Eleven Short Stories. Luigi Pirandello

first published in Il Marzocco on October 2, 1904. It was later included in Erma bifronte, 1906, and in the fifth volume of Novelle per un anno, 1923.

      The doctor’s domestic situation is a bitter parody of the author’s own when his wife’s breakdown and paralysis in 1903 left him in charge of their three small children. The stark beauty and crushing poverty of his native region (all that the peasants can find to chat about is one crop failure after another) are tellingly depicted, as are the hateful envy of the dying man and the tragedy of “Liolà,” his life-loving cousin. The 1916 play Liolà, although it also concerns a handsome young folk poet and even includes an almond-shelling scene, is based on different material.

      “La giara” (The Oil Jar) was first published in the Corriere della Sera, Milan, on October 20, 1909. It was later included in the volume Terzetti (Sets of Three), 1912, and in the eleventh volume of Novelle per un anno, 1928. Pirandello’s one-act dramatization was first produced in 1917. A ballet based on the play was performed in Paris in 1924 by Jean Borlin’s Ballets Suédois, with music by Alfredo Casella and sets by Giorgio De Chirico. The story has been translated as “The Jar.”

      This has been called Pirandello’s most popular story. The confrontation of the two monomaniacs is delightful, and the wild dance at the end raises the story to almost mythic dimensions.

      “Non è una cosa seria” (It’s Not to Be Taken Seriously) was first published in the Corriere della Sera on January 7, 1910. It was later included in Terzetti, 1912, and in the eleventh volume of Novelle per un anno, 1928. A previous translation was called “It’s Nothing Serious.” Certain story elements were reused by Pirandello in his three-act play Ma non è una cosa seria (But It’s Not to Be Taken Seriously), 1918.

      Perazzetti is a first-rate Pirandello eccentric, unable to control himself even though his actions are based on a strong personal philosophy. Pirandello had already used the plot element of a marriage-to-prevent-marriage in his story “La signora Speranza” (Mrs. Speranza; included in the second series of Beffe della morte e della vita [Jests of Death and Life], 1903, but not in Novelle per un anno), and it is on this earlier story that the above-mentioned play is chiefly based. The only plot elements in the play taken from the 1910 story that is included in the present volume are the wounding of the protagonist in a duel with a prospective brother-in-law and his sending his unwanted wife to live in the country. On the other hand, the 1910 story is the only version containing the significant thematic elements of the protagonist’s helpless laughter, his theory of the “primordial beast” and—most Pirandellian of all—the many roles that different situations compel him to play.

      Pirandello evidently liked Perazzetti so much that he used him in another story, the 1914 “Zuccarello distinto melodista” (Zuccarello, the New Kind of Singer), but in that story he merely placed him in another offbeat adventure without resuming the themes of “Non è una cosa seria.”

      Duels occur in other Pirandello stories as well, usually as grotesque affairs into which the unmartial hero is forced against his will.⁴

      “Pensaci, Giacomino!” (Think It Over, Giacomino!) was first published in the Corriere della Sera on February 23, 1910. It was later included in Terzetti, 1912, and in the eleventh volume of Novelle per un anno, 1928. Pirandello’s three-act dramatization (same title) was first produced in 1916. The story has been translated with the title “Better Think Twice About It!”

      Pirandello’s long years as an instructor are reflected in the attitude of Professor Toti and the many other teachers who appear in his stories and plays. The story is told completely in the present tense, so that the dialogue sounds like stage dialogue and the narrative sounds like stage directions. In the 1916 play, the entire first act takes place at the high school and concerns Toti’s “wooing” of the janitor’s daughter, who is already pregnant by Giacomino. The rest of the play follows the story pretty much, the main difference being in the introduction of a slimy jesuitical priest as spiritual adviser of Giacomino’s devout sister. Here Pirandello gives all too free rein to his declared atheism and produces a one-sided anticlerical tract.

      “La tragedia d’un personaggio” (A Character’s Tragedy) was first published in the Corriere della Sera on October 19, 1911. It was later included in the volume La trappola (The Trap), 1915, and in the fourth volume of Novelle per un anno, 1922. It has been translated with the title “The Tragedy of a Character.”

      Besides being very readable, this story is highly important for its thematic connection with the play Six Characters and with the famous manifesto/foreword to that play, one of Pirandello’s most explicit statements about his art. Yet another instance of the author’s “giving audience” to his characters during announced visiting hours occurs in the 1915 story “Colloquii coi personaggi” (Conversations with My Characters; later included in the volume Berecche e la guerra [Berecche and the War], 1919, but not in Novelle per un anno), but the nature of those conversations is not really similar to the present story. On the other hand, the 1906 story “Personaggi” (Characters; never included in a collected volume) is extremely closely related to both the 1911 story and the Six Characters preface. In the 1902 story “Pallottoline!” (Tiny Spheres!), the main character, an amateur astronomer, forgets his woes by thinking about the Earth’s insignificance within the whole universe: a clear analogy to Dr. Fileno’s “philosophy of distance” and his reverse use of the telescope.

      “La rallegrata” (A Prancing Horse; literally, The Prance) was first published in the Corriere della Sera on October 26, 1913. It was later included in La trappola, 1915, and in the third volume of Novelle per un anno, 1922. It has been translated with the title “Black Horses.”

      Pirandello’s sympathy for the plight of animals (especially dogs and horses) that share human society is evident in a number of stories. But the main subject here is really that of death and burial, a theme that Pirandello developed countless times from every conceivable point of view. (He himself once wished for a simple funeral, with a pauper’s hearse drawn by a single horse and no crowd in attendance; his testamentary desire to have his ashes placed humbly in his native home was not fulfilled until long after his death, because the Fascist regime demanded a showy public funeral in Rome.)

      The “horsy” vocabulary in this story is quite difficult, and the present translator gratefully acknowledges the borrowing of a few technical terms from the above-mentioned “Black Horses” (in Better Think Twice About It And Twelve Other Stories, translated by Arthur and Henrie Mayne, published by John Lane The Bodley Head Ltd, London, 1933)—but even there some of the text is simply omitted! The reader’s indulgence is requested for any technical deficiencies that still remain in the present version after exhausting the aid of all available dictionaries.

      “La signora Frola e il signor Ponza, suo genero” (Mrs. Frola and Mr. Ponza, Her Son-in-Law) first appeared in the volume of stories E domani, lunedì … (And Tomorrow, Monday …), published by Treves, Milan, 1917. It was included in the (posthumous) fifteenth volume of Novelle per un anno, 1937. It is the source of the three-act play Così è (se vi pare) (Right You Are, If You Think You Are), produced the same year that the story was published. The story has been translated with the title “Signora Frola and Her Son-in-Law, Signor Ponza,” “Mrs. Frola and Her Son-in-Law, Mr. Ponza” and “A Mother-in-Law.”

      This is probably the key Pirandello story about the relativity of truth and the impossibility of penetrating other people’s minds. Valdana is also used as the name of a provincial town in the 1909 story “L’illustre estinto” (The Illustrious Deceased). In the above-mentioned story “‘Leonora, addio!’” there is a woman who is unmistakably kept locked up by an insanely jealous husband.

      Even though the play based on this story is one of Pirandello’s most important, and was a turning point in his whole career, it is still possible to prefer the original story. Among other things, the play introduces a character who exists merely to speak for the author (like the raisonneur role in nineteenth-century