What It Is
The revolver is the small weapon, with a mother-of-pearl grip, that Anna Rosa found in her father's waistcoat, dead six years before, and that she has carried since then in her little bag. She finds it a toy, all the more charming because it holds within its mechanism the power to bring death, and more than once, at moments when the world around her seemed stunned and vain, she was tempted to try it against herself. It fires twice in the novel: the first time, by accident, in the corridor of the Abbey, wounding her foot; the second time, from under the pillow, wounding Vitangelo Moscarda in the chest. It is the object that brings the novel's physical violence to its highest point.
Where It Appears
In ch. III of Book VII, in the corridor of the Abbey, Anna Rosa steps onto a step under the tall window, drops her bag, and a shot rings out down the corridor. She cries out for the revolver, which she wants back because it is a memento of her father. Vitangelo carries her in his arms to her house, and the narrator, who knows the end, comments drily:
Mi toccò, poco dopo, risalire alla Badìa per riprendere dal corridojo sotto al finestrone quella rivoltella, che doveva poi servire per me., I had to climb back up to the Badìa shortly after, to retrieve from the corridor, under the tall window, that revolver, which was to serve me later.
In ch. IV of Book VII, already in bed, she explains how she found it and confesses the temptation to use it against herself. The fact that it bit her foot and not her temple causes her a strange displeasure, and she takes it out of the nightstand drawer, looks at it, and tells it that it is wicked. She adds that she laughed heartily at the thought that someone would suppose she brought it for him when she arranged the meeting at the Abbey.
In ch. VIII of Book VII, after the lesson on the mirror, Anna Rosa holds out her arms to Vitangelo and draws him in. Shortly after, he rolls off the bed, blind, struck in the chest by the weapon she kept under the pillow:
Da quel letto poco dopo rotolai, cieco, ferito al petto mortalmente dalla piccola rivoltella ch’ella teneva sotto il guanciale., from that bed, shortly after, I rolled off, blind, mortally wounded in the chest by the little revolver she kept under the pillow.
In ch. I of Book VIII, at the first interrogation, he gives the judge the version of an accident: the revolver went off when he was trying to lift the sick woman. The lie, which he considers obligatory, is only the last part of the answer.
Per me la bugia (bugia doverosa) era soltanto in quest’ultima parte della risposta; a chi m’interrogava apparve invece tutta quanta così sfacciata, che ne fui aspramente rimbrottato., for me the lie (a dutiful lie) was only in this last part of the answer; to those questioning me, on the contrary, the whole of it appeared so brazen that I was sharply rebuked for it.
Anna Rosa swears that there was no assault at all, only the fascination that his reflections on life exerted on her, to the point of driving her to that madness:
se Anna Rosa stessa non avesse assicurato con giuramento il giudice che non c’era stata veramente nessuna aggressione da parte mia, ma solo quel tale fascino involontariamente esercitato su lei con le mie curiosissime considerazioni sulla vita: fascino da cui ella s’era lasciata prendere così fortemente, da ridursi a commettere quella pazzia., if Anna Rosa herself had not sworn to the judge that there had really been no assault on my part, but only that fascination involuntarily exerted on her by my most curious considerations on life, a fascination by which she had let herself be so strongly taken that she brought herself to commit that madness.
What It Means
The revolver is the object the novel arms early and fires at the end, and what it shows with this is the distance between what one thinks and what one does. Vitangelo spends six Books dismantling images, and the shot that hits him comes from an image he did not dismantle: that of a man capable of taking things to their final consequences, which Anna Rosa had of him. The shot in the corridor, by accident, and the one in bed, on purpose, form a pair: the first wounds the one who carries the weapon, the second wounds the one who tells her that to know oneself is to die. In both, the weapon is the inheritance of a dead man.
The two versions of the shot, Vitangelo's accident and Anna Rosa's madness, are the novel on a smaller scale: the same action, two realities, neither false for the one who tells it. The judge reads them as lie and confession. The revolver is then less a symbol of violence than proof that a fact exists only within a version: the bullet that wounds the chest is the same, and whoever was hit describes it as an accident to spare whoever fired. The way Anna Rosa calls the weapon wicked, without including herself in the accusation, may be that of someone who hands to the object the will she does not take on. The object also links the novel's themes: Madness, because the narrator calls the act madness when he recounts what she swore; Solitude and isolation, because the shot comes after the two of them have seen irremediable solitude; and Identity, because its horror is, perhaps, that of the whole life he offers her so that she might be someone as she wished.
Relationships
- Standard themes: Madness, Solitude and isolation, Identity.
- Themes in the work: Madness, Solitude and isolation, Identity.
- Characters: Anna Rosa, Vitangelo Moscarda.
- Related symbols: the mirror, which Vitangelo teaches Anna Rosa to refuse shortly before the shot.