The Theme in the Work
In One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand madness is, first of all, a word that others say, and the novel shows what it does to the person who receives it. Vitangelo Moscarda pursues it from Book I, when he notices that wanting to be without himself, with a stranger around him, may already be a sign of it, and he receives it from every side after the first experiment: from the crowd shouting at Marco di Dio's door, from the partner who wants to lock him up, from the wife who laughs at his pastime, from the father-in-law who flees the room, from the judge who looks at him as one looks at an incurable patient. None of these verdicts comes from an examination. The madness they accuse him of is that of someone who stops doing what he has always done, and that is why the verdict keeps repeating. What the novel does is separate this verdict from the inner state of the person receiving it, and give Vitangelo a greater lucidity than any of those who call him mad.
In chapter II of Book IV he announces the result of the first experiment before recounting it: the game was going to give him not madness but the horror of the awareness of madness.
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 IV of Book IV, on his way to the bank to fetch the papers, he reverses the measure of reason, and the wisdom of others becomes walking the same road without noticing:
Ma io ero pazzo perchè ne avevo appunto questa precisa e specchiante coscienza, voi che pur camminate per questa medesima strada senza volervene accorgere, voi siete savii, e tanto più quanto più forte gridate a chi vi cammina accanto, but I was mad precisely because I had this exact and mirror-like awareness; you, who walk down this very same road without wanting to notice it, you are wise, and all the more so the louder you shout at whoever walks beside you.
In chapter VII of Book IV the crowd that called him a usurer starts calling him mad after the donation, and the word is only a label that gets swapped:
Perchè avevo voluto dimostrare, che potevo, anche per gli altri, non essere quello che mi si credeva., because I had wanted to show that I could, even for others, not be what I was believed to be.
In chapter VII of Book V, still without saying so, he discovers the weapon that lucidity gives him: a look that shows it does not see what the other sees disturbs any sense of security.
Nulla turba e sconcerta più di due occhi vani che dimostrino di non vederci, o di non vedere ciò che noi vediamo, nothing unsettles and disconcerts more than two empty eyes that show they do not see us, or do not see what we see.
In chapter VII of Book VII, in the bishop's room, he sees the madman on the terrace who wants to fly with the red blanket, and recognizes himself in him when the prelate calls him harmless:
Spontaneamente, proprio senza volerlo, mi scappò detto allora: - Come me., spontaneously, without even meaning to, I blurted out then: "Like me."
Pirandello treats madness as the position of someone who sees the game and remains in it. Vitangelo does not lose his reason: he loses his complicity with the common illusion, and the loss is read by everyone as illness. What makes the theme a novel and not a treatise is that none of the accusers needs to be cynical: each, in their own way, protects something. Firbo protects the bank's credit, Dida the husband she knows, the father-in-law the comfort he lived in, the judge the dike of the law, and in good faith each sees danger in his conduct. In the book, madness is the word that protects each person's order against Vitangelo's question.
Who Embodies It
Vitangelo Moscarda is the lucid madman. Firbo is the word as an instrument: he asks whether Vitangelo has gone mad in chapter V of Book IV and proposes locking him up or having him declared incompetent in chapter I of Book V. The father-in-law, in chapter IV of Book VI, is the word as panic, and he flees screaming at every proposal of a profession. Marco di Dio is the word returned: the man the town considered eccentric shouts "madman" at the one who gives him a house. Anna Rosa is the word as a quality: she approves of his madnesses and sees in Vitangelo a man out of the ordinary. Monsignor Partanna is the word as classification, and the madman on the terrace has been "harmless" for years.
Where It Appears
- Book I, chapter IV: Vitangelo suggests that wanting to be without himself, with a stranger around him, might already be a sign of madness.
- Book I, chapter VII: The body sneezes before the mirror, and Vitangelo sees in the reflection his first madman's laugh.
- Book III, chapter I: The madnesses are necessary, because Moscarda could not act coherently without ever having built a Moscarda of his own.
- Book IV, chapter II: The experiment gives Moscarda the horror of the awareness of madness, clear as an April morning.
- Book IV, chapter V: Vitangelo insults Firbo with the wife he keeps locked up, and kneels to show how everyone should stand before the so-called madmen.
- Book IV, chapter VII: After the donation, Marco di Dio and the crowd shout that Moscarda is mad.
- Book V, chapter I: Firbo argues that he must be locked up in an asylum, or at least declared incompetent.
- Book VI, chapter IV: Vitangelo's father-in-law flees the room shouting that his son-in-law is mad.
- Book VII, chapter IV: Anna Rosa says that Dida and the partners gathered evidence to have him declared incompetent, and approves of his madnesses.
- Book VII, chapter VII: The bishop calls the madman who wants to fly on the terrace harmless, and Vitangelo says he is like him.
- Book VIII, chapter II: The judge looks at Vitangelo as one looks at an incurable patient, and he shows him a green blanket.
Where the Readings Diverge
The novel gives two readings of Vitangelo's madness, and both appear in the same chapter. In one, it is lucidity: the text says he is mad precisely because he has a precise and mirror-like awareness of the road, and that those who walk it without noticing are wise (chapter IV of Book IV). In the other, it is a state that isolates and destroys him: the madman's laugh of chapter VII of Book I is seen, not felt, and the ending, in which he gives everything away and lives in an almshouse, can be read as the price of not having found another word for his condition. The text sustains both, and what the ending shows is that the question is less whether he is mad than who has the right to say so.
The novel is aware of the risk of a romantic reading of madness, that of the madman who sees the truth, and it guards against it in two ways. First, Vitangelo doubts himself: in chapter VIII of Book V the narrator himself suspects the solidity of the "I want" that moves him. Second, the madman on the terrace is neither wise nor a prophet; he is a man who wanted to test the pleasure of flight, and whom the bishop classifies as harmless. What Vitangelo recognizes in him, in chapter VII of Book VII, is the fact that both are treated as harmless, not that both are right.