“By Himself” (“Da sé”)

Translated by Robin Pickering-Iazzi

How to cite this work:

Pirandello, Luigi. . “By Himself” (“Da sé”), tr. Robin Pickering-Iazzi. In Stories for a Year, eds. Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka, Digital Edition, www.pirandellointranslation.org, 2024.

“By Himself” (“Da sé”) first appeared in the Rassegna contemporanea on November 10, 1913, and was then included in the miscellany collection And Tomorrow, Monday (E domani, lunedì) published by Treves in 1917. In 1928, the story became part of Candelora, the thirteenth Collection of Stories for a Year.

As is often the case in the many stories where Pirandello’s characters ponder suicide as a response against the hardships of life, Matteo Sinagra, the protagonist here, looks at death as a liberation from his personal agony. Ruined financially and forced to accept a humiliating job after his once successful business collapsed, Sinagra finds mental relief in his strolls at the cemetery, where he plans the practical details of his departure from life. In fact, Sinagra’s rational ruminations highlight his thoughtfulness as he contemplates saving his relatives from overpaying for the expenses related to his death, such as the rental of an elegant carriage and the transportation of his body. In a way, Sinagra’s story recalls that of the protagonist of “Sunrise” (“La Levata del Sole,” 1901), Gosto, whose only consolation is the prospect of sharing the same destiny as his deceased relatives buried in the cemetery.

Beyond these elements of the plot, however, Pirandello’s humorous subtext encourages deeper reflection on death, which is seen from the twofold perspective of the dead, who won’t be preoccupied by the futile logistics of a funeral, and of those who are “living dead” like Sinagra, gifted with the illusory opportunity of putting their transitory condition to good use by planning the aftermath of their death. Sinagra’s internal turmoil exemplifies Pirandello’s preoccupation with the constant clash between form and movement and its destabilizing effect on identity, especially when change is triggered by external circumstances. In fact, Sinagra’s behavior recalls the way Corrado Selmi, the protagonist of The Old and The Young (I vecchi e I giovani, 1913) – uncoincidentally published in the same year as “By Himself” – plans his suicide, incapable of making sense of the unexpected changes in his life. Likewise, Sinagra shares with Vitangelo Moscarda, the protagonist of Pirandello’s seminal novel One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand (Uno, nessuno e centomila, 1925-26), the same inability to accept the evidence that others may see him differently than he does himself.

The Editors

A first-class carriage with harnessed and plumed horses, the coachman and grooms wearing wigs—his relatives certainly wouldn’t have hired it for him. But a second-class carriage, yes, at least for the eyes of the world.

Two hundred and fifty lire—the price of the rental.

Then the casket, though even made of fir and not walnut or beech—they certainly wouldn’t have left it so entirely bare (always for the eyes of the world).

Covered in red velvet, also of the lowest quality, with guilt studs and handles—four hundred lire, at least.

Then a good tip for the person who would have washed and dressed his corpse (a nice service!); the expense for the silk skullcap and cloth slippers; the expense for the four torches to light at the four corners of the bed; the tip for the undertakers who would have carried the coffin on their shoulders to the carriage, and then from the carriage to the grave; the expense for a flower wreath, at least one, good lord! Then forget the town band, as one could do without it; but a couple of dozen candles for the cortege of little orphan girls from the Boccone del povero institute who live on this,[1] that is, on the fifty lire people gave to them to accompany all the city’s dead; and who knows how many other unforeseeable small expenses.

Matteo Sinagra would have saved his relatives all of this by going on his own feet to kill himself economically at the cemetery, in front of the little gate to his family’s mausoleum.[2] So that right there, at very little expense, after the magistrate had approved, they could have thrown him inside four bare boards without even brushing him off, and lowered him down to where his father, mother, first wife, and two young children he’d had with her had been resting for a while.

The dead look as if they believe the end-all is losing their life and that everything has ended along with it. For them, without a doubt. But they don’t think about the horrible encumbrance of the body that remains there,[3] stiff on the bed for one or two days, and the annoyances and expenses for the living who, even though they stand crying around it, must get rid of it. Knowing how much being free of it costs in a case like his, which is to say dying in good health, the gentlemen who die voluntarily could go for a short walk to the cemetery and easily lie down in place by themselves.

There you have it. By then Matteo Sinagra didn’t have anything else to think about. It was as if his life had suddenly lost all sense. He almost didn’t clearly remember what he might have done during it anymore. But yes, he too had certainly done all the silly things people usually do. Without realizing it. Very thoughtlessly and with great ease. Yes, because he had been quite fortunate until three years ago. Nothing had ever been difficult for him. He had never stopped for a moment, perplexed about whether to do a certain thing or not, whether to take one path or another. He’d thrown himself into all his enterprises with happy confidence; he’d set out on all the paths, and had always moved ahead, overcoming obstacles that could perhaps have been insurmountable for others.

Until three years ago.

All of a sudden, who knows how, who knows why, that kind of inspiration that had for so many years helped and propelled him ahead, brisk and confident, evaporated. That happy confidence of his had collapsed, and the enterprises sustained with means and arts that he himself, dismayed, suddenly couldn’t realize anymore, had collapsed with it.

Everything, just like that, from one day to the next, everything had changed for him, obscured, even the appearances of things and people. He’d suddenly found himself face to face with a different self whom he didn’t know at all, in a different world that he was now discovering around him for the first time: hard, obtuse, dull, lifeless.[4]

At first he was left almost in that kind of daze that silence causes in people who live amidst the din of cars as soon as they’re instantly stopped. Then he’d considered the ruin, not only his, but also his second wife’s father and brother’s, who had entrusted him with large amounts of capital. But even though they had suffered serious losses, perhaps his father-in-law and brother-in-law would have picked themselves up again. He instead, was totally ruined.

He’d shut himself up in the house, crushed not so much by the weight of the disaster as by his consciousness of the irreparability of the mysterious breakdown that had struck his life’s mechanism like lightening.

Move around? And why? Why go out of the house? Every action, every step, useless. Even speaking, useless.

Tucked into a corner, he stayed silently watching his desperate wife’s ravings and tears like a fool.[5] All just whiskers and hair.

Until his brother-in-law came on a rampage to kick him out pushing and shoving, after he’d forcibly made him cut his hair.

There was something to do, even ten measly lire to earn per day by putting himself to use as an errand boy on behalf of a small agricultural bank that had just opened. What was he brooding about there on that chair? Get out! Get out! Wasn’t the damage he’d caused up until then enough? Did he also want to live with his wife and two little girls by sponging off his victims? Get out!

Outside, here he was. He’d gone out of the house for a few days. He’d started working as an errand boy on behalf of that small agricultural bank. With his threadbare hat, faded suit, ragged shoes, and a foolish look that was consoling.

No one recognized him anymore.

“Matteo Sinagra, that guy over there?”

He didn’t even recognize himself anymore, to tell the truth. And that morning, finally...

It had been a friend, a dear friend from the good years, who had clarified the situation for him.

Who was he anymore? No one. Not only because he had lost everything that had been his. Not only because he had been reduced to that wretched, degrading state of an errand boy, with a faded suit, threadbare hat, and ragged shoes. No, no. He wasn’t really anyone anymore because there was no longer anything inside him, beyond the appearance (and even that was so changed, unrecognizable!) of the Matteo Sinagra that he had been until three years ago. He didn’t feel himself in the errand boy who had just come out of the house, and other people didn’t recognize him either. And therefore? Who was he? Another man, who still wasn’t living, who had to learn to live, if anything, a new meager, distressing, ten-measly-lire-a-day life. And was it worth it? Matteo Sinagra, the true Matteo Sinagra, had died, absolutely died, three years ago.

This is what the eyes of that friend he’d run into by chance that morning had told him with naive cruelty.

Having returned to town after being gone for about six years, this friend didn’t know anything about his catastrophe. Passing by, he hadn’t recognized him.[6]

“Matteo? But how could it be? Are you Matteo Sinagra?”

“That’s what they say...”

“But how could it be?”

And his eyes, those eyes, had rested on him, observing him closely with such an expression of bewilderment mingled with pity and disgust that all of a sudden he’d seen himself dead in them, absolutely dead, without even a crumb of the life that Matteo Sinagra had possessed left inside him.

And so, as soon as that friend, unable to find a word, a look, a smile to give to this shadow, turned his back on him, he’d had the strange impression that suddenly everything had really lost all its meaning for him, all life had become vain.[7]

But only just now? No... Good Lord! For three years, like this... He’d been dead for three years, for a good three years... And he was still there, standing?... He was walking... breathing... looking around?... But how?... If he wasn’t anything anymore! If he wasn’t anyone anymore! Wearing that suit from three years ago... those shoes from three years ago still on his feet...

Away with you! Away! Away! Wasn’t he ashamed? A dead man still walking on his feet? Off to the doghouse with you, there in the cemetery!

Once they’d gotten rid of this cumbersome dead man, his relatives would have taken care of his widow and two little orphan girls.

Matteo Sinagra had felt for the revolver, his faithful companion for so many years, in the breast pocket of his waistcoat. With nothing else, there he is on the road leading to the cemetery.

It’s a really enjoyable thing, an unprecedented pleasure.

A dead man who goes away by himself, on his own feet, step by step, taking his time, to meet his destiny.

Matteo Sinagra knows perfectly well that he’s a dead man, and an old dead man too, a three-year-old dead man, who had all that time to purge himself of any regrets about his lost life.

Now he’s so very light, a feather! He’s found himself again, gotten inside his nature as a shadow of himself. Free of all obstacles, devoid of all afflictions, exempt from all burdens, he’s going on his way to lie down comfortably.

And look, to walk down the road leading to the cemetery like that, as a dead man, for the last time, gives it a new appearance that fills him with the joyful liberation that is really outside of life, beyond life.

The dead go down the road in a carriage, shut up and welded inside a double-layered coffin made of zinc and walnut. He is walking, breathing, and can turn his neck this way and that still able to look around.

And he looks through new eyes at the things that are no longer for him, that have no meaning for him.

The trees... Oh look! Were the trees like that? Were they these? And those mountains down there... why? Those blue mountains with the white cloud above... The clouds... what strange things!... And over there, in the distance, the sea... Was it like that? Was that the sea?

And the air has a new flavor, which goes inside his lungs, lightly cooling on his lips, in his nostrils... The air... ah, the air... How delightful! He breathes it in now as he never drank it in over there in his life, as no one who is in life can drink it in! It’s air as air, not a breath to live on. The other dead people who go away on that road in a carriage, stiff, stretched out, immersed in the darkness of a coffin can’t have any of this infinite, enveloping delight at all. Not even the living can have it. The living don’t know the meaning of enjoying it afterward, like that and forever: in a living, present, trembling eternity!

The road is still long. But he could already stop here; he’s in eternity! He’s walking in it, breathing in it, in a divine intoxication, unknown to the living.

“Do you want me? Take me with you...”

A stone. A stone on the road. And why not?

Matteo Sinagra bends over, picks it up, and weighs it in his hand. A stone... Were stones like this? Were they these? Yes, here it is, a small fragment of rock, a piece of living earth, of all this living earth, a fragment of the universe... Here it is, in his pocket. It will come with him.

And that little flower?

But sure, that too, right here, in the lapel of this dead man who is so estranged, serene, and happy, going by himself on his own feet to his grave, as if he were going to a party, with a little flower in his buttonhole.

There’s the cemetery entrance. About twenty more steps and the dead man will be at home. No tears. He’s coming by himself at a brisk pace, with that little flower in his lapel.

These cypresses standing on guard at the gate make a beautiful sight.[8] Oh, it’s a modest home on the top of a hill among the olive trees. There must be about a hundred mausoleums, more or less, without any artistic pretensions: small chapels with a little altar, the small gate with a few flowers around it.

This cemetery is really an enviable resting place for the dead. Far away from town, so the living rarely come here.

Matteo Sinagra goes inside and greets the old watchman who’s sitting in front of his small home’s doorstep, to the right of the entrance, his grey wool shawl spread over his shoulders and his braided cap down over his nose.

“Hey, Pignocco!”

Pignocco is sleeping.

And Matteo Sinagra lingers to contemplate the sleep of the only living person among so many dead, and in his capacity as a dead man, he feels regret, a certain irritation.

It’s all very well for people to say. It’s good for the dead to think that a living person is watching over their sleep and busy in tasks above the ground that covers them. Sleep above, sleep below—too much sleep. Pignocco ought to be woken up and told:

“Here I am. I’m one of yours. I came by myself, on my own feet, in order to save my relatives a bit of money. But is this how you take care of us?”

Oh come on, what attentions, poor Pignocco! What need to be watched over do the dead have? Once he has watered here and there, once he has turned on a few little lights in this mausoleum and that, which don’t shed light on anyone, once he has swept the dead leaves off the narrow paths, what else is left to do? No one says a word there inside. So the buzzing of flies and the slow rustle of the forgetful olive trees on the hill persuade him to sleep. He too is waiting for death, poor Pignocco. And during the wait, just look, he’s temporarily sleeping above so many dead who are sleeping below forever.

Perhaps he’ll wake up in a short while at the sound of the revolver’s sharp bang. But perhaps not even then. The revolver is so small, and he is sleeping so deeply... Later, in the evening, since he’ll go around to make one last inspection before closing the gate, he’ll find a dark encumbrance on that little path, down there at the end.

“Oh! What’s this stuff?”

Nothing, Pignocco. Someone who has to go below. Call them, call them so they prepare the bed for him down there as best they can, without too much regard. He came by himself to save his relatives expenses, and also for the pleasure of seeing himself first like that, a dead man among the dead, in his home, who arrived at his destiny in good health, with his eyes open, and perfectly aware. Leave the stone in his pocket, as it also got tired of being in the sun on the road. Leave the little flower in his buttonhole too, his flirtatious flair as a dead man at this moment. He picked it himself and offered it to himself and by himself, in place of all the wreaths that his relatives and friends won’t offer him. And here still above the ground. But it’s really as if he had come up from below after three years, out of curiosity to see what kind of impression these mausoleums, these flower beds, these narrow gravel paths, these black crosses, and these tin wreathes in the poor people’s field make on the hill.

A beautiful impression, actually.

And very quietly, walking on tiptoe, Matteo Sinagra goes inside, without waking up Pignocco.

It’s still too early to go to sleep. He’ll roam around the narrow paths until evening, browsing (as a dead man, it’s understood). He’ll wait for the moon to rise, and good night.