“Naked Life” (“La vita nuda”)

Translated by Emanuela Pecchioli and Alexander Bertland

How to cite this work:

Pirandello, Luigi. “Naked Life” (“La vita nuda”), tr. Emanuela Pecchioli and Alexander Bertland. In Stories for a Year, eds. Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka, Digital Edition, www.pirandellointranslation.org, 2024.

"Naked Life” was first published in the literary magazine Novissima in the 1907 volume (the magazine only published once per year, running from 1901-1910, first in Milan and then, from 1903, in Rome). It was made the title story of a volume collecting miscellaneous stories, Naked Life (La vita nuda), published in 1910 by Treves in Milan. In 1922 it was added to the second Collection of Stories for a Year, which likewise took its title from this story (Florence: Bemporad).

Set in Rome, the story plays with numerous themes that were important for Pirandello, including the nature of artistic creation, while also exploring gender norms and the limitations placed on women in early-twentieth century society. Two Roman artists, Ciro Colli and Costantino Pogliani, represent different approaches to modern art. They are visited by the Signora Consalvi and her daughter, Giulietta, whose fiancé has tragically died right before their wedding. The plot is motivated by the family’s interest in commissioning a funerary monument to the deceased fiancé, but its development focuses on how Giulietta works to adapt a design of Colli’s into her own version for the monument and seeks his approval and assistance in realizing the final sculpture itself. Questions of gender and the artistic potential of the young lady thus come to the fore, challenging stereotypes that would see a young lady as less able to produce meaningful art while also opening into an exploration of what it means to have and to share a vision for a work of art. Simultaneously, this progress in her work of art also enables Giulietta to overcome the psychological attachment fixing her to her deceased fiancé, suggesting a way in which artistic creation serves not just to produce works of art but also to free the psychological energies of attachment in life. In addition to these themes, the story also develops a metaphor that is repeated throughout Pirandello’s works, the notion of laying life bear that is captured in the title, “Naked Life,” and then thematized in the story. For Pirandello, the term “naked” is often employed to suggest stripping away the external façade of something and exposing its inner truth or reality, such as it is. From his play To Clothe the Naked (Vestire gli ignudi, 1922) to the title of his self-collection of his complete theatrical works, Naked Masks (Maschere nude, beginning in 1918), the metaphor becomes a way of visualizing the kind of unmasking or stripping away of external convention that is so important to his prose works, as well. In this story, the title has a double meaning, as “Naked Life” could seem to refer to a general concept, but it also refers to a specific image that is being depicted or imagined throughout the short story, an image of Life, personified. The question running across the plot is whether the artist who is rendering Life for an eventual funerary sculpture would be justified in portraying her as a figure without clothing, or whether it is necessary to cover her up for modesty’s sake.

The Editors

... A dead person, even if he is dead, my friend, wants his home like everyone else. And if he is a respectable dead person, he wants a beautiful one, and he should! He wants to be comfortable, wants a marble house, and decorated too. And then if he is a dead person with money to spend, he also wants there to be some profound... how do you say? allegory that’s it!, some profound allegories created by a great sculptor like me: a beautiful tombstone with an inscription in Latin: HIC JACET..., who he was or was not... a lovely little garden around it, with a few leafy greens and all the rest, and a beautiful fence to keep out the dogs and…

“You have annoyed me!” yelled an all heated and sweaty Costantino Pogliani while turning toward him.

Ciro Colli raised his head from his chest, with his small, pointed beard bent into a hook by force of his repeatedly twisting it. He remained for a while to glance at his friend from underneath his cheap sugar loaf hat that dropped down to his nose,[1] and with very placid conviction he said almost setting down the word:

“Ass ”

There.

He was laying on his back with his long legs spread wide, one here, the other there, on the little carpet that Pogliani had just beaten very well and laid out nicely in front of the canapé.[2]

Pogliani was consumed with anger seeing Colli lying down there, while he was working so hard to tidy up the studio, putting the plaster casts in a way they could make a good impression, shoving to the back the yellowed and dusty ugly models that had been sent back after losing in competitions for commissions , and bringing forward cautiously the pedestals with the works that he could have shown and that were now hidden by wet cloths. And he was grumbling.

“So are you leaving or not?”

“No.”

“At least, don’t sit there where I have cleaned, for God’s sake! How do I have to explain it to you that I am waiting for some ladies?”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Here is the letter. Look! I received it yesterday from commendator Seralli: [3] Dear friend, I inform you that tomorrow morning, around eleven...”

“Is it already eleven?”

“It is just past!”

“I do not believe it. Go on!”

“... two ladies, directed by me, will visit you. They are Mrs. Con... what does the letter say here?”

“Confucius.”

“Cont... or Consalvi, it’s hard to read, and her daughter, and they have need of your work I am sure that... etc. etc.”

“You didn’t write that letter yourself, did you?” asked Ciro Colli, lowering his head back onto his chest.

“Imbecile!” Pogliani exclaimed, almost wailed, not knowing, in his exasperation, whether he should cry or laugh.

Colli shook his raised finger to say no.

“Don’t say that. I am offended. Because, if I were an imbecile, do you know what kind of nice and decent person I would be as a result? I would look at people as if with compassion. I would be well dressed, with beautiful shoes, with a lovely heliopro... heliotro... how do you say?... heliotrope tie, and a black velvet vest like yours... Ah, how nice I would look with a black velvet vest like yours, but I am nothing more than a poor slaughtered man. Listen to me. Let’s do it this way for your sake. If it is true that those Confucius ladies have to come, let’s put your studio back in disorder. Otherwise, they will get a bad impression of you. It would be better if they also found you hard at work, with the sweat... how do you say? with the bread... anyway with the sweat of the bread of your brow.[4] Take a big piece of clay, slap it on a pedestal and quickly start a little model of me as I am now, lying down. You will title it Fighting, and you will see that they will buy it off you immediately for the National Gallery.[5] My shoes, I know, are not really new, but if you want, you can make them brand new, because as a sculptor––and I am not saying this just to flatter you––you are an excellent shoemaker.”

Costantino Pogliani, intent on hanging certain drawings on the wall, wasn't paying attention to him anymore. For him, Colli was a poor wretch who was out of touch with the real world, a stubborn survivor from an era that had already passed, a practitioner of a style that artists had stopped using. He was messy, uncultivated, careless, and by then chronic laziness had sunk into his bones. It was really a shame because when he felt like working, he could compete with the best. And Pogliani knew something about it because many times, there, in his studio, he had witnessed Colli, with two taps from his thumbs, impressed with an energetic disinterest, put back on track a piece that was not coming together. But he should have studied, at least a little bit of art history, you know, he should have had some routine in his life, and should have taken care of himself. He was so filled with boredom and wearing all those shabby clothes that he was unapproachable, come on. He, Pogliani… he had even attended university for two years, and... a signore, he was earning a living from his work… everyone could see it...

Two sharp knocks on the door made him jump from the stool on which he had climbed to hang the drawings.

“Here they are! And now?” he said to Colli, showing him his fists.

“They enter and I exit,” Colli answered without getting up. “You are turning this into a Papal inquest."

Besides, you could also introduce me, you selfish piece of work!”

Costantino Pogliani ran to open the door, tidying up a beautiful, blond, curly lock on his forehead.

Mrs. Consalvi entered first, then her daughter, wearing mourning clothes with her face hidden by a thick, crêpe veil, and holding a long rolled up paper. The mother wore a beautiful, light grey dress that fitted her full figure perfectly. Like her dress, her hair was grey but arranged in a young-looking style under a lovely little hat all interwoven with violets.

Mrs. Consalvi made it blatantly clear that she knew she was still youthful looking and beautiful despite her age. After a little bit, lifting the veil onto her hat, her daughter revealed that she was no less beautiful than her mother, even if she was pale and reserved because of her grief.

After some opening pleasantries, Pogliani realized that he was forced to introduce Colli, who was still there with his hands in his pockets, half an extinguished cigarette in his mouth, and his cheap hat still on his nose. Colli made no sign of leaving.

“Sculptor?” Miss Consalvi then asked, suddenly turning red with surprise: “Colli... Ciro?”

“Codicillo, yes!”[6] Colli said standing at attention, taking off his cheap hat and revealing his thick, joined eyebrows and eyes set close to his nose. “Sculptor? Why not? Sculptor too.”

“I was told that you were not in Rome anymore...” continued Miss Consalvi, clumsy and vexed.

“Yes, well, I... how can I put it? I stroll.” Colli answered. “I stroll around the world, Miss. Before I was a resident lazybones in Rome because I had scaled the greasy pole:[7] the Pension. Then...”

Miss Consalvi looked at her mother who was laughing and said:

“What are we going to do? What do we do?”

“Do I need to leave?” Colli asked.

“No, no, on the contrary,” Miss Consalvi hurried to answer, “actually, I am asking you to stay, because...”

“What a coincidence!” the mother exclaimed. Then, turning to Pogliani, she said: “We will find a solution somehow... You two are friends, aren’t you?”

“Very good friends,” Pogliani answered immediately.

And Colli:

“He wanted to kick me out a moment ago, can you imagine?”

“Be quiet!” Pogliani yelled at him. “Please, ladies, make yourselves comfortable. What brings you here?”

“Well,” Mrs. Consalvi began, sitting down. “My unfortunate daughter has had the terrible tragedy of suddenly losing her fiancé.”

“Ah, really?”

“Oh!”

“It was awful. Just on the eve of the wedding, can you imagine? In a hunting accident. Maybe you will have read about it in the newspapers. Giulio Sorini.”

“Ah, yes, Sorini!” Pogliani said. “His shotgun exploded?”

“At the beginning of last month... that is, no... the other... anyway, it happened three months ago. The unfortunate young man was distantly related to us: he was the son of a cousin of mine who emigrated to America after his wife’s death. Well, now, here is Giulietta (because she too is named Giulia)...”[8]

Pogliani bowed politely to her.

“Giulietta,” the mother continued, “thought we could erect a monument in the Verano to the memory of her fiancé who is temporarily resting in a reserved burial plot.[9] She also thought about a specific design for the monument because she, my daughter, has always truly had a great passion for drawing.”

“No... really...” interrupted the shy young lady in mourning with lowered eyes. “It is just a hobby...”

“What are you saying? Poor Giulio even wanted you to take drawing classes...”

“Mother, please...” the young lady insisted. “I saw in an illustrated magazine the drawing of a funeral monument by this gentleman here... by Mr. Colli, and I liked it very much. So...”

“Precisely,” continued the mother to help her daughter who was losing her way.

“However, I would have envisioned it with a few modifications...” the young lady added.

“Excuse me, which one is it?” Colli asked. “I made several of these drawings hoping to get at least some orders from the dead, considering that the living...”

“Excuse me, Miss Consalvi,” Pogliani interrupted, a little annoyed by seeing himself be put aside, “have you designed a monument based on a drawing made by my friend?”

“No, it is not exactly the same, no... well,” the young lady answered with a lively voice. “Mr. Colli’s drawing represents Death that attracts Life, if I am not mistaken...”

“Ah, I see!” Colli exclaimed. “A skeleton with a sheet, right? A skeleton that you can hardly see, stiff between the folds of the sheet, and grasping Life who is an attractive girl who does not consent at all... Yes, yes... Very beautiful! Magnificent! I see now.”

Mrs. Consalvi could not help laughing again, admiring the shamelessness of that piece of work.

“Humble, isn’t he?” Pogliani said to the lady. “He is a peculiar type.”

“Come Giulia,” Mrs. Consalvi said, getting up. “Maybe it is better if you show your drawing without further ado.”

“Wait, mother,” the young lady beseeched. “Frankly, it is better to explain everything first to Mr. Pogliani. When I had the idea of the monument, I must confess that I thought immediately of Mr. Colli. Yes. Because of that drawing. However, as I said, I was told that you were not in Rome anymore. For this reason, I strove on my own to adapt your drawing to my idea and feeling. That is, in such a way that it could represent my personal situation and my objective. Am I explaining myself?”

“Wonderfully!” Pogliani approved.

“I left,” the young lady continued, “the two figures of Death and Life, but taking away completely the violence of the aggression, if I may say so. Death does not grasp Life anymore, but on the contrary, Life, willing and resigned to her destiny, marries Death.”

“She gets married?” Pogliani, confused, said.

“To Death!” Colli yelled at him. “Let her speak!”

“To Death,” the young lady repeated with a humble smile. “And I also wanted to clearly represent the wedding symbol. The skeleton is rigid, as Mr. Colli drew it, but from between the folds of the funeral robe, a hand holding a wedding band barely appears. Life, humbly and modestly, clings to the skeleton and stretches her hand to receive the band.”

“Very beautiful! Magnificent! I can see it!” Colli burst out at that point. “This is another idea! Splendid! Another thing, very different! Splendid! The band... the finger... Magnificent!”

“Well, yes,” the young lady added, blushing again at that ardent praise. “I also believe that it is a little different. However, it is undeniable that I was inspired by the drawing and that...”

“But you should not care about it at all!” Colli exclaimed. “Your idea is much more beautiful than mine, and it is yours! After all, mine... who knows whose it was!”

Miss Consalvi raised her shoulders and lowered her eyes.

“If I have to be honest,” the mother interrupted, rousing herself, “I leave it to my daughter, but I truly do not like this idea at all!”

“Mother, please...” the daughter repeated. Then, turning back toward Pogliani, she resumed: “Well, now I asked for advice from commendatore Seralli, a very good friend of ours...”

“He was supposed to be a witness at the wedding,” the mother added, sighing.

“And since the commendatore mentioned your name,” the daughter continued, “we came to...”

“No, no, excuse me, Miss Consalvi,” Pogliani hurried to say. “Since you have found my friend here...”

“Oh, give me a break! Don’t annoy me!” Colli roared, shaking himself off furiously and heading towards the exit.

Pogliani held him back by one arm forcibly.

“Excuse me, look... if the young lady... don’t you get it? She turned to me because she thought you were not in Rome...”

“But if she changed everything!” Colli exclaimed, wriggling away. “Let me go! What do I have to do with it? She came here to see you! Excuse me, Miss, excuse me, Madame with all due respect...”

“Oh, well!” Pogliani, determined, said without letting him go. “I am not going to do it; you will not either, and neither of us will do it...”

“Excuse me, but... together?” the mother then suggested. “Couldn’t you do it together?”

“I am sorry to have caused...” the young lady tried to add.

“Not at all!” Colli and Pogliani said in unison.

Colli continued:

“I do not have anything to do with this anymore, Miss! Also, look, I don’t even have a studio anymore, I am not able to finish anything anymore other than saying rude things to everybody... You absolutely must oblige this idiot here...”

“It is useless, you know?” said Pogliani. “Either we do it together, as the lady proposes, or I am not going to do it at all.”

“If you please, Miss?” Colli said then, stretching out his hand towards the roll of paper she was holding close to her on the canapé. “I am dying to see your drawing. When I will have seen it...”

“Oh, do not imagine anything extraordinary, please!” Miss Consalvi prefaced, unrolling the paper with trembling hands. “I only barely know how to hold a pencil... I put down a few sketches, just to give an idea... here...”

“Dressed?!” Colli immediately exclaimed, as if he had been smacked by looking at the drawing.

“What... dressed?” asked the shy and anxious young lady.

“Well, no, sorry!” Colli continued excitedly. “You drew Life in a shirt... or better in a tunic, we might say! But, no, naked, naked, naked! Life must be naked, my young lady, what do clothes have to do with it?”

“Excuse me,” Miss Consalvi said with lowered eyes. “Please, look at it more carefully.”

“Well, yes, I see,” Colli answered more energetically. “You wanted to represent yourself here, you wanted to portray yourself. However, let’s ignore the fact that you are much more beautiful, here we are in the yard... in the graveyard of art,[10] I am sorry to say! And this is supposed to be Life that marries Death. Now, if the skeleton is dressed, then Life must be naked, there is nothing else to say about it. Life must be totally naked and very beautiful, Miss, to balance out by contrast the macabre presence of the dressed skeleton! Naked, don’t you think so, Pogliani? Naked, right, Madam? Totally naked, my young lady! Absolutely naked, from head to toe! Believe me that otherwise, left like this, it would look like a scene in a hospital: that one with a sheet, this one with the bathrobe... We must create a work of sculpture! There aren’t any good reasons not to!”

“No, no, excuse me,” Miss Consalvi said, getting up with her mother. “You may be right, from an artistic perspective, I do not deny it. However, I want to say something that I could express only in this way. If I did it the way you would want me to, I would have to give that up.”

“Excuse me, but why? Because here you see yourself and not a symbol, that’s why! To say that it is beautiful, I am sorry, would not be possible...”

And the young lady:

“I know it would not be beautiful at all. However, just as you say, I did not want to represent the symbol, but myself, my personal situation, my intention, and this is the only possible way for me. I also am thinking about the place where the monument will have to be built... In short, I could not compromise.”

Colli opened his arms and shrugged his shoulders.

“Opinions!”

“Or rather,” the young lady, with a sweet and very melancholy smile, corrected him, “ a sentiment that needs to be respected!”

They decided that the two friends would deal with commendatore Seralli about all the other matters concerning the commission. A little later Mrs. Consalvi and her daughter in mourning took their leave.

Ciro Colli, with two short steps and a cheerful tra-la-la, twirled on his heel and rubbed his hands with glee.

Around a week later, Costantino Pogliani went to the Consalvi’s house to invite the young lady to pose for a sketch of the head.

From commendatore Seralli, a very close friend of Mrs. Consalvi, he had learned that Sorini, who survived for three days after the tragic accident, had left to his fiancée the entirety of his substantial fortune inherited from his father, and for that reason, the monument should be built without any concern about the expense.

Epuisé was the word that commendatore Seralli had used to describe himself after he had been submerged by tasks, worries, and troubles that followed from that tragedy. Troubles, tasks, and worries had also been aggravated by Miss Consalvi’s temperament which was a little... emporté, voilà.[11] Yes, the poor young lady certainly deserved pity. However, it seemed, good God, that she took too much pleasure in making her grief worse. Oh, a horrible choc, who would deny it?[12] A true bolt out of the blue! And Sorini was such a good person, poor guy! Yes, he was also a handsome young man. And really in love! Surely, he would have made the young lady happy. And maybe he died for this reason.

It also seemed that he had died and that he had been so good just to increase the troubles of commendatore Seralli.

Just imagine that the young lady had not wanted to get rid of the house that, he, her fiancé, had already completely furnished: a nice nest, a joli rêve de luxe et de bien-être.[13] She had brought all her beautiful trousseau, and she would spend most of her day there, but not weeping, no. She would torment herself by daydreaming about her married life that had been so tragically cut short... arrachée...[14]

In fact, Pogliani did not find Miss Consalvi at home. The maid gave him the address of the new house in Via Porta Pinciana.[15] Going there, Costantino Pogliani began thinking about the anguished and very bitter pleasure that the unfortunate bride, already a widow before getting married, must have felt feeding herself on a dream––that almost came true––of a life that destiny had not wanted her to live.

How many promises were kept by all those new pieces of furniture, chosen with who knows how much love and care by the young bride and groom and happily arranged in that house that would have soon been occupied?

Put a wish in a cabinet and open it, you will find disappointment. But not there. All those objects would have taken care of their wishes and promises and hopes together with sweet enticements. How cruel the bride must have found the allure of all those new and perfect things that surrounded her!

“On a day like this!” Costantino Pogliani sighed.

In the fresh clean air, one could already feel the upcoming spring’s breath, and the sun’s first warmth was exhilarating.

In the new home with the windows open to that sunlight, who knows what dreams the unfortunate Miss Consalvi was having and what pain she was feeling!

He found her in front of a pedestal drawing her fiancé’s portrait. Very timidly, she was portraying him by enlarging a small photograph of him. In the meantime, her mother, to kill time, was reading a French novel she had borrowed from commendatore Seralli’s library.

Actually, Miss Consalvi would have preferred to be alone there, in that house that failed to become her nest. Her mother’s presence disturbed her. However, her mother wanted to be there and follow her, fearing within that her daughter in her fervor could commit some sort of act of romantic desperation. She bore it silently and strained to hold back the snorts caused by her daughter’s intolerable stubborn whim.

Widowed very young, with no income to rely on and with only one child, Mrs. Consalvi could not have afforded to shut the door on life and assign grief to be its sentinel as her daughter seemed to want to do now.

Mrs. Consalvi did not think that Giulietta should not cry about her cruel fate. However, she believed, like her intimate friend commendator Seralli, she believed that... well, yes, Giulietta exaggerated a little too much and was taking advantage of the money that the unfortunate dead man had left her to grant herself the luxury of excessive grief. Woefully aware of the brutal and heinous difficulties of existence, of the gallows under which she had to pass in order to manage while still mourning the death of her husband, she thought that her daughter’s grief was very easy. Her own terrible experiences made that grief appear almost forgivably lighthearted, as long as it did not go on too long... voilà as commendator Seralli always said.

Being a wise woman, tried and tested in the world, Mrs. Consalvi had already attempted more than once to remind her daughter of what was considered normal and acceptable in grieving. It had been in vain! Too imaginative, her Giulietta perhaps had more an idea of grief than an actual feeling of it. And this was a big problem! Because the feeling of grief, over time, would necessarily and undoubtedly weaken, while the idea would not. The idea was fixed in Giulietta’s mind and made her do strange things like designing the funerary monument with Life marrying Death (what a great marriage!) and preserving the nuptial house untouched in order to maintain the dream that almost had become real of a life that she could not live.

Mrs. Consalvi was very grateful to Pogliani for that visit.

The windows were fully open to the sun, and Villa Borghese’s magnificent pines rose high above the dazzling light that seemed to stagnate over the wide green meadows as they breathed happily in the clear and tender blue of the springtime sky.

Miss Consalvi immediately made as if to hide her drawing, getting up, but Pogliani held her with gentle pressure.

“Why? Don’t you want to let me see?”

“I have just started it...”

“Yes, but very well started!” he exclaimed, bending over to observe. “Ah, very well... It is him, isn’t it? Mr. Sorini... Now that I see this portrait, I actually think I remember him well. Yes, yes, I met him... But did he have this small beard?”

“No,” the young lady hurried to answer. “Lately, he did not have it anymore.”

“Well, I thought so... Handsome young man, handsome young man...”

“I do not know what to do,” the young lady continued, “because this portrait does not correspond... it is no longer really the image of him that I have within me.”

“Eh, yes,” Pogliani admitted immediately, “he was better, much more... more lively, there, more alert I would say...”

“He had that photographic portrait made in America,” the mother observed, “before he got engaged, obviously...”

“And I do not have any others!” the young lady sighed. “Look, I close my eyes, like this, and I see him, exactly as he was recently. However, as soon as I start to draw him, I do not see him anymore. So, I look at the photograph, and right at that moment I think that it’s him, alive. I try to draw him, but I do not recognize him any more in those features. It’s terrible!”

“But Giulia, look,” the mother continued with her eyes fixed on Pogliani, “you were talking about the line of the chin, if you decide to take off the beard... Don’t you think, Mr. Pogliani, that here in the chin...”

Mr. Pogliani blushed and smiled. Almost without meaning to, he raised his chin and presented it as if the young lady should take it delicately with two fingers and put it there in Sorini’s portrait.

The young lady, shy and upset, raised her eyes a little to look at Pogliani’s chin. (Her mother did not have any respect at all for her grief!)

“And the mustache as well, oh, look...” Mrs. Consalvi added without doing it on purpose. “That is the way poor Giulio wore it recently, don’t you think so?”

“The mustache,” the young lady said, annoyed, “What is the big deal? It is easy to draw!”

Costantino Pogliani instinctively touched his mustache. He smiled again and confirmed:

“Easy, right...”

Then, he got closer to the pedestal and said:

“Look, if you allow me... I would like to show you, Miss... like this, two lines, here... don’t trouble yourself, please! Here, in this corner... (it can be erased later)... this is how I remember the unfortunate Mr. Sorini.”

Pogliani sat and started to draw the fiancé’s head with the help of the photograph, while Miss Consalvi followed his quick sketches with the increasing enthusiasm of her entire, outstretched, and spirant soul. From her lips erupted periodic cries of yes... yes... yes... that animated and almost guided the pencil. In the end, she could not hold back her emotion anymore:

“Yes, oh look, mom... it’s him... exactly the same... oh, leave it... thank you... What happiness, to be able in this way... it is perfect... it is perfect...”

“Just a little practice,” Pogliani, rising back up, said with a humility that let the pleasure he felt for those powerful praises show through. “And then as I say, I remember him very well, poor Sorini...”

Miss Consalvi lingered to gaze at the drawing insatiably.

“The chin, yes... it’s this... exactly the same... Thank you, thank you...”

At that point the small photograph of Sorini that served as a model slipped down from the pedestal and the young lady, totally entranced by Pogliani’s sketch, did not bend to pick it up.

There on the ground, that image, already a little faded, appeared more languished than ever as if it understood that it would not get up again.

Nevertheless, Pogliani chivalrously bent to pick it up.

“Thank you,” the young lady told him. “But from now on I will use your drawing, you know? I will not look at this ugly photograph anymore.”

And, suddenly, lifting her eyes, it seemed to her that the room was brighter. As if that surge of admiration had cleared her chest, which had been oppressed for so long, she breathed euphorically, drank with her soul that cheerful and lively light that was entering from the broad open window out onto the enchanting spectacle of the magnificent villa wrapped up in the spring’s charm.

It was just a moment. Miss Consalvi could not explain what had really happened to her. She had the sudden impression of feeling like new among all those new things around her. New and free, no longer sensing the nightmare that had suffocated her until a little before. A breath, something had entered forcefully from that window to agitate tumultuously all the feelings inside her, to instill almost a sparkle of life into all those new objects that she had wanted precisely to deprive of life by leaving them untouched there, as if they had to hold vigil with her over the death of a dream.[16]

And, hearing the very elegant young sculptor with a sweet voice praise the beauty of that view and the house as he conversed with her mother, who invited him to see the other rooms, she followed them feeling strangely agitated as if that young man, that stranger, was really about to penetrate her dead dream in order to reanimate it.

This new feeling was so strong that she could not cross the threshold of the bedroom; and seeing there the young man and her mother exchange a sad look of comprehension, she could not bear it anymore. She burst into tears.

And she cried, yes, she cried again for the same reason that she had cried so many other times. However, she confusingly felt that those tears were different, that the sound of those sobs did not wake in her the echo of the old grief and the images that had presented themselves to her before. And she felt it even more when her mother hastened to comfort her with the same words and exhortations she had used to comfort her many other times before. She could not bear them. She made a violent effort with herself and stopped crying. She was grateful to the young man who, to distract her, asked her to show him her portfolio of drawings that was glimpsed there on a folding chair.

Pogliani praised her in a sincere and measured way, and made some comments, observations, asked some questions that made her explain, discuss. Finally, Pogliani warmly encouraged her to study, to develop with fervor her talent for art which was truly uncommon. It would be a shame not to! A real shame! Had she never tried to use colors? Never ever? Why? Oh, it wouldn’t take much at all with her preparation and her passion…

Costantino Pogliani offered to teach her, and Miss Consalvi accepted. Classes started the following day, there, in the new house that was inviting and waiting.

No more than two months later, in Pogliani’s studio that was already cluttered with a colossal funerary monument quickly sketched, Ciro Colli was lying on the canapé with his old work coat between his legs, smoking a pipe, and giving a strange speech to the skeleton that was fixed onto a black base and that he had borrowed to use as a model from a doctor friend.

He had put his paper hat slightly askew on the skull and the skeleton seemed to be a foot soldier standing at attention who had to listen to the lesson that sculptor-corporal Ciro Colli was teaching him between one puff of smoke and the next:

“And you, why did you go hunting? Do you see the bad state you are in, my dear? Ugly... skinny legs... everything skinny... Let’s speak frankly, do you think that this marriage can be arranged? Life, my dear... look at her there, eh! What a tasty dish that won’t quit who came out of these hands! Would you seriously flatter yourself by thinking that girl there wants to marry you? She came closer to you, shy and humble. She cried like a fountain... but hardly to accept your wedding ring... get that out of your head! Spend the money, spend everything you’ve got. Did you give it to her? So, now what do you want from me? It’s useless to say if I imagined it! Poor world, and poor people who believe in it! Life started to study painting, and do you know who her teacher is? Costantino Pogliani. This is a joke that goes over the line, let’s be honest. If I were you, my dear, I would challenge him to a duel. Did you hear him this morning? His direct order: he does not want, he absolutely pro-hi-bits me from portraying her naked. Yet, however much of an ass, a sculptor he remains, and he knows well that in order to dress her, you first need to make her naked... But I am going to explain to you the facts as they are: he does not want people to see his young lady’s face on top of that magnificent naked body there... He climbed up there. Did you see him? He was very angry and with two strikes of a palette knife, taf! taf! he destroyed all my work... Can you tell me why, my little soldier? I yelled at him: “Leave it! I am going to dress her immediately! I am going to dress her!” But no! Now they want her naked... Life naked, naked and crude as she is, my dear! They went back to my first drawing, to the symbol. No more portrait! You’re grabbing her, my dear, and she doesn’t want anything to do with you ... But why did you go hunting? Can you tell me?”