and sends for her things to be taken to her father, and Vitangelo thinks she did it to prove his discovery. What other reasons does the text allow for her leaving, and what does Vitangelo gain by preferring his own?

Vitangelo winks at the Moscarda in the mirror, and an instant later sees him already another. What changed in him, so that the image that once terrified him is now a cause for play?

Vitangelo offers the father-in-law the professions of doctor, lawyer, teacher and deputy, as if mocking himself. What does the father-in-law hear in these proposals, and why does he flee?

Vitangelo says he would have left Gengè in peace if he could go away with "another body and another name." Why does that exit not exist for him, and what does this show about what he actually desires?

During the night Vitangelo took seriously the professions he offered the father-in-law as a joke, and now concludes that Dida could not follow a Gengè who goes mad "for nothing." What does he ask of her, and what does he think she can give?

Between the night in the room and the morning with the father-in-law, Vitangelo's tone shifts from horror to mockery. What in the text explains this change?

Vitangelo tries to guess why Anna Rosa called him and rejects the two hypotheses that occur to him. What, in the reasons he considers, shows what he still does not know about her and about his wife?

Before telling what happened at the Abbey, Vitangelo declares that Anna Rosa was not to blame and that the fault lay with his "last experiment." What does this say about how he wants to be read by the judges and by the reader?

Anna Rosa drops her bag and the revolver fires, wounding her own foot. What does the scene show of Anna Rosa and of the invitation she made, and what is still unknown at the end of the chapter?

Anna Rosa tells Vitangelo that Dida calls him a fool, that she, Firbo, Quantorzo and her father have already gathered proofs to have him interdicted, and that Marco di Dio will testify. What does Vitangelo conclude from the enemy Dida, and why does he not call her false?

Vitangelo concludes that the wounded vital point was God, and decides to ask help from the God "without." What does he expect from the Church that Firbo and Quantorzo cannot give him?

Vitangelo rejoices at the austere bishop because the predecessor would have arranged everything. Why does he not want anyone to arrange things?

The bishop calls the madman on the terrace harmless, and Vitangelo says "like me." What does Vitangelo see in the madman that the bishop does not see?

Anna Rosa holds out her arms to Vitangelo and, shortly afterward, shoots him. What, in his words, could have caused the horror that, according to her, drove her to shoot?

Through Book VII, Anna Rosa sees in him a man out of the ordinary, the bishop sees a scrupulous man, and Dida, according to what Anna Rosa tells, a fool. Which of these images does he accept, and which one puts him at risk?

The judge has Anna Rosa's confession and, as Vitangelo supposes, Dida's deposition, and yet he wants to hear Vitangelo in person. What does he expect to find that the confessions did not give him?

Vitangelo refuses to repeat to the judge his "considerations on life," and shows him a green blanket. What does the blanket say that the speech would not?

Sclepis devises the plan of the asylum to save Vitangelo from scandal and to give credit to the house of God, and Vitangelo accepts in silence. What does each of them expect from the asylum, and how does one's expectation differ from the other's?

Vitangelo is called Moscarda at the trial, though the name now means something different to each person. Why does he not accept the name, and what does he want in its place?

The novel ends with Vitangelo "alive and whole, no longer in myself, but in every thing outside." What has he gained and what has he lost, compared with the man who, at the beginning, heard from his wife that his nose leaned to the right?

Vitangelo calls the experiment in the house a total one, because it took only a small shift in the wish to appear different to one of the hundred thousand for all his other realities to change (Chapter II of Book IV). If changing one image changes them all, what does he have beneath them that is his own?

Dida truly loves the Gengè she built and cannot love anyone who tries to take him apart, so when he pushes her and the house empties, she leaves (Chapter XII of Book II, Chapter II of Book VI). What does Vitangelo lose with her: the wife, the love, or the only person for whom he was "one," even if the wrong one?

Vitangelo's answer to Dida's laughter is a repeated "I want," with no argument at all (Chapter VIII of Book V), and only afterward does he give the wounded point the name of God (Chapter V of Book VII). Is this point the center of the self the book was looking for, or one more image, that of the man who decides?

The bishop calls the madman on the terrace harmless, and Vitangelo replies "Like me" (Chapter VII of Book VII). How does the madness others attribute to him differ from the awareness of madness he says he has had since the first experiment (Chapter II of Book IV)?

Anna Rosa fires after hearing from Vitangelo that to know oneself is to die and that one does not live before a mirror (Chapter VIII of Book VII), and then swears to the judge that there was no assault, only the fascination of his considerations (Chapter I of Book VIII). Is the shot horror at what he offered, defense against what he was saying, or something else the text does not say?

Sclepis reads the surrender of everything as repentance, and Vitangelo says that he gave everything and opposed nothing (Chapter III of Book VIII). Why does the novel always let society respond to the experiment with a new image (the madman, the lover, the penitent) instead of letting it understand him?

In the last chapter Vitangelo says he is "alive and whole, no longer in myself, but in every thing outside" (Chapter IV of Book VIII). Is this liberation, or the only way to remain whole when no self is left to answer for anything?

The book treats the reader, all the time, as both accomplice and guinea pig: he smiles, protests, sends away the friend (Chapter X of Book III). What changes in the reading when the reader realizes he is also being observed by Vitangelo, and that he himself is, for the narrator, only one more of the possible images?