“If …” (“Se …”)

Translated by Enzo Lauretta

How to cite this work:

Pirandello, Luigi. “If …” (“Se …”), tr. Enzo Lauretta. In Stories for a Year, eds. Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka, Digital Edition, www.pirandellointranslation.org, 2022.

“If …” (“Se …”) first appeared in the literary journal La Tribuna illustrata della Domenica on August 26, 1894, and a few years later in Psiche (September 11, 1897) and Ariel (June 5, 1898), the journal Pirandello founded in that same year together with intellectuals Ugo Fleres and Giuseppe Mantica. In 1902, the story was included in the collections Beffe della morte e della vita (Jests of Death and Life) published by Lumachi in Florence and finally in the Stories for a Year as part of the first Collection, Black Shawl (Scialle nero, 1922).

Usually labeled as one of the “juvenile” short stories, together with “Little Hut” (“Capannetta,” 1884) and “The Wealthy Woman” (“La ricca,” 1892), “If …” (“Se …”) appeared in the same year as Pirandello’s marriage to Antonietta Portulano and the publication of his very first collection of tales, Loves Without Love (Amori senza amore).

In “If…” the skimpy plot takes its cue from a tragic adultery that becomes the subject of an existential conversation between the protagonist and a fellow soldier he had met when they were both serving in the army. Their casual encounter at the train station – one of Pirandello’s preferred spaces representing displacement par excellence – gives rise to a conversation on the dilemmas of possibility and the unpredictable role that fate plays in shaping it. In the story’s dialogic structure, adultery fades into the background, as also happens in the 1903 story “A Mere Formality” (“Formalità”), which was also included in Black Shawl. Meanwhile, the author’s reflection on destiny becomes increasingly central. The titular “if” points to causality, contingency, and the many (imagined, missed) opportunities life presents. Interestingly, a major reflection on the conditional clause returns in the last chapter of Pirandello’s important essay, On Humor (L’umorismo, 1908), where he analyzes the conjunction ‘if’ as an element that is integral to the process of decomposition in the logic of humor. As in this story, the emphasis on the “if” moment gives rise to conflicting accounts of what might have happened or what might be true beyond the mere reality of the present state of things.

The Editors

“Is it arriving or leaving?” Valdoggi asked himself, hearing the whistle of a train and looking at the railway station building from a table in front of the chalet in Piazza delle Terme.

He focused on the train's whistle, as he would have focused on the continuous dull hum of the electric light poles, in order to distract his eyes from a customer who was staring at him from the next table with an irritating fixity.

For a few minutes he succeeded. He pictured in his mind the interior of the station, where the opaline glow of the electric light contrasts with the gloomy and darkly audible emptiness under the immense sooty skylight; and he tried to imagine all the troubles of a traveler, whether departing or arriving.

Inadvertently, however, he caught sight again of the customer at the next table.

He was a man in his forties, black-clad, with sparse, thin, reddish hair and moustache, a pale face, and eyes somewhere between green and grey, cloudy and bruised.

An old woman stood next to him, half-asleep; her placid air took on a strange aspect that came from her cinnamon-colored dress, diligently trimmed with black zig-zag cords, and the worn and tattered hat capping her woolly hair, which knotted voluminously in thick black ribbons under her chin, tipped with a fringe of silver thread making it look like two ribbons taken from a mortuary wreath.

Valdoggi immediately took his eyes off the man again, but this time in a state of real exasperation, which made him turn about on his chair rudely and blow loudly through his nostrils.

What did the stranger want? Why was he looking at him like that?

He turned: he wanted to look at him too, with the intention of making him lower his eyes.

“Valdoggi,” he whispered, almost to himself, nodding his head slightly, without moving his eyes.

Valdoggi frowned and leaned forward a little to better recognize the face of the man who had whispered his name. Or had he been deceived? And yet, that voice...

The stranger smiled sadly and repeated:

“Valdoggi: is it true?”

“Yes…” said the bewildered Valdoggi, trying to smile at him, undecided. And he stammered: “But I... sorry... you, sir…”

“Sir?[1] I am Griffi!”

“Griffi? Ah…” Valdoggi said, confused, ever more lost, looking back in his memory for an image that would revive that name.

“Lao Griffi... thirteenth infantry regiment... Potenza…”[2]

“Griffi!... you?”[3] Valdoggi suddenly exclaimed, stunned. “You?... so…”

Griffi accompanied his newfound friend's exclamations of astonishment by desolately nodding his head; and each hesitation was perhaps at the same time a nod and a tearful salute to the memories of the good old days.

“Really me... like so! Unrecognizable, am I?”

“No... I wouldn’t say that... but I imagined you…”

“Tell me, tell me, how did you imagine me?” Griffi interrupted him at once; and, as if impelled by a strange anxiety, he drew nearer with a sudden movement, blinking his eyelids again and again and clasping his hands, as if to repress his eagerness. “You imagined me? Eh, sure... tell me, tell me... how?”

“I don't know!” said Valdoggi. “In Rome? Did you resign?”

“No, tell me how you imagined me, please!” insisted Griffi earnestly. “Please…”

“Well... still in the service, I don't know!” resumed Valdoggi, shrugging his shoulders. “A captain, at least... Do you remember? Oh, and Artaserse? Do you remember Artaserse, the lieutenant?”

“Yes... yes…” answered Lao Griffi, almost crying. “Artaserse... Eh, more!”

“Who knows what happened to him!”

“Who knows!” repeated the other with a solemn and gloomy gravity, widening his eyes.

“I thought you were in Udine…” Valdoggi went on, to change the subject. But Griffi sighed, abstract and absorbed:

“Artaserse…”

Then he shook himself suddenly and asked:

“And you? You resigned too, did you? What happened to you?”

“Nothing happened to me,” Valdoggi answered. “I completed my service in Rome...”

“Ah, yes! You, an officer in training... I remember it very well: don't mind me... I remember, I remember…”

The conversation languished. Griffi looked at the old woman who stood next to him, dozing.

“My mother!” he said, mentioning her with an expression of deep sadness in his voice and in his gestures.

Valdoggi sighed without knowing why.

“She's asleep, poor thing…”

Griffi contemplated his mother in silence for a while. As the notes from the blind violin players filled the cafe, he started and turned to Valdoggi:

“So, in Udine. Do you remember? I had asked to be assigned to the Udine regiment, because I hoped that with a month's leave I would get to cross the borders (without deserting), to visit a bit of Austria... Vienna: they say it is so beautiful!... and a bit of Germany. Or assigned to the Bologna regiment to visit central Italy: Florence, Rome... In the worst case, to remain in Potenza – in the worst case, mind you! Well, the Government left me in Potenza, do you understand? In Potenza, in Potenza! Cost savings... cost savings... And that’s how you ruin a poor man, murder him!”

He pronounced these last words in such a changed, vibrant voice, with such unusual gestures, that many of the customers from the nearby tables turned to look at him, some falling silent.

The mother woke up with a start and, hastily tying the big knot under her chin, said to him:

“Lao, Lao... please behave…”

Valdoggi looked at him, stunned and amazed, not knowing what to do.

“Come on, come on Valdoggi,” resumed Griffi, glaring at the people who were turning around.

“Come... Get up, mother. I want to tell you... Either you pay, or I'll pay... Allow me, I'll pay…”

Valdoggi tried to refuse, but Griffi wanted to pay the bill. They got up and headed towards Piazza dell'Indipendenza.

“In Vienna,” resumed Griffi, as soon as they left the Cafe, “it is as if I had really been there. Yes... I’ve read guidebooks, descriptions... I’ve asked for news and explanations from travelers who have been there... I’ve seen photographs, panoramas, everything... in short, I can speak very well about it, almost with full knowledge of the facts, as they say. And the same is true of all those places in Germany that I could have visited, crossing the border during my month-long trip. Yes... I won't tell you about Udine: I actually went there; I wanted to go for three days, and I saw everything, examined everything: for three days I tried to live the life I could have lived there, if the murderous government had not left me in Potenza. I did the same in Bologna. And you don't know what it means to live the life you could have lived, if an accident beyond your control, an unforeseeable contingency, had not distracted you, diverted you, somehow broken your existence, as it happened to me, do you understand? to me…”

“Destiny!” the old mother sighed with her eyes downcast.

“Destiny!...” her son turned to her in anger. “You always repeat that word, which gets on my damn nerves, you know! If you could at least say improvidence, predisposition... Although, yes – foresight! What good does it do you? We are always exposed to fate’s will. But look, Valdoggi, what a man's life depends on... Perhaps you won't be able to understand me well either; but imagine a man, for example, who is forced to live, chained up, with another creature, against whom he harbors an intense hatred, suffocated hour by hour by the most bitter reflections: imagine! Oh, one fine day, while you are at breakfast – you here, she there – conversing, she tells you that, when she was a child, her father was about to leave, let’s say, for America, with the whole family, forever; or, that she almost went blind because one day she wanted to pry into some of her father's chemical devices. Now then, you who are suffering through hell because of this creature, can you escape the reflection that, if one case or another had happened (both of which were very probable), your life would not be what it is: ‘Oh, if that had happened! You would be blind, my dear; I certainly wouldn't be your husband!’ And you would imagine, perhaps pitying her, her life as a blind woman and yours as a bachelor, or in the company of some other woman…”

“But that's exactly why I said that everything is destiny,” the little old lady said again, convinced and unconcerned, walking with heavy footsteps, her eyes downcast.

“You're getting on my nerves!” shouted Lao Griffi in the deserted square. “So everything that happens was fated to happen? False! It might not have happened if... And that's where I get lost: in this if! A stubborn fly that annoys you and the movement that you make to chase it away may in six, ten, or fifteen years become the cause of who knows what kind of misfortune for you. I’m not exaggerating, I’m not exaggerating! Look, surely as we live, we emanate unpondered forces without realizing it – just like that – at least admit that much.[4] As such, then, these forces become explicit, they unfold latently, and they cast a net over you, a snare that you cannot see but that ultimately envelops you, squeezes you, and then you find yourself caught in it, without knowing how or why. That’s how it is! The pleasures of a moment, the immediate desires impose themselves on you, it is useless![5] The very nature of man, all your senses, demand such pleasures so spontaneously and imperiously that you cannot resist; the harm and suffering that may result from them do not present themselves to your mind with such precision, nor can your imagination present these harms, this suffering, with such force and clarity that your irresistible inclination to satisfy these desires or seize these pleasures is curbed. By God, sometimes even being aware of immediate evils is not enough to overcome our desires! We are weak creatures... What about the lessons, you say, from the experience of others? They are of no avail. Each of us may believe that experience is a fruit born according to the plant that produces it and the soil in which that plant has sprouted. So, if I believe myself, for example, to be a rosebush born to produce roses, why should I poison myself with the toxic fruit picked from the sad tree of other people's lives? No, no. – We are weak creatures... – Not destiny, therefore, nor fatality. You can always trace the cause of your losses or of your good fortune. Often, perhaps, you do not see it; but nevertheless, there is a cause: either you or someone else, either this thing or that. That's exactly what it is, Valdoggi; and listen: my mother maintains that I am lost, that I don’t make any sense…”

“You think too much, it seems to me…” said Valdoggi, already half dazed.

“Yes! It’s my disease!” Lao Griffi exclaimed with spontaneous sincerity, widening his light eyes. “But I would like to say to my mother: listen, I have been unwise, oh! — as much as you want... — I was also predisposed, very predisposed to marriage — I concede! But is it a given that in Udine or Bologna I would have found another Margherita? (Margherita was my wife's name).”

“Ah,” said Valdoggi. “Did she die?”

Lao Griffi's face immediately changed and he put his hands in his pockets, shrugging his shoulders. The old lady bowed her head and coughed slightly.

“I killed her!” replied Lao Griffi dryly. Then he asked: “Didn't you read it in the newspapers? I thought you knew…”

“I don't... I don't know anything…” said Valdoggi, surprised, embarrassed, distressed for touching a nerve he shouldn’t have, but still curious to know.

“I will tell you,” resumed Griffi. “I'm just out of prison. Five months in prison... but preventively, mind you! I was acquitted. I was acquitted. And I’ll tell you what, if they'd left me inside, I don't think I would have cared! In or out, it’s prison all the same! So I said to the jurors: ‘Do what you want with me: condemn me, acquit me; it's all the same to me. I am sorry for what I have done, but in that terrible moment I did not know what else to do, nor could I have done otherwise. He who has no guilt, who has no need to repent, is always a free man; even if you enchain me, I will always be free, internally: I no longer care about anything external.’ And I wanted to say nothing more, nor did I want a lawyer's defense. However, the whole town knew perfectly well that I, temperance and morality personified, had accumulated a great deal of debt on her behalf... that I had been forced to resign... And then... ah then... Can you tell me how a woman, after costing a man so much, could do what she did to me? Shame on her! But do you know what? with these hands... I swear I did not want to kill her; I wanted to know how she had done it, and I asked her, shaking her, grasping her, like this, by the throat... I squeezed too hard. He had jumped out of the window, into the garden... Her ex-boyfriend... Yes, she dumped him, as they say, for me: for the nice little officer... And look, Valdoggi! If that fool hadn't been away from Potenza for a year, thus giving me the chance to fall in love with Margherita, to my misfortune, then the two of them would have been husband and wife by now, and probably happy... Yes. I knew them both well: they were made to get along wonderfully with each other. I can practically imagine the life they would have lived together. In fact, I can imagine it. I can believe that they are both alive, whenever I want, down there in Potenza, in their house... I even know the house where they would have gone to live, as soon as they got married. All I have to do is place Margherita there, alive, as you can imagine I have seen her so many times in the various occurrences of life...[6] I close my eyes and see her in those rooms, with the windows open to the sun: she sings there with her little voice, all trills and slides. How she sang! She held her little hands intertwined on her blonde head. ‘Good day, happy bride!’ – They wouldn't have any children, you know. Margherita couldn't have any... You see? If there’s madness here, this is my madness... I can see everything that would have been, if what happened hadn't happened. I see it, I live it; in fact, I live only there... The if, in short, the if, do you understand?”

He fell silent for a while, then exclaimed with such exasperation that Valdoggi turned to look at him, believing he was crying:

“What if they had sent me to Udine?”

The old lady did not repeat this time: Destiny! But she certainly said it in her heart. So much so that she shook her head bitterly and sighed softly, with her eyes still on the ground, moving the silver thread of those two mortuary ribbons under her chin.