“Stefano Giogli, One and Two” (“Stefano Giogli, uno e due”)

Translated by Marella Feltrin-Morris

How to cite this work:

Pirandello, Luigi. “Bobbio’s Hail Mary” (“Stefano Giogli, One and Two”), tr. Marella Feltrin-Morris. In Stories for a Year, eds. Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka, Digital Edition, www.pirandellointranslation.org, 2022.

Originally published in Il Marzocco, on April 18, 1909, this story was included by the editors in the 1938 Appendix published by Mondadori, together with the other stories Pirandello had initially left out from his Collections in Stories for a Year.

“Stefano Giogli, One and Two” highlights a typically Pirandellian theme of self-distancing vision by exploring an instance of what we might call self-jealousy, the particular form of jealousy that the title character feels for one version of himself. This is spurred by his realization that his wife loves not the self he recognizes as his own, but rather an idealized version of him. This creates a doubling and distance from what he experiences as his actual persona. Stefano starts perceiving the estranged side of his personality as an alien living within himself, a stranger who is nevertheless alive and as such must be acknowledged as real. This theme, as well as the plot itself, thus anticipates what we will find in One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand (Uno, nessuno e centomila, 1926), Pirandello’s last novel in which he explores the troublesome aspects of identity and self-perception. The novel had a long and tumultuous gestation, which overlapped with many years of his writing short stories and plays; the result is clear instances of close resonance. In fact, several passages from “Stefano Giogli, One and Two” are repeated almost verbatim in Book 2, Chapter 12 of the novel, including passages expressing the protagonist’s realization that the object of his wife’s love is a constructed image of him.

One of the main stories to delineate Pirandello’s particular notion of perspectivism (what some would call his relativism), “Stefano Giogli, One and Two” also epitomizes Pirandello’s habit of fusing narrative and theoretical reflection (or what some would call his penchant for philosophy). This is visible in the way that he develops key concepts in both theoretical and narrative texts, and the way in which passages reflecting on these concepts migrate from one genre to another. Seminal concepts in Pirandello’s outlook, such as the idea of self-multiplicity, the constructed nature of reality, and the arbitrary or contingent factors shaping perception, all recur across both his essays and creative work. Likewise, entire paragraphs are actually repeated, sometimes word-for-word, in a kind of self-plagiarism that moves concepts from theoretical texts to fictional works, for instance in the case of the essays Sincerity and Art (Sincerità e arte, 1897) and Illustrators, Actors, and Translators (Illustratori, attori e traduttori, 1908), which both are sources for material integrated into “Stefano Giogli, One and Two.”

In addition to being an intertext in Pirandello’s corpus both for essays like those cited above and for his later novel, “Stefano Giogli, One and Two” also led to a subsequent adaptation for the stage. The three-act play Mrs. Morli, One and Two (La Signora Morli, una e due) premiered in Rome at the Teatro Argentina on November 12, 1920, performed by the company of the famous actress Emma Gramatica. The source material for this play went beyond this short story, though, and also included aspects of another short story originally published in the same period, “The Dead and the Living” (“La morta e la viva,” 1910). Like “Stefano Giogli, One and Two,” this other story also reworks the idea of doubleness in humorous terms. The play was published in 1922 by Bemporad in Florence.

The Editors

Stefano Giogli had married in a rush, without even taking the time to get to know the woman who was to become his wife.[1] Then again, he wouldn’t have had the chance, blinded as he was by the mad desire that some women unwittingly awaken at first sight. A desire that makes a man lose all reason and common sense and gives him no relief until he can have her in his arms, desperately.

He first saw her one night at the house of some close friends, bona fide Venetians who had been living in Rome for many years. Before that night he hadn’t been in that house for months: they played too much music there, and with the unbearable attitude of someone celebrating a sacred ritual that is off limits to everyone but the initiates. German and Russian sonatas and symphonies, Polish and Hungarian nocturnes and fantasias—a real curse for Stefano Giogli, a curse and a shame because, frankly speaking,[2] without that obsession with music Sior Momo Làimi, his lovely wife s Nicoleta, and their children Marina and Zorzeto would have been the nicest, most adorable people in the world.[3]

That night he almost had to be dragged there by a friend, a Veronese painter who had arrived in Rome the same day with the Làimis’ widowed son-in-law. The latter had come to drop off his daughter, a true Veronese sweetheart, so pretty and oh so well-mannered, to spend a few months at her grandparents’ house.

Yes, there was music that night, too, but not much. The real music, to everybody’s ears, was Lucietta Frenzi’s voice.

Her elderly grandparents listened to her in bliss: Siora Nicoleta, her hands sheathed in woolen half-gloves and the tips of her fingers locked together, was literally crying with joy behind her gold-rimmed glasses, shaking her silver curls, which cascaded angelically over her forehead. Yes, she was crying—and begging her husband to let her go on crying! Because she believed that she was truly hearing her poor dead daughter—the same voice, the same fire and authority with which she said ciò!,[4] the same twitches and giggles that stopped all of a sudden, that certain nervous bobbing of her head that made her golden locks and large, silk bows tremble every time. Oh, how beautiful! How lovely!

They all gathered around her: old men, youths, ladies, and young girls, taunting her, egging her on with the most disparate questions. Unperturbed, she stood her ground, speaking half in Italian and half in dialect. No matter what the subject, she had an opinion about it, and would express it with a self-confidence that admitted no objection. When certain blunt statements of hers gave rise to protests, she would forcefully insist on her positions.

“But it is, it is so! That’s how it is! Exactly like this! This, this, this…”

It could not possibly be otherwise. No one should dare see anyone or anything in any other way. This is what they were like, and that was it. Because she said so. Who was the world created for? For her. And why was it created? So she could shape it as she pleased. That was it.

Stefano Giogli started saying yes that same night, yes to everything, blindly accepting her absolute authority without the least opposition.

And yet he did have his own opinions, which he thought were very solid and which he knew how to state and defend, if needed. He had his own tastes, his own way of seeing, thinking, feeling. He was a wealthy, independent, unfettered young man, whose education and eclectic, impressive culture had not made him easygoing. Quite the contrary! He had a reputation for being hard to please. At a certain point he had grown tired of showing off his knowledge in literary salons and social circles. Perhaps the first hint of boredom had come to him from his own eyes, both of which (despite the right one being badly distorted by a large, horn-rimmed monocle) remained melancholy even in the most charming company. Or perhaps he had heard that those melancholy eyes, along with his pallor, elegant slenderness, and thick, shiny, ebony-black hair parted and combed down the middle, had inspired some gossipmonger to start referring to him as a well-groomed personification of grief. Whatever the case, he withdrew from society for some time and devoted himself seriously to research—or rather, he resumed the studies he had abandoned. That’s right, because previously, for two years, he had studied medicine. And since at the time the basic notions of psychophysiology had piqued his interest, he now delved deeper into this science.[5] Once he achieved a good grasp on the concepts related to the various functions and activities of the spirit, he felt he had finally come to terms with himself, conquered the dissatisfaction, or rather, the ennui that used to oppress him, and even acquired a solid, well-justified self-esteem. Thus, for a while now Stefano Giogli had learned to recognize and revel in all the tricks played by the spirit which, being unable to come out of itself, turns its internal illusions into external realities.[6] Very often, looking at someone or something, he would wonder with amusement: “Who knows what this person or thing, which seems to me this way, is really like?”[7]

Ah, that cursed night at Sior Momo Làimi’s house! Within three months, Lucietta Frenzi had become his wife.

Stefano Giogli knew very well he had completely lost his mind during those three months of their engagement. He had no memory whatsoever of what he had said or done. Dazzled, blinded like a moth by the light, he remembered nothing except the scorching agony of waiting. Her red, moist lips, her little sparkling teeth, her slender waist that blossomed irresistibly into those voluptuous breasts and hips, her eyes at times bright with laughter, other times dark and sentimental, yet others dreamy and veiled with joyful tears as she gazed at the burning fire in his own eyes. Ah, that fire! His whole being had literally been melted by that fire. It had become like liquid glass, which she could capriciously blow into any shape or form she pleased.

And Lucietta Frenzi—queen of the whole world—had taken advantage of it. Oh, had she indeed!

When at last Stefano Giogli managed to recover his lost mind, he found himself in a little villa that looked like a cardboard box put together as a joke: ten tiny rooms laid out and furnished in such a manner that only a madman could find his way around. Everyone who came to visit was unable, no matter how hard they tried, to hide a bewilderment that bordered on dismay. But Lucietta, more determined than ever, protested:

“This? He wanted it—Stefano. This other one? Stefano loves it! Here? Stefano arranged it this way—it’s his taste!”

Stefano would stare, gaping.

“Me?”

“Of course, darling! Don’t you remember? You insisted that it should be just like this! I, on the other hand, would have preferred… Now, don’t say you didn’t! I know you like it, and that’s enough. After all, we’re the ones who have to live in it…”

That’s right, indeed he was the one who had to live in it. But, for goodness’ sake, that that was his taste, that that was the way he liked it…

More than anything else, he was bewildered by the resoluteness with which she declared it and insisted on it.

But it wasn’t so much the house, however eccentric and uncomfortable, that bothered him. A much more serious concern began, little by little, to gnaw at him.

During their three-month engagement, the fire that had devoured him had softened him into a lump of dough for her restless little hands to mold. He had been tossed about by the fragments of his spirit and of his mind, crumbled and melted by the turmoil of his passion. And now, a number of increasingly unmistakable signs forced him to acknowledge that during those three months Lucietta had kneaded, shaped, and fashioned, for her own consumption and to her own taste and desire, a Stefano Giogli who was not him at all, not just in terms of personality, but for God’s sake, not even physically!

Was it possible that during those three months of his undoing, his body had also been transformed?

His eyes must have acquired a different light than the one he knew, his voice a different inflection, and even his skin a different tone! And these physiological transformations must have inscribed themselves so deeply upon her mind that his own features were no longer visible to her and could no longer replace these new ones.

Stefano Giogli soon became certain that he did not at all resemble the Stefano Giogli loved by his wife.

Once the devouring violence of the initial flame naturally subsided, the process that had kept his spirit liquefied for three months came to a halt, and little by little he congealed once again, recovering his usual shape. The result was an inevitable clash between the person he really was and the one that his wife had fabricated when, deprived of his will, reason and consciousness, his spirit had been completely in her power.

But he himself, the real Stefano Giogli, had to admit that Lucietta’s creation was indeed the most spontaneous and natural of all. Given free rein, she had concocted a husband to her own liking. She had created the Stefano Giogli most suitable to her, endowing him with whatever tastes, thoughts, desires, and habits she pleased. No use arguing about it. That was her Stefano Giogli. She had made him with her own hands, and woe be to anyone who dared lay a finger on him.

“But it is, it is so! That’s how it is! Exactly like this! This, this, this…”

It could not possibly be otherwise. Lucietta had never permitted objections. Too bad for him if he didn’t resemble that other one.

That was when the latest, strangest torment began for Stefano Giogli.

He became madly jealous of himself.

Usually, jealousy stems from a lack of confidence, not so much in oneself, but in one’s presence in the heart and mind of the beloved. It is a fear of being incapable of filling the beloved with oneself, so that part of their heart and mind is left outside the sphere of one’s amorous power and might let in the germ of an extraneous thought, of an extraneous affection.

Now, Stefano Giogli couldn’t really say that the thought and the affection that his wife had let in were really extraneous. But he couldn’t say that he really filled the heart and mind of his Lucietta, either, since both were filled with a Stefano Giogli that wasn’t him, that he had never met and whose backside he would gladly kick. This Stefano Giogli was dull, ludicrous, nasty, and pretentious, with absurd tastes and desires that his wife, heaven knows why, had imagined and attributed to him. This Stefano Giogli must have been modeled on some silly Veronese boy, some amorous ideal that his Lucietta unwittingly, naïvely carried in her heart.

And to think that this fool was so loved by his wife, that his foolish body received her caresses; his foolish lips, her kisses! When Lucietta looked at this Stefano Giogli, she did not see him; when Lucietta talked to him, she didn’t talk to him but to the other one; when Lucietta hugged him, she did not hug him, but that hideous metaphor she had created.

It was actual jealousy, more than an angry or rancorous feeling. Yes, because he felt that, by embracing another in him, his wife was committing real adultery. He felt he was being deprived of himself, that that projection of himself, whom his wife loved, was using his body to enjoy—he alone—her love. Only that obnoxious fool that his wife preferred over him existed for his wife, not the man he truly was. But did she really prefer that one over him? No, he couldn’t even say that. He was totally ignored. To her, he did not exist at all.

And so he was expected to live his whole life like that, a stranger to the companion he had by his side. Why didn’t he kill that abhorrent rival who had placed himself between him and his wife? He could simply blow away that projection by revealing himself, affirming his own identity to her.

A nice and easy solution, right? But Stefano Giogli hadn’t studied psychophysiology for nothing! He knew all too well that his wife loved not a projection, but a real person in flesh and blood, a creature, a man who was alive and real not just to her, but also to himself. So much so that even he knew that man, and hated his guts. That man was a new entity, created by his wife from the debris of his being, a character with an autonomous intelligence and consciousness who lived and acted independently of him. Hadn’t Stefano Giogli wondered many times:

“Who knows what this person or thing, which seems to me this way, is really like?” But did Stefano Giogli even know a reality outside of himself? He didn’t even exist for himself, except in the way he imagined himself each time. Well, his wife had created a reality—not a shadow, not a projection of him—that did not correspond at all, either outwardly or inwardly, to the one he had created of himself.

Besides, would Lucietta even love the real Stefano Giogli, a Stefano Giogli different from her own? If she had created him that way, wasn’t that a sign that he alone corresponded to her tastes, to her desires? Wouldn’t she start searching out others for her ideal, which she believed she had fully accomplished with this one? Who knows what a betrayal it would seem to her! How can that be? Another? Who is he? No, no, no. She would want her dear hubby, the one she herself had created! It had to be that one! Yes, exactly, that fool over there…

But what if he tried to persuade her little by little? If, armed with his science, he confronted her with more or less the following speech:

“Darling, we cannot presume that others, outside of our own being, are exclusively the way we see them. Those who presume that, Lucietta my dear, have a unilateral sense of awareness. They are not aware of others. They do not represent others to themselves in a way that is real and concrete for those others and for themselves. The world, my dear, is not limited to the idea of it that we create. Outside of us the world exists for itself and with us. And so, we must strive to be as true to our own representation as possible, developing an awareness of it that makes it live within us as it lives in itself, seeing it as it sees itself, feeling it as it feels itself.”

Imagine how Lucietta would stare at him! Especially since it was not at all true that she had a unilateral sense of awareness! Quite the contrary! She had a crystal clear awareness of her Stefano. Giogli was dumbfounded when he found out that, for the sake of that fool, Lucietta made more than a few sacrifices, and not little ones, either. That’s right! There were a lot of things she did, which she would prefer not to do—and she did them exclusively for him!

“Well, tell me, then,” he asked her that day, almost stunned with joy by her claim, which unexpectedly filled him with the exhilarating hope of stealing his Lucietta back from his rival. “Tell me, dear: what is it that you would prefer not to do?”

But Lucietta shook her head no, withdrew her hands as he lovingly tried to hold them, and replied, laughing:

“Oh, no, I’m not going to tell you! I don’t want to tell you! I’m sure it would ruin all the pleasure for you…”

“Really? It would ruin it for me? But tell me…” he insisted. “Please, please… tell me at least one thing, one tiny thing, for example one that you think would upset me the least…”

Lucietta stared at him for some time with those piercing, cunning eyes in which countless little secrets seemed to flicker naughtily, and said:

“An example?... Ok, ok, here’s an example: the way I wear my hair…”

A scream, a real scream exploded from Stefano Giogli’s throat. For a long time he had wanted his Lucietta to wear her hair the way she used to, tied with those large, black silk bows he had seen her donning the night he first met her, at the Làimis’ house. Instead, ever since their wedding she had adopted this new hairstyle, which made her look different and which he had never liked.

“Yes! Yes! Right away!” he shouted. “Right away, Lucietta, my dear, go ahead and wear your hair the way you used to!”

He raised his hands to loosen that obnoxious hairstyle himself, but Lucietta grabbed them in mid-air and kept him at a distance, wriggling away from him and squealing:

“No, my dear! No, my dear! You said it too quickly! No, no! For your information, even more than for myself, I want to be pretty for my hubby!”

“But I swear to you…” interjected Stefano.

She stopped him short by placing her hand over his mouth.

“Oh, go on now!” she said. “You think I don’t know what you’re like? I know your tastes much better than my own, darling! Let me keep my hair like this, just like this, just the way my dear Stefano likes it, you dear, dear man…”

And she caressed his cheek three times. The rival’s cheek, of course, not his.