Deliberate exaggeration, which no one takes literally, used to emphasize a feeling or a situation.
In One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand
With the discovery of the one hundred thousand Moscardas that I was, not only for others but also for myself, all with this single name of Moscarda, ugly to the point of cruelty, all inside this poor body of mine, which was one as well, one and no one, alas for me.
"One hundred thousand" is not a count but an exaggeration that no one takes literally, and it gives the measure of Moscarda's astonishment: other people's looks multiply endlessly over the same name and the same body.