“The License” (“La patente”)

Translated by Maria Enrico

How to cite this work:

Pirandello, Luigi. “The License” (“La patente”), tr. Maria Enrico. In Stories for a Year, eds. Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka, Digital Edition, www.pirandellointranslation.org, 2022.

“The License” was first published in the newspaper Il Corriere della Sera on August 9, 1911, and then collected in the volume The Trap (La trappola; Milan: Treves, 1915). It was added to the third Collection of Pirandello’s Stories for a Year in 1922, A Prancing Horse (La rallegrata; Florence: Bemporad).

The story touches on a series of familiar Pirandellian tropes and is a typical example of the author’s practice of umorismo (his specific theory of humor). The legal setting and framework speaks to Pirandello’s realist interest in representing the actual ways in which law and social custom combine to limit or define the horizons of life for individuals, who are subject to the law and to convention in ways that can be stultifying. At the same time, the existential threat posed by legal or social judgment is a recurrent theme in Pirandello’s work, one that aligns him with the writers of the teatro grottesco (grotesque theater) movement of the 1910s and with broader modernist responses to the strictures of conventional life. In this story, the seemingly ridiculous image of Rosario Chiàrchiaro, who appears before Judge D’Andrea in a kind of homemade costume to make him look like what local superstition would define as a jinx, gives way to a sad revelation of the serious side of his comical self-presentation. This combination of tragic and comic elements is typical of Pirandellian humor and also an example of Pirandello’s compassionate interest in the suffering and pain of his characters, and of people in modern society more generally. In this way, the story may be reminiscent of others, like “The Jar” (“La giara,” 1909), where the author’s humoristic gaze falls on a legal proceeding with existential significance. It is perhaps telling that, like “The Jar,” “The License” was adapted by Pirandello into a theatrical work, appearing on stage in 1917 in a Sicilian adaptation and then re-translated later the same year into Italian (“The Jar” became a one-act play in 1916), precisely in the midst of the teatro grottesco phase in Italian theater that Pirandello came to be associated with. But its resonance has not been limited to that movement, and “The License” has had a long afterlife in performance, including a famous version acted by iconic Italian actor and comedian Totò as a part of the 1954 anthology film Questa è la vita (Of Life and Love).

The Editors

To anyone who jokingly remarked on his odd way of living, the ever so thin Judge D’Andrea would repeatedly say “Oh, my dear child!” – and with what a tone of voice, not to mention the attitude conveyed in his eyes and gestures, while bent over as if carrying an unbearable weight on his shoulders!

He wasn’t an old man; he must have been barely forty years old. But in order to arrive at even an approximate explanation of that human product known as Judge D’Andrea, it was necessary to imagine very strange, almost improbable things, a monstrous intertwining of ethnicities, a mysterious suffering over the centuries.

It seemed as if, in addition to his poor, humble, and very common family history, he was well aware of the monstrous intertwining of ethnicities that made the kinky, thick hair of a black man sprout from the haggard, gaunt face of a white man on his head. Likewise it seemed he recognized the mysterious, infinite suffering over the centuries that had resulted in a mass of wrinkles on his protruding forehead and almost blinded his small bleak eyes and twisted his whole thin, sad little body.

He was lopsided with one shoulder higher than the other, and he walked sideways as dogs do. But no one, morally, was his equal. Everyone said so.

As for seeing, Judge D’Andrea might not have seen a lot of things, but he certainly had thought of very many, and he thought of them when doing so is saddest, meaning at night.

Judge D’Andrea could not sleep.

He would spend almost every night at the window, rubbing his hand over his tough, thick, black-man’s hair, his eyes on the stars – some clear and bright like pools of light, others flickering and piercing. He would configure the brightest stars into idealized geometrical shapes of triangles and quadrants and, squinting behind his glasses, he would capture the light of one of those stars in his eyelashes, and between his eye and the star there would be a luminous thread-like link upon which his soul would walk like a lost little frog.

This type of nighttime brooding is not good for one’s health. The arcane solemnity of the resulting thoughts almost always produces a serious case of constipation, especially in those of us who are imbued with an unshakable certainty, the certainty that nothing can be known and nothing believed in without knowing. In other words, a constipation of the soul.

And so in the morning it would seem both funny and atrocious at the same time to Judge D’Andrea that he should have to go to his chambers and administer – to the degree allotted to him – justice to small, poor, ferocious men.

And just as he did not sleep, he would not allow any paperwork to slumber on his work desk, even if it meant delaying lunch by two or three hours or renouncing his usual stroll in the evening, before dinner, with colleagues down the avenue around the town walls.

This punctuality, which he considered an essential duty, increased his torture terribly. Not only did he have to administer justice, he had to do it on the spot.

In order to avoid being too hastily on time, he believed it would help if he thought over matters during the night. But instead, when at nighttime he ran his hands through his black-man’s hair and gazed at the stars, he was beset by thoughts contrary to the ones he needed in his role as an investigating judge.[1] And so in the morning, rather than being helped, his nighttime thoughts attacked and blocked his punctuality and enormously increased his difficulty in adhering to his hated duties as investigating judge.

Yet, for the very first time, a case had been slumbering for about a week on Judge D’Andrea’s desk. And because of this delay of many days, a growing irritation and a suffocating gloom preyed upon him.

He would be so overcome by this gloominess that his clenched eyes at some point closed. Holding a pen, sitting straight up, Judge D’Andrea would start napping, first by slumping and then scrunching up as if he were a worm incapable of weaving a cocoon.

As soon as he woke up, either due to some noise or a particularly strong nod of his head, his eyes would wander over to the corner of the desk, to the file, and he would turn his head, tighten his lips, and through his whistling nostrils pull in air, air, and more air, and send it down, as far down as possible, to enlarge his guts, which were contracted with exasperation, and then push it back out through his wide open mouth, a bit nauseous; and then immediately he would bring a hand up to his hooked nose to adjust his glasses, which were slipping from the sweat.

The case in question was a truly unfair one. It was unfair because it involved merciless injustice against which a poor man was desperately trying to rebel without any chance of success. The case had a victim who could not blame anyone. He had attempted to blame two people, the first two he had come across, and – ladies and gentlemen – the law had to say he was wrong, wrong, wrong, with no mitigation, thus reinforcing, ferociously, the unfairness of which that poor man was a victim.

He would try to discuss the case when strolling with his colleagues. But as soon as he mentioned the name of Chiàrchiaro, the man who had brought the case, their expressions would change. They would stick a hand in a pocket to grasp a key, or secretly make the shape of horns with their index finger and little finger, or grab the silver little hunchbacks, nails or coral horns that hung from their pocket watch chains.[2]

At times someone franker would burst out:

“Holy Mother of God, will you just shut up?”

But the skinny Judge D’Andrea could not shut up. The case had become an obsession. No matter what, he always ended up taking about it, to get some insight from his colleagues – he would say – just to discuss the case in abstract.

Because in truth it was the unusual and very specious case of a jinx who was suing for defamation the first two people he had glimpsed making ritual gestures to ward off the evil eye as he went by.[3]

Defamation? How could it be defamation, poor guy, if his reputation as a jinx had been very well known in town for years? If numerous witnesses could come to court and swear that he had, on so many occasions, acknowledged his reputation by violently protesting against it? How in good conscience could he rule against those two young men for defamation simply for having made in his presence the same gestures that everyone else had been making for quite a while and openly, including and first among them those very judges themselves?

D’Andrea struggled. And he struggled even more when, out about town, he encountered the lawyers those two young men had hired: the slender and very worn out Grigli who had the profile of a bird of prey, and the fat Manin Baracca who, triumphantly wearing on his belly an enormous horn talisman he had bought just for the occasion, and laughing with all the pale fleshiness of an eloquent blondhog, promised his fellow citizens that there would soon be a magnificent celebration in court for all.

Well, precisely to deny the town that “magnificent celebration” at the expense of a poor unfortunate, Judge D’Andrea finally decided to send an usher to Chiàrchiaro’s house to ask him to come to his chambers. He was even willing to pay the court costs if he could decisively convince him to desist by proving that, legally, those two young men could not be sentenced, and that their inevitable absolution would certainly cause him greater damage and even crueler victimization.

Alas, it is truly much easier to do evil than good. This is not only because evil can be done to everyone and good only to those who need it, but also, and in fact especially, because the need to do good often ends up making the hearts of the intended beneficiaries so bitter and thorny that doing good becomes very difficult.

This became very obvious to Judge D’Andrea when he raised his eyes to look at Chiàrchiaro, who had entered his chambers while he was focused on his writing. He erupted, tossed all his paperwork in the air, and jumped up yelling:

“Give me a break! What nonsense is this? You should be ashamed of yourself!”

Chiàrchiaro had contrived a really jinx-like appearance that was a marvel to behold. He had grown a tasteless bushy little beard on his sunken yellow cheeks. He had planted a pair of thick round glasses on his nose with a bone frame that made him look like a barn owl. And he had put on a shiny, loose-fitting, mouse-colored suit.

Chiàrchiaro did not openly react to the judge’s outburst. He took a deep breath through his nostrils, clenched his yellow teeth, and whispered:

“So you don’t believe it?”

“Give me a break!” repeated Judge D’Andrea. “Stop joking, dear Chiàrchiaro! Or have you gone crazy? Come on, come on, sit, sit down here.”

The judge moved towards him and was about to place a hand on his shoulder when Chiàrchiaro bucked like a donkey, and then trembling he said:

“Mr.Judge, don’t touch me! You must refrain! Or, as God is my witness, you will go blind!”

D’Andrea gazed at him coldly and then said:

“Make yourself comfortable… I summoned you here for your own good. There’s a chair over there, sit down.”

Chiàrchiaro sat down, and rolling his bamboo walking cane on his thighs like a rolling pin, he started shaking his head.

“For my own good? So you think you are helping me, dear Judge, by saying you do not believe in jinxes?”

D’Andrea too sat down and said:

“Do you want me to tell what I believe? All right then, I believe it! Now are you satisfied?”

“Not at all,” Chiàrchiaro denied flatly with the tone of someone who won’t stand for joking. “You have to really believe it, and you must also clearly prove it by prosecuting the case!”

“That will not be easy,” D’Andrea said, smiling sadly, “but let’s try to come to an understanding, dear Chiàrchiaro. I want to show you that the path you have taken is not the right one to reach a good result.”

“Path? Result? What path and what result?” asked Chiarchiaro with a frown.

“Neither the current course of action nor going to trial are solutions,” answered D’Andrea. “I’m sorry, but the two of them are like this.”

And Judge D’Andrea raised his hands up with his pointer fingers indicating that the two options seemed like opposites to him.

Chiàrchiaro bent down and stuck one of his own thick, hairy, and not very clean pointer fingers between the judge’s.

“Not true at all, Mr. Judge!” he said, wiggling his finger.

“What do you mean?” exclaimed D’Andrea. “You accuse those two young men of defamation because they believe you are a jinx, and then you show up dressed as a jinx and expect me to believe you are one.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you don’t see the contradiction?”

Chiàrchiaro shook his head several times with his mouth open in a silent grin of disdainful commiseration.

“Rather it seems to me, Mr. Judge,” he then said, “that you do not understand at all.” D’Andrea stared at him for some time in amazement.

“Well then speak up, speak up dear Chiàrchiaro. It could be that what you just uttered is the sacrosanct truth. But kindly explain why I do not understand anything.”

“Yes, sir. Here goes,” said Chiàrchiaro, drawing his chair closer. “Not only will I prove that you do not understand anything, but also that you are my mortal enemy. Yes you. You think you are helping me. My most bitter enemy! Do you not know that the two defendants have hired the lawyer Manin Baracca?”

“Yes. I know that.”

“Well, I myself, Rosario Chiàrchiaro went to this lawyer, Manin Baracca, a year ago to offer proof in the matter: that is to say, not only proof that I had known for more than a year that when I went by everyone was making the horn gesture, but also, documented proof and unrepeatable witness statements of the frightening facts upon which my reputation as a jinx is unshakably, unshakably based! Do you understand, Mr. Judge?”

“You? Went to Baracca?”

“Yes, sir. I did.”

The judge looked at him with growing amazement.

“I understand even less than before. But why? To ensure the young men’s absolution? Then why did you sue them?”

Chiarchiaro burst out in annoyance at Judge D’Andrea’s lack of comprehension. He stood up and started yelling and waving his arms:

“Because, Mr. Judge, I want official recognition of my power, how can you still not understand? I want my frightening power to be officially recognized, as it is my only asset!”

Huffing, he brought forth an arm and struck the floor forcefully with his bamboo cane, then remained still in that grotesquely imperious stance for a moment.

Judge D’Andrea bent down, held his head in his hands, and, overcome, repeated:

“My poor dear Chiàrchiaro, poor dear Chiàrchiaro, what type of asset is that? What can you do with it?”

“What can I do with it?” Chiàrchiaro replied quickly. “You, kind sir, in order to perform this profession of judge, regardless of how badly you might do it, now tell me, didn’t you have to get a degree?”

“Yes, a degree.”

“Well, I too want my license, Mr. Judge! A license as a jinx. And with a stamp on it. An officially legal stamp! As a court licensed jinx.”[4]

“And then?”

“And then? I will proclaim it on my business card. Mr. Judge, I have been assassinated. I used to work. They got me fired from the pawnshop where I was a clerk with the excuse that, because I was there, no one any longer came to ask for loans or to pawn anything. They threw me out on the street. My wife has been paralyzed for three years, and I have two unmarried girls that no one will want because they are my daughters. We live off the help sent us from my son in Naples, and he too has family, four children, and can’t keep it up forever. Mr. Judge, I have no choice but to be a professional jinx! I dressed up in this way, with these glasses, in this suit; I let my beard grow. And now I am waiting for this license so I can start my business! And you ask me why? You ask it because, I repeat, you are my enemy!”

“I am?”

“Yes, sir. Because you do not believe in my power! But luckily others do, don’t you know? Everyone, everyone believes in it! And there are lots of gambling houses in town! All I will have to do is show up – no need to say anything. They will pay me to go away! I will start buzzing around all the factories. I will stop in front of all the stores. And everyone, everyone will pay me a fee – an ignorance tax, you say? I say a fee for wellbeing! Because, Mr. Judge, I have gathered up so much bile and so much hatred against all of this disgusting humanity that I truly believe that here in my eyes I have the power to make a whole city collapse!”

Judge D’Andrea, still holding his head in his hands, waited for the distress tightening his throat to subside so he could speak. But he could not say a word. And so, widening his small bleak eyes behind his glasses, he extended his hands and hugged Chiàrchiaro at length, strongly, strongly, at length.

Chiàrchiaro let him.

“So, you really care for me?” he asked. “Then prosecute the case, and in a way that I can get what I want as quickly as possible.”

“The license?”

Chiàrchiaro once again raised his arm, struck the pavement with his bamboo cane, and bringing his other hand to his breast repeated with tragic solemnity:

“The license.”