 CHAPTER 17 I reached the station in time for the Pisa Express that left shortly after midnight. I bought my ticket and found a corner seat in a second class compartment. There I took my place at once, sitting with the visor of my cap pulled down over my eyes, not so much in fear of being seen as of seen. But I could see just the same in my mind's eye. I could see the broad brimmed hat and the cane lying there on the parapet of the bridge where I had left them. Already at that very moment perhaps someone was passing and would notice them, or perhaps a policeman on patrol had found them and given the alarm at the station house. And I was still in Rome. What might be the outcome? I could scarcely breathe in my anxiety. But at last the train started with a jerk. Thank heaven! I was alone in the compartment. I sprang to my feet, raised my arms above my head, and as though a millstone had suddenly been removed from my chest, drew one long endless breath of relief. Ah! At last I was alive again. Myself. Mathia Pascal. I could shout it loud to everybody now. I, I, Mathia Pascal. I am not dead. Look at me. Here I am. Mathia Pascal. Oh, no fear henceforth of self-betrayal. And I was through with falsehood and deceit. Not just yet, to be sure. Not really, till I should reach Miranio. There I must first declare myself, have my status as a living person recognized, regraft my life to its buried roots. What a crazy notion. The idea of ever supposing I could live apart from my original personality. And yet, and yet, see the way it goes. On my other journey, the trip from Allenga to Turin, I had thought myself just as happy as I felt now. Lunatic. Freedom. Freedom. So I had said, thinking of it as a liberation from all that had been. Freedom. Bah! A pretty freedom, with the leaden weight of falsehood on my shoulders, a leaden mantle for a ghost in Malebolge. Well, now I would be getting a wife back again and that mother-in-law. But hadn't I felt their presence just as keenly when a dead man? Now at least I was alive and with some experience in warfare. We'll see. We'll see. As I thought of the matter now, it seemed hardly believable that I could have cut myself off from society in such a frivolous, haphazard, nonschalant way, two years before. And I pictured myself as I had been during those first days, blissfully happy in my carefree world in Turin, a world of madness I could see it was now. And then, as I gradually became later on in my wanderings from town to town, silent, solitary, shut up in the enjoyment of what I then thought was happiness. Then Germany, the Rhine on an excursion steamer? Was that a dream? By no means. Gospel truth. I had been there. Ah, had I been able to live on in that state of mind, travelling forever as a visitor to this life. But soon afterwards at Milan, that poor puppy I had wanted to buy from the old match-seller. Yes, I was beginning to understand, even then. And after that. Ah, yes, after that. In one leap my mind was back in Rome. I saw myself stealing like a ghost into my deserted house. Were they all a bed and sleeping? All except Adriana, probably. She would be waiting up for me to come home. Surely they must have told her I had gone off looking for two seconds for a duel with Bernaldes. She had not heard me come in yet. She would be afraid and in tears. I pressed my hands to my face as a violent pang clutched at my heart. Oh, my Adriana, my little Adriana, I groaned. And yet, for you I could never really be alive. Better, therefore, if you know that I am dead, that those lips are dead which once snatched a kiss from yours. Poor Adriana. Oh, try to forget me. Try to forget. What would happen in the house next morning when a policeman would come to investigate my suicide? What reason in their first stupor faction would they give to account for it? The duel I was about to have? No, that would hardly seem convincing. Strange to say the least that a man who had never shown himself a coward should kill himself rather than fight. Well then, perhaps because I had not found my seconds. Nonsense. So then, who knows? There was probably some mystery at the bottom of the strange life I led. Yes, yes, that conclusion was inevitable. Here I was killing myself without any apparent reason without having betrayed the remotest intention of so doing. Oh, to be sure I had been acting rather queely. That mix up over the money, first claiming it was stolen and then saying I had found it again. But do you suppose the money didn't really belong to him? Perhaps he had to pay it back to somebody and was working up an excuse, saying they had stolen it. Later on repenting and finally killing himself. You never can tell. One thing certain, he was a most mysterious man, never a friend to call on him, never a letter, at any time, from anybody. How much better it would have been had I written something on that note. A word or two besides my name, my address, and the date. Some reason or other for my suicide. But at that time and in that place. And what reason if you come to that? Who knows what the newspapers will say, I thought, my mind jumping from point to point. What a fuss they can make over this mysterious Adriano maze. One thing I may be sure of, my cousin, Mr. Francesco Maze, of Turin, the Assistant Tax Collector, will step forward to tell all he knows and more, too. They will follow that clue and who can guess what will come of it? Yes, but the money. The money I ought to leave someone. Adriano saw all the bills I had. Poor Papiano. A beeline for the cabinet, only to find it empty. So then lost. In the river on his body. What a shame. What a pity. How mad Papiano will be that he didn't steal everything at once. The police will take charge of my clothes and books. Who will get them in the end? Oh, some little thing at least for Adriano. Just as a remembrance. What anguish for her now to look in at my deserted room. So I rambled on from supposition to supposition, from memory to memory, from fear to fear as my train sped northward. I could not sleep from the tumult of emotions within me. I considered it prudent to stop off for some days in Pisa to avoid any chance association of the reappearance of Mattia Pascal in Miranio with the disappearance of Adriano Maze in Rome, a relationship likely to occur to someone if the newspapers of the capital made any great feature of my suicide. At Pisa I could see both the morning and evening editions. If no particular mention was made of Adriano Maze, I would go on to Onelia before turning toward home to try out on Brother Berto the effect of my resurrection. But even to him I must avoid making the slightest reference to my residence in Rome, to my adventures there, and their outcome. The two years and some months of my absence I could fill in with fantastic stories of distant travels abroad. And now alive again I could take an honest pleasure in lying, bragging even of pravices beyond those of Mr. Tito Lenzi, Chevalier of the Crown. 52,000 lira left. Surely my creditors, supposing me to be dead, had helped themselves to the remaining title I had to the Coops and the Mill. The sale of that property had probably realised enough to satisfy them after a fashion. Now they wouldn't trouble me any more. And I would take care to avoid messes in the future, you may be sure. 52,000 lira. That amount of money in a place like Miragno, couldn't call it wealth exactly, but a good comfortable living and some to spare. On getting out of the train at Pisa my first move was to buy a hat of the style and dimensions that the late Mattia Pascal had worn in his time. And my second was to make for a barbershop to get the long hair of that imbecile Adriano Maze off my head. A nice close clip, eh? I suggested to the barber. My beard had already come out a bit, and with my hair short again I was beginning to look natural. Natural, with a bit of an improvement perhaps. A little more sleek and natty, a shade more gentile. For one thing I had had my eye fixed. In that respect I had lost one of the distinctive features of the late Mattia Pascal. Something of Adriano Maze there would always be in my face. But for the rest, how like Brother Bertha I looked. I should never have dreamed of such a close resemblance. In order not to present myself in too evident transiency at a hotel, I bought a travelling bag with the further thought that I could use it for the suit and overcoat I was wearing at the moment. I would have to get a brand new outfit. Small chance there would be that my wife at Miragno had kept any of my clothes this length of time. I bought a ready made suit in a store and kept it on, proceeding to the hotel Neptune with my new valise. I had been at Pisa once as Adriano Maze, and on that occasion I had stopped at the hotel London. Now there was nothing in the city to interest me as a sightseer. Fatigued with my night's journey and the nerve-wracking experiences of my previous day, when I had quite forgotten to eat, I took a quick breakfast and went straight to bed. I slept till late afternoon, and when I awoke it was with a horrible sense of depression and anguish. I had passed that critical day in deep unconscious slumber. But how had things been going back there in the Paliari household? Confusion, dismay, the morbid curiosity of strangers, suspicions, hypotheses, insinuations, fruitless investigations, my clothes and my books fingered and stared at with the consternation of which the exhibits in a tragedy always inspire. And I had been sleeping. And I would have to wait in my impresent impatience till the following morning to see what the Roman newspapers had to say. Since I did not go on to Miranjo nor even as far as Onelia, I would have to remain for two, three, who knows how many days, in a fine condition, dead in Miranjo as Mattia Pascal, dead in Rome as Adriano Maze. Having nothing else to do, I thought I would take my two corpses to walk about the streets of Pisa. And it was a pleasant diversion, I can tell you. Adriano Maze, as I said, knew Pisa like a book, and he insisted on playing guide and barker to Mattia Pascal. But the latter, with so many troublesome things on his mind, was in a detestable humor for sightseeing, and he kept shooing away that annoying ghost in the blue glasses, the long coat, and the broad brimmed hat. Oh, back to your river, sir! Don't you know you're drowned? But then I remembered that Adriano Maze, on his walks through those self-same streets two years before, had been just as bored with the opportunities of Mattia Pascal, whom, with the same ill-humour, he had tried to shove down under the water again in the mill-flume of Miranjo. As for me, I thought it better not to decide between them. Oh, white and shining tower of Pisa! You might lean to one side if you choose, but I erect impartial between the two impulses tugging at me. The next morning, when they got plenty good and ready, the papers from Rome began coming in. I will not aver that on reading what they said of me, my mind was quite put at ease. That was too much to hope for. But I was glad to note that my suicide was treated everywhere as one of the routine items in the daily news. They all said much the same thing, that a hat, a cane, and a laconic note had been found on the Ponte Margherita, that I came from Turin, that I was an eccentric individual, that no reason for my desperate action could be established. One notice indeed went so far as to suggest that some matter of the heart was probably involved, since the man Mayis came to blows the day before with a young Spanish painter in the house of a gentleman well known in clerical circles. Another reported that I had been recently troubled by financial worries. Nothing of consequence in short. But an afternoon sheet, that liked an emotional note in all its articles, more unctuously expaciated on the surprise and sorrow of the family of Chevalier Anselmo Pagliari, Executive Secretary, retired under the Department of Education, with whom the man Mayis resided, and who had learned to respect him for his distinguished bearing and his kindly regard for those about him. Thank you. The same article also reported the challenge I had received from the Spanish painter, Signor M. B., and hinted that my suicide was due to some secret and hopeless passion. So I had killed myself for Pepita Pantagada. Well, better that way, better that way. Adriana's name had not been dragged into the affair, nor was there any reference to the theft. The police, of course, would pursue their investigations, but on what clues? I could start for one earlier without fear. On calling at Roberto's townhouse, I found that he was at his farm in the country for the vintage. My joy on returning to my old haunts, which I had thought I would never see again, may well be imagined. Though I was not a little disturbed by my eagerness to hurry, by my fear of being recognized by some old acquaintance before I had a chance to surprise my relatives, by my foretaste of the emotion they would probably feel on suddenly finding me alive again in their presence. In fact, my excitement soon reached such a pitch that I was hardly my normal self. Everything seemed to be swimming before my eyes, and my blood ran cold. Would I never get there? When I rang at the gate of the pretty villa which Bercto had annexed along with his wife, I had the sensation of being back at last in a real world. The butler answered the bell. Come right in, please, said he, standing aside to hold the gate open. Who shall I say is calling? My voice failed me quite, but with a smile that I forced to conceal some of my agitation, I managed to stammer. Why, say, it's a friend, an old friend of his, from a long way off. Yes, that will do. At least the butler must have thought I was tongue-tied, but he showed me to a seat in the parlour, setting my valise on the floor near the hat rack. I was now beside myself with impatience and anticipation, laughing, panting, gazing around at the bright, comfortably furnished room in which I was sitting. Would Bercto never come? Suddenly I heard a sound in the doorway through which I had entered. It was a little child, perhaps four years old, with a toy watering-pot in one hand and a toy rake in the other. He was looking at me with all the eyes he had. A thrill of indescribable tenderness swept through me. My little nephew, Bercto's oldest boy. I leaned toward him affectionately and motioned to him with my hand. But he was scared and ran away as fast as his legs could carry him. But then I heard another door open and close. I rose to my feet, my eyes dim with tears, a convulsive grip, half laughter and half sob, catching at my throat. Bercto was before me. With whom have I the on, he began. Bercto, I cried, opening my arms. Bercto, don't you know me? At the sound of my voice Bercto turned white as a sheet, rapidly passed a hand across his eyes and forehead, and tottered as though about to fall. Why? Why? I rushed forward to support him, but he drew back in sheer terror. But it's I, Mattia. Don't be afraid. I'm not dead. See, touch me. It's I, Bercto. I was never more alive. There now, there now, there now. Mattia, Mattia, Mattia! My poor brother was at last able to cry, not yet ready quite to believe his eyes. You! What in the world? Oh, my brother, Mattia, Mattia! His arms were about me, squeezing me till it hurt. I broke down and stood weeping like a child. But tell me, Bercto at last murmured through his sobs, tell me, tell me. Well, it's I, don't you see? Back again. Not from the other world, oh no. I never left this disgusting one. Brace up now, and I'll tell you. But Bercto would not let go of me. His hands clutching at my arms, he looked up into my face, in utter bewilderment. But there, at the mill! It wasn't I. I'll tell you. They got it wrong. I was miles from Milrano at the time, but I heard about it as you probably did through the papers, my suicide in the flume. And it wasn't you, Bercto asked in a more normal voice. What have you been up to? Playing dead. But don't make too much noise. I'll give you the whole story later on. I can't right now. I'll say this much, that I knocked about here and there, thinking myself happy at first, you know. Then, well, from a number of things I decided I had made a mistake, that playing dead was not all it was cracked up to be. So here I am. I've come to life again. Crazy. Crazy. Crazy. I always said so, exclaimed Bercto with a smile. But this is beyond me. You can't begin to understand how I feel, Matia, my boy. You. My dead brother. You. Matia. Why, I can't believe it. Let me look at you. What's wrong? There's something different about you. There is, said I. I had that peeper of mine attended to. Oh yes, that's it. That's what puzzled me. I couldn't quite make you out. I don't know, your voice all right, but I looked at you and the longer I looked, well, well, well. But come upstairs and surprise my wife. Oh, but say, you. He stopped suddenly and looked at me, his face filling with dismay. You were going back to Miranjo? Of course I am this afternoon. So you don't know then? He pressed his hands to his face and groaned. You rascal. What have you done? What have you done? Don't you know that your wife dead? I exclaimed in a paroxysm of mingled fear and eagerness. Worse. Worse, said he. She is. She's married. I was dumbfounded. Married. Married. To Pomino. I got the announcement a year or more ago. Pomino. Pomino. Married to. I stammered. But a bitter, bitter laugh seemed to form inside me and gurgle up slowly from about my middle. At last it reached my throat and my lips. I laughed thunderously. Roberto stood looking at me, afraid perhaps that I might really have lost my mind. You were glad, he asked. Glad, I bellowed. Glad is no name for it. And I shook him by the arm. This news caps the climax of my good fortune. What are you talking about? exclaimed Roberto almost angrily. What good fortune. But you say you are going there? Of course I am, this minute. But don't you understand? You've got to take her back. I've got to take her back. What do you mean? You bet you have, Roberto insisted. This second marriage will be annulled and you will be obliged to take her back. It was my turn to fall from the clouds, and the bump I received on landing was not a pleasant one. What are you trying to tell me? I cried fiercely. My wife gets married again and I say come now, that can't be so. What crazy law. It's just as I'm telling you, Roberto affirmed. Wait, my wife's brother is right here. He's a lawyer and he'll explain the situation better than I can. Come along, or rather know you wait here. My wife is not very well. Perhaps it would be better not to surprise her. I'll break the news gently. So you just sit down, eh? But he clung to me till he was well outside the door, as though he were afraid that if he released me for a second I might disappear again. Left to myself, I began going round and round the room like a caged lion. Married again and to Pomino, of course, just like him. The same wife this time. He, to be sure, fell in love with her first. And she, well, why not? And while she was getting another husband here at home, I, in Rome, and now I take her back. That's a good one. Shortly Roberto came hurrying in at the head of a procession. I was so much upset by this time that I hardly acknowledged the welcome his wife and her family were giving me. Roberto noticed my distraction and appealed to his brother-in-law on the point I had so much at heart. But what kind of a law do you call that, I interrupted after a time. Are we governed by Turks? That's the law, the man answered with a smile. Roberto is right. I can't quote the article word for word, but the case is provided for in the code. The second marriage becomes null and void on the reappearance of the first spouse. So then, I stormed ironically, I must take back unto myself a woman, a woman who, to common knowledge, has been functioning for a year or more as wife to another man, said man, but through a fault of yours, if I may say so, my dear Mr Pascal, the lawyer rejoined with another smile. Why my fault, said I? Why my fault? That estimable lady first makes a false identification of a poor devil who has fallen into a pond. Then she hurries to take out a license to marry another man. And it's my fault. And I must take her back again. You must, replied the lawyer, and you are responsible since you, Mr Pascal, did not see fit within the time prescribed by law for contracting a second marriage, to correct the mistake your wife made, a mistake which I grant you may well have been in bad faith. You accepted her false identification and took advantage of it. Always for that, notice now, I am not saying you did wrong. On the contrary, I think you acted quite properly under the circumstances. I am surprised rather that you seem inclined to go home again and get mixed up with the stupid laws regulating such matters. If I were you, I would never show up again. The coolness of this young graduate of the law schools, the pedantic cocksure-ness with which he talked at last began to anger me. That's because you don't know what it all means, I replied with a shrug of my shoulders. Why, said he, I can't imagine a greater piece of good luck than the one which came to you. You're welcome to try it for yourself, I answered, turning to Roberto without excusing myself. But trouble was waiting for me with my brother as well. By the way, Berto asked me, how did you get along all this time? And he rubbed his thumb with his forefinger to suggest money. How did I get along, I answered. That's a long story. I haven't time or patience for it now. But I had plenty to live on, and I have some still. I hope you don't think I'm coming home because I'm hard up. So you're really going to Miran, you Berto persisted, even after what I told you. I certainly am, I exclaimed. Do you think that after all I've been through I intend to go on playing dead? Not by a long shot. No, sir. I'm going to get my papers straightened out, see that the record is clear, feel myself alive again, alive and kicking, even at the cost of taking back my wife. By the way, is the old lady still alive, the widow Pescatori? Ah, that I couldn't say, answered Roberto. You understand that after your wife married again. But so far as I know she is. You give me cheerful news, I remarked. But never mind. I'll square accounts with her. I'm not the chap I once was, you know. But I do hate to do a favour to that fool of a pomino by taking her off his hands. A general laugh. The butler came in to announce that dinner was served. There was no refusing, though I was so impatient to get on I scarcely tasted my food. But afterwards I noticed that I must have eaten well. The animal in me was awakening to the prospect of imminent combat. Bertha was all for keeping me with him at least for that one night, offering to go on with me the following morning. He was keen to witness the effect of my sudden swoop down upon the peaceful household of Pomino. But I could not think of such a thing. I insisted on proceeding alone that very night and without more delay. I took the eight o'clock train and in half an hour was at Miranjo. End of section 17. Section 18 of the late Mattia Pascal by Luigi Pirrandello, translated by Arthur Livingston. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Chapter 18. The late Mattia Pascal. In my impatience and my rage, I know not which was greater, I ceased to care whether anybody recognised me or not before or after I got there. I took just one precaution, a seat in the first class. For that matter it was dark, and my experience with Bertha reassured me. Convinced as everybody was of my fateful death two years before, no one would ever dream of taking me for Mattia Pascal. I leaned out of the car window, hoping that the sight of familiar scenes would divert my thoughts to less violent emotions. But this served only to intensify both my anger and my impatience. In the moonlight I made out the hills back of the coops, the wretches I hissed over there. But now, in my surprise at the unexpected news from home, I had forgotten to ask Robert to ever so many things. The farm and the mill, had they been sold? Or were they still in the hands of a receiver? How about Batty Malania? And Aunt Scholastica? Was all that only two years and a half, thirty months before? It felt more like a century. So many things had befallen me, it seemed life at Miran you must have been just as exciting. And yet, nothing much had happened, probably, except Ramilda's marriage to Pomino, commonplace enough in itself, though now my sudden return from the dead might make it appear unusual. Where would I go, when I got there? And where were they living? Certainly not where I used to live. My humble habitation as a two lira a day man would never do for Pomino, rich as the only son of a wealthy saha. Besides, Pomino, who was a sensitive fellow, would not have felt quite at home among so many reminders of me. Doubtless he had gone to live with his father in the palazzo. And imagine the widow pescatore and those surroundings. What heirs she would put on. And that poor old devil Gerolamo Pomino first, so timid, so gentle, so retiring. Bet he's having the time of his life in the claws of that old harpy. A real run for his money, for neither the old man nor his gozzling of a son would ever have the courage to kick her out. And now, the goat as usual, I take her off their hands. Yes, there's where I would go to the Pomino mansion, and even if they weren't there, I'd find out from the janitress or somebody. Oh, my quiet sleepy old home sweet home, what a shock you'll get tomorrow when you hear I'm alive again. There was a bright moon that evening, and all the public lights were off as usual. The streets were quite deserted since at that hour almost everybody was at supper. In my great excitement I was hardly aware that I had legs at all. I walked as on thin air, my feet scarcely touching the ground. I cannot describe the emotions I felt. They reduced to something like a great Homeric laughter shaking spasmodically about my diaphragm, unable to find a way out. I am sure that had I turned it loose it would have blown the houses over from the force of its explosion. I was at the Pomino place in no time, but to my surprise I found no one on hand in the sort of dog kennel on the driveway where the old janitress used to live. I knocked. For some moments no answer came. In the meantime my eye had a chance to fall on a piece of morning crepe, now bleached and dusty, which seemed to have hung exposed to the weather there for several months. Who had died? The widow pescatore? Cavalier Pomino? One of the two undoubtedly, more likely the old man. In which case I would find my two doves cooing up on the first floor in the grand suite, already settled in the palace. I was too impatient to wait. I opened the front door and ran up the stairs three steps at a time. On the first landing I met the janitress coming down. Cavaliere Pomino, I asked. From the astonishment with which the old mud turtle looked at me, I understood that the district inspector of education must have been dead a good long time. Young Mr. Pomino, Gerald Amino, I corrected, re-assuming my ascent. I couldn't quite understand what the old woman was muttering to herself. I know simply that at the top of the stairs I had to halt to catch my breath. The door to the Pomino apartment was in front of me. They may be still at dinner, I reflected philosophically, though in a flash. All three eating without the least suspicion. In a few seconds I will have knocked on this door and their lives will be topsy-turvy. Look, here in my hand rests the fate in store for them. I took the bell rope in my hand, and as I pulled it I listened, my heart leaping with excitement. The house was absolutely still. In the silence I could barely hear the distant tinkle of the bell. All the blood rushed to my head and my ears began to ring as though that faint tinkling which had been swallowed up in the silence were clanging furiously inside my brain. In a few seconds I started violently. On the other side of the door I heard a voice, the voice of the widow pescatore. Who's calling? I could not for an instant utter a sound. I pressed my fists to my chest to keep my heart from breaking through. Then with a husky hollow voice I answered, syllable by syllable. Matia Pascal. Who called the voice within? Matia Pascal, I answered, deepening my voice still further. Certainly the old witch was scared out of her wits, for I heard her pat her off down the hall as though the devil were after her. I could imagine what was taking place in the dining room. The man in the house would be sent out, Pomino, the courageous. However I had to ring again, gently, gently as before. Pomino threw the door wide open and there I stood, erect, my shoulders back, my chest thrown forward. He recoiled in terror. I strode upon him with a cry, Matia Pascal, from the other world. Pomino collapsed on the floor and sat there, his weight resting on his hands, his eyes staring with fright and bewilderment. Matia, you! The widow Pescatori came running out with a lamp in her hand. At the sight of me she gave one long piercing scream. I slammed the door too with a kick and caught the lamp before it could fall from her hands. Shut up, I hissed into her face. Do you really take me for a ghost? Alive, she gasped, pale as death, her hands clutching wildly at her hair. Alive, alive as they make him, I answered with ferocious joy. You swore I was dead, though, didn't you? Drowned, out there. Where did you come from? she asked in absolute terror. From the flume you witch I replied between my teeth. Here's the lamp up close. Look at me. Who am I? Do you recognize me? Or do you still think I'm the man they found in the flume? It wasn't you? Bad says to you, she goat. Here I am alive. And you, Mino, what are you sprawling there for? Get up. Where's Romilda? Oh, oh, oh, groaned Po Mino, jumping to his feet. The baby. I'm afraid she's nursing. What baby, said I? Our little girl. Oh, the murderer. The murderer shrieks the Pescatori woman. I was unable to answer. The effect of this latest piece of news was still so strong upon me. Your little girl. A baby to boot. Well, now that, my dear sir. Mama, go into Romilda, please, begged Po Mino. But it was too late. Romilda was already out in the hallway, her dressing gown unbuttoned at the top. Her baby nursing, her hair awry as though she had hurriedly risen from her bed. The moment she saw me, she cried, Matia. And she fell fainting into the arms of her husband and her mother. They dragged her away, considerably leaving me standing there with their baby in my arms. For I had run to the rescue also. With the lamp now gone, the hallway was almost pitch dark. But there I stood holding that frail, acrid-smelling bundle from which a tiny little voice came, blubbering through unswallowed milk. Alarmed, bewildered, not knowing what to do next, I was clearly conscious only of the shriek from the woman who had once been mine, and who now, precisely, ladies and gentlemen, was mother to this child who was not mine, who was not mine. Mine! Ah, mine she had hated in its poor little time. Mine she had never loved. So I now—no, no, a thousand times no, I would have no pity on this intruder, nor on them either. She had looked out for herself all right. She had married again, while I—I. But the faint whimper kept coming from the bundle on my arms. What could I do to stop it? Hush, little one! Hush, little one! That's a daisy! That's a daisy! And I began patting the infant on her tiny back, and tossing her gently to and fro. The bleeding grew fainter and fainter, and at last was still. Pomino's voice rang through the hallway. Matia! The baby! Shhh! You donkey! Don't wake her up again! What are you doing with her? Eating her roar. What do you suppose I'm doing with her? They chucked her at me. Now I've got her quiet. God's sake, don't wake her up on me now. Where's Romilda? Slinking up to me, suspicious and fearful, like a dog watching its puppy in the hands of its master, Pomino answered. Romilda? Why? Because I want to have a word with her, I replied gruffly. She's fainted, you know. Fainted? Nonsense. We'll bring her too. Pomino cringed in front of me, blocking my path. Oh, please, Matia. Listen, I'm afraid. How in the world are you here, alive? Where have you been? Where have you been? Oh, listen. Couldn't you talk with me instead? No, I thundered. My business is with her. Who are you, anyway? You don't count around here. What do you mean I don't count? Very simple. Your marriage is null and void on the return of the first spouse. Void? And how's that? And the baby? The baby. The baby, I muttered fiercely, in less than two years after my death. Married and with a baby. Shame on you. Hush, little one. Hush, little one. That's a daisy. Mama's coming soon. Here, show me the way, you. Is this the room? The moment my nose crossed the threshold of the bedroom, the widow Pescatori advanced upon me like a ravenous hyena. I had the baby on my left arm. With my right, I gave the old woman a solid push. You just mind your business. Here's your son-in-law here. If you've any fuss to make, make it with him. I don't know you. Romilda was weeping piteously. I bent over her, holding out the baby. Here, Romilda, you take her. Tears? Why do you feel so bad? Because I am alive. You wanted me dead, didn't you? Well, look at me. Look. Alive or dead. She tried to raise her eyes through her tears, and her voice breaking with sobs she murmured. Oh, Matia, how is this? You. What... what have you been doing? What have I been doing, I snickered? You ask me what I have been doing. It's clear what you've been doing. You've married again. That niny there. And you've had a baby. And now, oh, Matia, what have you been doing? Well, groaned Pomino, his face in his hands. But you. You. You. Where have you been? You ran away. You played dead. You deserted your wife. You. It was the widow pescatore, coming at me again with her arms raised. I seized one of her wrists and twisted it over till she was in my power. Listen, old lady, I then lectured. You just keep out of this, for if I hear another word from you, I swear I'll lose all pity for this dance of a son-in-law of yours, and for that little baby there, and I'll... I'll invoke the law. The law, understand? You know what the law says? This marriage is null and void on the return of the first spouse. I've got to take Romilda back to me. My daughter, back to you? You're crazy, the old woman cried in terror. But Pomino was reduced to zero. Mother dear. Mother dear, he begged. Please be quiet. Please be quiet for the love of God. And she let loose on him. Fool, imbecile, milk-soap, niny, coward, good for nothing but just to stand there, bleeding like a sheep. I could hardly hold my sides from laughing. Dry up now, I commanded, as soon as I could catch my breath. He can have her. He can have her. I wouldn't be crazy enough to take on a mother-in-law like you again. Poor, poor Pomino. Mino, old boy, forgive me if I called you an ass. But as you hear, your mother-in-law agrees with me. And I can assure you, Romilda, our wife, thought the same of you in the old days. Yes, she used the very same words for you. Fool, donkey, dunce, and I forget what else. Didn't you, Romilda? Tell the truth. Oh, now, dearie me, don't cry any more. Come, come, smile for us, won't you? It's bad for the baby, you know. I'm alive. That's all, you see. And I feel like being gay. Cheer up, as the drunken man said to me one night. Cheer up, Pomino. Do you think I'd really have the heart to leave your baby without a mama? Not on your life. I already have a son without a papa. Ever think of it, Romilda? Where quits? I have a son who is the son of Malania, and you a daughter who is the daughter of Pomino. Four square. One of these days will make them man and wife. Anyhow, you'll not feel so bad over that boy now. So let's change the subject. How did you and your mother ever come to see me in that poor devil they found in the flume? Oh, I did too, you know, said Pomino with a touch of anger, and so did everybody else, not just Romilda and her mother. You had good eyes, I must say. Was he really so much like me as all that? Your build, your hair and whiskers, your clothes, black, and besides, you had been gone so long. Deserting house and home, eh? As though they hadn't driven me to it. The old lady there. Ah, that woman! And yet I was coming back, you know, loaded with money, and then, as nice as you please, dead, drowned in an advanced state of decomposition. Best of all, identified. Thank heaven for one thing. I've been having one good time these two years. Our new people here. Engagement, wedding, honeymoon, house and housekeeping, baby. The dead are dead, eh? Long life to the living. And now, grown Pomino and pins and needles. What about it now? That's what's bothering me. Romilda got up to put the baby into its cradle. Suppose we step into the other room, I suggested. The little girls asleep again. Better not wake her up. We can talk in there. On the table in the dining room the supper dishes were still lying about. Trembling, wide-eyed, deathly pale, winking two cadaverous eyelids over two white glassy balls pierced in the middle by two small round black dots. Pomino sat in a chair, rubbing his forehead and mumbling as in a dream. Alive! Alive! How can we fix it? What's to become of us? Oh, why worry about that, I shouted impatiently. We'll come to that in due season, I tell you. Romilda made herself presentable and eventually came to join us. I sat looking at her under the bright lamp-light. As beautiful as she had ever been, I thought, even more bewitching than when I first met her. Let me have a look at you, I said. You don't mind, do you, Mino? What's the harm? She's my wife, too, you know. Perhaps more mine than yours. Oh, I didn't mean to make you blush, Romilda. See Mino squirming? But I'm not going to bite him. I'm not a ghost. This is intolerable, said Mino, livid with anger. He's getting nervous, I said, winking at Romilda. Come now, Mino old man, don't worry. I'm not going to cut you out again. And this time I'll keep my promise. Except, if you don't mind, just one. I went over to Romilda and smacked a loud kiss off her cheek. Matia shrieked Pomino desperately. Again I laughed aloud. Jealousy, I said, and of me. Now that's hardly fair. There's something coming to me on grounds of prior right, if for nothing else. Anyhow, Romilda, just forget it all. Forget it all. You see, in coming here—forgive me, won't you, Romilda? In coming here I supposed, my dear Mino, that you would be glad to have me take her off your hands. And the thought of doing so was not at all to my liking, I can tell you. For I wanted to get even with you, and I would like to still. But this time by stealing Romilda away from you, because I see you are in love with her, and she— well, yes, she's a dream, a dream, the way she was years ago when we first—you haven't forgotten a Romilda? Oh poor girl, I didn't intend to make you cry. But they were good days, those old ones, eh? Gone forever now. But never mind. You have a little girl of your own. And let's forget all about such things. Of course I'm not going to trouble you. What do you take me for? But this marriage, it's null and void, cried Pomino. What do you care, I answered? That may be the law of it, but who's going to invoke the law? I'm not. I won't even bother to cancel my death certificate, unless I'm forced by money-matters. I'm satisfied if people have a look at me, know I'm alive and well, and see that I'm through with this playing dead—a death which was a real one, I assure you. You were married publicly. For a year or more you have been living publicly as man and wife. Such you will continue to be. Who's going to ask any questions about the legal status of Romilda's first marriage? That water has gone under the bridge. Romilda was my wife. Now she's yours, and mother of a child of yours. A few days gossip and everybody will drop the subject. Am I not right, you miserable, twice-over-mother-in-law? A pescatore woman, frowning, ferocious, nodded in the affirmative. But Pomino, more and more nervous, asked. But you're going to settle here at Miranjo? Of course, and I'll come once in a while to get a cup of coffee or sip a glass of wine to your health. That you won't, snarled the widow, jumping to her feet. But he's joking. Can't you see, said Romilda, keeping her eyes away from mine? I laughed aloud as I had before. You see, Romilda, I gested, they're afraid we'll begin making love again, and it would serve them right. However, let's not be too hard on Pomino. Since he doesn't care to have me in the house, I'll just walk up and down in the street under your windows. What do you say? A serenade, not too often, of course. Pomino was now stamping up and down the room in a veritable frenzy. Intolerable, he cried. This won't do. This won't do. All at once he stopped and said, You can't get away from the fact that, with you here, alive, she won't ever be my wife. Just you pretend I'm dead, I answered quietly. He began stamping up and down again. I can pretend no such thing. Well, don't then. But do you think I'm going to disturb you, unless Romilda asks me to? After all, she's the one to decide. Say, Romilda, speak up now. Which is the better looking, he or I? I am thinking of the law, said Pomino, almost in a scream. Romilda looked at him anxiously. Well, I remarked, as matters stand, it seems I'm the one who has more right to find fault than anybody. I've got to see my beautiful, my charming, my quantum better half, and help meet living with you as your wife. But Romilda, exclaimed Pomino, she isn't really my wife any longer. Bosh, I replied. I came here to get even, and I let you off. I give you my wife. I guarantee not to annoy you. And still you are not satisfied. Come, Romilda, get on your things. Let's be going, the two of us, on a honeymoon. We'll have a great time. Why bother with this thing here? He's not a man, he's a law-book. Why, he's asking me really to go and drown myself in the flume. No, I'm not asking that, cried Pomino, in utter exasperation, but go away at least. Leave town, live somewhere else, far away. And for heaven's sake don't let anybody see you, because I, here, with you alive— I rose and laid my hand gently on his shoulder to quiet him a little. I told him I had already called on my brother at Onelia, that everyone probably by this time knew, or that certainly by the next morning would know, that I had come to life again. Then I added, But you ask me to drop out of sight again, and live far away from here. Play dead again, in short. You must be joking, my dear boy. Come, brace up, you play husband the best way you can, and stop worrying. Your marriage, come what may, is a solemn fact. Everybody will stand by you, especially since there's a little one involved. As for me, I promise, I swear never to come near you, even for a puny little cup of coffee, even for the sweet, the exalting, the exhilarating spectacle of your blissful union, your devoted passion, your exemplary concord, all built up on my considerateness in dying, ungrateful wretches. I'll wager not on one of you, not even you, Pomino, bosom friend of my boyhood, ever took the trouble to place a wreath, a bunch of flowers on my grave there in the cemetery. A good guess, eh? Tell the truth, did you? You are having a good time with us, aren't you? exclaimed Pomino, shrugging his shoulders. A good time? Nothing of the kind. I'm in deadly earnest. It's a question of a soul in purgatory. No room for joking. Tell me. Did you? No, I didn't. I didn't have the courage to, Pomino murmured. But courage enough to run off with my wife behind my back, eh? you rascal. Well, how about yourself, Pomino retorted with some spirit? You took her away from me, didn't you, in the first place, when you were alive? I, I exclaimed in injured astonishment. There you go again. Can't you get it into your head that she didn't want you? Will you force me to repeat that she thought you were a niny, a fool, a nincompoop? Here, Romilda, come to my rescue. You see, he's accusing me of false friendship. However, what does it matter after all? He's your husband, so we'll have to let it go at that. But it's not my fault. Just admit that. I'll go myself tomorrow to pay a visit to that poor man left there in the graveyard all by himself, without a flower and without a tear. Tell me, there's a stone at least on his mound. Yes, Pomino hastened to reply. The town put one up. Poor Papa, you remember. Yes, I know. He delivered the funeral oration. If that poor man could have heard. What's the epitaph? I don't know. Lord Oletta made it up. The lark himself, I sighed. The poet laureate of Toadville. Did you ever? Anyhow, we can drop that subject, too. Now, I should like to know how you came to marry so soon. Not long didst thou weep for me, Mary Widow-mine. Probably not at all, eh? But for heaven's sake, can't you say a word to me, not one little word? Look, it's getting late. As soon as morning comes, I'll go away, and it will be as if we had never known each other. Let's not waste these few hours. Come, answer me. Romilda shrugged her shoulders, glanced at Pomino, and smiled nervously. Lowering her eyes and staring at her hands, she then said, What can I answer? Of course I was sorry. I cried. And you didn't deserve it, the widow pescatore volunteered. Thanks, Mother dear, I replied. But not so very much, eh? Just a little. Those pretty eyes of yours, they don't see very well, to be sure, when it comes to identifying people, but still a shame to turn them red, eh? We were left at a pretty fix, Romilda continued, by way of extenuation. If it hadn't been for him. It was nice of you, Mino, I agreed. But that rat of a malania, no help from him? Not a scent, the pescatore woman said dryly. He did everything. And she pointed to Pomino. Or rather, or rather, Mino corrected. Poor Papa, you remember he was connected with the administration. Well, he got Romilda a bit of a pension in view of the circumstances, and then later on, later on he consented to the wedding. Oh, he never objected really, and he wanted us all here with him. However, two months ago, and Mino launched out on a narrative of his father's death, of the love the old man had for Romilda and the little girl, the tribute the whole town paid him on his passing. I interrupted with a question about Aunt Scholastica, who had been such a favourite with old Pomino. The pescatore woman, still mindful of the pan of dough plastered on her face by that terrible virago, hitched uncomfortably on her chair. Pomino explained that he had not seen her for two years, but that she was still alive, and so far as he knew well. But what has been happening to you all this time, he now asked? Where have you been? What have you been doing? I told him all I could, avoiding people, places, and dates, to show that I had not been idle those two years, and so we filed away the hours far into the night, waiting for the morning when I should publicly declare my resurrection. We were growing weary from lack of sleep and the strenuous emotions we had been experiencing, and it was a trifle cold besides. To warm us up a little, Romilda insisted on preparing coffee for me with her own hands. As she handed the cup to me, my eyes met hers, and a faint distant smile touched with a wistful sadness flittered across her lips. Without sugar as usual, I suppose. What was it she caught in my gaze? At any rate, she hastily looked the other way. In the cold pale glow of the early dawn, I felt a clutch of unexpected homesickness gather at my throat. I looked at Pomino bitterly. But there the coffee was, steaming hot before me. The fragrance of it filled my nostrils. I took up the cup and slowly began to sip the delicious drink. May I leave my bag with you till I know where I am going to live? I asked Pomino finally. I'll be back after it before long. Why, of course, of course, preferred Minho solicitously. In fact, don't bother to come and get it. I'll have a man take it to you. It's not so heavy, I said I, with a sly look at Romilda. And by the way, I asked, turning to her, have you any of my things left, perchance? Shirts, socks, underwear? No, she answered sorrowfully with a gesture of helplessness. I gave them all away. You understand, after such a tragedy. Who could imagine you would ever come back, exclaimed Pomino. But I would take my oath that, at the very moment, Pomino, skin flint that he was, had one of my old neckties on. Well, never mind, I said, ready to take my leave now. Goodbye, eh? And good luck. I had my eyes on Romilda, but she refused to meet my gaze. I noticed only that her hand quivered as she responded to my clasp. Goodbye. Goodbye. Once out in the street I again felt lost, solitary, homeless, without a place to go or a purpose to realise, though I was back in my own native village, the haunts of my boyhood. I began to walk, however, looking anxiously at the people I kept meeting. How was that? Would not a soul recognise me? And yet I was the very same person. The least anyone might have remarked on noticing me was my extraordinary resemblance to the late Mattia Pascal. If he had one eye a little out of true, you could take him for Mattia outright. But nothing of the kind. No one recognised me, because everybody had forgotten about me, ceased thinking of me at all. My presence aroused not the slightest curiosity, let alone surprise. And I had been thinking of an earthquake, more or less, a sensation, a stoppage of traffic, the moment I appeared on the streets. In my great disappointment I felt a humiliation, a bitterness, a spite, that I could not now express in words but which I then expressed by cutting, by refusing to approach people whom I, for my part, recognised perfectly well. Why not, after a few months' absence merely? Yes, I could now see what dying meant. No one, not a living soul, had a thought for me. I might just as well never have existed at all. Twice I walked the length of the main street of Miragno without attracting a glance from anybody. Hurt to the quick I thought for a moment of going back to Pomino's and informing him that I did not like the bargain we had made. Why not take out on his hide my irritation at the insult my hometown was offering me? But Romilda would never have followed me without constraint, nor did I for the moment have a place to take her. I ought to have a house ready at least for the girl I was eloping with. Next I decided to go to the town hall and have my name scratched off the registry of deaths. But on the way there I changed my mind and headed for the Boca Matza library. I found in the old place I once had held my reverend friend Don Eligio Pelle Grinotto, who did not recognise me either on the spot. To tell the truth Don Eligio claims that he did know me from the very first, but that he wanted to hear my name and be absolutely sure before throwing his arms around my neck in tearful welcome. You see, says Don Eligio, it couldn't possibly be you. Well, you couldn't expect me to let myself go with a man who merely looked like you. Be that as it may, my first real greeting came from him, and it was a warm one I can tell you. He insisted on dragging me back to the village by main force to drive from my mind the bad impression the coldness of my fellow townsmen had made upon me. Having expressed myself so clearly on this latter subject, it would now be surely in bad taste to describe what happened, first in Bricigo's drugstore, and later at the Union Café when Don Eligio, prouder than he had ever been in his life, presented me as one returning from the dead. The news swept the town like wildfire, and the whole population turned out to have a look at me and ply me with millions of questions. So it wasn't you they found in the flume at the coops. Well, who was it then? I don't know how many times I was asked to answer that full question. Yes, everybody, each in turn, as though they could not believe their eyes. So you're really you. Who else? Where'd you come from? The other world? What have you been doing? Playing dead. I made up my mind not to budge from those three answers, and I left them all on pins with the curiosity that lasted for days and days. And no better luck fell to my friend the lark who came to interview me for the compendium. To make me open up a little, he produced a copy of his journal dated some two years before, the number containing my obituary. I told him I knew the thing by heart and that the compendium was widely read in the other world. In heaven? Of course not, in the other place. You'll see for yourself some day. Finally he mentioned my epitaph. Oh, yes, and thanks ever so much. I'll drop around to the cemetery some afternoon and have a look at it. I will not bother to transcribe his feature of the next Sunday, which started off with a headline in big letters, Mathia Pascal Alive. Among the few, besides my creditors, who did not show up to congratulate me, was Buddy Malania. Nevertheless, as I was told, he had made a great fuss two years before over my cruel suicide. I quite believe it. He was as sorry then over my tragic death as he was now over my resurrection. I understand why, in both cases. I found a home with my aunt Scholastica, who insisted absolutely that I come to live with her. My queer adventure somehow had raised me in her estimation. I have the very room in which poor mother died, and most of the day I spend either there or here at the library with Don Elidio. He is still very far from completing his inventory. With his help I have finished my strange story in about six months. He had re-read my book, which I have re-read every word, but will keep the secret, as though I had revealed it to him under the seal of the confessional. We have argued a good deal about the significance of my experiences, and I have often said to him that I still can't see what earthly good it is ever going to do anybody to know about them. Well, there's this, for one thing, says he. Your story shows that outside the law of the land, and apart from those little happenings, painful or pleasant as they may be, which make us each what we are, life, my dear Pascal, life is impossible. Whereupon I point out to him that I failed to see how that can be, for I have not regularised my life, whether it be in relation to the law of the land or in relation to my private affairs. My wife is the wife of Pomino, and I'm not quite sure who I am myself. In the cemetery at Miranio, on the grave of the poor chap they found in the flume, the stone still stands with Lordoletta's epitaph. Orwhelmed by evil fortune, here lies of his own will, Mathia Pascal, scholar, book lover, librarian, a generous heart, a loyal soul, may he rest in peace. Erected to his memory by his sorrowing fellow townsmen. I have placed on the grave the wreath I said I would, and every now and then I visit the cemetery for the sensation of seeing myself dead and buried there. People often watch me from a distance on such occasions, and sometimes somebody meets me at the gate and in view of my situation asks me. But say, who are you really, anyway? I shrug my shoulders, wink an eye, and answer, why, what can I say? I guess I'm the late Mathia Pascal. The end. End of chapter 18. End of the late Mathia Pascal by Luigi Pirandello. Translated by Arthur Livingstone.