“The Rose” (“La rosa”)

Translated by Robin Pickering-Iazzi

How to cite this work:

Pirandello, Luigi. . “The Rose” (“La rosa”), tr. Robin Pickering-Iazzi. In Stories for a Year, eds. Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka, Digital Edition, www.pirandellointranslation.org, 2024.

“The Rose” (“La rosa”) first appeared in 1914 in the pages of La lettura, the monthly complementary annex to the daily newspaper Corriere della Sera. It was republished three years later in the collection of miscellaneous stories And Tomorrow, Monday (E domani lunedì; Treves: Milan, 1917). In 1928, “The Rose” was added to Candelora (Bemporad: Florence), the thirteenth Collection of Pirandello’s Stories for A Year.

Central to the story’s plot is Pirandello’s bitter idea of love as an absolute feeling whose essence must remain elusive and restrained to an emotional level for it to survive. As a force that cannot be fully experienced in a material relationship, the fragility of love emerges clearly when it is exposed to the biased norms of societal rules. This leaves his characters stuck, only able to play out their emotions in their imaginations, fantasizing about the possibility of a romantic relationship outside the bounds of its material actualization. Here, this tragic interplay of unrealized emotion takes shape in the relation between Signora Lucietta, the protagonist, and the town clerk, Signor Silvagni. Ultimately, renunciation is the only solution to preserve sentiment from the inevitable damage that exposing it publicly would cause. But Pirandello’s critical lens also encompasses other themes here, including the restrictions and disadvantages faced by women and the sexualization of the female body, seen in relation with the impossibility of defying gender conventions at large. Even Lucietta’s attempt to elevate herself through a new job as telegraph operator is hampered by the biased reaction of the local community, where everybody appears to be more interested in her attractive body than in her search for a new life. Interestingly, Pirandello examines the woman’s frustration at being devalued and unheard in parallel with the men’s uncontrollable “beastliness” and their frustration at being unable to get the better of their object of desire. In the end, it is the titular rose that comes to symbolize Lucietta’s blossoming femininity as well as the price she will have to pay to tame her reawakened vitality.

Because of its highly visual characterization of feelings and emotions, the story was adapted for the screen by Stefano Landi, Pirandello’s son, and turned into a movie with the same title, directed by Arnaldo Frateili in 1921. The melodramatic plot of “The Rose” corresponded nicely with audiences’ desire for stories of tragic and unrequited love, so much so that in the same year Pirandello even granted rights for film adaptations of two other short stories with similar themes: But It’s Nothing Serious (Ma non è una cosa seria), directed by Augusto Camerini with a screenplay by Camerini and Frateili, and The Journey (Il viaggio), directed and adapted by Gennaro Righelli.

The Editors

I

In the pitch dark of the winter’s evening, the small train was moving along at the pace of someone who knows that by that point they won’t arrive on time anyway.[1]

In truth, though bored and tired from the long trip in that filthy second-class coach, Signora Lucietta Nespi, the widow of Signor Loffredi, was not at all in a hurry to arrive at Pèola.[2]

She was thinking... and thinking...

She felt carried along by that small train, but her heart was still in the faraway, abandoned home in Genova, whose rooms had been cleared of all the beautiful furniture that was still almost new, sold off at a miserably low price, and yet instead of seeming larger, they looked smaller.[3] What a betrayal!

She needed to see those rooms look large, very large and beautiful, during her last farewell visit after they had been emptied out so that one day, after this fall into poverty, she could proudly say, “Ah, the house I had in Genova...”

She would say it all the same, for sure. But the disillusionment of those empty rooms, so paltry, remained deep in her heart.

And she also was thinking about her good friends, the women to whom she did not pay a farewell visit in the end, because they too, all of them, had betrayed her, though giving the appearance that they were trying to outdo each other to help her. Oh, right, helping her by bringing so many honest buyers into her home, to whom they surely had first raved about the chance to be able to have things that had cost twenty or thirty lire for five.

While mulling over these thoughts, Signora Lucietta would narrow her beautiful bright eyes one minute and then open them wide the next, and from time to time, in a habitual, peculiar gesture, would quickly lift her hand and run her forefinger over her proud little nose and sigh.

She was truly tired. She would have liked to fall asleep.

Her two very young, orphaned children, poor little loves, had fallen asleep; the older boy was stretched out on the seat, under a small cloak, while the other boy was curled up with his small blond head resting on her legs.

Who knows if she would have been able to fall asleep too, if she had somehow been able to rest an elbow or her head on something without waking up the little one, who was using her legs as a pillow.

The seat in front of them still had the marks left by his little feet, which had found comfortable support there, until a big man came to take a seat—there were so many train cars, but no sir!—right there. About thirty-five years old, with a beard, dark complexioned but with light, greenish eyes that were intense and sad.

Signora Lucietta immediately felt deeply annoyed by them. Who knows why, but the light color of those big eyes vaguely roused the idea that from now on the world, wherever she might go, would always remain removed from her and distant, very distant and unknown; she would be lost in it, vainly asking for help among so many eyes that would keep looking at her, like those eyes, somewhat veiled by sadness, yes, but indifferent deep down.

In order to avoid seeing them she had been keeping her face turned toward the window for a while, even though nothing was visible outside.

The only thing visible in the window was the sharp reflection of the coach’s oil lamp suspended high up in the darkness, with its weak red flame smoking and flickering, the lamp shade’s concave glass, and the fallen oil that was splashing.

It really seemed as if there were another lamp there that was painfully following the train through the night, almost to give it both comfort and anxiety.

“Faith...” that man murmured at a certain point.

Signora Lucietta turned around with a stunned look: “What?”

“That oil lamp that isn’t there.”

While her smile and look brightened, Signora Lucietta lifted a finger to point to the lamp on the car’s ceiling. “Here it is!”

That man slowly shook his head several times in agreement, then added, smiling sadly: “Ah yes, like faith... We light the lamp over here in life, and we see it over there too, without thinking that if it goes out here there’s no longer light over there.”[4]

“You’re a philosopher!” exclaimed Signora Lucietta. He lifted his hand from the grip of the cane in a vague gesture and sighed, smiling again: “I observe...”

The train stopped for a long while in front of a small way station. No voice could be heard, and once the rhythmic sound of the wheels ceased waiting in that silence seemed eternal and frightening.

“Mazzàno,” murmured the man. “They usually wait for the connecting train.”

Finally the whistle of the late train arrived plaintively from far away.

“There it is...”

In the lament of that train, which ran through the night along the same path where she too would pass shortly, Signora Lucietta momentarily heard the voice of her destiny, which really did will her to cast about in life together with those two small children.[5]

She shook off her momentary anguish and asked her fellow traveler: “Will it take a lot longer to arrive at Pèola?”

“Eh,” he answered, “More than an hour... Are you getting off at Pèola too?”

“Yes I am. I’m the new telegraph operator. I did well on the qualifying exam. I ranked fifth, you know. They appointed me to Pèola!”

“Ah, good heavens... Yes, yes, in fact we expected you yesterday evening.”

Signora Lucietta became all excited. “And in fact, of course,” she started to say, but immediately curbed her enthusiasm so she would not rouse her little boy from his sleep. She spread her arms wide, looking down at him and then looking over at her other little boy: “But do you see how tied down I am?” she added. “And me, all by myself... to leave so many things...”

“You’re the widow Loffredi, aren’t you?”

“Yes...”

Signora Lucietta lowered her eyes.

“But hasn’t anything been heard since?” asked the man after a brief, heavy silence.

“Nothing. But someone knows something!” said Signora Lucietta, her eyes flaring. “Signor Loffredi’s real murderer, believe me, wasn’t the hired killer who treacherously struck him from behind and disappeared. They insinuated the motive had to do with women ... Not so, you know! A vendetta. It was a political vendetta. Considering the time Loffredi had to think about women, even one woman was too many. I was all he needed. Just imagine, he married me when I was fifteen!”

As she said these words, Signora Lucietta’s face became bright red, and her eyes were shining anxiously, darting here and there, then they finally lowered as before.

That man sat and observed her for a while, struck by the quick change from sudden excitement to sudden mortification.

Come on! How could one take that excitement and this mortification seriously for long? Though she was the mother of those two little boys, she still looked like a young girl, or rather, a pretty little doll. And she perhaps mortified herself by so firmly and so forthrightly having asserted that since her husband had such a fresh, lively little thing like her for a wife, he could not have thought about other women.

She must have been sure that no one, seeing her and knowing the kind of man Loffredi had been, would have believed her. When Loffredi was alive, she must have been deeply distressed; perhaps, remembering him, she still was. But she could not bear that people might suspect Loffredi had not taken care of her, and she had been nothing but a pretty little doll for him. She at least wanted to be the sole heir of all the stir that the tragic end of the proud, impetuous, Genoese journalist had raised about a year earlier, in all of the Italian press.

That man was very pleased with having guessed so right about her nature and disposition, when he had the confirmation from her own mouth after pushing her to talk about her affairs with short, shrewd questions.

Then he was overcome by a great feeling of tenderness for the airs of freedom displayed by that little lark, who had barely left the nest and was still learning to fly, and for the way she proudly protested her foresight and strong courage. Ah, well then! She would never perish. Unbelievable, from one day to the next, thrown from one state to another, amidst the horror and turmoil of the tragic event, and she kept her wits at each moment. She ran here and there, she took care of this thing and that, not so much for herself really as for those poor little boys... but come on, yes, a little for herself as well, she was barely twenty after all. Twenty years old, right, and she looked even younger. That was another obstacle, the most vexing of all. Because on seeing her in a fury and desperate everyone laughed, almost as if she did not have the right to become so angry and despair so much. Ah, so much anger! But the angrier she became, the more other people laughed. And while laughing, one person would promise her one thing and another person something else, but all of them would have liked to accompany the promise with a small caress that they did not dare give her, but that she clearly saw in their eyes. She finally became tired of it; ready to do anything to get out of the situation, there she was, the telegraph operator in Pèola!

“Poor woman!” sighed the fellow traveler, smiling too.

“Why poor woman?”

“Oh... because... you’ll see. You won’t have a very good time in Pèola.” And he gave some pieces of information about the small town. In all the little streets and small piazzas in Pèola, the boredom was visible and tangible, always.

“Visible? How?”

In an infinite multitude of dogs that slept from morning to night, lying on the cobblestone streets. Those dogs did not wake up even to scratch themselves, or better yet, they would scratch themselves while continuing to sleep.

And woe betide anyone in Pèola who would open their mouth to yawn! Their mouth would stay open for at least five yawns in a row at a time. Once a person had the taste of boredom in their mouth, it would not make up its mind to go away easily. Everyone in Pèola, for anything that had to be done, closed their eyes and sighed, “Tomorrow...” Because today or tomorrow was all the same, that is, tomorrow was never.

“You’ll see how little you’ll have to do in the telegraph office,” he concluded. “No one ever uses it. You see this small train? It’s moving at the speed of a stagecoach. Even a stagecoach would represent progress for Pèola. Life, in Pèola, still moves in a litter.”

“Dear God, you’re frightening me!” said Signora Lucietta.

“Don’t be frightened, come on!” smiled that man. “Now I’ll give you some good news. In a few days we’ll have a ball at the Circolo, the town club.”

“Oh...”

Signora Lucietta looked at him as if she had been instantly seized by the suspicion that this gentleman wanted to make fun of her too.

“Do the dogs dance?” she asked.

“No. The ‘civilized people’ of Pèola... Go to the ball. You’ll have a good time. The Circolo is right in the main piazza, near the telegraph office. Have you found lodgings?”

Signora Lucietta answered yes, that she had found a place to live in the same house that had put up the telegraph agent who was her predecessor. Then she asked: “Pardon me... and your name, please?”

“Silvagni, Signora. Fausto Silvagni. I’m the town clerk.”

“Oh, my goodness! It’s a pleasure.”

“Who knows!”

Signor Silvagni lifted his hand from the grip of the cane and waved it disconsolately, as a deeply bitter smile came over his face and veiled his light eyes with intense melancholy.

The train greeted the small Pèola station with a mournful whistle.

“Here?”

II

Amidst the vast cloister of light blue mountains, broken up here and there by hazy valleys dappled with dark oak and fir along with merry chestnut trees, nestled Pèola, with its little cluster of rust-colored roofs and four small, dark bell towers, narrow, crooked little piazzas, and steep little streets running between small old homes and somewhat larger new homes. The town had the privilege of accommodating the widow of that journalist Loffredi, whose tragic death, still shrouded in mystery, continued to be talked about now and then in big-city newspapers. A rare privilege, to be able to hear from her own mouth so many things that other people in the big cities did not know, but also just to see her and be able to say:

“Signor Loffredi, when he was alive, held that pretty little thing tightly in his arms!”

The “civilized people” of Pèola were all puffed up about it. As for the dogs, I actually believe they would have continued to sleep peacefully lying in the town’s small streets and piazzas, without the slightest idea of that rare privilege, if the word about the bad impression they had made and were still making on Signora Lucietta by continually sleeping had not spread and then people, especially the young men, but the mature men too, had not suddenly started to disturb them, to shoo them away, kicking them or stepping on their paws, or clapping their hands to make a racket.

The poor animals stood up, more amazed than bothered. They gave a nasty look, slightly lifting an ear, then, some bouncing on three paws with the fourth one numbed and curled back, went off to lie down further away. But what had happened?

Maybe they would have understood if they had been slightly smarter dogs and less drowsy from sleeping. God, they just needed to stop a while at the entrance to the small piazza and look inside where none of them were allowed anymore, not to lie down, but not even to pass quickly through.

The telegraph office was in that small piazza.

They would have noticed (if they had been slightly smarter dogs) that everyone passing through there, especially the young men, but the mature men too, seemed as if they had walked into different air, crisper, immediately making the person’s pace and movements brisker and more agile; their heads turned as if they were suddenly stricken by a racing heart and unable to straighten back inside the starched shirt collar, while their hands became extremely busy in order to pull down waistcoats and straighten ties.

After walking across the small piazza, everyone then seemed intoxicated, cheerful, and nervous. And on seeing a dog:

“Be gone!”

“Out of my way!”

“Out of here, ugly mongrel!”

And stones too—kicking them wasn’t enough—they threw stones at them, hey!

Fortunately, coming to the aid of those poor dogs, a few windows would fly wide open and a woman’s head, with ferocious eyes glaring between clenched fists angrily launched into yelling:

“But what’s gotten into you, you rogues, striking out against these poor animals?”

Or else:

“You too? You too, Signor notary? Excuse me! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Just look what a treacherous kick. Poor little animal! Here sweetie, come here... Her little paw, look… you’ve crippled her little paw. And you walk away with your cigar in your mouth as if you didn’t know anything. Shame on you! And you, a responsible man!”

In short, a deep affection was formed between the ugly women of Pèola and those poor dogs that all of a sudden began to be persecuted by their men, husbands, fathers, brothers, cousins, fiancés, and finally, by all the rascally boys too, stricken by the infectious behavior.

That new air, which their men had been breathing for some days, turning them glassy-eyed with a dazed look about them, had been noticed right away by the women, yes, the women, who were somewhat more intelligent than the dogs (at least some of them were). It was like it had spread over the rust-colored, moldy roofs and into every corner of the old, sleepy village and cheered it all up (in the eyes of the men, of course).

But yes. Life... —anxieties, troubles, disappointments... —then all of a sudden, one laughs… Oh God, just like that… for nothing—one laughs. If after days and days of mist and rain a ray of sunshine appears,[6] doesn’t everyone’s heart become cheerful? Doesn’t everyone breathe a sigh of relief? Well then, what is it? Nothing, a ray of sunshine. And right away life appears completely different. The weight of boredom becomes lighter, the darkest thoughts turn sky-blue. People who stayed inside their homes come outdoors... But do you all smell the lovely scent of the damp soil? God, you can breathe so well... The fresh air of mushrooms, right? And all the plans for conquering the future become easy, smooth. And each person shakes off the memory of the hardest knocks they’d taken, recognizing that, come on, they had given them too much importance. What on earth, up we go, up! What, up? But yes, we need to keep our spirits up... And the mustache? Yes, even the mustache, up!

“Sweetheart, why don’t you comb your hair a little better?”

The effects of the ray of sunshine that had unexpectedly appeared in Pèola in the small piazza where the telegraph office was. Besides persecuting the dogs, so many husbands were asking their wives:

“Sweetheart, why don’t you comb your hair a little better?”

And never, certainly for years and years, had the “civilized people” of Pèola gone around unintentionally and absentmindedly singing to themselves so much at the Circolo, in the streets, in their homes, or out strolling.

Signora Lucietta saw and heard all of this. The sparks of so many desires lighting up the eyes that followed her every move and voluptuously ran over her with a caressing gaze, and the warm affection that enveloped her quickly intoxicated her too.

It would not have taken much to do so, because Signora Lucietta was already quivering and fuming all on her own. What a bother those few small locks of hair were, falling down on her forehead as soon as she lowered her head to watch the dotted paper tape that rolled out of the small ticking machine onto the little office table! She would shake her head and almost give a start, as if surprisingly titillated. And what unexpected flushes and what sudden catches in her breath, which ended abruptly in a tired giggle! Oh, but she would also cry, yes, yes, she would cry in certain moments, without knowing why. Hot, burning tears brought on by some sudden, obscure confusion in her mind and a strange anxiety, which made jitters spread throughout her body, an edginess... She could not hold back those tears, and she would huff, huff exasperatedly, but then, immediately afterward, she would start laughing again over the slightest thing.

The only way not to think about anything, not to let her fantasies flit after every funny or dangerous image, not to catch herself absorbed in some far-fetched expectations, was to judiciously attend to her office, to get ahold of herself, to gather her attention in both hands and firmly hold it so that everything in the office would run perfectly according to the rules and in perfect order. And to remember, to always remember that meanwhile her two poor little orphaned boys were at home, entrusted to an old maid, who was very stupid and coarse. What a thought that was! Raising those children all on her own, with her work, with her sacrifice! In wretched conditions, unfortunately! Today here, tomorrow there, a vagabond with them... And then one day, when they were all grown up with a life they had made for themselves, perhaps with her sacrifices, they would not take into account all of her worries. No, come on! Come on! They were still so little... Why imagine all these ugly things? She would be old by then. Anyway, her time would have passed by. And when time has passed and we are old, we are already used to putting a good face on sad memories...

Who used to say that? She did, she said it. But not because these tormenting thoughts really sprang into her mind spontaneously. The town clerk, that Signor Silvagni she met on the train, passed by the office every morning, and sometimes around sunset when he left the Town Hall. He would stop for a moment, there in the doorway or in front of the counter, and talk to her about troubling things, and happy ones too. He laughed with her about the hunt after the dogs, for example, and the ways the ugly women in the town defended them. But in that man’s eyes, in those big, light eyes, intense and sad, which remained etched in her memory for a long time after he had left, Signora Lucietta read those tormenting thoughts. Who knows why, but at every encounter he would bring to mind the extremely distressing thought of her small children, even without him having asked about them at all or mentioning them by chance.

She started huffing again and repeating to herself that her children were still so small... and therefore, come on! Why lose heart? She shouldn’t and she wouldn’t. There, come on, buck up! She was still young, for now... so young... and therefore...

“What were you saying, sir? Yes, sure, count the words for the telegram, and then add two cents more. Do you want a printed form? No? Oh, just so I know... I understand. Goodbye, sir... Certainly, no problem at all...”

There were so many men who came into the office to ask her those stupid questions! How could she keep from laughing? They were indeed really funny, all those gentlemen in Pèola. And that commission of young men, members of the Circolo social club, with their good, elderly president, who came into the office one morning to invite her to the famous ball Signor Silvagni had told her about on the train. What a scene! All of them with their wild eyes, which on the one hand seemed as if they wanted to devour her and on the other felt a strange wonder at noticing up close that she had a small nose shaped like this and that, a mouth like this and that, as well as her eyes and forehead, to speak only about her head! But the most impertinent ones were also the most awkward. No one knew how to begin: “Would you like to do us the honor...” “It’s a yearly tradition, Signora...” “A small soirée dansante...” “Oh, but unpretentious, for sure!” “A family affair...” “But yes, let me say!” “It’s a yearly tradition, Signora...” “But come on, what are you saying! So long as you really want to do us the honor...”

They twisted about, wrung their hands, looked into each other’s mouths right when they jumped in to speak, while the president, who was also the town mayor, swelled up more and more, livid with anger. He had prepared a speech, and they weren’t letting him deliver it. He had also very carefully applied pomade on his long lock of hair flipped back over his head and put on yellow gloves and dignifiedly slipped two fingers in between his waistcoat buttons.

“It’s a yearly tradition, Signora...”

Confused, with a strong desire to laugh and her face scarlet red, due more to those insistent invitations expressed through lustful eyes than from the stuttering lips, Signora Lucietta tried to defend herself first and foremost. She was still in mourning, they knew it... and then, her two little sons... she was with them only in the evening... she didn’t see them all day... she always put them to bed herself... and then she had so many things to attend to...

“Oh come on! For one evening...” “She could also come after having put them to bed...” “And wasn’t there the maid?... For one evening!”

In all the fury one of the young men even burst out saying, “Mourning? But what foolishness!”

Someone jabbed his side with an elbow, and he did not open his mouth again.

Signora Lucietta finally promised that she would come, or rather, that she would do everything possible to come. But then, when everyone had left, she gazed at the little gold band on her small white hand resting on her black dress, which Signor Loffredi had put on her finger when they were married. Her small hand was so slender back then, like a young girl’s. Now that her fingers were a little plumper, that small ring hurt her finger. It was so tight she could not pull it off anymore…

III

In the bedroom of the old, small furnished apartment, Signora Lucietta was now saying to herself that no, she would not go. Meanwhile she was rocking—ssh—her little blond angel dressed in black, on her knees—ssh, ssh—her younger son, ever so dear, who wanted to fall asleep in her arms every night.

The taciturn old maid had undressed the older boy, who had tucked himself nicely into his small bed... yes? Yes, yes, how fantastic! He was already asleep.

Moving her hands as lightly as possible, Signora Lucietta then began undressing the little boy who had also already fallen asleep in her lap: slowly so slowly she took off his little shoes, one and two, slowly so slowly his socks, one... and two; and then off went his short pants along with his underwear... and then, oh then came the difficult part, to slip his small arms out of his hunting jacket sleeves; come on, slowly, slowly, with the maid’s help... not like that, this way... yes, down... slowly... slowly, there, it’s done! and now this other side...

“No, my love... Yes, here, here with your mamma... it’s your mamma right here... Leave it be, I’ll do it myself... Tuck in the blanket instead... yes, there, slowly so slowly...”

But why then so much slowly so slowly?

At barely a year since her husband’s tragic death, did she really want to go dancing? No, Signora Lucietta perhaps would not have gone if all of a sudden, after she went out of her bedroom and into the small adjoining entry hall, she had not seen a thing of wonder, a real wonder, in front of the small hall’s closed window.

She had been staying in that rented apartment for so many days and had never even noticed that in front of the entry hall’s window there was an old wooden flower box, all covered in dust. A magnificent red rose had bloomed in that flower box almost unexpectedly, out of season.

Amazed, at first Signora Lucietta stood to admire it amidst the lifelessness of the greyish upholstering and that shabby-looking hall. Then the joy over that rose made her heart quicken. She saw her ardent desire to enjoy at least one night come alive there in that rose. Suddenly freed from the doubts that had held her back until then, from the horror of her husband’s ghost, thoughts about her sons, she ran and plucked the rose from its stem, then standing in front of the mirror on the shelf, instinctively put the rose up to her head.

Yes, there! She would go to the party with only that rose in her hair, along with her twenty years and her joy dressed in black...

“Come on now!”

IV

It was intoxication, it was delirium, it was madness.

When she first appeared, after almost everyone had already lost hope that she would come, the Circolo’s three dark halls on the first floor, separated by two wide arches and illuminated by kerosene lamps and candles, suddenly seemed as if they were blazing with light, as her little face was so lit up and almost dazzling with the rush of blood, her eyes sparkling so brightly, and so madly joyous, with that fiery rose clashing against her black hair.

All the men lost their heads. Set free from all restraints of propriety, from all thoughts of their wives’ or fiancées’ jealousy, the envy of old maids, daughters, sisters, and cousins, under the guise of having to festively welcome the guest, a newcomer to the town, they irresistibly rushed over to her in a crowd with lively exclamations. Right away, there and then, since the dances had already begun, without even giving her time to look around, they started vying for her. Fifteen, twenty arms were offered to her with their elbows extended. All of the arms to take, but which one first? One at a time, yes... She would dance a little one at a time with all of them... There, make room! Make room! Come on! And the music? But what were the musicians doing? Had they also stopped with her in their sights? Music! Music!

And off they went! Amidst clapping hands, the first dance with the old mayor and Circolo president, wearing a long formal jacket, took off.

“But what a good dancer! Good!”

“What splits, look!”

“Oh, the flaps on his long jacket... look, look at those flaps, the way they fly open and close on his light-colored pants!”

“But good! Really good!”

“Oh God, his lock of hair! The waxed lock of hair... The lock of hair is slipping loose!”

“What? Is he taking her to sit down? Already?” And another fifteen, twenty arms with their elbows extended parry in front of her.

“With me! With me!”

“Just a moment! A moment!”

“You promised me!”

“No, me first!”

God what a scandal! It was a miracle they did not start yanking each other around.

While waiting for their turn to come, the rejected men went off with their tails between their legs to invite other women, their own; some of the less attractive ones accepted grumpily. The other women, indignant and nauseated by it, turned them down with a curt:

“Thanks so much!”

Their angry eyes exchanged looks of disgust; some of them jumped from their seats, violently signaling that they wanted to leave. They invited this female friend or that to follow them. Off and away, all the women, away, all of them! Such a disgrace had never been seen before!

Some women on the verge of crying, others trembling with rage, vented their feelings with some dear little men squeezed into their old, shiny, modest attire with an old-fashioned cut, which smelled of pepper and camphor. Like dried leaves, those men had moved back to the wall so they would not be caught up in the turmoil, and stood protected among the honest silk skirts of their wives or sisters-in-law or sisters, ungainly, puffy skirts with frills and flounces, in loud colors, the brightest greens, yellows, reds, and blues, which, pulled out of the reeking, honored trunks, kept their rigid provincial sense of modesty impenetrably safe, to the great comfort of their noses and consciences.

Little by little the heat in the three halls had become suffocating. Something like a mist had spread from the beastliness all those men exuded, a panting, boiling, livid, and sweaty beastliness, which in the brief shocked moments of respite, with wild eyes and trembling hands made use of the sweat to straighten out, glue down, and smooth out again the wet, bristly hair on their heads, temples, and nape of their necks. By then that beastliness rebelled with outrageous arrogance against every call of reason. The party came just once a year! Besides, nothing wrong! The women, silent and settled!

Fresh, light, entirely enveloped in her joy, which rejected any brutish contact, laughing and leaping away with sudden jumps in order to be happy with herself, unsullied and pure in her moment of folly, an agile, ever-changing flame in the middle of the gloomy fire of all those piled up logs, Signora Lucietta, having conquered the dizziness and become dizziness herself, was dancing and dancing, without seeing anything anymore, without distinguishing one person from another anymore. The arches of the three halls, the lights, furniture, the yellows, greens, reds, and blues of the women’s clothing, and the men’s black suits and shooting whites of their shirts, it all wrapped around her in whirling streaks by then. She broke away with a leap from one dancer’s arms as soon as she felt he was tired, heavy, and gasping for air, and immediately threw herself into other arms, the first ones that she saw held out in front of her, and away, away she went to wrap herself up again in those whirling streaks, to let all those lights and all those colors whirl around her again in frenetic turmoil.

In the last hall, near the wall in a corner that was almost dark, Fausto Silvagni sat with his hands on the grip of his cane and his full, tawny beard resting on his hands; he had been watching her for almost two hours with his big light-colored eyes, shining with a kindly smile. He alone understood all the purity of that insane joy, and he delighted in it. He delighted in it as if that innocent jubilation were a gift to her of his fondness.

Only fondness? Still only fondness? Didn’t it already quiver too much within him to still be only fondness?

For year and years Fausto Silvagni’s intense, sad eyes had looked at everything as if from a distance: nearby faces were like remote, evanescent shadows, and even his very own thoughts and feelings inside him.

His life was a failure, due to the adversity of circumstances, onerous, petty obligations, and the light of so many dreams that he had kept burning with all his heart’s passion since he was a boy (dreams that he could not recall to memory without excruciating pain and shame) was extinguished at it most beautiful. He shunned the reality in which he was forced to live. He walked inside it, he saw it around him, he touched it, but no thought, no feeling came to him anymore. He even saw himself as if far away from his self, lost in an agonizing exile.

Now, in this exile, a feeling suddenly came to reach him, a feeling that he would have liked to keep at a distance in order to not recognize it yet. He would not have wanted to recognize it, but he also did not dare drive it away anymore.

Hadn’t this dear crazy fairy dressed in black with a fiery rose in her hair perhaps flown from his faraway dreams? Couldn’t they also be his very own dreams that had come alive now, in this fairy, so that after he had been unable to reach them back then in another form, in this one he might hold them tightly in his arms, alive and breathing... Who knows! Couldn’t he stop her, hold her back, and finally return for her and with her from his faraway exile? If he did not stop her, if he did not hold her back, who knows where and how that poor crazy fairy would end up. She too needed help, needed guidance and advice, she too was so lost in a world that was not her own, and had a deep desire not to lose herself, but also, alas, to enjoy things. That rose said it all, that red rose in her hair...

Fausto Silvagni had been watching that rose for a while, dismayed. He did not know why. He saw it like a flame on her head... That small crazy head shook so much. How did that rose not fall out of her hair? Well, was he afraid of that? He did not know the answer, and continued to watch it, dismayed.

Meanwhile, down deep inside, his heart was telling him, quivering:

Tomorrow. Tomorrow or one of these days, you’ll talk... For now let her dance that way, like a crazy fairy...

But by then most of the dancing partners were so tired they collapsed in pieces. They acknowledged defeat, turning round like drunks, in search of the women they had accompanied, who had left. Only six or seven of them were still tenaciously hanging on, among whom were two old men—who would have believed it?—the old mayor in his long formal jacket and the notary, a widower, both in a pitiful state, their eyes popping out, their faces sweaty, flaming red and smudged with dye, ties crooked and shirts wrinkled, tragic in that senile anger. Up till then they had been driven back by the young men. Now, frantic, they threw themselves into it again only to fling themselves like bales onto chairs, one after the other, after barely two turns around.

It was the climactic moment, the last dance.

Signora Lucietta saw all seven of them around and above her, aggressive, furious.

“With me! With me! With me! With me!”

It shocked her. She was suddenly struck by the sight of all those men’s bestial overexcitement, and at the thought that they might have become aroused by her innocent merriment she felt disgust, shame. She wanted to run away, escape from that aggression. But as she leapt away like a doe, her hair, which had already come a bit loose, fell all the way down, and the rose landed on the floor.

Fausto Silvagni pulled himself up to watch, as if driven by a dark premonition of an imminent danger. But those seven men had already rushed to pick up the rose. The old mayor managed to grab it, at the cost of a terrible scratch on his hand.

“Here it is!” he yelled, and ran with the others to hand it to Signora Lucietta, who had taken refuge in the back of the second hall to fix her hair as best she could. “Here you are... But no, no need to thank me! Now you...” (the old mayor was too out of breath to speak, his head was lolling about) “... now you must choose someone... there... you must offer it, here, to one...”

“Good man! Great!”

“To a man... of your choice... really good!”

“Let’s see! Let’s see!”

“Who will you offer it to? Your choice!”

“The judgment of Paris!”[7]

“Silence! Let’s see who she offers it to!”

Breathless, Signora Lucietta held out the beautiful tall rose and looked around at those seven furious men like assailants, while feeling overwhelmed, like pursued prey. She realized right way that they wanted her to compromise herself no matter what.

“To someone? Of my choice?” she suddenly yelled, with a gleam in her eyes. “Well then, yes... I’ll offer it to someone... But first, move aside... all of you, move aside! No, more... more... there, like that... I’ll offer it... I’ll offer it...”

Her eyes sized up one man first and then the other, as if she were unsure about her choice, while the men, unsure and awkward, their hands out, and a vulgar pleading look on their brutal faces, hung on her little face, which now glared maliciously. Then, in a leap she darted between the last two men on her left and raced toward the last hall. She had found a way out, to offer the rose to one of the men who had spent the entire evening quietly watching, sitting by the wall, to whomever it might be, the first one who happened to be in the direction she was running.

“Here we are! Here I’ll offer it to...”

She found herself in front of Fausto Silvagni’s big, light eyes. She suddenly turned pale and for a moment stood there, hanging, confused, trembling, at the sight of his face. An exclamation softly escaped her lips, “Oh God...” but she immediately pulled herself together.

“Yes, good heavens... here, for you, take it, take it Signor Silvagni!”

Fausto Silvagni took the rose and turned round with an empty, desolate smile to look at those seven men who had rushed up beside her shouting like maniacs:

“No, what does he have to do with it” “To one of us!” “You were supposed to offer it to one of us!”

“That’s not true!” Signora Lucietta protested, proudly stomping her foot. “You said to a man, and that’s all! And I offered it here to Signor Silvagni!”

“But this is a declaration of love pure and simple!” the others then yelled.

“What?” Signora Lucietta took up again, her face turning ashen. “Oh, no sirs, please! It would have been a declaration if I had offered it to one of you! But I offered it to Signor Silvagni, who hasn’t moved the whole evening. And therefore he can’t believe that, right? He can’t believe it! Just like you can’t believe it either!”

“But yes, yes, we do believe it! In fact, we perfectly believe it! Better still, we believe it all the more!” those men declared in a chorus of protests. “To him of all people, oh! To him of all!”

Signora Lucietta felt entirely shocked by a fierce spitefulness. By then it was not a joke anymore! Malice was shooting from those eyes, from those mouths; the allusion to Silvagni’s visits to the telegraph office and the kindness he had shown her since her arrival was clear in their winks and grumbles. And meanwhile his pallor and agitation fueled their malicious suspicions. Why was he so pale, so agitated? Could he also perhaps believe, that she... ? It was not possible! So why then? Perhaps because the others believed it! Instead of turning pale and becoming agitated like that, he should have objected! But he was not objecting; he was becoming increasingly pale, and moment by moment a cruel suffering became more acute in his eyes.

Signora Lucietta realized everything in a flash and was stunned. But in that moment of anguished perplexity, facing the challenge of those seven impudent losers standing around her, who continued screaming at her with lacerating fury:

“There! There, see? That’s what you say, but he isn’t saying that!”

“What do mean he isn’t saying that?” she yelled, letting her vexation prevail over so many flickering and clashing contradictory emotions.

Moving right in front of Silvagni as a convulsive trembling ran through her, she looked him in the eyes and asked:

“Can you seriously believe that by offering you this rose I intended to make a declaration?”

Fausto Silvagni paused a moment, looking at her with that miserable smile on his lips again.

Poor little fairy, forced by those men’s bestial onslaught to leave the magical circle of pure joy, of innocent intoxication, where she had moved about like a little madcap! And now, defending the innocence of the gift of the rose and the innocence of her evening of mad joy against the fury of those men’s brutal appetites, she demanded that he renounce a love that would have lasted his entire life, give an answer that would be valid now and forever, the answer that would have to make that rose he held in his fingers wither.

Rising to his feet and looking those men in the eyes with steely firmness, he said:

“Not only can I not believe it, but no one will ever believe it, Signora. Here’s the rose back. I can’t take it. You throw it away.”

Signora Lucietta’s shaky hand took the rose and threw it aside.

“There, yes... thank you,” she said, thoroughly aware by now of what she threw away forever with that rose.