“Our Memories” (“I nostri ricordi”)

Translated by Marella Feltrin-Morris

How to cite this work:

Pirandello, Luigi. “Our Memories ” (“I nostri ricordi”), tr. Marella Feltrin-Morris. In Stories for a Year, eds. Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka, Digital Edition, www.pirandellointranslation.org, 2024.

“Our Memories” (“I nostri ricordi”) was first published in the Milanese newspaper the Corriere della Sera on January 22, 1912. Pirandello then added it to his volume of short stories, The Trap (La trappola; Milan: Treves, 1915). In 1922, he included it in The Lonely Man (L’uomo solo) the fourth Collection of Stories for a Year (Florence: Bemporad, 1922).

This short story constitutes a humorous exploration not just of the frailty and uncertainty of human memory but also of the broader challenge we face when confronted with the difference between various people’s perspectives and internal experiences of the same “external” events. The story’s protagonist, Carlino Bersi, returns from Rome to his hometown in Sicily. Now a painter of some reputation, he grew up in very different circumstances, and so he finds himself reflecting on the distance between himself as he is, his memories of who he once was, and then the somewhat jarring reality of the place he left behind— a place that now emerges not as an imagined entity in his memory but in its undeniable concreteness. This comes to a head when he is confronted with a Dr. Palumba who claims to be his greatest childhood friend and who continues to share memories of their time together with his Bersi’s family and friends. Bersi is certain he has never met this Palumba, of whom he has no memory at all, and decides to confront him face-to-face to reveal that Palumba is in the wrong. Yet their encounter is far more destabilizing, as Bersi discovers this is indeed a long-lost friend, and Palumba realizes that his old friend is not who he thought. At the core of the humorous confrontation between the two is an intense reflection on the subjectivity of our experience of the world – a key theme for Pirandello that spans across his work in all genres. At the same time, the story also resonates in many respects not just with other writings by the author but also with his own biography, as Bersi shares numerous peculiar traits that allow us to read him as in some sense relating to Pirandello himself. From their shared Sicilian childhoods followed by a move to Rome and growing notoriety as artists to their humorous-yet-anxious reflections on the relativity of memory and knowledge more generally, Bersi and Pirandello both speak to a foundational human anxiety of failing to see one’s own image of oneself reflected in the images that others have. While the humorous reversal of the ending might seem to dissipate some of this tension, in fact it remains the fundamental core on which the rest of the story is built.

An earlier version of this translation was previously published in Five Points, Vol. 20, No. 1 (2020): 40-47. We kindly acknowledge their permission to republish the translation in Stories for a Year. The current version has been modified, both with some small changes to the translation itself and by the addition of editorial apparatus.

The Editors

Was this the street? The house? The garden?

Ah, the futility of memories!

I realized it only too well upon visiting, after many years, the little town where I was born and spent my youth. Although it had not changed in the least, it was not at all the way it had become etched in my mind, in my memories.

In its own essence, then, my little town had never possessed the life I had long thought I had been a part of. Even the life that, long after I left, I had pictured in my mind continuing on without me, had never been there. Its places and objects did not have any of the qualities that I had retained and treasured so lovingly in my memory.

That life had never existed, except inside of me. And now, in the presence of those things—which hadn’t changed, but were different because I was different—that life seemed to me unreal, a dream: an illusion, a narrative I had made up.[1]

Futile, then, were all my memories.

I think this is one of the saddest emotions, perhaps the saddest, that we experience upon returning to our hometown after many years: seeing our memories fall into emptiness, collapse one by one, disappear—memories that try once again to come alive, but can no longer find themselves in those places, because sentiments have changed and can no longer support the reality that those places possessed, not in themselves, but in relation to those sentiments.

Approaching old friends from my childhood and youth, I felt a secret, inexplicable anguish.

If, in the presence of such a different reality, my past life had revealed itself to be an illusion, what about those old friends who had continued living unaware of my illusion—what were they like? Who were they?

I was returning to them from a world that had never existed, except in my futile memory; and, even if I were to hint vaguely at those which for me were distant memories, I was afraid they would ask:

But where did that ever happen? When?

For those old friends, as for everybody, the image of childhood is accompanied by the sweet nostalgia for all things distant.[2] However, that sweet nostalgia could never acquire in their soul the consistency it had acquired in mine. Since they were constantly forced to compare it to their mediocre, cramped, monotonous reality, they didn’t find it as different as I did now.

I asked about many people and, with an astonishment that betrayed both anguish and resentment, I saw that, as I mentioned certain names, some faces would cloud over, while others would put on a mask of bewilderment, disgust or compassion. Each of them revealed that suspension of pain one feels in front of someone whose eyes are open and unobstructed, but who nonetheless stumbles around in broad daylight—blind.

I felt paralyzed by their reactions as I inquired about individuals who had either disappeared, or were supposedly no longer worthy of interest to someone like me.

Someone like me!

They didn’t see, could not see, that my questions stemmed from a faraway past and that the people I was inquiring about were still my friends from back then.

They saw me as I was now, and each of them saw me in his own way and knew—yes, they knew—how the others had ended up. Some had died soon after I had moved away, and hardly any memory remained of them. Now, like faded images, these lost friends were forced to travel across all the time that had ceased to exist for them, but they didn’t manage to come to life even for a single moment. They remained instead like pale shadows of my distant dream. Some others had ended up badly: they were working menial jobs to make ends meet, and had to address as superiors the same people who had been their playmates during childhood and adolescence.[3] A few others had even been in prison for theft; and one, Costantino—there he was!—had become a policeman and, impertinent as ever, would amuse himself catching his old classmates any time they were in breach of the law.

But I was even more astonished to suddenly find myself an intimate friend of people I could have sworn I had never met, or barely met, or who called to mind unpleasant memories, either of instinctive aversion or juvenile rivalry.

My closest friend, according to everybody, was a certain Dr. Palumba, whom I had never heard of, but who, they said, would certainly have come to welcome me at the station if—poor guy!—he hadn’t lost his wife three days earlier. Though distraught and grieving his recent loss, when his friends had visited him to offer their condolences Dr. Palumba had solicitously asked about me—if I had arrived, if I was well, where I was staying, how long I planned to remain in town.

Everybody, with touching unanimity, informed me that no day went by that Dr. Palumba wouldn’t talk at length about me, recounting in rich detail my childhood games, my schoolboy pranks, and my first innocent crushes. Moreover, he would also tell them about everything I had done since I had moved away, as he had always kept up to date with my life by asking around. On hearing some of those stories, I felt somewhat embarrassed and even a bit indignant or mortified, because either I could not recognize myself in them, or I saw myself represented in the silliest, most ridiculous way. However, they told me that, as he related those stories, his affection and warm fondness for me were palpable, so much so that I did not have the courage to protest and exclaim:

But where? When? Who is this Palumba? I’ve never heard of him!

I was sure that, if I had said it, they would all have recoiled from me in fear, and run and tell everybody:

Did you know? Carlino Bersi has gone mad! He says that he doesn’t know Palumba, that he’s never even met him!

Or perhaps they would think that whatever little fame I had earned thanks to some of my modest paintings was now making me ashamed of the gentle, loyal, constant friendship of that dear, humble Dr. Palumba.

So, I had to keep quiet—quiet? Not at all! I hastened to show that I, too, was extremely anxious to hear about the recent tragedy suffered by my poor, intimate friend.

“Oh, dear Palumba! Really? I’m so sorry! His wife? Poor guy! How many children is he left with?”

Three? That’s right, it must be three. All three of them young, for sure, because he hadn’t been married for long... Thank heavens he had a maiden sister living with him... Yes, yes, of course I remembered her! She had been like a mother to him, that maiden sister... oh, so kind, so kind she was, too... Carmela? No. An... Angelica? How strange, my memory must be acting up! An... tonia, that’s right, Antonia, Antonia, of course—now I remembered her perfectly well! And was it true of her, too, that no day went by that she didn’t talk about me, extensively? Well, yes, as a matter of fact it was! And she didn’t just talk about me, but also about the oldest of my sisters, who had been her classmate ever since their first education course.[4]

By God! That last detail grabbed me by the neck, so to speak, and forced me to consider that there must be something true after all about the earnest affection that Palumba felt for me. He was no longer alone in the picture: now there was also Antonia, who called herself a friend to one of my sisters! And she claimed she had seen me many times when I was a child and she would come to my house to visit my sister.

But how is it possible, I wondered, becoming more and more flustered, how is it possible that I’m the only one without the least trace of memory about this Palumba?

Places, things and people—everything had become different to me, yes, but those illusions of mine possessed at least some grounding in fact, some coordinates, some hints of reality, or rather, of that which was my reality back then. My narrative rested on something. I may have had to acknowledge that my memories were futile because, though things themselves hadn’t changed, their appearance had revealed itself to be different from how I had imagined it. Those things were, they existed. On the contrary, where and when had this Palumba ever existed for me?

In short, I was like that drunkard who, after regurgitating in a deserted corner the excesses of the day, suddenly sees a dog in front of him. Racking his brains, he wonders:

“This bit I ate here; that bit I ate there; but this darn dog—where in the world did I eat it?”

I absolutely must visit him, I told myself, and talk to him. I cannot doubt him: around here he is—to everyone, practically—Carlino Bersi’s closest friend. It’s myself I doubt—Carlino Bersi—until I see him. But wait, are we joking? There’s an entire portion of my life living inside someone else, while there isn’t the least trace of it inside of me. How is it possible that I’m living inside someone I don’t know at all, and that I have no clue about it? Oh, come on, come on! It’s not possible, it’s not! I did not eat this dog; this Dr. Palumba must be a boaster, one of those windbags you meet in country apothecaries’ shops, who brag about being friends with anyone, thieves included, who succeeded in making a name for themselves outside their little village. Well, if that’s true, then I’m going to put him in his place. Does he enjoy portraying me as the most foolish clown in the world? Then I’ll introduce myself under a false name. I’ll tell him I’m Signor... Signor Buff—Buffardelli,[5] that’s it, a friend and fellow artist of Carlino Bersi, with whom I share a studio in Rome. I came with him to Sicily on an art expedition.[6] I’ll tell Palumba that Carlino had to rush back to the customs office in Palermo to track down our luggage, which should have arrived with all of our art supplies. That in the meantime, having heard of the tragic loss suffered by his friend, Dr. Palumba, he immediately sent me, Filippo Buffardelli, to offer his condolences. Even better: I’ll introduce myself with a note from Carlino himself. I’m certain, dead certain, that he’ll take the bait. But let’s suppose he really did know me once, and now he recognizes me—what then? Well, he thinks I’m a clown, right? I’ll just tell him I wanted to play a prank on him.

Many of our old friends, almost all of them, had hardly recognized me at first. And it was true, even I had to acknowledge that I had changed quite a bit: I was fat and bearded now and, alas, bald.

I asked for directions to Palumba’s house and off I went.

Ah, what a relief!

In a parlor all bedecked with small-town refinement, I saw a lanky, blondish man come towards me wearing a skull cap and embroidered slippers. His chin was firmly pressed against his chest and his lips tightened with the effort of keeping his eyes peeled over the rims of his glasses. I felt myself perk up immediately.

No, nothing, not even an ounce of me, of my life, could possibly be inside of that man.

I had never seen him. And, without a doubt, he had never seen me, either.

“Buff... excuse me, what name did you say?”

“Buffardelli. Pleasure to meet you. Here, I have a note for you from Carlino Bersi.”

“Ah, Carlino! My Carlino!” exclaimed Dr. Palumba joyfully, clasping the note and bringing it up to his lips, as if he wanted to kiss it. “But why didn’t he come? Where is he? Where did he go? If he only knew how I long to see him again! What consolation to me a visit from him would be right now! But he’ll come... Yes, it says right here... he promises he’ll come... how kind! Sweet Carlino! But what happened to him?”

I told him about the luggage he had gone to track down at the customs office in Palermo. Lost, was it? The dear man was so distressed to hear about it! Were any of Carlino’s paintings among that luggage?

He started venting about the dreadful railway service, then he asked me if I was an old friend of Carlino’s, if we shared a house in Rome...

It was incredible! As he asked me those questions he kept staring at me intently over those glasses of his, but his eyes betrayed nothing except his eagerness to discover, by studying my face, whether my friendship with Carlino was as sincere as his, and my affection as strong.

I patched together some answers, mesmerized and touched as I was by that incredible phenomenon, then I spurred him to talk about me.

Oh, it took only the slightest encouragement, no more than a word: I was instantly flooded by a torrent of bizarre anecdotes—of Carlino as a child, living on Via San Pietro and shooting paper arrows at the biretta of the priest in charge of benefices; of Carlino as a young boy, playing at soldiers against his rivals of Piazza San Francesco;[7] of Carlino at school, Carlino on holiday, Carlino, hit in the face with a cabbage core which, miraculously, didn’t leave him blind; of Carlino the thespian, the marionette player, the horseman, the wrestler, the lawyer, the infantryman, the bandit, the snake hunter, the frog fisher; of Carlino who fell from a balcony and landed on a straw stack, and would have died if he hadn’t had a giant kite for a parachute; of Carlino...

I just sat there, listening to him in astonishment—no, what astonishment? I mean almost in terror.

There was, yes, there was something, in each of those stories, that perhaps vaguely resembled my memories. His memories may indeed be sewn over the same canvas as my own, but his ugly stitches were sparse, cursory and lopsided. In short, his stories might more or less be my memories, equally futile and flimsy. Stripped of any poetry, impoverished, dumbed-down, somehow cramped to make them fit the squalid appearance of things, the discouraging provincialism of these places.

But how and from where had they reached this man who was standing in front of me, who stared at me without recognizing me, whom I stared at, and... Yes! Perhaps it was a spark I glimpsed in his eyes, or maybe an inflection in his voice... I don’t know! It was a flash. I dove with my gaze into the depths of time and, little by little, I re-emerged with a sigh and a name:

“Loverde...”

Dr. Palumba stopped halfway through a sentence, stunned.

“Loverde... yes,” he said. “My name used to be Loverde. But I was adopted, at sixteen, by Dr. Cesare Palumba, a medical officer who... but excuse me, how do you know that?”

I couldn’t restrain myself:

“Loverde... that’s right, now I remember! In third grade, yes! But... I hardly knew you...”

“You? How? You knew me?”

“Well, yes... wait... Loverde... what’s your first name?”

“Carlo...”

“Ah, Carlo... like me, then... Well, don’t you remember me at all? It’s me, can’t you see? Carlino Bersi!”

Poor Dr. Palumba looked like he’d been struck by lightning. He raised his hands to his head, his face suddenly distorted by nervous twitches, as if he were being pricked with invisible pins.

“Him?... you?... Carlino... you?... him?... But how?... I... Oh my God!... But what...”

I was cruel, I admit it. And I regret my cruelty all the more since the poor man must have been convinced that I had meant to amuse myself by exposing him before the whole town as a liar. On the contrary, I was now totally certain about his good faith, and totally certain that my astonishment, earlier, had been foolish, since I had already experienced, for an entire day, how what we call our memories have no basis whatsoever in reality. Poor Dr. Palumba thought he remembered... And instead he had made up a nice little story about me! But hadn’t I made one up, too, which had promptly vanished as soon as I had set foot again in my native town? I had been in front of him for an hour, and he hadn’t recognized me. But of course not! In his mind he saw Carlino Bersi: not as I was, but as he had always imagined me in his dreams.

That was it, and now I had awakened him from those dreams.

I tried to comfort him, to reassure him, but seized by a growing, convulsive tremor that shook his whole body, the poor man flailed about, his eyes darting all over, as if he were looking for himself, for a spirit that kept getting lost. His own. He seemed to be trying to hold it back, to stop it, but he could not calm down, and kept babbling:

“But how?... What are you saying?... But so he... I mean, you... you, then... how... don’t you remember... that you... that I...”