“In Corpore Vili” (“In corpore vili”)

Translated by Marella Feltrin-Morris

How to cite this work:

Pirandello, Luigi. “In Corpore Vili” (“In corpore vili”), tr. Marella Feltrin-Morris. In Stories for a Year, eds. Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka, Digital Edition, www.pirandellointranslation.org, 2021.

The present translation is based on the 1902 version of the short story collected in When I Was Crazy (Quand’ero matto). An earlier, quite different version had been published in 1895 in the Gazzetta Letteraria with the title “Ravanà (Between One Mass and the Other)” (“Ravanà (tra una messa e l’altra)”). An abridged version of the story, with the current title, was then included in the collection When I Was Crazy, published in Turin in 1902/1903. In 1926, “In Corpore Vili” was included in the Bemporad edition of The Old God (Il vecchio Dio), officially becoming part of the Stories for a Year.

The story’s title is a reduced form of the complete Latin expression “Faciamus experimentum in corpore vili” (“Let us experiment on a worthless body”), a reference to sixteenth-century doctors who allegedly used the bodies of convicted criminals or individuals of low social status for dissection or medical experimentation. The story’s plot focuses on how a local priest, Don Ravanà, develops a complex stratagem to find a solution to his own worst sin: gluttony. The humoristic displacement of the sin’s punishment from the guilty priest to the body of the innocent sexton makes sense of the title and highlights the irony of human weakness. We might thus say that, in a Boccaccean spirit, the story explores the dynamics of individual liberty being artfully obtained.

The Editors

I

Cosimino, the sexton of Santa Maria Nuova,[1] had planted his children in the three markets of the city, instructing them to call him right away if they spotted from a distance that old hag, Sgriscia, Don Ravanà’s hobbling housekeeper.

That morning, his third son rushed over from the fishmarket and, still out of breath, shouted:

“Sgriscia, Papa! Sgriscia! Sgriscia!”

And Cosimino took off for the market as if he had wings on his feet.

He caught the old woman haggling with a fishmonger for a handful of scampi.

“Get out of here, right away! You, devil of a temptress!”

And, turning to the fishmonger:

“Don’t listen to her! She won’t buy this stuff! She must not buy it!”

Sgriscia put her fists on her hips and pointed her elbows out in defiance. But Cosimino didn’t give her time to argue back; he pushed her and in no time was towering over her, raising his arms and yelling:

“Out of here! Go to hell, I say!”

At that, the fishmonger took the side of his customer, who was protesting loudly. People rushed from all over the market to hold back the two disputants, who were already coming to blows. Furiously, Cosimino was screaming:

“No! No scampi! I don’t want Father Ravanà eating any! He can’t, he must not eat any! Let her go ahead and tell him I said so. She tempts him like the devil and does everything she can to ruin his stomach.”

Luckily, right at that moment Don Ravanà himself was walking by the market.

“Here he is! Come here, come here!” shouted Cosimino when he glimpsed him. “Did you or did you not order your housekeeper to buy these scampi for you?”

Don Ravanà’s large face shook, as he turned paler and smiled nervously. He mumbled:

“No, well, actually, I…”

“What do you mean no?” exclaimed Sgriscia, punching her bony chest, flabbergasted. “Are you denying it right to my face?”

Don Ravanà raised his voice, angrily.

“Shut up, you blabbermouth. Did I say scampi? I didn’t, I said fish.”

“Nossir, scampi! You said scampi!”

“Scampi or fish, what’s the difference?” shouted Cosimino, stepping in between master and housekeeper as the crowd burst out laughing. “Boiled meat, broth, and milk; milk, broth, and boiled meat, nothing else! That’s what the doctor prescribed. Won’t you get it into your head? Don’t get me started, for the love of God!”

“Calm down. Of course you’re right. You’re right, son,” Don Ravanà hastened to say in embarrassment and confusion. Then he turned to his housekeeper:

“You may go home. Boiled meat, as usual!”

The bystanders reacted to this order with an even louder burst of laughter, as Don Ravanà made his way through the crowd with a forced smile on his face like a snail in a fire, and addressed all and sundry:

“Cosimino is a good man… Well, we have to indulge our dear Cosimino… He does it for my own good… Yes, yes… Make way, make way… So many heavenly delights here; and I… boiled meat, broth, and milk, unfortunately! Doctor’s orders… That’s right. I can’t eat anything else… Cosimino is right.”

II

“Pssst, look…” Don Ravanà said softly, as he stood in front of the altar with the sexton who was pouring water and wine into the chalice. “Doctor Nicastro is in the church… quick, up here, by the balustrade… Stand still! Don’t move, dummy… to the right…. When you have a chance, motion him to stay after mass and to meet me in the sacristy.”

Cosimino frowned, grew pale, and clenched his teeth to hold back a fit of anger.

“So, last night you… Tell the truth!”

“Will you be quiet, you boor? Not in front of the Holy Sacrament!” Don Ravanà scolded him, not so softly, as he turned to give him a stern look.

The first row of pews heard the priest reproach the sexton, and a disapproving murmur spread for a moment throughout the church directed against poor Cosimino, who became bright red in the face, trembling with anger and shame. He was so flustered that he no longer knew where to place the ampullae of gall and vinegar.[2] Once the mass was over, he followed Don Ravanà into the sacristy, frowning and sulking. A short while later, Doctor Liborio Nicastro entered—tiny, ancient, stooped and wizened by age. The brim of his top hat almost brushed against his hunched back. He dressed in an antique style and wore a chinstrap beard.

“What’s wrong, Father Ravanà?” he asked, speaking through his nose and half closing his bare little eyelids, as was his custom. “You look like—Lord help you!”

“Do I?”

Don Ravanà stared at the doctor for some time with perplexity, trying to decide whether or not to believe him. Then, with irritation, as if he were complaining about an injustice that the doctor himself had done to him, he whined:

“But my stomach, Doctor Liborio, my stomach just won’t get better, do you understand?”

“I bet it won’t!” snorted Cosimino, turning to look elsewhere.

Don Ravanà glared at him.

“Sit down, sit down, Father Ravanà,” said Doctor Liborio. “Let’s see your tongue.”

Cosimino, looking downcast, slid a chair toward Don Ravanà. Doctor Nicastro leisurely took his eyeglasses out of their case, placed them on the bridge of his nose and looked at the priest’s tongue.

“White…”

“White?” repeated Don Ravanà, immediately pulling his tongue back into his mouth, as if the doctor’s voice had scalded it.

Cosimino fumed through his nose and let out another snort. His stomach was churning with bile. He kept his hands balled up into fists and his lips pressed together. Finally, he blurted out:

“Well, then? Does he need that tartar—what’s it called?”

“Tartar emetic.[3] Yes, he does,” confirmed Doctor Nicastro placidly, handing the prescription to Don Ravanà and putting his glasses and notebook back into his pocket. “Si applicata juvant, continuata sanant!”[4]

The phrase had nothing to do with the situation, but it was Latin, and it managed to silence the poor sexton.

“Do we have to go through the usual?” Cosimino asked, pale and frowning, as soon as the doctor left.

Don Ravanà shrugged without looking at him, as if to say, “What can I do?”

“Didn’t you hear?”

“Then,” concluded Cosimino, gloomily, “I’ll go and tell my wife…. Give me the money for the medicine and go home. I’ll come right away.”

III

“Oooh…,” at each step. “Oooh… oooh…”

Sgriscia heard those moans on the stairs and rushed to open the door for Don Ravanà.

“Are you sick?”

“Yes, very. Very sick! Go away! Lock yourself in the kitchen! Cosimino will be here anytime. Don’t let him see you, unless I call you! Off, into the kitchen!”

Sgriscia skirted off to hide, cowering. Don Ravanà entered his room, took off his cassock and stood there in his shirt sleeves, undone trousers and a long, loose vest. Then he started pacing up and down, gripped by thoughts of regret.

His conscience bothered him. It was clear: in his mercy, God was granting him the chance to prove himself through that hobbling devil disguised as a woman, and instead he… he, ungratefully, didn’t know how to seize that opportunity.

“Argh!” he exclaimed with deep exasperation, stopping every once in a while and shaking his fists up in the air.

The room’s sparse and meager furniture looked lost on the large, bare floor of old ceramic tiles, which here and there were cracked and uneven. Centered against the right wall was a small, pristine bed, with an iron frame. At the head of it, an ancient ivory crucifix, yellowed by time. At that moment Don Ravanà’s eyes wouldn’t dare rise to look at it. In a corner by the bed, an old carbine, and hanging on the wall, some thick keys—those to the country house.

Clang, clang, clang.

“That’s Cosimino, poor man. He’s right on time….”

He went to open the door himself.

“Please, for heaven’s sake,” Cosimino said even before he stepped in. “Don’t let me see that dreadful crooked hag! Because of her… well, enough of that! Here’s the medicine. Go get me a spoon.”

“Yes, yes… I’m going, I’m going,” said Don Ravanà, humbly and eager to help. “Thank you, thank you, my son. You’re giving me back my life! Go, go into the room!”

He returned a short while later, pale and trembling, holding the spoon.

“I punished her, you know? She’s crying in the kitchen. You got it right: it’s all her fault! You heard the order I gave her yesterday at the market, yes? Well, while I was struggling to swallow that stringy meat that the doctor prescribed, God help me, I saw her come, all mischievous, into the dining room, pretending to hide a nice platter of… well, and what would you have done?”

“I would have eaten the scampi,” answered Cosimino dryly, frowning. “But then I would have paid for my sin of gluttony myself. I wouldn’t have made an innocent man pay for it.”

Don Ravanà, pierced to the core, closed his eyes and sighed heavily.

Yes, Cosimino was speaking the truth. It was, without a doubt, cruel to make Cosimino take, every time, the tartar emetic that Doctor Nicastro had prescribed for him. Yet Don Ravanà had only to witness the effect of the medicine on the victim’s body to draw the same benefit by example. Cruel, yes—but did Cosimino know how many times the thought of his sacrifice restrained Don Ravanà when he was about to fall into temptation? Don Ravanà needed Cosimino as a deterrent, he needed to feel the remorse of watching the man suffer right before his eyes, unfairly. Only that way could he then triumph over his own, vile flesh. Don Ravanà had done so much for Cosimino. Well, after all, what was he asking for in return? Just that one sacrifice for the well-being, not so much of his body as of his soul. Still, every time the sight of that torment to which the victim resignedly subjected himself made him unbearably upset. Remorse, discomfort, and humiliation shook his spirit so much that at times Don Ravanà wanted to throw himself out of the window.

“What are you doing? Are you crying now?” asked Cosimino. “Come on, come on, those are crocodile tears!”

“No!” moaned Don Ravanà, with genuine affliction.

“Alright, fine. Just throw yourself on the bed, then, and watch. I’m about to take the first spoonful.”

Don Ravanà threw himself on the bed, his eyes teary and his face strained with pain. Cosimino put the kettle on the stove, so as to have warm water ready at hand. Then he closed his eyes and swallowed the first spoonful of medicine.

“Done… No, don’t dare feel sorry for me! Just be quiet, or I’ll go berserk!”

“Quiet, yes, quiet. Poor man, yes, you’re right… Let’s talk about something else… You know? Tomorrow, if the weather allows it and I feel better, I have some errands to run in the countryside… Why don’t you come too? Bring your children, your wife, and get some fresh air without worrying about anything… It was a bad year for the crops, dear Cosimino… God is punishing us for our many sins. Divine patience is weary. The world weeps, but it weeps and kills… Have you heard? Wars in Africa, wars in China… The poor suffer, but they suffer and steal. And the wrath of God is upon us! Did you see the hail? It whipped the vineyards and the vegetable gardens… The fog is threatening the olive trees… Say, d’you feel anything yet? No?”

“No, nothing yet. I’ll have some warm water.”

“Fine, fine… Let’s keep chatting… So, yes, the corn harvest was quite abundant, and if God wills it and the Holy Virgin Mary blesses us, it will somewhat minimize this year’s calamity.”

Cosimino listened very attentively, but perhaps without understanding a word of it. Now and then his face would turn myriad colors, then he suddenly got paler and paler, broke out in a cold sweat, and squirmed a bit in his seat as his eyes grew dim.

“Oh, mamma mia! Father Ravanà, something’s starting to move… I think this is it!”

“Sgriscia! Sgriscia!” screamed Don Ravanà, growing pale himself yet keeping his eyes on Cosimino in order to absorb the effects of the medicine through that sight. “Come right away! I think this is it!”

Sgriscia rushed over to hold her master’s forehead, while Cosimino, as he retched and writhed in pain, managed to give her a kick on the sly.

IV

“Now a nice big cup of broth for Cosimino!” ordered Don Ravanà to his housekeeper later that night. “Say, Cosimino, do you want some slices of bread in it?”

“Whatever you say… Just leave me alone…” murmured the poor sexton, drained, dead pale, his drooping head leaning against the wall, barely able to breathe.

“With slices of bread! With slices of bread! And an egg yolk!” added Don Ravanà loudly, dutifully. “Say, you want an egg yolk, right, Cosimino?”

“I don’t want anything! Leave me alone!” groaned Cosimino, with utter exasperation. “You do your little chat, and I poison myself for you! First you ruin my stomach, and then slices of bread and an egg yolk! Are these doings worthy of a holy man? Let me go… Good grief, I would lose my faith… Oooh, oooh… oooh, oooh… oooh, oooh….”

And he left, moaning and holding his stomach.

“What a nasty temperament!” exclaimed Don Ravanà, irritated. “First he’s completely docile, then he changes his mind and stings like a wasp. And to think of all that I’ve done for him, that ungrateful wretch!”

He sat there shaking his head for a while, the corners of his mouth turned downward. Then he called out:

“Sgriscia! Let me have the broth. Did you put the egg yolk in? Atta-girl. Now my hat and my cloak….”

“Are you going out?”

“Well, yes, can’t you tell? I feel great now, thank God.”