“In Silence” (“In silenzio”)

Translated by Marla Moffa

How to cite this work:

Pirandello, Luigi. “In Silence” (“In silenzio”), tr. Marla Moffa. In Stories for a Year, eds. Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka, Digital Edition, www.pirandellointranslation.org, 2022.

“In Silence” (“In silenzio”) was first published in the literary journal Novissima, Albo d’arte e lettere in 1905. The following year the story was included in the volume Erma bifronte (Two-Faced Herm, 1906), which Pirandello dedicated to his close friend Antonio Campanozzi (1871-1944), a contemporary poet and playwright from Catania. In 1923, the short story became the title story of In Silence (In silenzio), the sixth Collection of Stories for a Year (Novelle per un anno).

This long tale is the coming-of-age story of adolescent Cesarino Brei, who finds himself forced to confront the challenges of an unexpected reality when his mother dies giving birth to an illegitimate child. Cesarino himself is an orphan who has never met or known his father, and he has thus grown up with his mother alone. The decision to send him to a strict boarding school corresponds to the time of his mother’s pregnancy, a “shame” the woman is seeking to hide from him and the people around her. The incommunicability between Cesarino and his mother underlines the distance in their relationship and also resonates with a broader Pirandellian theme, as his works often reflect on the great distance separating us from others, even those with whom we are ostensibly closest. Cesarino’s reactions to meeting and caring for his unexpected brother are an example of the empathetic and humane interests of Pirandello’s writing. Cesarino begins to identify with his infant stepbrother, with whom he shares the sadness of orphanhood and the reality of not knowing his father and his lineage: the shared suffering of those who are in some way outcasts in society or removed from the normal social order is another typical Pirandellian trope that emerges here. The ambiguous, and tragic, finale reveals a more grown-up and resolute Cesarino, who is prepared to fight for his own rights against the rights imposed by legal structures and social convention. Once again, this highlights a typically Pirandellian tendency to figure the individual as set against, and in battle with, the social conventions that constrain and define them.

The uncanny silence that pervades throughout the story, as the title suggests, is also a remarkable and expressive element in the story line. It is perhaps most notable in the moments where Pirandello allows the lack of words to signal an inner unfolding of events and the ineffable quality of a character’s emotions. This narrative device might be thought of as a stylistic staple of Pirandello’s writing: silence prepares the ground to build up characterization and solicit a sympathetic response to the protagonists’ emotions from the reader, while also ironically voicing a character’s extreme inner solitude. Similar uses of silence abound across Pirandello’s corpus. To list some key examples among the short stories, see: “Wedding Night” (“Prima notte,” 1900), “A Voice” (“Una voce,” 1904), “The Fish Trap” (“Il coppo,” 1912), “Ciàula Discovers the Moon” (“Ciàula scopre la luna, 1912”), “Such is Life” (“Pena di vivere così,” 1920), and “The House of Agony” (“La casa dell’agonia,” 1935).

In 1930, “In Silence” was loosely adapted into a historically-significant movie titled La canzone dell'amore (The Song of Love), directed by Gennaro Righelli for the Cines Company of Rome and distributed nationally. Ironically, a short story whose very title emphasizes the communicative, and existential, weight of silence became the inspiration for the very first sound film (or “talkie”) in Italian.

The Editors

“Waterloo! Waterloo, for God’s sake! It’s pronounced Waterloo!”[1]

“Yes sir, after Saint Helena.”[2]

“After? What are you saying? What has Saint Helena got to do with it, now?”

“Oh, right! I meant Elba.”[3]

“Never mind Elba, my dear Brei! Do you really think a history lesson can be improvised? Now, please be seated!”

Cesarino Brei, pale and shy, took a seat. His teacher continued staring at him for a long time, annoyed, not to say piqued.

The young lad whose willingness and diligence in his schoolwork had been much appreciated the first two years of high school, now—that is to say ever since he had started wearing a Collegio Nazionale school uniform—although he tried with all his might to pay attention, especially careful attention, to the lessons, just as any good boy should, this was the result: he wasn’t even capable of understanding the real reasons why Napoleon Bonaparte had been defeated at Waterloo.

What had happened to him?

Not even Cesarino could account for it. He spent hours on end studying, or rather with his books open under his thick nearsighted glasses, but he could no longer sustain his attention on them, surprised and disturbed as he was by new and confusing thoughts. And this had been the case not just since he had started at boarding school, as most of his teachers presumed, but already from some time before that. In fact, Cesarino acknowledged that it was precisely because of these very thoughts and certain strange feelings that he had let himself be persuaded by his mother to go away to school as a boarder.[4]

His mother (who called him Cesare and not Cesarino) without looking him in the eyes had said, “You need a change in your life, Cesare. You need to be in the company of young people your age, and you need some order and discipline, but not only in your studies, also in your free time. I thought it might be a good idea, if you don’t mind of course, to send you to boarding school for your last year of high school. What do you say?”

He had made haste to answer yes, without thinking twice, as the sight of his mother had caused him much worry over the past few months.

An only child, he had not known his father, who had probably died terribly young, since his mother could still be considered young: thirty-seven years old. And Cesarino was already eighteen, that is the same age that his mother was when she married.

It all added up; but actually, the fact that his mother was still young and had married at eighteen did not necessarily mean that, as a consequence, his father had died terribly young because his mother could very well have married someone older than her, perhaps even an old man, no? But Cesarino had little imagination. He could neither envisage this nor many other things.

After all, at home, there weren’t any photographs of his father, nor any other trace of his existence. His mother did not speak of him, and Cesarino never had the curiosity to inquire about his father. All he knew was that his name was Cesare, like him, and that’s it. He knew this because in the school certificates it was written: Brei Cesarino of the late Cesare, born in Milan, etc. In Milan? Yes. And yet he knew nothing about his native city, or rather, he knew that in Milan there was the Duomo, and that’s it: the Duomo, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, panettone, and that’s it.[5] His mother, also from Milan, had come to live in Rome just after the death of her husband and the birth of her son.

Come to think of it, Cesarino did not really know his mother well either. He rarely saw her during the day. From morning until two in the afternoon, she taught drawing and embroidery at the Vocational School.[6] She then made the rounds until six, seven, and sometimes even eight in the evening, giving private lessons, including French and piano. She came home tired, but even at home, in the little time before dinner, she saw to other chores, domestic work that required special attention and that the servant could not undertake; and right after dinner, she turned to correcting the homework of her private pupils.

The furniture was more than decent and offered all the comforts, the wardrobe was full of clothes, the pantry abundantly stocked, not surprising with all of his tireless mother’s hard work; but there was sadness too, and such silence in that house!

At boarding school, Cesarino could still feel a tug at his heart when he recalled such things. When he used to live at home, upon returning from school he’d have lunch alone, listless, in the fancy but dark dining room, with an opened book propped up against a bottle of water on a white square napkin that served as his place setting on the antique walnut table. Afterward, he’d lock himself in his room to study; and finally, when he was called for dinner, he’d come out all bundled up, numb and gloomy, squinting from behind his glasses for nearsightedness.

Mother and son, while having dinner, exchanged few words. She’d ask him something about school, how he had spent his day. More often than not she’d reprimand him for the kind of life he led, which to her mind was not fitting for a youth, and she hoped he might liven up. She’d incite him to get some exercise outside during the day, to be more vital, manlier, in short! Studying was fine and good but some kind of diversion was needed. It pained her to see him so flagging, pale, and with such little appetite. He’d simply answer briefly yes or no, making his promises coldly and waiting impatiently for dinner to end so that he could go to bed early, as early as possible, since he was in the habit of getting up on time in the morning.

Having always grown up alone, he had little familiarity with his mother. He found her quite different from him. She was swift, energetic, and jaunty. Perhaps he had taken after his father. In any case, the void left by his father’s passing was felt between him and his mother, and it had only grown greater with the years. His mother, even when she was present right there, always appeared in some way distant.

Now this impression had intensified to the point of causing him a strange feeling of embarrassment, when (at a rather late age actually, but Cesarino—as previously mentioned—had little imagination), he happened to overhear a conversation between schoolmates that crushed his childlike illusions, revealing certain shameful secrets about life that had been until then unsuspected. As a result, it was as if his mother bolted even farther away from him. During his final days at home, he noticed that in spite of the large amount of work that she tended to without rest from dawn to dusk, she was always beautiful, exceptionally beautiful and glowing, and that she took great care of this beauty. Every morning she styled her hair with loving attention and dressed with refined simplicity that was of uncommon elegance. He almost felt offense at the perfume she wore, which, it occurred to him, he had never perceived up to that point in time.

To sidestep this unusual disposition toward his mother, he had hastily accepted her proposal to go to boarding school. But had she realized something wasn’t quite right or had something else led her to make that suggestion?

Cesarino now found himself mulling over the situation. Ever since he was a child, he had always been good and studious, and had done his duty without supervision. He was a bit frail, that was true, but overall, he was healthy. The reasons put forward by his mother did not convince him in the least. In the meantime, he was fighting against certain unwelcome thoughts, of which he felt shame and then regret, even more now that he was aware his mother was sick. It had been several months since she stopped coming to visit him on Sundays at the boarding school. During her last visit, she had complained about not feeling well, and Cesarino had noticed that she did not appear as glowing as usual; on the contrary, he had observed an unusual negligence in the way her hair was styled, which made him regret even more his malicious thoughts inspired by the excessive care that she used to take.

From the letters that his mother sent him from time to time to ask if he needed anything, Cesarino learned that the doctor had recommended she rest, because she had worn herself out too much and for too long, and was thus forbidden to go out. The doctor had reassured her however that it was nothing serious and if she followed all of his recommendations scrupulously, she would undoubtedly recover. But the infirmity went on, and Cesarino, who was already worried, was impatient for the school year to be over.

Naturally, in such a mood, no matter how hard Cesarino tried, he wasn’t capable of understanding the real reasons Napoleon Bonaparte had been defeated at Waterloo, as they were put forth by his history teacher.

That very same day, upon returning to boarding school, he was summoned by the Director. Cesarino expected some dire reproach for his scarce achievements during that academic year, but instead he found the Director to be very benign and loving, and even a bit distraught.

“My dearest Brei,” he said, placing a hand on his shoulder, an unusual gesture for him, “you are aware that your mother…”

“Has worsened?” Cesarino interrupted, lifting his eyes in terror to meet those of the Director, while his cap slipped out of his hand.

“It would seem so, my son. You must go home straight away.”

Cesarino kept looking at him, a question forming in his imploring eyes that his lips dared not utter.

“I don’t know,” the Director said, perceiving that mute question. “A woman came earlier, from home, to call for you. Take courage, my son! Go on now. I’ll leave the custodian at your service.”

Cesarino walked out of the Director’s office with his mind in turmoil: he no longer knew what he was to do, how he was to get home. Where was the custodian? And his cap? Where had he left his cap?

The Director handed it to him, enjoining the custodian to be at the lad’s complete disposal for the entire day, if necessary.

Cesarino ran all the way to his home on Via Finanze.[7] When he was just a few steps away, he saw the front gate half-closed and felt his legs go weak.

“Take courage!” the custodian, who knew what had happened, repeated to him.

The entire house was in disarray, as if death had entered it violently.

Plummeting inside, Cesarino immediately cast a glance into his mother’s bedroom, at the end of the hall, and saw her. There… on the bed… she was so long—this was, amidst his stupefaction, the first impression (how strange) of astonishment—so very long, oh God, it was as if death had ironed her out, forcefully; she was rigid, paler than wax, with livid circles under her eyes, on either side of her nose, unrecognizable![8]

“How can it be? How…?” he stammered, initially more intrigued than terrified by that sight, while hunching his shoulders and sticking his head out to have a closer look, like nearsighted people do.

From the adjoining room, almost in response, came a raspy infant’s cry, horribly shattering that silence of death.

Cesarino turned around with a sudden movement, as if that cry had stabbed him in the back and, quivering in his entire body, he looked at the servant who was crying in silence, kneeling next to the bed.

“A baby?”

“Over there…” she replied.

“Hers?” he asked with a wisp of breath, stunned.

The servant nodded.

He turned once more toward his mother but could not endure the sight. Shocked by the unexpected, atrocious revelation that stupefied him and violently tore away his grief, he covered his eyes with his hands, while from his unsettled gut, a scream began to form, one which his throat, strangled with anguish, could not release.

In childbirth, then? She died in childbirth? How could it be? So, for this? Then suddenly it came to him like a flash, the suspicion that in the next room, from whence that infant’s cry had come, someone might be there, and he turned to look at the servant hatefully.

“Who… who?”

He could say no more. With his trembling hand he tried to push his glasses up his nose, as they kept slipping forward because of the tears that, in the meantime, had inadvertently begun to flow from his eyes.

“Come… come with me…” the servant said to him.

“No… tell me…” he insisted.

But then he realized that in the room, around the bed, were people he did not know who looked at him with compassionate wonder. He thus kept quiet and let himself be led by the servant into the adjacent room, the one he had occupied prior to going away to boarding school.

The midwife stood there alone, having just taken the still swollen and violet baby from the bath.

Cesarino looked at him with disgust and turned back to the servant again.

“No one?” he said, almost to himself. “And the baby?”

“Oh, Signorino!”[9] exclaimed the servant, clasping her hands together. “What can I say? I don’t know anything. This is what I was trying to explain to the midwife… I don’t know anything at all! No one ever came here, I swear!”

“She never said anything?”

“Never, nothing! She never confided in me, and well, it was surely not my place to ask… But she used to cry, you know? A lot, when she was alone… She never left the house, not since she started to show… surely you understand…”

Cesarino, horrified, raised his hands to signal to the servant to be silent. As much as that sudden death had hurled him into a dreadful void with the overpowering need to know, he also did not want to know. The dishonor was too much. His mother had died because of it, and she was still in the other room.

He pressed his face with his hands and walked to the window to be alone. In the darkness of his mind, he began to make his suppositions.

As long as he lived at home, he, too, never recalled seeing a man who could have given rise to suspicion. But what about outside the house? His mother had been home so little! And what did he know of the life she led out of doors? What was his mother beyond that restricted circle of relationships that she had shared firstly with him, there, in the evenings, at dinner? She had led an entire life to which he felt completely extraneous.[10] She had gotten involved with someone, this was certain… But with whom? ... She had cried. Thus, this stranger had abandoned her, not wanting or being unable to marry her. And that is why she had locked him away at the boarding school: to avoid having to both undergo the inevitable shame. But afterward? He would have finished school next July. What then? Had she planned to erase every trace of her guilt?

He unclenched his hands to look at the baby once more. The midwife had swaddled him and laid him down on the bed, the one where Cesarino slept in when he was at home. That bonnet, that vest, that bib… No, it was clear: she wanted to keep the child. She was the one who had prepared the outfit. So, upon finishing up at boarding school, he would have come home to a new little being. And what would his mother have said to him then? That’s it, that’s why she died! What a terrible torture to keep this secret these long months! Ah, what a coward that man had been, inflicting this torture on her, abandoning her after disgracing her. And consequently, she had gone into hiding in order to conceal her state and perhaps even lost her teaching post at the Vocational School… With what means had she lived these last months? Surely, with the savings put away after so many years of work. But what about now?

Cesarino suddenly felt the void open wide, becoming darker and vaster. He saw himself alone, alone in life, without any help, without relatives, neither near nor far; alone with that little being who had killed his mother by coming into the world and who was now part of that same void, left to the same fate, without a father… Like him.

Like him? Yes, maybe he too… How could it be that it had never occurred to him until then? Perhaps he too had been born like this! What did he know about his father? Who was that Cesare Brei…? Brei? But wasn’t that his mother’s last name? Yes, Enrica Brei. That’s how she signed her name, and all her students called her that way. Had she been a widow, once she moved to Rome and started teaching, wouldn’t she have gone by her maiden name, perhaps putting it after her husband’s last name? But no: Brei was his mother’s last name, he bore only his mother’s last name; and that late Cesare, of whom he knew nothing, of whom no trace had been left in the house, perhaps had never existed. Cesare, maybe yes, but not Brei… Who knows what his father’s last name really was? How was it that he had never thought about these things before?

“Listen, poor Signorino!” the servant said. “The midwife wants you to know that… The little one…”

“Needs milk now,” interrupted the midwife. “Who’s going to give it to him?”

Cesarino looked at her bewildered.

“Well,” the midwife continued, “what I meant is that… seeing as the little one was born like this… and the mother, poor thing, is no longer with us… and you’re just a poor boy who wouldn’t be able to care for this innocent… what I mean is…”

“You want to take him away?” Cesarino scowled.

“But it’s because, look” she went on, “I will need to register his birth… so I need to know what you want to do.”

“Yes,” Cesarino said, feeling again at a loss. “Yes… But hold on a moment… First I want, I want to see…”

And he looked around, as if in search of something. The servant came to his aid.

“The keys?” she whispered to him.

“What keys?” he asked absentmindedly.

“The keys, to see if… who knows! Look, they’re over there, on the dresser, in your mother’s room.”

Cesarino started to walk in that direction but stopped suddenly at the thought of seeing his mother again, now that he knew. The servant, who was trailing behind him added, even more softly,

“It’s necessary, Signorino, to settle a number of matters. I know you feel lost, alone, poor innocent soul… The doctor came, he had me run to the pharmacy… I got a whole list of things… But that’s the least of it, we have to think about your poor mother now. What’s to be done?... You must see to it…”

Cesarino went to get the keys. He again saw his mother lying long and stiff on the bed, and, as if drawn by the sight, he walked up to her. Ah, mute, forever mute those lips would now be, and there was so much he would have wanted to learn! She had taken with her—in the horrible silence of death—the mystery of that baby in the other room, and of his own birth… But perhaps, searching, rummaging… Now where were the keys?

He took them from the dresser and followed the servant into his mother’s study.

“There… search there, in that cabinet.”

He found no more than one hundred lire, probably all that was left of her savings.

“Nothing else?”

“Nothing. Wait…”

He caught a glimpse of a few letters in the cabinet. He read them straight away. They were (three in total), from a teacher at the Vocational School and addressed to his mother at Rio Freddo,[11] where two years earlier, together with him, she had spent their summer vacation. And the following year, that teacher, his mother’s colleague, had died. From the last of these letters, a slip of paper unexpectedly fell to the ground. The servant quickly picked it up.

“Give it to me! Give it to me!”

It was written in pencil, without letterhead or a date, and read:

Impossible, today. Maybe Friday.

ALBERTO

“Alberto…” he repeated, looking at the servant. “It’s him! Alberto… Do you know who he is? You don’t know anything? Are you sure? Speak up!”

“Not a thing, Signorino, I told you.”

He looked through the cabinet again, then in the closet drawers, everywhere, turning the house upside down. But he couldn’t find anything. Only that name! Only this piece of news: the baby’s father was named Alberto. And his father: Cesare… Two names, nothing more. And her lying over there, dead. All those pieces of furniture in the house were unknowing, impassive. And there he was, in that void, with no one to turn to and with a newborn that no longer belonged to anyone; up until then, he at least had had a mother. How could he possibly throw him out? No, no, the poor little thing!

Moved by a vehement sense of pity, which one could almost define as fraternal affection, he felt a desperate stirring of life inside. He pulled a few pieces of his mother’s jewelry out of the cabinet and gave them to the servant so that she could try to sell them and glean some money. He went into the next room to ask the custodian, who had accompanied him, to take care of what, as yet, needed to be done for his mother. He returned to the midwife and instructed her to seek out a wet nurse at once. He ran to get his school uniform cap from the funeral chamber and, after promising in his heart to his mother that neither the little one nor he would perish, he ran back to the boarding school to speak to the Director.

In a matter of moments, he had become someone else. He explained the situation and his intentions to the Director, without complaining, but asking for his help with the firm conviction that no one could deny it to him because he had gained the sacrosanct right to it: for all the suffering that he as an innocent being had been forced to experience, because of his mother, because of that stranger who had fathered him, because of that other stranger who had taken his mother away, leaving a newborn baby in his arms.

The Director listened with his mouth wide and his eyes full of tears, and quickly reassured him that he would do whatever was necessary to obtain some kind of assistance for him as soon as possible, pledging to never, ever, abandon him. The Director embraced him tightly, cried with him, and told him that that very evening he would come to his house, hopefully with good news.

“Very well, sir. I’ll be waiting for you.”

And Cesarino rushed back home.

The assistance, although feeble, arrived swiftly. Cesarino almost failed to realize it, because it was immediately employed to transport his mother, which others dutifully arranged.

He was preoccupied with the baby and how to save him, as well as himself, beyond the four walls of that sad house where so much comfort—who knows how and from whence it had come—caused him terrible confusion. Furniture, drapes, rugs, silver, all that decor, if not properly lavish, was certainly costly. He looked at it with a kind of resentment for the secret it concealed. It was to be gotten rid of as soon as possible, retaining only the humbler pieces needed to furnish three small rooms, which he had managed to rent on the outskirts of the city with the help of the Director of the school.

He forcefully negotiated the resale of the furnishings with the used furniture salesmen and the scrap merchants, whom he consulted thanks to the advice of his neighbors; however strange, it felt to him as if those furnishings belonged mostly to the baby, now that his mother had given her life for his, disclosing to everyone the shame connected to those comforts. If only for the baby, by God, the least that could be done was to spare him that shame, seeing how tiny and innocent he was, but this could only happen if someone in his place defended his interest.

Cesarino was ready to sell all the clothes and the many fineries that his mother had left behind to a melancholic and sickly scrap merchant, who showed up all flounces and frills but sagging from exhaustion and affectation, if she, while speaking softly and smiling sweetly, hadn’t alluded to the kind of clientele that would benefit from those garments and fripperies. He kicked her out. Oh, those remnants, almost still alive, how they preserved the perfume that had so perturbed him in recent months! And in the armful of clothes that he held to put back into the closet, he seemed to perceive the baby’s breath, a further confirmation of the strange impression that everything, truly everything, belonged to the baby, who was now well bathed, powdered, and wrapped in that embellished outfit that she had prepared for him before dying. The baby suddenly appeared to him as a precious thing, precious and dear, not only to be saved but safeguarded with all the scrupulous care that surely his mother would have had for him. Cesarino was happy to perceive this familial trait in himself, as if it had been suddenly reawakened: a marvelous and bold alacrity.

He didn’t notice however, as others were wont to notice, that his mother’s lively and eager nonchalant readiness, transposed in the ungraceful leanness of his limbs, resulted in a desperate effort that made him touchy, suspicious, and cruel. Yes, also cruel, as he showed himself to be when he dismissed the old servant Rosa, who had been so kind with him throughout the ordeal. But one could not be angry with him for how he acted and for what he said. After all, it was right, he had to dismiss the servant, since he had to shoulder the substantial costs of the wet nurse for the baby. Surely, he could have done things in a nicer manner, but he was pardoned for this too, and Rosa herself was the first to pardon him. The poor thing, he probably didn’t even realize that he was behaving in such a cruel way toward others, since he was the one experiencing—in that moment and to such an extreme—the fierce cruelty of fate. Rather, if compassion had not impeded it, one would be prone to grin at seeing him so fanatical, with his tight and scrunched up shoulders, his pale, hardened face propped on his protruding neck ready to ward everyone off, and his sharp, beady eyes behind his thick nearsighted glasses.[12] Breathless and worried that he would never make it in time, he ran left and right, trying to gain the upper hand. People helped him, and he didn’t even thank them. He didn’t even thank the school Director when he came to his new home after they moved in, to say that he had found him a job as scribe at the Ministry of Public Education.

“It’s not much, I know. But you can come to the school in the evenings, when you finish at the Ministry, to give a few private lessons to the younger students. It will be enough, you’ll see. You’re capable.”

“Yes, sir. What about my attire?”

“What attire?”

“I certainly can’t go to the Ministry in my school uniform.”

“You’ll wear one of the outfits you wore before coming to boarding school.”

“No, sir, I cannot. All of my outfits are as my mother wanted them, with short trousers. And not even black, for that matter.”

Each difficulty that presented itself (and there were many!) would irritate rather than shock him. He wanted to win; he had to win. But the more willing he was, the more the right to win seemed to depend on others. At the Ministry, if the other scribes, all mature or older men, spent their time joking around, in spite of the threats made by the bosses that the recopying office was at risk of closing because of its low productivity, at first, he’d squirm around in his chair, grumbling, or stamp his feet, then he’d turn around abruptly to look at them from his desk, pounding his fist on the chair’s backrest. And all of this, not because their stupid negligence appeared deceitful to him, but because, not feeling the obligation to work together with him and almost for him, they put him in the position of losing his job. In seeing themselves reprimanded by a young man, it was natural that they laugh and poke fun at him. He would thus leap to his feet and threaten to report them, but this only made matters worse because they challenged him to do so, and then he would have to admit that if he did so he only further compromised everyone’s already precarious position. He’d remain looking at them as if his insides had been slashed open by their sneers. He’d then hunch over his work at his desk and resume recopying, recopying as much as possible, revising even the few drafts completed by the others to eliminate any errors, deaf to the teasing remarks that they reveled in making. On some evenings, to complete all the work that had been assigned, he’d leave one hour after everyone else. By the time he’d reach the boarding school, the Director would find him out of breath, wheezing, his eyes hardened by the tormented fixation that he had not only to defend himself from the trials and tribulations of fate, but that he now also had to account for the evilness of mankind.

“Oh, come now, it isn’t so,” the Director would say to comfort him, and sometimes would even reproach him lovingly.

But Cesarino heard neither words of comfort nor reproach. And he failed to see anything either, being as he was always on the run: in the morning, in order to arrive on time at work from his home outside of the city center; at noon, to be home for lunch and back at the office by three in the afternoon. All this he did on foot, both to save the money of the tram fare and for fear of getting to work late, from having to wait for the tram to arrive. By evening, he was on his last legs. He felt so tired that he couldn’t even find the strength to pick up Ninnì in his arms. First, he had to sit down.

On the small balcony with the rusty iron railing, from which the view of the vegetable gardens below had once appeared so pleasant, now, holding Ninnì on his knees, he wished he could compensate for all the rushing about, the efforts, and the disappointments of the entire day. But the baby, who was already nearly three months old, did not want to stay with him, perhaps because he never saw Cesarino during the day and so had yet to recognize him; or perhaps because Cesarino did not know how to hold a baby in his arms; or perhaps still because the baby was already sleepy, as the wet nurse said to pardon him.

“Here, give him back to me, I’ll put him to bed. And then I’ll see to your dinner.”

While waiting for dinner on the small balcony, in the cold light of the last hour of sundown, he’d sit looking at (without perhaps actually seeing) the already glowing crescent moon in the wan and empty sky. Then lowering his gaze on the murky, deserted street flanked on one side by a dry and brittle hedge that served to protect the vegetable gardens, he’d feel his soul invaded, in that exhaustion, by a distressing bleakness.[13] But just as soon as tears were on the verge of stinging his eyes, he’d clench his teeth, clutch a rod of the iron railing with his hand, and fix his gaze on the only streetlamp, which had two of its glass panes broken because a few rascals had thrown stones at it. This would get him purposely thinking wicked things about his pupils at the boarding school, even about the Director, whom he felt he could no longer trust, having understood that, yes, he did give him benefits, but more for himself, for the gratification of feeling that he was a good person, so that now, in receiving these benefits, it gave him an intrusive feeling of humiliation. And on top of that, there were his colleagues at the office, with their filthy conversations and indecent questions aimed at demoralizing him with shame: “If and how he did it; if he had ever done it”. Suddenly an unrestrained cluster of tears assailed him as he recalled an evening when, leaving the office as usual in all haste like a blindman, he had bumped into a streetwalker who, pretending to block him, had instead brought him close to her bosom with both her arms, obscenely forcing him to perceive—against her bare skin—the perfume, the very same perfume, his mother had worn. He had torn himself away, whimpering, and had rushed off. It was as if he could still feel the thrashing of his colleague’s taunting comments: “Virgin! Virgin!” And so he’d resume squeezing the iron rod in his fist and clenching his teeth. No, he would never be able to do it, because he’d always, always have the scent of his mother’s perfume in his nostrils to the point of making him dread the mere idea of the act.

Now, in the silence, he heard the dry thuds on the stone floor, made by the feet of the chair, first the two in front, then the two in the back, the rocking of the wet nurse, cradling the baby to sleep. And beyond the hedge came the swishing sound of water that was spurting out in the shape of a fan from a long snake-like hose, which the gardener was using to water the garden. That swish of water was pleasing to him, it livened his spirit. And he didn’t want—due to the gardener’s lack of attention—for too much of it to come out in one spot; he’d notice it right away from the sound of the dirt transforming into clay, as if it were drowning. Why was he thinking about the damask tablecloth, the one with the pale blue hem and the thick fringe tassels, which his mother used to spread on a side table to serve tea to a girlfriend, who sometimes came to the house at five o’clock? That tablecloth… Ninnì’s outfits… his mother’s elegance, her good taste, her meticulousness in keeping things tidy; and now, on that table a grimy tablecloth, with dinner not yet ready, and his bed, over there, still unmade since the morning. If only the baby had been well cared for, but no siree, his nightshirt was always dirty, his bib likewise; and it was out of the question to even think of reproaching the wet nurse, for he was sure to upset her and he couldn’t risk that she take advantage of his absence to vent her spite on the innocent little being. Besides, her excuses came in twos and fast: having to take care of the baby, she didn’t have time to clean the house or prepare dinner; and if she had neglected to do something for the baby, it was because she was obligated to be both servant and cook. To think that that ugly oaf, blown in from the countryside, as attractive as a tree stump, had now even taken to making herself pretty, styling her hair, and getting all dolled up. Oh well! She had good milk, and the baby, even if somewhat unkempt, was flourishing. Oh, how he resembled his mother! The same eyes and that little nose, that little mouth… The wet nurse wanted him to believe that the baby looked like him. Nonsense. Who knows who he looked like! But at this point, he didn’t care to know. It was enough for him to see that Ninnì resembled his mother; and he was happy for it because at least when he kissed the baby’s face, he was sure that no feature would remind him of that unidentified man, about whom he no longer cared to find out anything more.

After dinner, once the table had been cleared, he’d buckle down and study, with the objective of passing the exams for his high school diploma, to then enroll—if he was given exemption from taxes—in the university. He wanted to study law, and if he managed to obtain his degree, he could then attempt to pass the public exam for some job as a civil servant at the very same Ministry of Public Education. He wished to improve his condition as quickly as possible from that paltry and far from stable post as scribe. But on certain evenings, while studying, he was often overwhelmed and overcome by sullen discouragement. The subjects he studied seemed so detached from his present moment. And that distance distracted him, making him feel that all effort was vain and that it would never—nor could it ever—come to an end. The silence in those three, small, almost bare rooms was such that he could even perceive the drone of the oil lamp, which he had unfastened from its suspension and placed on the table so that he could see better. Removing his glasses from his nose, he’d stare at the flame with eyes half-closed until large tears would start to fall onto his book, open below.

But those were only moments. The next morning, he’d resume his duties, more headstrong than ever: his neck protruding from his narrow shoulders, as was the fate of the myopic; his bony and waxen face both taut and sweaty; his straight and limp hair overgrown between ears and cheeks; and that aggressive reflection from the lenses of his glasses, which glazed his eyes over, making them appear smaller and sharper, the frame violently adhering to the delicate sides of his nose.

Time and again Rosa, his old servant, would pay him a visit. Little by little, she too would start to point out the many flaws of the wet nurse and, to put him on guard, she’d hint at all that was rumored about her in the neighborhood. Cesarino would scrunch up his shoulders. He suspected that Rosa said those things out of resentment; to avoid being dismissed, at the beginning she had offered to bring up the baby with sterilized milk, as she had seen many mothers do with satisfying results. But in the end, he did her justice, suddenly finding himself forced to send away the wet nurse, already pregnant as of a couple of months. Fortunately, the baby did not suffer from the change in nursemaids, also thanks to the loving care of the old servant, who was more than glad to come back to work for those two lost souls.

And now, finally, Cesarino could savor the sweetness of the peace he had conquered with so much effort. He knew that Ninnì was in good hands, and this allowed him to study and work serenely. In the evening, when he would return home, he’d find everything in order: Ninnì as fresh as a rose, a savory meal, and a fluffy bed. It was pure happiness. Ninnì’s first little squeals, or certain small, graceful gestures made Cesarino delirious with joy. He would bring the baby to get weighed every two days, for fear that he might lose weight with that artificial nursing, despite Rosa’s reassuring words,

“But can’t you see he almost weighs more than me? He’s always got that trumpet in his mouth!”

The trumpet was the baby bottle.

“Go on Ninnì, play your heart out!”

And Ninnì was at the ready, he didn’t have to be told twice. Nor did he need others to hold the trumpet for him, he liked to hold it on his own, as any good trumpet player, languidly squinting his dear, little eyes from all that satisfaction. They would both look at him in ecstasy; and since the baby, more often than not, would fall asleep before finishing the bottle, quietly, as quiet as can be, they’d get up on tip toe, hold their breath, and lay him into his cradle.

Resuming his evening studies with redoubled efforts, now confident of the result, Cesarino finally understood very clearly the true reasons why Napoleon Bonaparte had been defeated at Waterloo.

Except, one evening, upon arriving home—in all haste, as usual, eager to receive a kiss from Ninnì—he was stopped on the threshold by Rosa. Visibly upset, she told him that there was a gentleman in the other room who wished to speak with him and who had been waiting for a good half hour.

Cesarino soon found himself standing before a man of about fifty: tall, well-built, dressed in black from a recent bereavement, with grey hair, a dark complexion, and a gloomy, serious air. The man had gotten up at the sound of the doorbell and was waiting in the dining room.

“You wish to speak to me?” Cesarino asked, looking at him with bated breath and consternation.

“Yes, alone, if you don’t mind.”

“This way.”

Cesarino pointed to his bedroom and ushered the man along. He then closed the door, with his hands already nervously dancing about, and turned around with an angry look on his face that had now gone pale. With his eyes narrowing behind his glasses and his brow furrowed, he shot off the question,

“Alberto?”

“Rocchi. Yes. I came here…”

Cesarino approached the man, agitated, transformed, with the desire to inveigh against him,

“To do what? In my house?”

The man stepped back, turning pale and containing himself,

“Please, let me explain. I come with the best intentions.”

“Intentions? My mother is dead!”

“I know.”

“Ah, so you know? And that is not enough? Leave immediately or I will make you sorry!”

“Please, let me!”

“…sorry that you came here to inflict the shame…”

“But no… please, allow me to…”

“Ah, the shame of seeing you! Yessir, that’s it. What do you want from me?”

“Please, allow me to explain… Calm down!” the man continued, feeling assaulted and uneasy. “I understand… But I must inform you that…”

“No!” Cesarino shouted resolutely, trembling while raising his scrawny fists. “Look, I do not want to know anything. I do not want explanations! It is already enough that you dared show up here! Now leave!”

“But my son is here…” the man said both dolefully and in exasperation.

“Your son?” Cesarino ranted. “Oh, so you came here for this? You finally remembered that you have a son?”

“It was not possible before… If you do not allow me to explain…”

“What is there to explain? Leave! Leave at once! Your actions caused my mother to die! Leave or I will call the neighbors!”

Alberto Rocchi narrowed his eyes carefully. Then, taking a deep breath, making him balloon up, he said,

“Very well. This means I will have my rights recognized elsewhere.”

And he made to leave.

“Rights? Your rights?” Cesarino shouted at his back, now at his wits’ end. “You wretched man! After killing my mother, you still want your rights to be recognized? Yours against mine? Rights?”

The man turned around to look at him grimly, but then smiled with a mix of scorn and compassion for the frailty of the young man who was insulting him.

“We shall see,” he said.

And then he left.

Cesarino lingered on in the darkness of the small room, behind the door, quivering from the violent impetus that resentment, shame, and fear of losing his beloved little one had provoked in his shy, fragile self. After regaining some form of composure, he went to knock on Rosa’s door; she had locked herself in, the child held tightly in her arms.

“I’m coming! I’m coming,” Rosa said.

“He wanted Ninnì.”

“Him?”

“Yes. And his rights, you see, he intends to have his rights recognized…”

“Him? Who’s going to say he is right?”

“He’s the father. But can he really take Ninnì away from me now? I chased him off, like a dog! I told him that… that he killed my mother… and that I’m the one who raised the child… and so now, he’s mine, he’s mine, and no one can take him from me! He’s mine! Mine! Imagine that… What a wretched being… a murd… murderer…”

“Yes, of course! Calm down, Signorino!” Rosa said, even more afflicted and consternated than Cesarino. “He cannot just come here and take the baby away. You too have your rights to be recognized. They’d have some nerve to come here and take our Ninnì, who we raised together. But don’t worry now, don’t worry, he won’t come around anymore, after the warm welcome you gave him.”

Neither these nor other reassuring words that the good old woman repeated to him throughout the night were enough to quiet Cesarino. The next day, at the Ministry, he experienced true, eternal torture. At noon, he anxiously ran home, his heart in his throat. He did not want to return to the office after lunch for the final three hours of the day, but Rosa insisted he go, promising to keep the door bolted and not to let anyone in, never leaving Ninnì unattended. And so he went, but he came home by six, without going to the boarding school for the private lessons to the young students.

Seeing him in such a daze, so dispirited and consternated, Rosa tried to help him recover, but all efforts were in vain. A premonition was eating away at Cesarino’s soul, and he could not find rest. He had a sleepless night.

The next day, he did not come home for lunch. Rosa was unsure what to make of his delay. Around four o’clock, she finally saw him arrive, panting, livid, and with a cold glare in his eyes.

“I have to give him Ninnì. They called for me at the police station. He was there, too. He showed them letters from my mother. The baby is his.”

Cesarino spluttered, without lifting his gaze to look at the baby, wrapped in Rosa’s arms.

“My little darling!” Rosa exclaimed, squeezing Ninnì to her chest. “How can it be? What did he say? How could the law…?”

“He’s the father. He’s the father!” Cesarino replied. “And so Ninnì belongs to him.”

“What about you?” Rosa asked. “What will you do?”

“Me? With him. We’ll go away together.”

“With Ninnì, to that man’s house?”

“Yes, to that man’s house.”

“Oh, so the both of you together, then? Well, that’s better. You won’t be leaving him… And what about me, Signorino? This poor old Rosa?”

To avoid answering directly, Cesarino took Ninnì from her arms, squeezed the baby tightly and, with tears in his eyes, whispered to the baby,

“What about poor old Rosa, Ninnì? Can she come with us? No, it wouldn’t be right. It can’t be! But we’ll leave everything to poor old Rosa. The few things that are here. We were so happy together, the three of us, isn’t that so, Ninnì? But they won’t let us, they won’t let us…”

“Well, then, Signorino,” Rosa said, swallowing her tears. “You’re not going to trouble yourself on my account now, Signorino? I’m old, I don’t count anymore. God will provide for me. As long as you are happy… After all, I’ll be able to come and visit you from time to time, won’t I? To see my little angel? They won’t chase me away, if I come visit. Now that I think about it, why shouldn’t it be this way? After the first few days and all the adjusting, it will probably be a good thing for you too, Signorino, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps,” Cesarino said. “In the meantime, Rosa, you must prepare everything, straight away… everything that we made for Ninnì, all my belongings as well as yours. We leave tonight. We’re expected at lunchtime. Listen, I’m leaving you everything…”

“Nonsense!” Rosa exclaimed.

“Everything… well, the little money I have on me. I owe you so much more, for all the care… Hush! Please, let’s not speak of it. You know, and I know. That’s enough. Even these few pieces of furniture… Over there we’ll find another home… You can do as you wish with this one. Don’t thank me. Prepare everything, and off we go. You first, though. I wouldn’t be able to leave, knowing that you’re still here. Then, tomorrow, come see me, and I’ll give you the key and everything else.”

The old woman obeyed, without replying. Her heart was so swollen that, had she opened her mouth to speak, sobs and certainly not words would have gushed out. She prepared everything, even her own bundle.

“Should I leave it here?” she asked. “After all, if I’m supposed to come back tomorrow…”

“Yes, of course,” Cesarino replied. “And now, come here, give Ninnì a kiss… Kiss him, and say goodbye.”

Rosa picked up the little one who looked a bit stunned, but she couldn’t bring herself to kiss him right away; she needed to voice at least a small part, and said,

“It’s silly to cry… because tomorrow… Here you are, Signorino… you take Ninnì now. Be strong, eh? A kiss for you, too… See you tomorrow!”

She left without looking back, suffocating her sobs in her handkerchief.

Cesarino quickly went to bolt the door shut. He ran his fingers through his hair, which stood upright, all bristles. He then put Ninnì on the bed, and placed a small silver pocket watch in his hand, to keep him calm. Hurriedly, he jotted down a few lines on a piece of paper, stating his donation to Rosa of all the furnishings in the house. Next, he raced to the kitchen and briskly got a fire going in a brazier, which he carried to the bedroom. He proceeded to close the shutters, and then the door. In the glow of the small votive lamp that poor old Rosa always kept turned on in front of an image of the Madonna, he lay down on the bed next to Ninnì. The little one let the pocket watch slip out of his grip and—as usual—raised his hand to tear away the glasses from his brother’s face. This time, Cesarino, let the glasses be torn away; he closed his eyes and held the baby close to his chest.

“Quiet now, Ninnì, quiet… Let’s go to sleep, my precious one, it’s time to sleep.”