“A Christmas Dream” (“Sogno di Natale”)

Translated by Michael Subialka

How to cite this work:

Pirandello, Luigi. “A Christmas Dream” (“Sogno di Natale”), tr. Michael Subialka. In Stories for a Year, eds. Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka, Digital Edition, www.pirandellointranslation.org, 2022.

“A Christmas Dream” (“Sogno di Natale”) was first published in the periodical Rassegna settimanale universale on December 27, 1896. Pirandello did not collect or republish the story during his lifetime, and it was only added posthumously to the Appendix (Appendice) of the Stories for a Year (Novelle per un anno).

One of Pirandello’s early stories, as well as one of his shorter stories, this tale nevertheless prefigures important features of Pirandello’s later poetics while connecting them to the sentimental theme of Christmas memories. While the topic of Christmas was not a pervasive one for Pirandello, in the same year he penned another tale reflecting on Christmastime with a nostalgic recollection of his life as a student in Bonn, Germany, where he boarded with the family of the girl who he fell in love with there, Jenny Schulz Lander: “Christmas on the Rhein” (“Natale sul Reno,” 1896). Beyond this theme, it is worth highlighting how “A Christmas Dream” uses the titular dream sequence to reflect not just on the spirit of the holiday and the ways in which modernity has lost touch with the sacred, but also as an opportunity to examine the inner subject through its doubling. The dreamlike character of Pirandello’s explorations of the human condition is ubiquitous, from his theatrical masterpiece Six Characters in Search of an Author (Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore, 1921/25), which emerges like a “nightmare” (“incubo”), to his later short stories like “Effects of an Interrupted Dream” (“Effetti d’un sogno interrotto,” ) or “The Reality of Dreams” (“La realtà del sogno,” ), where the argument is even more explicitly central. The theme of doubling in turn is significant across his works, and in some, like his novel The Late Mattia Pascal (Il fu Mattia Pascal, 1904/5), it even becomes the governing narrative device. In “A Christmas Dream,” there is likewise a hint at Pirandello’s mature poetics in the ironic structure of the story, which ends in a sudden reversal that transforms the otherwise serious ruminations presented by the dream sequence. While here this reversal could feel a bit like a cheap laugh, in the theory of humor that Pirandello would later elaborate the combination of a serious, sad, or tragic reflection on the existential limits of human life is paired with laughter and ironic distance in a way that creates a bittersweet, tragicomic effect; and that combination is already visible here, as well.

The Editors

For a bit now I had felt on my head, bowed between my shoulders, what seemed like the impression of a light hand, somewhere between a caress and an act of protection. But my soul was far away wandering through all the places I had seen since my childhood that still made me feel something, although not to the point that this feeling satisfied the need I felt to relive life, even just for a minute, as I imagined it must be unfolding in those places at that moment.[1]

There were celebrations everywhere: in every church, in every house: up that way, around the yule log; down that way, in front of a nativity scene; the faces of notables among those of the unknown, gathered together in a joyful feast; there were holy songs, the sounds of zampognas,[2] exultant children’s shouts, the squabbles of people at play… And in cities both great and small, in hamlets, in small alpine villages and those along the coast, the streets were deserted in the harsh weather of the night. And it seemed to me that I was rushing through those streets, from this house to that, to enjoy others’ holiday gatherings; I stayed a bit in each, and then I wished them “Merry Christmas” and vanished…

In that way, without realizing it, I had already entered the realm of sleep and was dreaming. And in my dream, it seemed that I suddenly met Jesus wandering in those same deserted streets, through that same night in which, by custom, the world still celebrates His birth.[3] He went along almost furtively, pale, collected in Himself, with a closed hand against His forehead and His deep, clear eyes focused on the emptiness: He seemed full of an intense grief, prey to an infinite sadness.

I set out along the same street; but bit by bit His image attracted me such that I became absorbed in it; and then it seemed that I combined with Him to make one single person. At a certain point, however, I was dismayed at the lightness with which I wandered those streets, almost flying over them, and instinctively I brought myself to a halt. Right away Jesus split off from me,[4] and he continued alone even lighter than before, like a feather blown by a breath of air; and I, left on the ground like a black spot, became His shadow and followed Him.

The city streets suddenly disappeared: like a white spirit glowing with an inner light, Jesus flew over a tall hedge of blackberries, which stretched on infinitely in the midst of a boundless, black plain. And He easily brought me along behind Him, on the hedge, stretched out as long as he was tall, bit by bit among the thorns that pricked me all over, though without cutting me.

In the end I jumped for a moment from the bristling hedge to the soft sands of a narrow beach: the sea was before me, and over the palpitating black waters was a luminous road that ran on, narrowing gradually until it became a point in the immense arc of the horizon. Jesus set out on that road, which was traced out by the lunar reflection, and I behind Him, like a little black boat amidst the glints of light on the frigid waters.

All of a sudden, the inner light of Jesus went out: once again we were traversing the deserted streets of a great city. Now and then he would pause to listen in at the doorways of the humblest homes where Christmas was not a mere pretext for merrymaking, not because of sincere devotion but for lack of money.

“They aren’t sleeping…” mumbled Jesus. Then, catching some rough words of hatred or envy spoken inside, He clutched Himself with a sharp jolt, and while the imprint of His fingernails remained on the top of His pure, folded hands, He groaned: “I am dead to them, as well…”

We went on in that way for a long time, stopping every once in a while, until we were in front of a church; and turning to me, who was His shadow on the ground, what does Jesus say but:

“Get up and welcome me in yourself. I want to enter this church and see.”

It was a magnificent church, an immense basilica with three naves and enriched with splendid marbles and gold on the ceiling; and it was filled with a throng of the faithful who were intent on the function that was being performed on the pompously decorated main altar, the officiants in the midst of a cloud of incense. In the warm light of the hundred silver candlesticks, the golden equisetum plants lining the priest’s chasuble shone with every gesture among the foam of the precious lace altar cloth.[5]

“And for them,” Jesus said within me, “I would be happy if I truly were to be born for the first time tonight.”

We exited the church. And having returned to being in front of me like before, and placing a hand on my chest, Jesus went on:

“I am looking for a soul in which to live again. You see how I am dead to this world, which nonetheless has the audacity to go on celebrating the night of my birth. Perhaps your soul would not be too restricted for me, were it not encumbered by so many things that you ought to cast away. You would gain from me one hundred times over what you are to lose, following me and abandoning what you falsely esteem to be necessary for you and yours: this city, your dreams, the comforts with which you seek in vain to tempt your foolish suffering for the world… I am looking for a soul in which to live again. It could be yours, as it could be that of any other person of good will.”

“The city, Jesus?” I replied, dismayed. “And my house, and my loved ones, and my dreams?”

“You would gain from me one hundred times over what you are to lose,” He repeated, removing His hand from my chest and looking at me squarely with those deep, clear eyes.

“Ah, I cannot, Jesus…” I went, after a moment of perplexity, ashamed and humiliated, allowing my arms to fall at my sides.

As if the hand whose impression on my bowed head I had felt at the beginning of the dream had given me a strong push against the hard wood of the little table, at that moment I awoke with a start, rubbing my sore forehead. My torment is here, it’s here, Jesus! Here, without peace and without rest, I can do aught from morn to night but bang my head against the wall.[6]