“The Button of the Overcoat” (“Il bottone della palandrana”)

Translated by Marella Feltrin-Morris

How to cite this work:

Pirandello, Luigi. “The Button of the Overcoat” (“Il bottone della palandrana”), tr. Marella Feltrin-Morris. In Stories for a Year, eds. Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka, Digital Edition, www.pirandellointranslation.org, 2022.

Originally published in the Corriere della Sera on January 15, 1913, “The Button of the Overcoat” was later included in The Two Masks (Le due maschere, 1914) and then in You (Tu, 1920). In 1924, the story became part of Stories for a Year (Novelle per un anno; Florence: Bemporad), when it was incorporated in the seventh Collection All Three (Tutt’e tre).

This story reworks the idea of modern order in humorous terms, drawing on both metaphor and imagery of the modern administrative bureaucracy to address a theme that was increasingly prevalent in the literary and social imaginary of the early twentieth century. The round shape of the titular button in Don Filiberto Fiorinnanzi’s overcoat metaphorically frames both the title character’s obsession with order and also the moment in which that obsession is subverted. This is the moment when the apparent stability of his reality is turned upside down, when events no longer follow their logical, reassuring order. Like in other short stories, such as “The Nest” (“Il nido;” 1895), “The Jar;” “La giara;” 1906), “The Crown” (“La corona;” 1907), “In the Whirlpool” (“Nel gorgo;” 1913), and “The Turtle” (“La tartaruga;”1936), Pirandello uses the specificity of a concrete object to figure the mental limitations with which a character has lived until that moment; yet at the same time, in its function as a metaphor, the object also opens up to limitless possibilities that escape the pre-defined fixity of those mental horizons. In the moral code of the upright character here, Fiorinnanzi, life must adhere to the form of excessive order, until the disconcerting discovery he makes that even at the heart of that apparent order his supposed rules are not as sure as they seemed. Ironically, the button falling off Fiorinnanzi’s overcoat, like the Marquis’ fake eye, not only symbolizes the subversion of apparent order but also reveals that reality is not what it looks like. The humorous subversion of Fiorinnanzi’s obsession with administrative order thus aligns with a typical Pirandellian theme, the doubling of vision that undermines rational fixity and form and opens to ironic possibilities. As in other works, Pirandello’s humorous lens here uses the figure of an unusual eye to represent this different, imperfect, distorted vision that disrupts order. See for example the stories “A Mere Formality” (“Formalità;” 1903) and “Best Friends” (“Amicissimi;” 1902), the poem “An Eye for Death” (“L’occhio per la morte;” 1904), and even the title character’s squinting eye in his famous novel, The Late Mattia Pascal (Il fu Mattia Pascal; 1904). The increasing administrative order imposed by modern capitalism is thus both figured and disfigured at the same time that the inner corruption of this supposedly well-ordered system is brought to ironic light.

The Editors

They neither yelled nor made a racket. In a low voice, or rather, with no voice at all, they stood in front of each other and took turns spitting out their reciprocal accusations:

“Spy!”

“Thief!”

They kept on like that as if they never intended to stop – “spy!”… “thief!” – each time stretching their necks like pecking roosters, and hissing their s’s and th’s with increasing spite.

There were little trees peeking out from either side of the perimeter walls that wedged the tiny, pebbly street running through the fields, and they seemed to be enjoying the scene quite a bit.

This was because the trees on the one side had seen Meo Zezza climb down one of those walls, and the trees on the other side had seen Don Filiberto Fiorinnanzi hide behind the other wall.

And from both sides, as if directed by the lookout trees, a number of sparrows, chickadees, and warblers accompanied that harsh squabble with a chorus of unbridled merriment. The two men, still facing each other like two battling roosters, carried on with their reciprocal insults, which kept increasing in hissed spite rather than in shrillness:

“Ssspy!”

“Thhhief!”

“Sssspy!”

“Thhhhief!”

At last each of them was left with a scratchy throat and the conviction he had succeeded in etching, on his rival’s mug, the mark of infamy represented by those words repeated forcefully over and over. And so each turned around, Meo Zezza headed one way and Don Filiberto Fiorinnanzi the other way, both quivering, panting, still darting fiery glances here and there as they stretched up their necks and pulled down their vests, all the while murmuring, between their trembling, parched lips, “Spy… spy… spy…” and “Thief… thief… thief…”

Those were the last leaps of the flame.

But as soon as Filiberto Fiorinnanzi arrived home, his anger and outrage were reignited.

Him, a spy?

He felt smeared by that word; and snorting, he took off his overcoat.

So, a gallant man who discovers a thief who has been shamelessly stealing for years—that man is a spy?

His hands still shaking, he started brushing his overcoat before he hung it in the closet.

To whom, and when, had he ever reported that thief’s ongoing pilfering? He had never said a word to anyone, ever! Up until recently, he had merely limited himself to staring at him—that’s right, he would watch Meo Zezza in a peculiar way every time the latter, always quivering with sanguine bestiality, approached him and, his eyes and teeth twinkling boorishly, made as if to paw him here and there with his chubby, hairy hands.

Stiff, upright, Fiorinnanzi had always avoided that pawing; and with a heavy, dull hardness in his eyes, which were always a little yellow because of his frequent bouts of bile, he had conveyed to Zezza in no uncertain terms that he knew exactly what he had been up to.

“Thief… thief…” he still repeated as he wandered around the room in his shirt sleeves, carelessly touching this or that object with shaky fingers.

At last he sat down, exhausted, at the foot of the bed and began staring at the candle, as if surprised to see it burning quietly on his nightstand and inviting him, as it did every night, to go to sleep.

He didn’t remember lighting it.

He finished undressing and crawled under the covers, but that night he didn’t manage to sleep a wink.

It had taken him a lot of convoluted reasoning, but already several years earlier he thought he had managed to come up with a satisfactory explanation of the universe, to somehow arrange it to fit himself. And little by little, he had started moving about inside of that universe—not with much confidence, mind you, on the contrary, with his soul always a bit on edge, expecting that at any time some sudden jolt would toss it all up in the air, mischievously.

For a while now he had made himself, in everyone’s eyes, a model of composure and moderation in business deals, in the conversations that took place at the club or the café—in everything, essentially, down to his style of clothes and gait. And God knows how much it cost him to keep that overcoat of his—an old overcoat, sure, but full of gravitas and decorum—rigorously buttoned up, even in summer. Similarly, God knows how much it cost him to balance his large, bony, veinous head on that long, thin neck and to keep up the rigid austerity of his posture.

He wanted his gaze and his whole appearance to be a silent warning or reproach in every circumstance; to serve as a mirror, keystone, deterrent, advice. It is true that, worried that the mirror might get fogged up by the vile breath of the populace, or that the keystone might be knocked out and tossed far away, he always kept somewhat at a distance. Nevertheless he stood there, with his entire body in the act of drawing closer, blocking, controlling, depending on the case.

His fingers twitched painfully every time he saw someone walk by with their coat unbuttoned, or with their tie sticking out of their shirt collar. He would have paid someone out of his own pocket to put a coat of paint on the new wooden step of the storefront opposite the café, which had been left unfinished. And every night he returned, glum and fuming, from the walk he took all the way down the boulevard at the edge of town, after confirming that, yet again, though many months had gone by, the Town still hadn’t replaced the broken glass of that last lamppost. Don Filiberto Fiorinnanzi could find no peace, as if the entire universe revolved around that broken glass.

Other people’s carelessness and lassitude offended him; when protracted, they exasperated him. And so, to calm himself down and preserve his arrangement of the universe, he took to making up excuses and extenuating circumstances for that lassitude and carelessness. It worked, but, little by little, by dint of having to make room for excuses and extenuating circumstances, his arrangement began to lose its solidity and started sagging and wobbling. And Don Filiberto found himself struggling to prop it up here and there, wherever it bent.

Good Lord, he had gone so far as to make a case for stealing! Yes, stealing—but with a certain discretion; just enough to allow the thief to rise, little by little, in the consideration of honest folks and give them time to ponder the fact that, after all, perhaps it’s not so much that the thief is a thief, but that the one who lets himself be robbed is an imbecile.

But the case of Meo Zezza was truly extreme. In a very short time, thanks to the money he had embezzled, that fellow had started imposing himself, demanding respect and consideration—and that was totally unacceptable. He had gone so far as to act familiar with people who, by birth, age, and education, were and ought to remain superior to him. And one could certainly not argue that the boss from whom Zezza was stealing was an imbecile. On the contrary, everyone in Forni knew that Marquis Di Giorgi-Decarpi managed his vast estates so flawlessly that every year the students from the technical schools went on a field trip with their teachers to study the organization of his company as a model of its kind.[1]

About thirty years earlier, the Marquis’s father had invested all his assets in the big project of draining and reclaiming the swamps of the Irbio river,[2] but he had died before he had a chance to see the project come to fruition. His son, who was still very young, resided in the city, living off one of the most extensive and fertile properties in southern Italy. True, he had never once gone to visit it; but he was still to be commended for the way he managed it. The property was divided into sections, each comprising ten farms and entrusted to an administrator. One of the administrators was Meo Zezza.

How had such impeccable management failed to notice the ongoing, formidable embezzling operation carried out by that scoundrel right before everyone’s eyes? Zezza himself, with his cocky, beast-like exuberance, hardly bothered to hide it anymore.

When he got up the following morning, his ears still ringing with that word, spy, Don Filiberto Fiorinnanzi came to a resolution. He clenched his teeth and balled up his fists. By God, the preposterous indecency, the foul arrogance had to stop.

A spy? Fine, then, yes, a spy. He accepted the challenge. He would file a formal accusation and denounce each theft perpetrated by Zezza throughout those years.

Don Filiberto worked on it for about ten days. When it was finally ready, he wrapped himself, more stiffly than ever, in his sober overcoat, and deliberately carrying the accusation file visibly under his arm, he took a seat in the coach headed to the train station and left for the city.

As soon as he arrived, he headed straight for Marquis Di Giorgi-Decarpi’s headquarters.

When he walked in, he was immediately filled with such reverence and admiration that not only did he not resent the many obstacles that were put in his path before he would be received by the Marquis, but he actually appreciated them, applauded them, and subjected himself to them with countless nods of the head and blissful smiles.

This was the kingdom of order! The inner mechanism of a clock. Everything polished and precise. Ushers wearing liveries, marble staircases, hallways heated by radiators and so shiny you could see your own reflection on the floors. They were traversed by magnificent runners and illuminated with electric lights. There were signs everywhere: Section I, Section II, Section III, and an office sign on every door. The most illustrious Marquis did not receive visitors except on appointed days and times: Wednesdays and Saturdays, 10:00-11:00 a.m. And in order to be admitted, one had to submit a request two days in advance by filling out a printed form which could be found on the first desk of room n. 2 of the administrative office located on the second floor, Section I, second hallway on the right. For cases that needed immediate attention and couldn’t wait until the appointed days, there was the Office of Expedited Services, on the same floor, same section, first hallway on the left, door n. 3.

“No, no, thank you, this isn’t…” said Don Filiberto.

His case was more serious than urgent, and he wanted to present it to the Marquis in person.

“Did you come all the way from Forni especially for this?”

“Yessir, from Forni. Especially for this.”

“But today is Thursday.”

“That’s fine. If this is the rule, I’ll wait till Saturday at 10:00 a.m.”

The head usher turned to a boy, who was also wearing livery.

“Go upstairs and get a form!”

But Don Filiberto Fiorinnanzi insisted it was absolutely not necessary.

“No, no, excuse me, but why? I’ll go and get it myself.”

And so once again he went upstairs to fill out the printed form which could be found on the first desk of room n. 2 of the administrative office located on the second floor, Section I, second hallway on the right.

He spent those two days preparing for the hearing, amassing all of his mental capabilities as if for a major test. The preamble needed to be brief because surely the Marquis had no time for chatter unrelated to the facts. Still, Fiorinnanzi needed, first of all, to express the reasons why he had decided to come forward and the spirit with which he was doing so. Then he would relate the facts, one by one. He cherished the opportunity to selflessly put his services to work in stopping that thief who stubbornly insisted on undermining such a marvelously-ordered organization.

On Saturday morning, ten minutes before the scheduled appointment, he walked into the waiting room. He was the first one on the list and, as soon as the clock struck ten, he was taken into the Marquis’s office.

The Marquis was a little man whose stylish attire couldn’t conceal, and actually exacerbated, a certain rustic gruffness. The back of the big chair in which he sat before his desk was several inches taller than his head. He barely gave a nod of acknowledgment in response to his visitor’s obsequious salutation. He motioned for him to take a seat, then he put his elbow on the armrest and leaned his forehead against the palm of his hand, hiding one of his eyes behind it.

The other eye was shielded by a stiff, horn-rimmed monocle. Don Filiberto Fiorinnanzi saw that eye trained on him with such a hard, hostile, persistent fixity that he felt the blood curdle in his veins and the words of the brief preamble he had rehearsed so carefully became tangled up in his mouth.

That eye was wary; that eye did not believe in selflessness; that eye was giving him a very stern warning not to say anything unless it was rooted in fact, and with inflexible sharpness it scrutinized every word that came, trembling, out of his lips.

Except that, at a certain point, the Marquis removed his hand from his forehead and revealed his other eye: a lethargic, dull eye, an eye that almost seemed to be yawning and that looked at the visitor as if asking for mercy.

All of a sudden, Don Filiberto Fiorinnanzi felt the depths of his stomach, which he had tensed up until then, sink inside of him.

So, that eye, that eye which had filled him with so much terror—that eye was fake? Made of glass? God, yes, of glass. And so, while the Marquis was covering up the real one, not only had he not been staring at him or threatening him so frighteningly, but he hadn’t even bothered to glance at who it was that had walked in to talk to him. Perhaps he hadn’t even heard a word of what Fiorinnanzi had, with so much trepidation, been telling him.

“I’ll get… Marquis… I’ll get to the facts…,” he stammered, feeling lifeless and lost.

“Right, please do,” grumbled the Marquis.

This time he lay his fist on the desk and leaned his forehead against it. He didn’t change position after that. Don Filiberto Fiorinnanzi wondered if he might be sleeping. Eventually, the Marquis lifted his head and asked:

“May I?”

He put out his hand to accept from Don Filiberto Fiorinnanzi the sheet with all the accusations. He scanned it distractedly, then he slid a hand in his pocket, pulled out a set of keys, unlocked a drawer in the filing cabinet by the desk, took out a document, placed it next to the sheet and, with a blue pen, started jotting brief references on it as he read the document. When he was done, without saying a word, he handed Don Filiberto Fiorinnanzi the marked sheet along with the document he had taken out of the filing cabinet.

Perplexed and dumbfounded, Don Filiberto looked from one paper to the other, then up at the Marquis, then down again at his sheet and at the document, and realized that the latter listed, almost in the same order, all of Zezza’s thefts, the same ones Don Filiberto had just denounced.

“Ah, but this means…” he said, as soon as he got over the shock, “this means Your Excellency… Your Excellency already knew—”

“As you can well see,” the Marquis interrupted him, coldly. “In fact, if you look at my document more carefully, you’ll see it lists many more thefts than the ones in your accusation.”

“Right… right… I see… I see…” acknowledged Don Filiberto, feeling more lost than ever in his astonishment. “But so…”

The little Marquis put his elbow on the armrest and once again hid his good eye—his tired, lethargic eye—behind his hand.

“Dear sir,” he sighed, “why should I care?”

The terrible fixity of his glass eye, shielded by the horn-rimmed monocle, contrasted horribly with the weariness of that sigh.

“These things,” he continued, “fall in excess of my responsibility.”

“In excess?”

“Right. Here we’re expected to supervise, and we do supervise, Zezza the administrator. As such, we’ve always found him beyond reproach. Zezza the man is not our business, dear sir. And I’ll add this: that, for us, the fact that he’s a thief, or rather, that he’s so eager to make money, is actually an advantage. Let me explain: the other administrators consider themselves more or less satisfied with their salary, and so they have no interest at all in making sure that their farms produce a bit more. Zezza instead does have that interest, because the money from the farms doesn’t just go into our pockets; it goes into his, too. As a result, none of the other sections produces as much as the one administered by Zezza.”

“But so…” Don Filiberto repeated once again, almost sobbing.

“So,” said the Marquis, getting up from his chair to dismiss Don Filiberto, “I thank you very much anyway for your trouble, dear sir. Even though… gosh, yes… you could have guessed that an organization like mine couldn’t possibly have been unaware of these facts. These and more, as you saw. In any case, I thank you and am very grateful to you. Be well, dear sir.”

Don Filiberto left the management office in a daze, stunned, aghast even.

“And so…”

The conclusion was in his hand.

A button from his overcoat. As he listened to the Marquis speak that way, he had twirled that button so many times between his fingers that eventually it had come off and ended up in his hand.

But what good was that button, at this point? He might just as well walk around with his coat unbuttoned, backwards even, with the sleeves inside out and his hat sitting bottom up on his head.

By then, for Don Filiberto Fiorinnanzi, the universe had turned utterly, irreparably upside down.