 Section 5 of the late Mathia Pascal by Luigi Pirandello, translated by Arthur Livingston. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 5. How I was ripened. The old witch simply could not swallow it. What have you gained? What have you gained? she would ask. You weren't satisfied to sneak into my house like a thief, seduce my daughter, and cover her with shame. That wasn't enough for you, was it? No, mother dear, I would answer, for if I had stopped there I would have been guilty of doing something likely to please you. To you here, she would then shout at her daughter, do you hear? He is proud of it, actually proud of it. He dares to brag about what he went and did with that, and at this point a torrent of abuse upon Oliver. Then with the backs of her hands clamped upon her hips and her elbows thrown far forward, she would end, but I say what have you gained by it? You've ruined your own son, that's what you've gained. He won't get a cent of the money. Oh yes, of course, turning to Romilda again. Of course, what does he care? That other one is his too. She never failed to use this final thrust in any of her attacks upon me, knowing well the effect it had upon my wife. Romilda surely had a reason to be jealous of the child who would be born to Oliver. In ease, in luxury, a silver spoon in its mouth. While hers would come into the world in poverty, its future ill-secured, the passions of domestic hatred seething around it. And this bleeding soreness in her heart was not relieved by the talk that well-intentioned gossips brought her of how happy Aunt Malania was that the blessing the Lord had finally bestowed upon her. Yes, Oliver was getting to be as pretty as a picture, fresh, rosy, blossoming, never so well, never so prosperous. Whereas Romilda, well, there she was, huddled on a miserable surfer, pale, wasted, underfed, without one bright prospect to comfort her, without a single cheerful thought, without the energy to speak or the strength to open her eyes. This too my fault? So it seemed. She could no longer bear the sight of me, nor the sound of my voice. And it was worse still when, to save from foreclosure the last piece of rented property we owned, the coops and the old mill, we had to sell the Pascal mansion itself. That obliged my mother to come and live with us. Letting our house go for that matter did not help at all. The approaching birth of an heir put Malania in a position to break every leash of scruple that had hid the two restrained him. He came to an understanding with our creditors and, through a dummy purchaser, bought in our property for a song. What the auction realized in cash was not enough to cover the mortgage on the coops alone. Our creditors brought insolvency upon us, and the court appointed a receiver to manage our affairs. What was I now to do? Hopelessly I began looking around for work, any sort of work that would provide for the most elementary needs of my family. Untrained, uneducated, with the reputation my recent escapades and my long-standing shiftlessness had fastened upon me, I found it difficult to interest anyone in giving me a job. Then the scenes I was compelled to endure at home deprived me of a piece of mind essential for calm consideration of the possible chances that lay open to me. Words cannot describe my feelings at seeing my own mother there in forced contact with the pescatore woman. The dear old lady, too good for this world, aware at last, too crushingly aware of the mistakes she had been making through her unwillingness to believe in the evil men can do. For these mistakes I never held her to account in my own heart. Kept quite to herself, sitting day in day out in a corner of our living room, her hands in her lap, her head lowered as though she were never sure she had a right to be there, as though at almost any moment she might be called upon to leave. And for that matter would be glad to leave. How could her presence have been a nuisance to anyone? Every now and then she would look up at Romilda and smile pitifully, but she dared make no advances beyond that. Once during her first days with us she had run to do some little thing for the poor girl, but my mother-in-law had shoved her rudely aside. Don't you bother? This child is mine. I know what she wants. Romilda was very ill at the moment, and in view of that I said nothing. But thereafter I was on the watch to see that no disrespect was offered by wretched mama. Soon I observed that this surveillance was a source of galling irritation to the widow and even to Romilda, and I was alarmed lest my absence from the house at any time furnish occasion for them to vent their spite upon her. In such a case I knew my mother would never say a word to me. Imagine my uneasiness then whenever I was away. And on returning I could never refrain from studying her face to see if she had wept. She would answer my gaze with a tender smile. Why do you look at me like that, Matja? Are you all right, mama? She would lift her hand slightly. Don't you see I am all right? Go to Romilda now. The poor thing is lonely and in pain. I decided finally to write to Brother Bertho, who was living at Onelia. In asking him to take mama to live with him, I made him understand that it was not to ease myself of a burden I was only too glad to carry, even in the squalor in which I was then living, but just to make life bearable for her. Bertho answered that he could not possibly. Our financial disaster had left him in a very painful position toward his wife's family and toward that lady herself. He was living on her dowry now and could not think of asking her to assume the support of another person. But that was not the only difficulty. Mother would be in the same fix with him as she was with me. For he too was staying with his mother-in-law, good enough woman to be sure, but there would soon be trouble if our mother came. Who ever heard of two mothers-in-law getting along together in the same house? There were positive advantages also in keeping mama with me. She would thus be spending her last years in the town where she had always lived, and not be called upon to adapt herself to new people and new ways. What pained him most was his inability to send me even a little money, since every penny he spent he had to beg from his wife. I was careful not to show this letter to my mother, though I dare say that had my desperate circumstances at the moment not blinded my calmer judgment, I should not have found it so utterly despicable as it seemed to me then. I have always had the happy, or unhappy, faculty of seeing both sides of every question. I would normally have reasoned that if, let us say, you steal the tail feathers of a nightingale, the poor bird can still seem, but strip them from a peacock and what can the peacock do? Roberto had, with careful thought I do not doubt, worked out a balanced scheme of life whereby he could live comfortably and even with a certain dignity on his wife's income. To disturb that balance would have meant for him an untold and irreparable sacrifice, an agreeable address, good manners, a not-inelegant pose as a gentleman of breeding. All these Roberto had, they were all he had to give his wife. To be able conscientiously to lay the burden of our mother upon her, he would have had to offer just a bit of real affection too. In making brother Roberto, God had endowed him with many things, but heart was not one of them. With this important member lacking, poor Roberto was a hopeless case. So things went from bad to worse with us, and I could find no help for it. A few odds and ends among our personal belongings had survived the wreck of our fortune, and these kept us going for a time. But when my mother sold the last trinkets my father had given her, sacred memories they bore, the pescatore woman saw the time approaching when we would fall back upon the miserable income of 40 lira a month that belonged to her. She became more hateful and ferocious from day to day. I could see that the storm I had forestalled so long was now about to break, and all the more violently from its long repression, as well as from the very humility with which mama was accepting it all. I would pace nervously up and down the room with the widow's flaming eyes upon me. When I felt the atmosphere growing too tense, I would go out of doors to avoid all pretext for an outburst. Then I would begin to fear for mama, and hurry back again. One day I stayed away a second too long. The cyclone came at last, and on the most trivial of provocations, a visit from the two old servants who had worked for years in our former home. One of them had put nothing aside in her long service with us, so she had accepted work with another family. But our old margarita, alone in the world, and of a saving disposition, had stored away a quite respectable sum against her declining days. It seems that mama ventured to express some of her real feelings to these two companions of her whole married life. But quite apart from that, margarita had perceived at a glance the strange situation in our new home. Oh, do come and live with me, she had proffered in the goodness of her heart. I have two nice bright rooms with a porch looking toward the water, and you ought to see the flowers in my window-box. Yes, there the two of them could finish their days together in the affection and devotion that had united them for years. Mother, of course, what else could she say, declined, and this refusal was enough to throw the widow pescatori into spasms. When I walked into the house, I found her shaking her fists in my arms, shaking her fists in margarita's face, while our old servant was standing her ground and holding her assailant off as best she could. Mama, weeping, moaning, trembling like a leaf, was clinging to the other maid as though begging for protection. I lost control of myself completely. Dashing upon my mother-in-law, I seized her by her two wrists and threw her back with all my might. She slipped on the floor and fell. Up again in a flash, she came back at me like a tigress, stopping, however, before her fangs quite reached my face. Out of my house, she shouted, gasping for breath in her rage, you and that mother of yours, out of my house with you, out of my house. Listen, I said calmly, though my voice may have trembled from the effort I was making to restrain myself. Listen. Mama and I are not going to stir. You are the one who had better be going. In fact, I should go right now if I were you. Don't you dare get me any madder than I am. There's the door, and you know the road. Promilda, meantime, had been lying on the sofa, too ill to sit up. But now, screaming and weeping hysterically, she leapt to her feet and threw herself into her mother's arms. Oh, no, Mama, don't leave me here. Don't leave me here all alone with these people. You wanted him. You wanted him. And now you've got him, the worthless beggar. I shall not stay under the same roof with him another second. She did not go, of course. But two days later another hurricane blew into the house. My Aunt Scholastica, having heard the story from Margarita, I suppose, swept in upon us in her usual breezy style. The scene that followed would be a success on any stage. That morning my wife's mother was making bread in our kitchen living room. Her sleeves rolled up to her elbows and her skirt caught up around her waist to keep it clean. Barely turning her head as Aunt Scholastica came in, she went on sifting her flour and kneading her dough as coolly as could be. Auntie did not notice the slight. She had opened the door without a knock or a good day and gone straight to Mama as though my mother were the only person present in the room. Here she began, Get into your things. I'm going to take you home with me. You could hear the noise 10 miles away. So here I am. Come step lively. Wrap up your duds and we're off. These phrases came out in short, sharp explosions. The end of her long nose hooked like a beak to her dark bilious face, kept going up and down from the excitement suppressed within her. There was a wicked glare in her beady ferret-like eyes. Not a word, meantime, from the breadboard. The widow Pescatori had wet her dough and moulded it into a heavy round mass, which she kept picking up and thumping down on the board, each thump giving an answer to an ejaculation from my aunt. Scholastica noticed the rhythm and said a few more things. Thump. Yes, indeed. Thump. I should say so. Thump. Oh, really? Thump. You don't say. Finally my mother-in-law reached for the rolling pin and laid it down on the edge of the board with a thump that meant, and I've got this too, you see. This was the spark that touched off the magazine. Aunt Scholastica jumped to her feet, tore a shawl from her shoulders, and tossed it spitefully at my mother. Put that on. Never mind your other rags and start yourself out of here. Then she marched over to the breadboard and confronted the widow Pescatori. The latter drew back a step, picking up the rolling pin. Scholastica turned to the breadboard, gathered up the heavy, sticky mess of dough in her two hands, and brought it down upon the woman's head. My mother-in-law was no match for this super-harpy. Pushing her into a corner, Aunt Scholastica plastered the dough down over the poor woman's face, working it into her eyes, her nose, her mouth, her hair, and wherever the paste touched, it caught for good. Then she seized mama by the arm and dragged her out through the door. What followed was for my exclusive benefit. Handful by handful, the Pescatori woman loosened the dough from her face and threw it at me as I sat there doubled up with laughter in a corner. Then she rushed upon me, pulled my beard, scratched my face, kicked my shins, and finally, in a paroxysm of rage, threw herself to the floor, where she lay rolling round and round, kicking in all directions. Poor Romilda in the next room was, sit venia verbo, vomiting with loud gags of pain. My mother, shame on you, I called to the heap of humanity squirming on the floor. You are showing your legs. You are showing your legs, for shame. I have been able since that morning to laugh at every misfortune, big or little, that has ever overtaken me. At that moment I saw myself a villain in the most comic tragedy ever enacted on this earth. My mother in flight with that crazy aunt of mine, my wife in the next room in the condition I described, Mariana Pescatori there on the floor gesturing with her legs, while I, I sat there doubled up in my corner, I, a down and out, a man with no visible resources for his next day of life, with my beard and clothing sticky with dough, my face scratched, bruised and dripping, I could not say whether with blood or with tears from too much laughing. To decide this latter point I went over to the mirror. It was tears, but I had been well clawed up too, and my eye, my famous crooked eye, that unruly member was more than ever bent on looking where it chose. Good for you, I apostrophised, you at least are without a boss. I reached for my hat and ran out of the house, determined not to set foot in it again, till I had found the means for supporting in a poor way at least, my wife, myself and my future child. The spiteful contempt I now felt for myself over my reckless squandering of so many years made me understand that my present plight would bring me ridicule rather than pity from anyone I might appeal to. Certainly I deserved every bit of my misfortune. Only one person in the world had any reason to feel the slightest sympathy for me, the man who had pillaged my inheritance. But how eager Bhati Malanya would be to rush to my assistance after what had taken place between him and me. No, Saka came when it came from a quarter where I should never have dreamed of looking for it. I wandered aimlessly about town all that day, and it was getting dark when by the nearest chance I came upon Gerolamo Pomino, second. Mino saw me first, and with the idea of avoiding me, turned about and hurried off in the other direction. Pomino, I called after him, Pomino! What do you want, he said, turning sullenly in his tracks. He did not raise his eyes as I came up to him. Why, Pomino, old man, I said, slapping him on the back and laughing in real amusement at his long face. You aren't angry at me, honestly! Oh, the ingratitude of men! Pomino was angry at me, in fact very angry at me, for double-crossing him, as he claimed, in the matter of the girl. And I could not at once convince him that if there had been any treason I was the one who had most right to complain, that he ought in fact to lie down on the ground right there and kiss my boots in thankfulness. I was still bubbling with the bitter, over-exhilarated gaiety which had come upon me at the sight of my face in the mirror. See, these scratches I said to him at a certain point. I got them from her. From your wife, I mean. Well, from her mother, at least. And I told him why and how. He smiled, but without much fervor. I suppose he was saying to himself that the widow Pescatori would not have treated him in that way. He was not in quite my fix financially, besides his general disposition was much better than mine. I was almost tempted to ask him why, if he felt so strongly about the whole affair, he had not married Romilda in the first place as I had encouraged him to do, running away with the girl before I had been so unlucky as to fall in love with her myself. In the end all that had happened had happened because he was such an absurd nanny in a case where courage and decision were absolute essentials. However, I did not press that point. Instead, I asked him simply, what are you doing to amuse yourself these days? Nothing, he sighed dejectedly. I'm bored to death, nobody around to have any fun with. There was such a peevish dejection in the tone with which he pronounced these words that I suddenly defined what was really the matter with him. To be sure, Mino had been more or less worked up over Romilda, but it had not been that, so much as the loss of his companionship with Berto and me. Berto had moved away, and Romilda had spoiled everything in my direction. With these two props of his existence gone, what was left for poor Pomino? No one to have any fun with. Why don't you get married, man? That's exciting enough, look at me. Tragicomically, he shook his head, closed his eyes, and raised his right hand for an oath. Never, never, never. You're a wise man, Pomino. Stick to that, and you'll come out all right. Meantime, you're looking for company, and I am at your service, for an all-night spree, if you say so. I told him of the resolution I had made on leaving my house, coming eventually to the desperate situation in which I found myself as regards money. My dear old fellow, said Pomino, offering me all he had. But I refused. It was not that kind of help I needed. A few lira more or less, and the next day I would be as badly off as ever. No, what I wanted was a position, and a permanent one, if possible. Wait a moment, exclaimed Pomino, his face brightening with an inspiration. I have it. You know about my father, don't you? He's working with this administration. I had not heard about that, but I can well imagine him in a good place. He is. They've made him district inspector of education. That, to tell the truth, does surprise me. Well, I remember that last night at dinner. Say, you know an old fellow by the name of Romiterli. No. Nonsense, of course you do. That old codger down at the Bocca Mata Library. Deaf and almost blind to begin with. But now he's broken down completely, and they've retired him on a pension. My old man says the place is a wreck, and that unless something is done about it pretty soon, the books will all be ruined. Why, isn't that just the thing for you? I, a librarian, I exclaimed. But that takes a man of education. And why not you, Pomino answered. You know as much as Romiterli ever did. That was a sound argument in truth. Mino suggested that it might be better to approach his father through Aunt Scholastica, who had always been on the right side of his old man. I spent the night with Mino, and the next morning I hurried to Aunt Scholastica's. That relentless grenadier, true to form as usual, refused to see me. But I talked the matter over with Mama at length. Four days later I became custodian of the Bocca Mata Foundation under the Department of Education. My salary would be 60 lira a month. 60 lira a month? I would be richer than the widow Pescatore. What a triumph! I almost enjoyed my new place during the first few months, largely on account of Romiterli, whom I could never bring to understand that he had been penchanted by the town, and therefore was under no obligation to continue working at the library. Every morning at nine o'clock sharp, neither one minute earlier nor one minute later, I would see him coming in on his four legs. So I called them. For the two canes he carried, one in each hand, were much more useful than the two rickety stilts with which old age had left him. Once through the door, he would extract from the pocket of his overcoat a huge old-fashioned watch in a brass case, which he would hang with its yard or more of chain, on a nail in the wall. Then he would take his seat in the office, put the two canes between his legs, produce from his inside pocket a skullcap, a snuff box, and a red and black checkered handkerchief, take a pinch of snuff, blow his nose, and finally with these preliminaries laboriously, punctually, and scrupulously completed, open a drawer in his desk, and get out an old volume belonging to the library, an historical dictionary of musicians, artists and connoisseurs, living and dead, published at Venice in 1758. Signore Romitelli, I would call, watching him go through his methodical routine in perfect self-possession, apparently not in the least aware of my humble presence. Signore Romitelli. But the old man was stone deaf. He would not have heard a cannon had it gone off under his nose. At last I would go up and shake him by the arm. He would turn around and squint at me, his whole face cooperating in the effort necessary for focusing his eyes. Next he would show his yellow teeth in something intended for a smile. Then he would slowly lower his head over the ancient volume. One would have thought for a nap to last the rest of the day. But no. On the contrary, he would bring his one serviceable eye to the fraction of an inch from the page and begin pronouncing a loud in a shrill cracked voice. Birnbaum. Johann Birnbaum. Johann Abram Birnbaum. Printed at Leipzig in 1738. At Leipzig in 1738. A pamphlet in Octavo. In Octavo. On a passage of the musical. Musical critic. Mitzler reprinted this. Mitzler. In the first volume of his musical library. In 1739. 1739. Why was he always repeating such phrases and dates sometimes three or four times? Perhaps to remember them better? And why a loud if he could not hear a sound? I would stand there and look at him in amazement. That poor old man was about ready for the grave. He died in fact four months after my own appointment. What could he possibly care about a pamphlet that Johann Abram Birnbaum or anyone else published at Leipzig in 1738? And he had to dig the information out with such a horribly painful effort. Lots of good it would do him in the next world. But I imagine it was a matter of principle with him. Libraries were made to read in. Since not a soul ever entered this one he must have thought the task devolved on him. He happened on that book as he might have on any other. On the big table in the reading room the nave of the old deconsecrated church not less than an inch of dust had gathered with the years. And one day to make up for the thanklessness of my village towards a public benefactor I used the tip of my finger to trace the following inscription in big letters. To Monsignor Bocca Matza, philanthropist in token of perennial gratitude this tablet was dedicated by his fellow citizens. From time to time two or three books would come tumbling down from one of the higher shelves followed by a rat as big as a good-sized kitten. On the first such occurrence I uttered a cry of triumph. Those falling books were to me what Newton's falling apple was to him. Eureka I cried. Here is something to do at last. I will catch rats and mice while Romy Telly reads about Birnbaum. Little as I had learned about my profession as archivist I knew instinctively what to do in those circumstances. On official paper I drew up a very elaborate memorial to his Excellency Gerolamo Pomino, Chevalier of the Crown, District Inspector of Education. Respectfully petitioning that the Bocca Matza Library in the Church of Santa Maria Liberale be provided at the earliest convenience of the department with at least two, brackets two, cats. The maintenance whereof would result in no addition to the budget since the said animals would be abundantly supplied with food from the proceeds of their hunting in said library. I further respectfully petitioned that the foundation be authorised to purchase one extra large trap, with the bait appertaining thereto. I regarded the word cheese as far too common to submit to the scrutiny of a newly appointed Inspector of Education. Gerolamo Pomino, Sr., sent me two tiny kittens which had barely been weaned and were in deadly fear of rats quite as big as they were. To escape starvation they went after the cheese in the trap and every morning I would find them shut in the wire cage, lean, scraggly, sorrowful, and too depressed even to mew. I had once addressed a complaint to my superior and this time I was allowed two honest full-grown cats which set about their business without needing encouragement. The trap, too, no longer stuffed with kittens every night, began to work satisfactorily and the rats I caught here came into my hands alive. One evening I was a bit put out because Romitelli seemed to pay no attention to all my victories in this field as though it were his duty to read the books in the library while that of the rats was to eat their bindings off. So I decided to take two of my recent captures and put them into the drawer where Romitelli kept the historical dictionary of dead and living painters. That will get you, I said to myself. But I was wrong. When Romitelli opened the drawer and the two rats whizzed past his elbow on their way to freedom, he turned to me and asked, What was that? Two rats in your Romitelli, two. Ah, rats, said he quietly. They were as much a part of the library as he was himself. He opened his book as though nothing at all had happened and began as usual to read aloud. In A Treatise on Trees by Giovanni Vittorio Soderini there is a passage which says that fruit ripeneth in part from heat and in part from cold, for as much as heat manifestly containeth the principle of warming, the which is the efficient cause of maturation. I take it that this venerable pomologist could not have been acquainted with another efficient cause of maturation, which is nevertheless familiar to fruit vendors the world over. They take green apples, green pears, green peaches and the like and by pinching and otherwise maltreating them reduce them to a soft pulp that has the feel of ripeness. Thus was my own green soul ripened by the knocks of the world. In a short time I became a person wholly different from what I had been before. When Romitelli died I was left here in this church where I now am writing, bored to distraction, absolutely, tremendously alone and yet without a yearning for company. Regulations required only a few hours of attendance at the library but I shrank from my home as from a torture chamber and from the village streets in shame for my changed estate. No, far better this deserted, this repudiated church with its books, its rats and its dusty solitude. Thus I kept arguing to myself but what could I do to pass the time? I could hunt rats but would that amusement last? The first time I found myself with a book in my hands I had taken it up quite casually from one of the shelves. I experienced a chill of horror. Would I, like Romitelli, finally come to feel it my duty to read for all those other readers who never came? I hurled the book angrily across the room but then I walked over and picked it up again. I too began to read and with one eye also for my unruly one would have nothing to do with this. So I read and read a little of everything haphazard but books of philosophy especially. Heavy stuff I grant you but when you get a little of it inside you you grow light as a feather and begin to touch the clouds. I believe I was always a bit queer in my head but these readings quite finished me. When I no longer knew what I was about I would shut up the library and go off along a little path that led down a steep incline to a solitary strip of seashore. The sight of that monotonous expanse of water filled me with a strange awe that changed little by little into unbearable oppression. As I sat there slowly straining the fine dry sands through my fingers I would lower my head so as not to see but I could hear all along the beach the measured rhythmic wash of the surf. So I shall be for always I would murmur unchanging till the day of my death. Sudden impulses strange thoughts that were more like flashes of madness would arise in me from the mortal fixity of my existence and I would spring to my feet as though to shake myself free from the stagnation that had gripped me. But there the same sea would come rippling in splashing its sleepy waves unendingly on the same somnol and shore clenching my hands in angry desperation I would cry Why should it be so? Why? Why? The tide would come in and a higher wave than usual would wet my feet. So you see what you get it would seem to say for asking the reasons for certain things wet feet no back to your library dear boy saltwater is not good for shoes and you have no money left to throw away back to your library and give up philosophy for a change you too had better read that Johan Abram Birnbaum published a pamphlet in octavo at Leipzig in 1738 that information will do you no great harm at the very worst and so it went until one day they came to tell me that my wife was very ill and that I was needed at home immediately I remember that I ran all the way as fast as my legs could carry me but rather to escape from my own feelings at the moment to avoid at all hazards any realisation of the fact that a man in my condition was about to have a son when I reached the door of the house my mother-in-law stopped me seized me by the shoulders and turned me around in my tracks a doctor quick Romilda is dying hurry you would feel like sitting down would you not on getting a piece of news like that full in the face and without warning but no quick hurry hurry at any rate I started running back again not knowing exactly where I was headed this time every so often I would shout a doctor a doctor there is people tried to stop me to ask what I wanted a doctor for others plucked at my sleeve as I ran by some of them looked at me with their faces pale with fright but I dodged them all and went on running a doctor a doctor and the doctor all this time was there at my house when I reached home again after a mad and fruitless round of all the places where a doctor might be found the first baby had been born and it was a girl the second also a girl was not so anxious to make its entrance into this world so it was twins this was all long ago but I can still see them lying there side by side in their cradle scratching at each other with those little hands that seemed so beautiful but which were animated nevertheless by some savage instinct that it made one shudder to look upon the poor miserable things worse off in life than the kittens I found every morning in my trap nor did these babies either have the strength to cry they could scratch that's all I moved them apart and at the first contact of my hands with their soft warm flesh a curious sensation a feeling of ineffable tenderness came over me they were mine one of them survived long enough to arouse in me such passionate affection as a father may have when with nothing else to live for in this world he makes his child the sole purpose of existence almost a year old she had become such a beautiful little thing with golden curls that I would wind about my fingers and kiss with a thirst of love that could never be satisfied she had learned to say papa and I would answer little one then she would say papa again we were like birds calling to one another from treetop to treetop she left us on the day and almost at the very hour my mother died I could not find a way to share my anguish and my care between them when my little girl would fall asleep I would hurry to mother's side mama had no thought for herself though she knew that she was dying she talked only of this grandchild of hers lamenting that she could not see her again and kiss her for the last time nine days this torture lasted I did not close my eyes for a single second should I tell the truth about what followed? most people I dare say would shrink from the confession human in a very deep humanity though it be but I must confess that when it was all over I felt no sorrow whatever at the moment rather I was dazed as though I had been struck by a heavy blow but the point is that then I went to sleep just that I went to sleep I had to go to sleep and only when I woke again did grief for my mother and my little girl assail me a wild desperate ferocious grief that while it lasted was literal madness one whole night with I know not what thoughts and intentions in my brain I wandered aimlessly about the town and the hills and fields surrounding it I remember that at last I came to the mill on our old coop's place it was early dawn Filippo our former miller was standing on the edge of the flume he saw me and called me to him we sat down there under a tree and he told me stories about my mother and father in the good old days that were no more I should not take on that way he said if mother had gone just then it was to make things ready for the little girl in the world beyond there they would find each other the two of them and grandma would take baby into her arms and trot her on her knees never leaving her uncared for and talking to her always of me three days later I received a check for 500 lile from brother Bertho I suppose he wanted to compensate me for the nine days torture I had undergone but the money was offered ostensibly to provide a decent funeral for mama aunt Scholastica however had already attended to that I put the banknotes away inside an old book in the library later on I took them out and used them on my own account they became as I shall presently narrate the occasion of my first demise end of section five section six of the late Mattia Pascal by Luigi Pirandello translated by Arthur Livingston this LibriVox recording is in the public domain chapter six click click click click of all the things and people in the great salon the ivory ball gracefully circling the roulette in a direction opposite to the twirl of the quadrant seemed alone to be at play click click click click the ball alone surely this could not be played to the people standing and sitting there with their eyes glued upon that ball tense in the torment occasioned to them by its caprices to that same ball on the yellow squares of the table just below many many hands had brought votive offerings of gold and all around many other hands were nervously fingering more gold the gold of the next play while suppley and I seemed to pursue the ball in its swift but graceful gyrations where it be thy pleasure little ball of ivory where it be thy pleasure delightful cruel divinity of chance I had wandered to Monte Carlo by the nearest accident after one of the usual scenes between me my mother-in-law and my wife in the harrowing torture of my recent bereavement I had no endurance left for this life of quarrelling of bitter nagging of physical and moral squalor absolute one day in sheer disgust and quite without premeditation I went to the old volume where I had put the money from Roberto transferred the 500 lira to my pocket put on my hat and coat and took to the road I started out on foot with not a thought except that of escape from the hell in which I had been living mechanically my steps turned toward a neighbouring village through which the railroad passed on the way thither a plan formed vaguely in my mind I would go to Marseille and take a steamer thence to one of the Americas the money I had with me should suffice for the steerage at least beyond that I might trust to luck what could possibly happen to me anywhere worse than what I had been through perhaps beyond the horizon ahead a new slavery awaited me but with heavier chains I asked myself than those I had just snapped from my feet it would be interesting to see a bit of the world at any rate and I might even hope to shake off the deadly oppression that had settled on my spirit and was inhibiting all my impulses of ambition and action to Marseille then but before I got to Nice my courage failed alas where was that old capacity for decision that had been one of the virtues of my boyhood discouragement must have eaten deeply into the fibre of my being my will seemed to have decayed to have been paralysed in all my sufferings 500 lira could I lurch out into the unknown on that miserable guarantee had I the mental training to win a successful battle for existence in a new and strange environment my train was to make a long stop at Nice when I alighted there I had virtually decided to go no farther though I was not resolved to go back home I compromised by wandering about through the town somewhere on the avenue de la gare I stopped in front of a shop with a large gilded sign dépôt de roulette de précision wheels of every description were on show in the windows with other accessories of gaming among these a number of manuals their paper covers ornamented with pictures of the roulette it has often been observed that unhappy people fall ready victims to superstition however prone they may be thereafter to laugh at the credulity of others and the hopes which belief in luck aroused suddenly in themselves hopes inevitably deceived of course well I remembered that when I had read the title of one of those manuals of gambling a sure method for winning at roulette I walked away from the shop window with a smile of pity and contempt on my lips why was it then that a few steps further on I stopped turned around went back to the shop and smiling with the same pity and contempt for the stupidity of others bought a copy of that very manual I could make neither head nor tail to what it said I failed to get a clear idea of what roulette was like or even of the exact construction of the wheel but I read on guess my trouble is with French I finally concluded I had never had a lesson in that language back in the library I had looked a grammar through and worked out a text here and there but I had no notion of French pronunciation and I had never uttered a word in the strange tongue for fear of making people laugh this latter preoccupation left me undecided for some time as to whether I ought to enter a gambling house but then I thought here you were a moment ago starting off for the Americas with barely a cent to your name and without a word of Spanish or English inside your head a man as brave as that ought to be brave enough to go as far as the casino you know a little French besides you have the manual Monte Carlo I further reflected was only a short walk from Nice neither my wife nor my mother-in-law know about this money Roberto sent me I think I'll go and lose it there that will take away all temptation to run away for good perhaps I can manage to save enough for a ticket home but even if I don't I had heard that the casino had a beautiful garden with tall and strong trees in the worst case I could take my belt and hang myself to one of these dying gratis and with dignity that would be indeed who knows how much the poor devil may have lost people would say on finding me to tell the truth I was disappointed in the casino the portal perhaps was not so bad those eight marble columns really made you feel that the architect intended a sort of temple to the goddess fortune here then was a big door with side entrances one to the right and one to the left my French helped me over the tiré inscribed on the latter and by inference I solved the pousse on the one in front of me if tiré meant pull I could risk push on the other so I pushed and I was admitted to the building all in bad taste and something I think should be done about it people who go to Monte Carlo to leave good money behind ought at least to have the satisfaction of being skinned in a place somewhat less pretentious and a whole lot more beautiful all wide awake towns in Europe putting up the most attractive slaughterhouses these days the courtesy wasted so far as I can see on the poor unschooled animals that are killed in them the fact is of course that the great majority of players at Monte Carlo have something else on their minds than the decorations of those five great halls just as the idlers sitting on the sofas all around are often not in a condition to notice the questionable taste of the upholstery before trying my own luck with no great hopes I may say I thought it would be better to look on a while and familiarize myself with the manner of the game and this was by no means so complicated as my manual had led me to suppose in a few minutes indeed I thought I had mastered it I went accordingly to the first table on the left in the first room I laid a few francs on a number that came into my head 25 most of the people about me followed the whirling ball with a strained nervous expectation I could not conceal my interest in its flight entirely but I smiled nonchalantly despite a curious tickling sensation that seemed to creep around the inside lining of my chest the ball slowed up and finally fell upon the quadrant 25 the group you're called rouge ampere et passe I had one I was reaching out to gather up the pile of chips that were tossed upon my auntie when a tall strapping fellow who had been standing behind me pushed my hand aside and gathered in my money in my faltering French I tried to make him understand that he had made a mistake oh yes by mistake not intentionally of course the man was a German and spoke French even more falteringly than I but he had a brazen courage to make up for any deficiencies in his grammar he came back at me with vigor asserting that the mistake was mine and the money his I looked around the table helplessly no one breathed a word not even a neighbor who had made some comment when I put my money on the 25 I looked appealingly at the croupiers in charge of the table they sat there as passive as statues I see said I to myself gathering up the chips I had prepared for another bit here we have a sure method for winning at roulette pity they forgot to mention it in the manual I imagine it's the only sure one in the end I went to another table where the game was running high and stood for some time examining the people seated around it gentlemen in formal dress for the most part and several women more than one of whom seemed of questionable calling my interest fell in particular upon a short light-haired man with big blue eyes the balls of which were streaked with veins of red while the lashes were long and almost white I did not like the looks of him at first he too was in formal clothes but such stylish attire did not seem to be in tone on him exactly I thought him worth watching however he laid a heavy stake and lost he plunged again still more heavily again he lost not a trace of emotion was visible on his face there I reflected mentally he's not the kind of person to steal the penny or two I risk and a certain shame came over me besides despite my unfortunate experience at the other table here people were throwing money away by the fistfuls and without a shadow of fear what a cheap sort I must be to worry about the few francs in my pocket and here next to this man with an empty chair between sat a young fellow his face as pale as wax a huge monocle on his left eye he was using only green chips but he was throwing his money down with an affectation of bored indifference and showing no interest in the ball indeed he sat half turned away from the table twirling his moustache at the end of a play he would ask a neighbour if he had lost and he lost every time oh the money was flying there gradually the excitement of the game seized on me as well I sat down between the two men and began to place my chips now on this number and now on that my first bets all went against me but then suddenly I began to feel a very strange sensation creeping over me a sort of inspired supernatural intoxication that took me out of myself making me the automatic agent of unconscious intuitions from within why this number rather than any other there that square at the end on the right yes I was absolutely sure the number was going to win and win it did my bets were small at first but soon I was throwing out my money without counting it the longer I played the clearer my strange power of drunken divination seemed to grow nor did my confidence wane when I suffered a loss or two in fact I imagined I had foreseen such breaks in my luck and I had even said to myself more than once yes this time I am going to lose I must lose but now I was quite beside myself I had a sudden impulse to risk everything I had my original bet and all that I had won my guess came out it was getting too much for me my ears were buzzing and I began to sweat one of the croupiers noticed my persistent good fortune I thought I caught a challenge in the glance he gave me never mind let's try again again I pushed everything I had upon the board I remember that my hand stopped at the number 35 the same number that had won before that was a bad chance I started to change but no voice within me seemed to whisper stay where you are I closed my eyes and I must have grown as pale as death a great silence fell over the table as though everyone was sharing in my terrible anxiety the ball started round and round and round and round it twirled would it never stop now it was going a little more slowly but that seemed only to exasperate my torture click it had fallen I did not open my eyes but I knew what the croupier was going to say his voice when it sounded seemed to come from far far away as from a distant world I raked in the pile of money and left the table I had to go I was too weak to continue playing and when I walked it was with the stagger of a drunken man I collapsed on a divan at the end of my endurance my head sinking on the back of a chair yes sleep I needed sleep a little nap would do me good and I was almost yielding when a sudden sense of heaviness about me restored my consciousness with a shock how much had I won I looked up but I had to close my eyes again the great hall of the casino seemed to be whirling dizzily round and round how hot it was in there how stifling a breath of air yes a breath of air what dark already the lights were coming on how long had I been playing I rose with difficulty to my feet and left the room outside in the atrium night had not yet fallen and a breath of the cool bracing air revived me a number of people were about some of them walking up and down by themselves concerned with their own thoughts others in groups of two or three chatting smoking joking they were all objects of interest to me I was still a stranger to the casino and conscious of looking the greenhorn too I began carefully to watch such as appeared most of their ease but how could one ever tell when I should least have expected such a thing one of them would suddenly fall silent toss his cigarette aside and pale haggard distraught start off toward the playrooms again pursued by the laughter of his companions what was the joke I could not see but instinctively I would join in the laugh looking after the fugitive with a silly smile on my face at one more sherry I heard a harsh female voice whisper behind me I turned around it was one of the women who had been sitting near me at the table she was holding out a rose toward me keeping another for herself she had just bought them at the buffet there in the outer hall a flash of anger came over me so I did look like an easy mark I refused the flower without a thank you and started to walk away but she broadened her smile into a frank laugh and taking me confidentially by the arm she began to talk to me hurriedly and in a half whisper she was proposing so I understood after a fashion that we play together in view of the luck she had seen me having I would choose the numbers and she would divide earnings 50 50 with me I tore my arm loose with a show of anger and left her standing there shortly afterward I wandered back into the gaming rooms there I saw the same woman again but talking now with a short dark complexion fellow with a bushy beard a spaniard as I judged whose appearance I did not like she had given him the rose just previously offered to me they both winced at my approach and I was sure they had been talking about me I decided to keep on my guard sauntering off toward another room I approached the first table there without however intending to play sure enough I had not been there long when the spaniard put in an appearance but without the woman taking up a position near me though pretending not to be aware of my presence I turned and fixed my eyes frankly upon him to let him know that I had noticed his attentions and was not to be trifled with and yet as I now began to think he might not be the swindler I was taking him for he laid three heavy bets in succession and lost all three winking his eyelids furiously at each defeat perhaps in an effort to conceal the shock of disappointment after the third throw he looked up at me and smiled I left him there and went back into the other room to the table where I had made my heavy winnings the crupius had changed the woman was again in the seat where I had observed her at first I kept off some distance from the table so that she would not see me her bets were all small and she did not play every round I stepped forward to the table she was about to lay down a chip but when she noticed me she withheld her money with the intention evidently of putting it on the number I should choose but I did not play as the crupier called le jeu est fait rien ne va plus I looked at her she was shaking a finger at me with a smile of reproach I kept out of the game for some time but gradually the spell caught me again the animation about the table was too pervasive besides I seemed to feel my strange inspiration coming over me again I sat down in the first chair that became empty forgot all about the woman and began to play what was the source of that mysterious foresight I had for choosing the right number and color unfailingly was it just luck the wildest craziest luck man ever had was it a sort of miraculous divination beyond the control of my consciousness how explain at any rate certain obstinate obsessions of mine the very absurdity of which now makes my hair stand on end as I reflect that I was risking everything perhaps even my life on some of those bets that were just mad impudent challenges to fortune however you may account for it I know how I felt I felt the presence of a devilish power within me which at that particular time made fortune my captive rendered her obedient to my every gesture and bent her caprice to my will I felt this I say but I was not the only one to feel it others about the table soon acquired the same conviction and shortly everybody was betting on the numbers that I kept choosing for risks of the most hazardous kind why was it I stuck to red for turn after turn and why did red always come out and why was it I would switch to zero just as zero was about to fall even the young man with the monocle began at last to take a direct interest in the game and a fat man beside him to pint louder than ever a fever of excitement ran about our table shivers of impatience moments of nervous gasping suspense bursts of anxious expectancy that attained climaxes of veritable fury eventually the croupiers themselves lost their stiff impassive well-mannered indifference suddenly after pushing a pile of chips forward on the table I felt myself give way a sense of tremendous responsibility came over me I had eaten practically nothing since morning and all the emotions of that violent evening had exhausted my strength my head began to swim and I could not go on I won the bet but I drew back from the table and now I felt a strong grip fasten itself upon my arm it was that short squatty bushy faced Spaniard beside himself with excitement and determined at all costs to make me continue playing look he said 11 and 15 we come to the last three rounds play we break bank he had decided I was an Italian and was addressing me in my own language but with a Spanish brogue that done for as I was made me laugh I had just enough strength left to persist mechanically obstinately in a refusal no no I've had enough I've had enough let me go sir let me go sir he let me go but he followed me even boarding my train to accompany me back to niece he insisted that I take a midnight meal with him and engage a room in the hotel where he was living at first I was not loath to accept the almost awestruck admiration which this fellow had for me as for a master of divination I have noticed that human vanity is inclined to sniff with pleasure even the accurate and stupefying incense that rises from the most petty and miserable of sensors my own case was that of a general who by sheer luck quite beyond any provision or plan of his own has stumbled on a decisive victory and this reflection began actually to take form in my own mind as little by little I came out of my bewilderment recovered a part of my strength and grew conscious of the annoyance this man's company was really giving me however though I bad him good night in the station at niece he would have none of it he took me off to supper with him by main force and then it was that he confessed to having sent the woman to me in the lobby of the casino she was one of the habitual idlers about the place and for three days he had been providing her with funds for a start in life giving her that is a hundred francs every now and then on the chance that eventually she might make a real killing following my numbers that evening she must have won something at last for she was not waiting for the spaniard in the lobby what can I do said he resignedly she probably find a better looking man I too old he saw I thank god senore he sent her away so soon my important friend had been at niece for a week or more and every morning he had gone to the casino up to that evening he had done nothing but lose what he wanted now was the secret of my success either I must have learned the game to the bottom or have devised an unfailing system this made me laugh and I assured him I had never seen a roulette wheel before that morning and that I was as surprised as anyone else at my unheard of good luck but he was not convinced he decided I imagined that he was dealing with a sharper of no ordinary merits for he returned to the attack after a skillful detour and in his curiously fluent gibberish half Spanish half god knows what eventually came out with the proposal he had tried to make to me that evening through the girl but my dear sir I answered half amused and half angered by his insistence and the assumptions it implied I have no system how can there be any science to a game like that I had luck that's all tomorrow I may lose everything on the other hand I may win again as I hope I shall but why are you not Provech today of your good fortune Provech yes Provech Prophet how you say why I did considering the few Franks I started with good I pay for you you luck I money but I might lose it all for you look here Senor if you're so sure I'm going to win you do tomorrow just as you did today put your money on my numbers then if I lose you can't blame me and if I win he did not let me finish no senor no today yes I do this but tomorrow no I do not you bet conmigo strong good I play if no I know play seguramente muchas gracias I looked at the man trying to fathom the meaning of all this chatter the one thing certain was that he suspected me of some trick or other I flushed and demanded an explanation he suppressed the shrewd smile that had been playing about his lips although the leer in it continued to dominate his expression I say no and no play no digo I'll draw I brought down my fist solidly on the table in front of me no you don't get out of this that way I answered angrily what's the meaning of what you said and of that fool's smile of yours I don't see anything to laugh at he grew pale as I raised my voice and seemed to cringe before me I felt sure an apology was coming however I shrugged my shoulders and rose from the table anyhow I don't care what you meant but I want nothing more to do with you I paid my bill and left the restaurant I once knew a man who from his extraordinary endowments of intellect was worthy of the most venerating admiration he never received any wit of it however and all on account of a pair of checkered trousers gray and black if I remember rightly and fitting too tight to his legs which he would wear come what may our clothes have something it may be about their cut it may be about their color which gives people the strangest impressions of us take my present case I thought I had a right to be put out I was not in a dinner coat of course but I was quite decently dressed in a black suit in keeping with my state of mourning well from the very same outfit that miserable German thought I was enough of an idiot to risk his stealing my pot well now this Spaniard took me for a rascal so deeply died in the wool that he was afraid of me must be these whiskers I concluded as I hurried along or the way my hair is cut I am clipped pretty close on the other hand my beard is a bit too scraggly meanwhile I was anxious to get to a hotel to see how much I had really won it was two o'clock by this time and the streets were deserted eventually a cab came rattling by I hailed it and got in I was a walking cash box I had money in the pockets of my coat in the pockets of my vest in the pockets of my trousers everywhere gold silver paper the total must have been an enormous one as soon as I reached a room I spread my earnings out on the bed eleven thousand lira I had not seen any money for such a long time that I thought it was a fortune that had thus come to me almost without effort on my part but then my mind reverted to the good old days of the prosperity of my family and a bitter sense of my degradation came over me indeed two years there in that library along with my other misfortunes had so crushed me that a poultry two thousand dollars could look like wealth my old feeling of discouragement returned here you tame spineless virtuous librarian I apostrophized looking at all my golds contemptuously run along home and pass this over to the widow pescatore she will be sure you stole it and your stock will go up in her esteem on that account or rather sail onto America as you had planned if this windfall does not seem a fitting reward for your courageous efforts hitherto you could now you see you have two thousand dollars to bank on what a millionaire I swept the money together tossed it into a drawer of my dresser and went to bed but I could not get to sleep what was I really to do go back to Monte Carlo and lose the money I had made or should I rest content with this one stroke of fortune lay it aside somewhere and enjoy it modestly as occasion offered enjoy it a pretty thought for a man stuck with a family like mine well I might buy my wife some better clothes Romilda seemed not only to have grown indifferent as to whether I liked her or not but even to take particular pains to prove odious to me never fixing her hair going around in ugly mules all day long and wearing an old wrapper that left her not a single charm of figure did she feel that it wasn't worth the trouble to dress decently for a husband like me for that matter she had never quite recovered from her long illness and she was growing more irritable and despondent from day to day not toward me alone but toward everybody slovenliness laziness with the natural result of her many disappointments and the lack of any real affection on her part for me she had taken no interest in our one little girl who had survived because that child was a defeat for her as compared with the fine boy that had come to oliva barely a month later and with none of the trials and torments that had fallen to a remilder's lot all these things and that friction besides which develops inevitably when poverty like a black cat of ill omen uddles in the ashes of a joyless heart had made married life unbearable to both of us would eleven thousand lira cure all that would eleven thousand lira resurrect a love that had been traitorously slain in its early days by the widow pescatore nonsense to america then but why america why go seeking fortune so far away if as it seemed that very fortune had halted me almost by violence in front of a gambling store in niece no i must show some appreciation for such a courtesy play the game everything or nothing after all ruin would leave me only where i was before eleven thousand lira what was that so the next day i went back to montecarlo as indeed i did for 12 successive days in all that time i had neither lesion nor opportunity to wonder at the amazing fortune that attended me so completely was i absorbed in the game even to the point of utter madness and i have not wondered much since in view of the turn my luck finally took after favoring me so absurdly in nine days of reckless playing i am asked to sum up money that must truly have been prodigious on the 10th i began to lose and my ruin was just as phenomenal my intuition came to fail me as though there were not sufficient energy left in my nerves to sustain it i was not shrewd enough or rather i lacked the physical strength to stop in time i did stop as a matter of fact but not of my own accord my salvation came from one of those horrible spectacles that are not infrequent they say at montecarlo i was entering the casino on the morning of the 12th day when a gentleman i had often met about the tables came up to me in great alarm and announced more by his excited gestures than by actual words that a man had just killed himself outside in the gardens somehow i felt sure it was my spanyard and a twinge of remorse ran through me after our talk at supper that first evening he had refused to follow my game and had lost consistently then seeing me continue my lucky play he had finally begun to imitate me but by this time my own good fortune was coming to an end and i had taken to going about from one table to another in this way i had lost sight of him and he had lost interest in me as i hurried to join the crowd that had gathered about the body i tried to imagine how he would look stretched out there on the ground dead however i found not him but the young man with the monocle who had affected such indifference to the great sums he was losing that he always sat with his back to the wheel he was lying in such a natural posture that it seemed he must have taken that position before firing the fatal shot one arm was eased along his body the other was raised to one side the hand closed and the forefinger bent as for the clutch of the revolver the weapon was lying a few inches away and a little beyond the boy's hat his face was covered with blood which had clotted thick in the socket of one of his eyes still more blood had flowed out from his right temple upon the sand of the driveway horseflies were already buzzing about and one of them alighted on his face none of the spectators seemed inclined to interfere finally i stepped forward drew a handkerchief from my pocket and spread it over the poor fellow's head the crowd was irritated rather than not at this decent act of mine i had spoiled the spectacle if anything then i took to my heels and ran i ran to the station boarded the first train for niss gathered up my belongings and started for home again i counted the remnants of my winnings i still had 82 000 lira left could i ever have dreamed that before evening of that day something similar to the fate of this young man was to come to me end of section six section seven of the late matia pascal by louis gp randello translated by artha livingston this libra vox recording is in the public domain chapter seven i change cars first i'll get the coups out of purgatory and go to leave there working the mill good idea to keep close to the soil better still if you can get under it any trade when you think of it has its good points even a grave diggers a miller has the satisfaction of hearing the stones go around and the flower flies all about and covers you fight some fun in that i bet they haven't opened a bag of grain in that mill in a dog's age but the moment i take hold of it senior matia the belt is off the flywheel hey senior matia need a new shaft here this gear is loose senior matia as it was in the old days when mama was still alive and malania was running things while i'm busy at the mill i'll have to have somebody look after the farming and he'll skin the eye teeth out of me where if i attend to that myself my miller will do me at the mill sort of seesaw miller up farm hand down farm hand up miller down i'm sitting in the middle to balance and enjoy the performance ah i have it i get into one of those old chests where the widow keeps the clothes of the late francesco antonio pescatore in camphor and moth balls like holy relics dress her up in a suit of them and let her be the miller and run the other fellow too for that matter while i continue holding down my job at old borca matzah's library and life in the country would do rumilder good such my rambling thoughts as the train ran along i could not close my eyes but the vivid picture of that boy lying there on the driveway at montecarlo so naturally so much at ease under the green trees in the cool of the bright morning would crowd its way to the forefront of my mind or if i succeeded in expelling that horrible vision another less bloody but not less terrifying would take its place the picture of my mother-in-law and my wife waiting for me at home i had been gone just two weeks minus one day how would they welcome my return i amused myself building up the scene in anticipation i walk into the house the two of them just a glance a glance of supreme indifference as much as to say huh back again and without your neck broken worse luck for a time everybody mum they on their side i on mine then the widow pipes up how about that job you've gone and lost that's so when i went away i took the library key off in my pocket i failed to show up so the constable breaks down the door i am nowhere to be found reported missing no news from me anywhere four five six days and they give the place to some other loafer like me so then what is his royal highness doing here waiting for his dinner no sir been off on a toot for a week or so eh well you found your level stick to it but there's no obligation on too hard working women to support a vagrant about the house off on a tear with who knows what gutter wench and i mum as a noister and the old woman growing madder and madder because she can't get a word out of me i in fact still mum as a noister until when she's really blowing off steam i take a little bundle out of my inside pocket and begin to count it out on the table two six ten thousand in that pile five seven ten thousand in that pile forty fifty sixty four eyes and two mouths wide open who have you been holding up now seventy thousand seventy five thousand eighty eighty one thousand seven hundred and twenty five and forty centeams for good measure and i gather up the money stuff it into my purse put it into my pocket and get up so you're firing me out better than i hoped for thanks goodbye and good luck fair ladies and i laughed aloud the people in my compartment had been watching me as i sat there gloating over my triumph they tried to suppress their mirth when i looked up to conceal my humiliation under a scowl i applied myself to the question of my creditors who would pounce upon me the moment reports of all that money got around no hiding such a sum besides what's the use of money if you can't use it a slim chance of spending any of it on myself well so i start in business at the middle with the income from the farm on the side but there's the overhead and the repairs money here money there years and years before i could pay them all off whereas for cash they'd probably settle for little or nothing i went into this latter of course dividing my bank notes up between the lot of them that pig snout of oreggioni ten thousand and five more for filipo brisigo wish to god it was for his funeral seven to lunaro the old skinflint torin was a better place after he left and old woman lipani that's about all i guess no there's also della piana and there's bossy and there's margotini and good god the whole blame date he is gone so i was working for those people up at montecarlo why the devil didn't i stop after i won that pile but for those two last days i could pay them all and still be a rich man by this time i was swearing under my breath and my fellow passengers laughed aloud without restraint i hitched nervously about in my seat daylight was fading from the windows of the car the air was dry and dusty oh what a nuisance a railroad train anything to kill time i thought i might read myself to sleep so i bought a newspaper at a station just across the italian frontier the electric lights came on i unfolded the paper and started on the front page interesting the castle of valance says sold at auction two million three hundred thousand francs counting the lands that go with it the largest single holding in france count the castellani bought it in the same way i lost the coups i guess the king of spain at 130 today entertained a delegation of moroccan chiefs at luncheon at the palace the mission then paid its respects to the queen must have been a good feed paris the 28th invoice from tibet bringing gifts from the lama to the president of france what the deuce is a lama thought it was a kind of camel i did not settle the point for i fell asleep i was awakened by the bumping of my car as the brakes stopped us short we were coming into another station i looked at my watch 815 in another hour i would be arriving at my destination the newspaper was still open on my knees i skipped the item about the lama and turned the page my eyes fell on a headline in extra heavy type suicide supposing the story referred to the tragedy of that morning at montecarlo i straightened up to read it more carefully at the first line which was printed in very small type i stopped in surprise special dispatch by telegraph from mirano mirano who's been killing himself down there in my village i read on yesterday the 28th a body in an advanced state of decomposition was discovered at the mill flume of the farm called at this point my sight seemed suddenly to go blurred for i thought the next word was a name familiar to me the lighting in the compartment was very dim and that added to the difficulty i experienced in reading with my one eye i stood up to bring the paper closer to the bulbs decomposition was discovered in the mill flume of the farm called the coops located about two miles from this town the police were notified and proceeded to the spot the body was recovered from the water and as the law requires laid out on the bank under guard for an inquest by the state's physician the corpse was later identified as that of our heart leapt to my throat and in utter bewilderment i looked about at my companions they were all asleep body was recovered laid out on the bank identified as that of our eye by the state's physician the corpse was later identified as that of our village librarian matia pascal who has been missing for some days financial troubles are assigned as the cause of the tragedy i missing identified my dear pascal a ferocious grin upon my face my heart thumping tumultuously in my breast i read and reread the lines i know not how many times at a first impulse all my being rebelled in bitter protest as though that cold laconic item in the news required a denial from me to convince even myself that it was not true true it was for other people at any rate and the conviction already a day old that they had of my death impressed me as a crushing overwhelming intolerable act of violence unjustly delivered against me leaving me destroyed forever my eyes turned wildly again upon my fellow passengers could they be thinking so too there they sat sleeping snoring in various positions of torture i felt like shaking them all awake to scream into their faces that it was not that it could not be true but i must be dreaming i caught up the paper again to read the item once more i was in a frenzy of excitement should i not pull the emergency brake and stop the train no well what was it poking along that way for its monotonous grinding bumping rattling grated on my nerves till i was in a paroxysm of irritation i opened and closed my hands spasmodically sinking my nails into my palms again i unfolded the paper holding the two sheets out flat before me my two arms extended then i folded it up again with the article on the outside but i knew what it said by heart identified how how could they have identified me in an advanced state of decomposition i thought of myself for a moment floating there in the green water of the flume my body blackened swollen bursting disgusting to look upon with a shudder of horrified loathing i crossed my arms over my breast pinching my biceps with either hand i no not i who can it have been someone like me certainly my beard perhaps my build and they identified me missing for some days ah yes but one thing i should like to know i should like to know who was in such a hurry to get me identified that poor devil as much like me as all that just like me clothes everything ah i see it was she it was mariana dondi that pescatore woman hoping it would be i she made it so she identified me at once off hand too good almost to be true just hear her taking on oh my poor poor boy oh my poor poor matia yes it's he it's he what will my daughter ever do now and she probably found a few tears too and improvised a scene beside the corpse the poor devil was too dead to boot her out of there with give us a rest i don't know you i was quite beside myself the train drew into another station and came to a stop i threw open the side door and jumped to the ground with the idea of doing something about it immediately a telegram perhaps contradicting the report of my death but i struck so hard upon the platform of the station that i was jarred from head to foot and to that i owed my salvation for a sudden realization flashed through my mind as though the stupid obsession that had taken hold on me had been shaken loose of course freedom liberty why did you not think of it before freedom freedom the chance for a new life 82 000 lira in my inside pocket and no obligations to anyone i was dead and a dead man has no debts a dead man has no wife a dead man has no mother-in-law what more could a fellow ask for i was free free free i must have had a very queer look as i stood there beside my car with this new inspiration written over my face in any case i had left the compartment door open behind me and i was suddenly aware of a number of train men calling to me i did not know why one of them ran up to me at last shook me by the arm and shouted angrily get a bored man the train is starting let us start i answered let us start i'm changing cars but now a terrifying doubt came into my mind that report supposing it had already been denied supposing people at murano had discovered the mistake relatives of the dead man perhaps making a real identification before counting my chickens i had better wait for them to hatch i ought to get confirmation of the whole story and how how i felt for the newspaper in my pockets but unfortunately i had left it in the train instinctively my eyes turned down along the deserted track that stretched away into the night its two lines of cold steel shining bright from the lamps of the station a pang of utter loneliness came over me and for a second i quite lost my head again what a nightmare and supposing it were all just a dream but no i had really read the thing special dispatch by telegraph from murano yesterday the 28th you see you can say it over word for word no dream then and yet well you need proof more proof than that where was i anyhow i looked for the sign on the front of the station alenga not much of a place and it was sunday too poor chance of a fella is finding a newspaper in that hole on a holiday and yet murano was not so far away well at murano that morning there must have been an edition of the compendium the only paper published in the neighborhood i must get a copy somehow the compendium would be sure to have the story down to the last detail but alenga how expect anybody in alenga to have the compendium but i could telegraph now that was an idea i could telegraph assumed name of course i could telegraph to the editor mirrored coltsey everybody knew mirrored coltsey the meadowlark as we called him after he got out a volume of poems he's first and last under that title but the meadowlark wouldn't he think it's suspicious to be getting an order for his paper from alenga certainly the leading story for that issue the paper was a weekly would be my suicide wouldn't there be some risk in telegraphing telegraphing especially for that particular number but no how could there be i then thought coltsey will have it in his head that i am dead meantime he has ambitions of his own he's attacking this administration on the water and gas question he'll imagine people here have heard about him and wanted to read his last editorial i went along into the station luckily the mail carrier had stopped for a chat with the freight agent and his wagon was still there it was some four miles from the station to the village of alenga proper and uphill all the way i climbed into the rickety cart and we drove off into the dark without lights on the wagon of any kind there were many things for me to think about and yet from time to time in the black solitude all about me now i would be overwhelmed by the same violent emotion i had received in the train from the reading of that disconcerting piece of news it was that same sense of loneliness i had experienced at sight of the rails of the deserted track a feeling of fear and uneasiness as though i were the ghost of my dead self a stray somewhere cut off from life and yet certain to continue living beyond my death without knowing just how to shake off my uncanny oppression i struck up a conversation with my driver is there a news agency at alenga agency no sir what can't you buy a newspaper in the place oh newspapers yes you can get them from grottanelli at the drugstore i suppose there's a hotel there's a boarding house palmentinos he had come to a steep incline and the man got down from his seat to make a lighter load for his poor winded nag in the almost total darkness i could scarcely distinguish his figure as he walked along but at one point he stopped to light his pipe and i could see him clearly a shadow ran over me if he only knew who it is he has with him tonight but then i turned the same query upon myself well who is it he has with him i couldn't say who am i i shall have to decide i need a name at least and before long when they send the telegram i shall have to give them a name to sign and i mustn't be embarrassed when they ask for one at the boarding house yes a name just a name will do for a starter let's see what is my name i should never have dreamed it would be so hard to find a name especially a last name i began fitting syllables together just as they came into my mind and i got all sorts of queer things as a result stortzani barbetta martoni bartusi oh the problem began to grip my nerves the names i found seemed also meaningless so empty nonsense as though names needed to have meanings come pull yourself together anything will do you had martoni what's the matter with martoni charles martoni there you are but a moment later i would shrug my shoulders yes charles martel and so all over again we arrived at the village and still i had failed to make up my mind fortunately there was no occasion for using a name for the druggist who proved to be telegraph clerk postal clerk pharmacist stationer news boy all around donkey and i don't know what else i bought copies of the newspapers he had in stock the corriere and the secolo from milan the kafaro and one or two others from jenoa i don't suppose you have the compendium of miranio grotanelli had a pair of big round eyes that looked like balls of glass every so often he would force a pair of stiff thick eyelids down over them the compendium of miranio never heard of it it's a small town sheet weekly i believe i thought i would like to see it today's number that is the compendium miranio never heard of it and he kept repeating this stolidly that doesn't matter few people have nevertheless i've got to have 10 or a dozen copies of the thing right away can you get them for me i'll pay the expenses for telegraphing the order tonight a man made no answer a blank expression on his face he persisted still the compendium miranio never heard of it but he finally consented to make up the telegram at my dictation and to give his store as the address it was a horrible night i passed there in the boarding house of palmontinos a sleepless night of distracted tossing on a sea of tumultuous thoughts and worries but the afternoon mail of the following day brought me 15 copies of the compendium the jenoa papers of the day before had said nothing whatever about the tragedy at miranio and now my hands trembled as i opened the bundle before me on the first page nothing feverishly i turned to the inner sheets across two columns of the third page ran lines of mourning in heavy black under them was my name in big broad-faced type matia pascal he had been missing for some days days of consternation and unspeakable anguish for his family and of concern for the people of this town who had learned to love matia pascal for that goodness of heart and joviality of temperament which with his other gifts of character enabled him to meet misfortune with dignity and courage and to fall without loss of public esteem from the moneyed ease that once was his to the humble circumstances in which he lived in recent years after a day of unexplained absence on his part his family went in some alarm to the boka matza library where matia pascal passionately devoted to his work as a public servant spent most of his time enriching with wide and varied readings his native endowments as a scholar the door of the library was closed and locked a fact which at first gave rise to very grave suspicions for the moment however these were shown to be groundless and it was hoped that our beloved librarian had slipped out of town on private business which he had divulged to no one but alas the sorry truth was soon to be revealed the death of his mother whom he adored and on the same day of his only child together with financial worries arising from the loss of his ancestral properties had shaken our poor friend too deeply it seems that on a previous occasion some three months ago matia pascal tried to put an end to his unhappy days in the very water where his body has just been found the mill flume of the estate known as the coops which in days gone by had been one of the prides of the pascal inheritance we got the story from a former employee of the family philippo brina miller on the farm standing there beside the corpse it was night and two policemen with lanterns were on guard about the body the old man with tears in his eyes told the reporter of the compendium how he had prevented the grieving son and father from executing his violent intention at that time but philippo brina could not always be on hand on his second attempt to end his own life matia pascal threw himself into the flume and there his body lay for two whole days there was a heartrending scene when night before last the desperate widow was led down to the water's edge to view the now unrecognizable remains of her loved companion who had gone to join his daughter and his mother in the other world in token of sympathy for her bereavement and of his steam for the departed the people of the town turned out en masse to accompany the body to its last resting place over which our superintendent of schools mr gerolamo po mino chevalier of the crown pronounced a touching eulogy the compendium extends to the bereaved family and to mr roberto pascal brother of the deceased and formerly a resident of this town expressions of its sincerest sympathy valed electe amici valet mc though i should have been quite dismayed had i found nothing in the paper i must confess that my name printed there under that black line did not give me the pleasure i had expected on the contrary it filled me with such painful emotions that after a few lines i had to give up that touch about the consternation and anguish of my bereaved family did not amuse me at all nor did the boss about the esteem of my fellow townsmen or my passionate devotion to my work as a public servant rather i was impressed by the reference to the night of mourning i had passed at the coups after the death of mother and my little girl the fact that that had served as a proof indeed is the strongest proof of my suicide at first surprised me as an unforeseen and cynical irony of fate then it caused me shame and remorse no i had no right to the profits of such a cruel misunderstanding i had not killed myself in sorrow for my two dearest ones though the thought of doing so had indeed occurred to me that night to be sure i had run away in sheer despair at that great bereavement but here i was on my way home again and from a gambling house where fortune had smiled on me in the strangest manner just as she was continuing to smile for here now if you please someone else someone surely whom i did not even know had killed himself in my place and depriving this benefactor of mine of the pity and the sorrow of friends and relatives which rightfully belonged to him i was also compelling him to submit to the hypocritical weeping of my wife and my mother-in-law and even to a eulogy from the painted lips of mr gerolamo pomino yes these were my first impressions on reading my obituary in the mirano compendium but then i reflected that of course the poor fellow had not really died on my account and that i could not render him the slightest service by coming to life again the fact that i would gain incidentally from his misfortune imposed no sacrifice on his people indeed i would be doing them a favor by keeping still in their eyes the suicide was i matia pascal they could still hope that their man had simply disappeared that he might return again almost any day as for my wife and my mother-in-law did i owe them any consideration in the matter all that anguish all that consternation was it really so were they not more probably phrases invented by the meadowlark to make sure whether it was i or not all they had to do was lift the eyelid of my left eye and anyhow even if they had been no eyes left a woman isn't fooled so easily as that where her own husband is concerned why were they so anxious to have it me doubtless the widow pescatore hoped that malania would feel just a little bit responsible for my terrible end and come to the rescue of his poor niece again well if that was their game why should i try to spoil it dead buried that suits me across on the grave and goodbye fair ladies i arose from the table where i had been reading stretched my arms and legs deliciously and heaved a deep sigh of relief end of section seven