The Theme in the Work
Money in One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand is not a matter of accounts; it is a way of being seen. Vitangelo Moscarda is rich by inheritance, lives off his income, and leaves the business to two friends; what he discovers, in Book III, is that the idleness he thought was his own was his father's money, and that the title the son gave his father, banker, is in the town a uglier name. The bank he received makes him a usurer in the eyes of Richieri without his having done anything: wealth arrives with the name, and the name with the image. That is why the novel's question, who am I, passes through the safe. Undoing the usurer requires undoing the bank, and the novel measures what that costs.
In chapter V of Book III the executioner of the example gives the question its rawest form, that of how, within the family, a title the son did not choose is translated, and how it fits with the love he has for his father:
Se vostro padre fosse boja, come si tradurrebbe nella vostra famiglia questo titolo per accordarlo con l’amore che voi avete per lui e ch’egli ha per voi?, if your father were an executioner, how would this title be translated in your family, so as to reconcile it with the love you have for him and he has for you?
In chapter V of Book IV, at the bank, Vitangelo looks at the place with rigorous boredom, the frosted glass partitions, the little yellow windows, the worn brick floor, and notices a few old chairs that no one sits in. Their melancholy is that of things made to serve that no one uses:
E la malinconia disperata di quelle poche seggiole d’antica foggia, presso i tavolini, su cui nessuno sedeva, che tutti scostavano e lasciavano lì, fuori di posto, dove e come per quelle povere seggiole inutili era certo un’offesa e una pena esser lasciate., and the desperate melancholy of those few old-fashioned chairs by the little tables, on which no one sat, which everyone moved aside and left there, out of place, where and how, for those poor useless chairs, being left was surely an offense and a pain.
In chapter VIII of Book V the grievance that moves him is that of hearing, outside, that people call him a usurer because of the bank:
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!
When he loses the light of his eyes before Dida's laughter and orders the bank closed, this is the reason, and he accepts the price:
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 at that moment took from me the understanding of everything: that I would not be a usurer, that usurer I had never been for myself, I no longer wanted to be even for others, and would no longer be, even at the cost of ruin to every condition of my life.
In chapter IV of Book VI, the image the money gives back to him is that of a man who lived off the bank's profits without thinking about it, and the solution he imagines is practical:
ero vissuto fino a quel momento dei guadagni di essa, senza mai pensarci; ma ora che finalmente me ne rendevo conto, avrei ritirato i danari dalla banca, e presto, per mettermi del tutto a posto, me ne sarei liberato come che fosse, istituendo un’opera di carità o qualcosa di simile., I had lived until then off its profits, without ever thinking about it; but now that I finally realized it, I would withdraw the money from the bank, and soon, to put myself entirely in order, I would rid myself of it somehow, by founding a charitable work or something of the kind.
In chapter III of Book VIII the solution comes true, but through Sclepis's hands: an almshouse with an economical kitchen, founded with whatever falls to him from the bank's liquidation, where he himself will live like any other beggar.
per fondare con quanto mi sarebbe toccato dalla liquidazione della banca un ospizio di mendicità con annessa cucina economica aperta tutto l’anno, non solo a beneficio dei ricoverati, ma anche di tutti i poveri che potessero averne bisogno [...] che io stesso vi avrei preso stanza, dormendo senz’alcuna distinzione, come ogni altro mendico, in una branda, mangiando come tutti gli altri la minestra in una ciotola di legno, e indossando l’abito della comunità destinato a uno della mia età e del mio sesso., to found, with whatever would fall to me from the bank's liquidation, an almshouse with an attached economical kitchen open all year round, not only for the benefit of the residents but also of all the poor who might need it [...] and that I myself would take up residence there, sleeping without any distinction, like any other beggar, on a cot, eating the soup from a wooden bowl like all the others, and wearing the community's habit intended for someone of my age and my sex.
Money is in the novel as an inheritance that is refused and as an image that is carried. The bank links the father to the son, the partners to the father-in-law and the wife, the town to the name, and all the characters around him have an interest in it, which explains why Vitangelo's decision to close it looks like madness: no one can understand that the motive is not money. The book's ending answers with the reverse of accumulation, zero possession: in the almshouse, without name or any good, he is no longer anything anyone can have. The wealth of the beginning, which gave him a name and a body, is exchanged for a state in which nothing identifies him.
Who Embodies It
Moscarda's father is money as origin: the banker who gives to whoever asks for "a little" and then stops, and whom the town translates as usurer (chapter I of Book IV). Quantorzo is money as accounting: he defends the bank with every accounting reason and does not see that Vitangelo's question is not about that. Firbo is money as credit: he wants to have the owner declared incompetent in order to save the bank's credit. Marco di Dio is money as dream, the instant millionaire who breathes in the mockery of others:
Perchè la derisione degli altri era ormai l’aria in cui quel loro sogno respirava. Tolta la derisione, rischiavano di soffocare., because the mockery of others was by now the air in which that dream of theirs breathed. Take away the mockery, and they risked suffocating.
Where It Appears
- Book I, chapter I: Vitangelo is rich, with two trusted friends who take care of the business after his father's death.
- Book II, chapter II: Quantorzo turns the rooms of the father into a small apartment and rents it to an elderly retiree, and the owner does not notice.
- Book III, chapter II: Even the idleness Moscarda thought was his own depended on his father's wealth.
- Book III, chapter V: The banker of the college is the usurer of the town, and the reputation will weigh tomorrow on the son as shame.
- Book III, chapter VI: Vitangelo asks himself whether he is not worse than his father, who at least worked, while he only signed.
- Book IV, chapter I: Marco di Dio dreams of becoming a millionaire overnight and hates Moscarda's father for ceasing to give him money.
- Book IV, chapter V: The bank is a place of unused chairs, and Moscarda orders the eviction and the list of his houses.
- Book V, chapter VIII: Vitangelo accepts the ruin of every condition of his life so as to be, neither for others nor for himself, the usurer.
- Book VI, chapter I: Vitangelo knows that the money from the bank's liquidation was not earned by him, and that withdrawing it does not cleanse him of the usury it came from.
- Book VI, chapter IV: Vitangelo imagines founding a charitable work and tells his father-in-law that, by giving away his father's money, the people could elect him deputy.
- Book VII, chapter VII: The God who wants the bank's money back is an enemy of all construction, and the bishop helps only if the money builds a house for another feeling.
- Book VIII, chapter III: Vitangelo gives everything to an almshouse, founded with the bank's liquidation.
Where the Readings Diverge
Vitangelo's final gesture, giving everything away, is read in two ways by the town and by the text. For Canon Sclepis and for Richieri, it is repentance: the usurer redeems himself and sets a solemn example. For Vitangelo himself, it is the opposite, a handing-over without guilt, and what burns him is that it is interpreted as contrition:
Quel che più mi coceva era che questa mia totale remissione fosse interpretata come vero pentimento, mentre io davo tutto, non m’opponevo a nulla, what stung me most was that this total surrender of mine should be interpreted as true repentance, when I was giving everything, opposing nothing.
The reason he gives for the renunciation has nothing to do with money, but with being:
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 case someone, in possession of something.
The disagreement between the two readings is a disagreement about money: for one, it gives or takes moral value from whoever holds it; for the other, it is only a form of having and of being someone. Social morality can only read renunciation as guilt, and Vitangelo's is a third thing, a refusal of possession that cannot be explained by sin or by virtue. The novel, which does not resolve this, shows that money serves as a language for both sides: Sclepis speaks of it in terms of salvation, Vitangelo in terms of identity.