“The Surprises of Science” (“Le sorprese della scienza”)
Translated by Jonathan Hiller
How to cite this work:
Pirandello, Luigi. “The Surprises of Science” (“Le sorprese della scienza”), tr. Jonathan Hiller. In Stories for a Year, eds. Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka, Digital Edition, www.pirandellointranslation.org, 2022.
“The Surprises of Science” was first published in the literary magazine Il Marzocco on December 3, 1905 and then quickly added to Pirandello’s collection Two-Faced Erma (Erma bifronte), which came out the following year (Milan: Teves, 1906). It was later added to the Stories for a Year in the fifth Collection, The Fly (La mosca), (Florence: Bemporad, 1923).
This story, like so many others, showcases elements of the ironic side of Pirandellian humor while taking up a typical theme of the period, the growth of scientific discourse and public faith in science to cure social ills. Pirandello’s stance as it emerges through the story suggests both skepticism and ironic distance, depicting the cult of Science as a kind of self-defeating worship that can stand in the way of the practical outcomes – the social goods – that scientific progress itself is supposed to provide. On the one hand, the exaggerated and almost caricature-like depiction of the small town, its inhabitants, and its science-enthused councilmembers fits into the tradition of stories and works that poke fun at the simplemindedness of rustic life. On the other, the ironic ending uses the voice of the narrator’s friend, Tucci, to reverse that critique onto the broader positivist cult of science itself. It is also worth noting that the story also has strong autobiographical and even meta-literary elements, as the unnamed first-person narrator seems to align with the figure of the author, Pirandello himself, and the story was dedicated to Pirandello’s literary friend, Giustino L. Ferri. This situates the story at least in part as an entry into a literary exchange among the literati of Roman society, a position that was not unfamiliar to Pirandello in the same period, when for instance he was engaging in a jokingly polemical debate with his friend Luigi Capuana about the limits of science in connection with questions of Spiritism, ghosts, and other unexplained phenomena. The connection between autobiographical references and meta-literary discourse is likewise recurrent in many of Pirandello’s works, including in short stories (for example, the trilogy of stories about Characters, “Characters” (“Personaggi,” 1906), “A Character’s Tragedy” (“La tragedia di un personaggio,” 1911), and “Interviews with Characters” (“Colloqui coi personaggi,” 1915)), and plays including Six Characters in Search of an Author (Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore, 1921/25) and When One Is a Somebody (Quando si è qualcuno, 1933).
The Editors
[1] It was quite clear to me that when my friend Tucci invited me to spend the summer in Milocca with eager, pressing letters,[2] at bottom his desire was not so much to do me a kindness as to leave me with my mouth agape at what he had achieved, through great courage, in many years of tireless labor.
He had, at considerable risk, acquired a few parcels of swampland that had long plagued the village with illness, turning them into the most fertile fields in the entire area. A veritable pradise!
In his letters, he spared me none of the troubles that this reclamation project had cost him, none of the many methods devised, the many setbacks raining down upon him, the many battles joined, he alone against all Milocca, fighting nature and man alike.
Perhaps in an effort to further pique my interest, he mentioned in his last letter to me that he had taken a peasant woman of good sense for a wife. She was a peasant in all things, bearing him eight children in eight years of marriage (including a pair of twins), with a ninth on the way. His mother-in-law, a fine woman, cared a great deal for him, living in the home. There too was his father-in-law, a gem of a man who was learned in Latin and a great admirer of mine. Of course, because my fame as a writer had evidently spread all the way to Milocca in the form of some article or other the man had read. It talked of me and one of my books, in which a man died twice.[3] Upon reading that newspaper article, of a sudden my friend Tucci remembered that we had been schoolmates for several years, at the lyceum and the university, and spoke enthusiastically of my extraordinary talent to his father-in-law, who immediately ordered the book the newspaper discussed.[4]
Well, I must confess that it was this last bit that won me over. Rarely do Italian writers have the good fortune to look upon the respectable face of one of the three or four people who have purchased one of their more successful books. I got on the train and set off for Milocca.
A solid eight hours on the train plus five in a carriage.
But just a moment about that carriage! It might not have been so old a hundred years ago, I couldn’t say. A hundred years ago, it may have had a few springs left, though even then three or four of the spokes on the wheels up front and five or six in back were probably bound together with twine, as was currently the case. And forget about cushions! There you were, on the bare wood of the bench, on the edge of your seat so as to avoid having your flesh pinched in some crevice, as the joints of the wood snapped open and shut as the carriage was running along. But just a moment about running! That’s what the horse must have said. But the beast was unfit to say anything, as it was using its mouth as a crutch. Yes, I’ll defy anyone a hundred thousand times, in place of its feet, it wanted to push off the ground with its nostrils, and so it did, poor broken down old nag, for its unshod hoofs were clearly sore. Meanwhile, the brute of a coachman had the gall to say that you had to know how to drive it, let it go at its own pace, because it would pull up again and again. When whipped, on several occasions the confounded beast bucked, rising on its hind legs like a hare.
And such a road! I can’t really say I saw all of it well. Instead, coming around a few cliffs, I saw death before me with my own eyes. I had all of eternity to gaze upon it during the steep ascents, while the wood creaked and the weary nag puffed. How many centuries had it been since that road was last repaired?
“Crushed stone is bread to a carriage,” the coachman explained. “It chews it up in its wheels. When there is no stone, it chews up the road instead.”
Oh, it had chewed up that road quite well indeed! There were a few grooves that the carriage went into more neatly than onto tracks, but in this case never to reemerge from the rut, mind you! Then, falling in due to a misstep by the horse, with God as my witness, the whole thing pitched to the point that you were lucky to avoid breaking your neck.
“But why do they leave the carriages with no bread to eat in Milocca?” I asked.
“Why? Because of the project,” replied the coachman.
“The…?”
“Project, yes sir. Actually, many projects. There are folks who want to bring the railway to Milocca, some folks say the tram, and some the automobile. So the road’s being studied, y’see, to be redone as they see fit.”
“And in the meantime?”
“In the meantime, I’ll hold off on buying another carriage or a new horse, because y’see, if a train, tram, or automobile comes in, I’m sunk.”
I arrived in Milocca after dark. I could see nothing. According to the calendar, there should have been a moon that evening, but there was none. The kerosene street lamps had not been lighted, so one couldn’t see a blasted thing.
The Villa Tucci was about half an hour from the village. But either the old nag could really take no more or it had scented the stable nearby (as the coachman muttered with a curse); the fact of the matter was that the beast would go not a step farther.
I for one couldn’t blame it.
After five hours in its company, I had almost come to identify with the beast. I didn’t want to go any farther either. I thought, after so many years, who knows what must Merigo Tucci be like![5] My memory of him is already so foggy. Who knows how worn down he is after banging his head against the hard, inane, day-in day-out realities of a wretched provincial life! As classmates, he admired me, but now he wants to be admired, because, having thrown away his books, he got rich, while I, over there…! I’ll let his learned, Latin-studying father-in-law butter me up, but of course the man will make me sweat blood for the three lire he spent on my book! And then eight kids, and the mother-in-law, God in Heaven, and her goodly peasant daughter. And this village, which Tucci praised for its riches, but which in the meantime was in darkness, after that awful road and the little carriage for receiving visitors. What on earth had possessed me to come here?
While I placidly chewed on the food for thought of these sweet reflections, the nag, which had plopped down on its haunches, chewed on a steady diet of lashes from the whip, to no effect. In the end, the coachman, exhausted from this great effort, despairing and fuming, suggested we go on foot.
“It’s not far. I will carry your suitcase.”
“Very well, let’s go! We’ll stretch out our legs,” I said, dismounting. “Is it a good road at least? In darkness like this…”
“Never fear, sir. I’ll go ahead, and you follow, but slowly now, carefully.”
A good thing it was dark! As they say, what you can’t see can’t hurt you. But when I did see this other road there he following day, I nearly fainted, not so much because I had made it across, but from the thought that God in His mercy had willed that I should not meet my end there, and thus who knows what terrible trials He had in store for me?
After the shock of this road, and then the village’s appearance, squalid, bare, in a state of bleak disrepair, as if there had just been a barbarian invasion or some horrible disaster (without roads, water, or lighting), my friend’s villa and the welcome from him and his brood, the father-in-law’s admiration, and so on, seemed like a bed of roses by comparison.
“What’s all this?” I said to Tucci, “You call this a rich and happy village, among the happiest and richest in the world?”
And Tucci, half closing his eyes, responded: “That’s right. And you’ll see why.”
I had the urge to slap him. But this robust fellow had hardly gone soft in the head. Indeed, it seemed that his naturally keen mind, with alacrity and life experience, in the hard struggles against the land and against men, had been invigorated and expanded. This radiated from his smiling eyes. Deflated and saddened as I was by the empty cares of the city, worn down by strenuous and monotonous intellectual exertions, those eyes seemed to pity and mock me all at once.[6]
But what if, despite my predictions, I should have to own that he, Merigo Tucci, was truly worthy of admiration, and that dirty little village (no, no, by God no!) was rich? Happy?
“Are you in earnest?” I cried. “You haven’t even got water to drink or wash your faces, houses to live in, roads to walk on, light to see where you’ll fall and break your neck at night, and you call yourselves rich and happy? Come now, I see how it is. The usual drivel! Wealth and happiness based upon blessed ignorance, am I right? Is that what you mean to tell me?”
“No, on the contrary,” replied Merigo Tucci with a smile, deftly countering my irritation with proportionate calm. “Upon science, dear friend! Our happiness is founded upon the most bespectacled science to ever relieve poor, industrious humanity. Oh yes, we’d really be hung out to dry if our town were governed by ignorant men! As you say, what protection can ignorance provide in times such as ours? Promise me you shall ask me no more questions until tonight. I will bring you to a meeting of our municipal council. Apropos, tonight a question of paramount importance shall be discussed: the illumination of the village. From what you will see and hear, you shall have the clearest, most persuasive demonstration of what I have said. For now, our wealth is found in the wondrous Chiarenza falls,[7] which I will show you, and in our lands, which are, thank God, so fertile that they yield three harvests a year. Now, come with me and see.”
And so the day was spent. I bore it all, putting up with all the diversions and distractions of the day as if they were medicinal tea, my thoughts fixed upon the demonstration of Milocca’s wealth and happiness to take place that night at the town hall.
For example, Tucci wanted to show me his fields, inch by inch? I smiled at him. He gave me another, longer explanation of his business there in the area? I smiled at him. And had the force of the currents really eroded away all the fields it fell to him to drain and restore by applying sludge and costly oil? Oh really? How delightful! I smiled at him. But making something is nothing, it’s managing it that counts! So the olive trees are managed every three years, applying three or four baskets of sheep-based fertilizer? Oh really? How delightful! And I also smiled at him in the cellar, where, with the air of a Charlemagne, he showed me four long rows of barrels, and here too he explained that managing the tub, not the barrel is what counts, and how the color of his wine was richer, and how he enhanced its boldness and body by mixing certain types of grape varietals, which he personally selected and crushed, never using herbs, never elder leaf or linden leaf, never introducing tannins or gypsum or tar.
And I also smiled when, more dead than alive, I came back to the villa and found myself surrounded by his tribe of offspring in procession. After showing me the broken remains of the toys I had brought them the previous evening, they asked in a single, dragged-out lament, one after the other, through endless tears:
“Whyyyyyy’ja bring me thiiiiis?”
“Whyyyyyy’ja bring me thiiiiis!”
Cute, so cute, too cute!
And I also smiled at Tucci’s father-in-law, my admirer, who, oh yes, was blind and had been so for about ten years. Of my book, he knew nothing but a few pages that his son-in-law had read to him in the evenings after supper. And he wanted me to read him my book? Of course, without delay! It was truly fortunate that he could not see my smile, and the ones directed at him afterward, every time the good man (who was extraordinarily erudite) interrupted me as I read, practically at every line, to ask me politely whether I didn’t think by chance that I ought to have used another word instead of the one I used, or another sentence, or another locution. Because surely in this case, Daniello Bartoli,the great Bartoli…[8]
Evening finally came! I was still alive, although I couldn’t tell you how, but alive, and I was in store for the famous demonstration promised me by Tucci.
We went together to the town hall, for the municipal council meeting.
The hall was, like the governess and mistress of all the buildings in the village, the most squalid and the darkest: a filthy shack set in a scrubby expanse, with a grim, abandoned cistern in the middle. It was accessible via a dark, rickety staircase that reeked of mold. This was just barely illuminated by two sickly lamps, the kind with tin spheres, encrusted into the wall almost as if to showcase the ornamental possibilities of stucco. No, truth be told, not stucco, but mold in layers, many layers!
A multitude of people went up with us, drawn by the discussion of great moment to take place that evening. As they went up, their mood, or rather their solemnity, was astonishing to one such as myself, unaccustomed as I was to ever seeing municipal council meetings taken seriously.
My astonishment only grew when I observed the people’s mien, their appearance. They seemed by no account foolish enough to be content with their treatment (that is, like dogs) by the town government.
On the staircase, Tucci accosted a squat, frowning fellow. Bearded and ruddy, the man evidently did not wish to have his attention diverted from the thoughts consuming him.
“Zagardi, let me introduce my friend to you…”
And he said my name. The man turned gruffly, barely grunting in response to the introduction. Then, he suddenly asked me, “Pardon me, how is your city illuminated?”
“With electric lamps,” I answered.
And he, somberly, “Terribly sorry for you. Tonight, you shall hear. Pardon me, I’ve much to do.”
And away he went, bounding his way up the rest of the stairs.
“You shall hear,” Tucci repeated to me, giving my arm a squeeze. “He’s a formidable one. Biting eloquence, a force to be reckoned with! You shall hear!”
“And he has the gall to feel sorry for me?”
“He’ll have his reasons. Come, come, let’s make haste or we won’t find seats.”
Illuminated by a few small lamps that the ones from outside had little reason to envy, the “Grand Auditorium,” the council chamber, had the look of a dingy, dusty courtroom. The council benches and the leather armchairs were of a most venerable antiquity. When considered carefully in relation to the men who would soon occupy them, then pacing about the room, absorbed, taciturn, and prickly, like so many squirting cucumbers ready to expel their juice at the slightest impact,[9] this furniture seemed to be worn down not by age, but by dour, austere concern for public welfare, by gnawing thoughts that had morphed into woodworms.
Tucci pointed out and named the most influential councilmen: Ansatti, among the younger set, rival of Zagardi, also squat and bearded, but swarthy; Colacci, a huge old man, bald, clean-shaven, fat and flabby; Maganza, a handsome man with a military bearing who looked at everyone with disdainful stiffness. But wait, is that the mayor, running late? Yes, there is Anselmo Placci. Rotund, blond, and ruddy, this mayor seemed out of place to me.
“Not a bit out of place, you’ll see,” said Tucci. “He’s just the mayor for us.”
No one greeted him. Only the giant Colacci came up to him to give him a hard thump on the shoulder. The mayor smiled, scurried over to take his seat, wiped the sweat off his brow, and rang the bell, while the chief usher handed him the list of councilmen in attendance. No one was missing.
The secretary, unbidden, began reading the minutes from the previous meeting. These must have been drafted with the most scrupulous diligence, for the councilmen who listened, their brows furrowed, periodically nodded their heads in assent, ultimately finding nothing out of order.
Confused and bewildered, I too listened to the minutes, occasionally looking over to my friend Tucci. On the subject of the streets of Milocca, the minutes spoke of London, Paris, Berlin, New York, Chicago, as if it were nothing. Names of illustrious scientists from every nation came up, as did intricate calculations and abstruse disquisitions. As the secretary read along, it seemed to me that his thin, pale hair was retreating back toward his neck and his forehead was swelling to a monstrous size. Meanwhile, two or three ushers, quiet as dormice, tiptoed about placing books and thick stacks of papers on this bench and that.
“No one has anything to add to the minutes?” the mayor finally asked, rubbing his plump hands together and looking around. “Then they shall be considered approved. Now to today’s agenda: ‘Discussion of the proposed project presented by the executive committee for a hydrothermal electrical installation within the Municipality of Milocca.’ Gentlemen of the council, you are already familiar with this project and have all had time to examine and study every aspect of it. Before opening the discussion, let me state for the record, in my name and also that of my colleagues on the committee, that we have done everything possible, in the shortest period of time and in the manner deemed most appropriate, both for the honor and benefit of our village, and in terms of the economic conditions of our municipality, to solve the most serious problem of illumination. Thus, with trust and serenity, we await your opinion, which shall no doubt be impartial. We promise that from this point forward we shall welcome any and all suggestions and modifications you may wish to propose, motivated as they are by our shared interest in the welfare and prosperity of our village.”
No sign of approval.
Rising to speak first was councilman Maganza, the one with the military bearing. He prefaced his remarks by saying he would be very brief, as was his wont. All the more so, because vanquishing and demolishing this house of cardstock (sic), which was the executive committee’s proposal, would take but a few words.[10] A few words and a few figures.
And point by point, councilman Maganza started to denounce the project, with extraordinary clarity of thought and sharp, incisive words. The total labor and expenses, the approval required to purchase the water concession in Chiarenza, the grave risks that the municipal government would run, risks to both build and operate it. Then, the estimated budget was far too low, immediately apparent to anyone with experience in mechanical installations, who would know how impossible it was to keep expenses down to the numbers in the estimates, especially when these estimates were made on top of the preliminary plans, with the evident purpose of hiding the total expense. Then there was the excessive optimism of the contractor’s bid, considering the figures upon which the bid itself was based, figures which the council must certainly revise, with modifications and additions to the hydraulic works, with modifications and additions to the mechanical installations. Beyond all this were the several unexpected and unpredictable eventualities (force majeure, miscellaneous difficulties, holdups, and setbacks) which would surely materialize. And how was one to offer detailed notes without having the design plans and necessary figures at one’s disposal? Already, two enormous lacunae were clearly evident in the project: no budget for general expenses, though everybody understood that such grandiose, such extensive, such varied and delicate works could not be completed without serious managerial and supervisory expenses as well as legal and administrative ones. The other lacuna was even larger, even deeper: the thermal storage system, initially deemed superfluous by the council, was ultimately acknowledged as necessary.
And now, councilman Maganza, with the assistance of some books brought to him by the ushers, entered into a most intricate, meticulous scientific confutation, speaking of the force of the waterways, and falls, and intakes, and channels, and force mains, and machinery, and electrical mains, and the relationships to be established between thermal storage and hydraulic force, in addition to battery storage. He cited the Edison Society of Milan[11] and the Alta Italia [12] group of Turin, and how similar installations in Vienna, in St. Petersburg, and in Berlin were built.
Around two hours had passed, and his “very brief” speech still showed no signs of abating. The thronged public hung on the orator’s every word, not in the least distressed by this transport of bristly, overawing erudition. I could barely breathe, yet was held there in amazement, my eyes wide, my mouth agape. Then, in the end, while the public began to stir, not out of relief, but out of deep admiration, Maganza concluded as follows:
“Gentlemen, the hard experience of other cities has sadly made it clear that hydrothermal electric installations are of the utmost difficulty, with nasty surprises in store. No one can perform miracles, and on the basis of a proposal such as this, the municipality of Milocca can hardly expect to do so either!”
Frenzied applause burst out, and councilman Ansatti rushed from his bench to embrace and kiss Maganza.[13] Then, turning to the public as he slowly returned to his seat, he began to shout with rage, gesticulating violently.
“Gentlemen, they have dared to propose today, today as if it were ten or fifteen years ago, in the time of Galileo Ferraris,[14] yes dared to propose a hydrothermal electric installation in Milocca! Why, I would burst out laughing if I could take it as a joke! But with the taxpayers’ money, gentlemen of the council, it is a crime to joke, and I cannot laugh! Indeed, I am inflamed with indignation! Really, a hydrothermal electric installation in Milocca, when we already see the ordained glory of Pictet rising on the scientific horizon?[15] I shall not wrong you by believing, dear gentlemen, that you are unfamiliar with the illustrious Professor Pictet. The man who, by virtue of an inexpensive production process of industrial oxygen, is ushering in a groundbreaking revolution in the world of science, the world of technology and industry, a revolution that shall remake all the machinery of modern life, using this new element of light and heat, which shall supplant the far feebler ones still in use!”
In this tone and with growing ardor, councilman Ansatti told the dazzled, enthralled public of Pictet’s discovery, and how, with the system he had invented, an Auer wire mesh could contain a flame that reached 3,000 degrees, multiplying its luminosity an astonishing twentyfold. The light thus obtained was, unlike all others, quite similar to solar light. Then, if one replaced gas with a different mixture made from hard coal treated with an aqueous vapor and industrial oxygen, its heating power could be multiplied another sixfold!
While he was explaining these marvels, councilman Zagardi, his rival, the one who had expressed his pity for me on the staircase, snickered sotto voce.[16] Ansatti took notice and shouted at him,
“There is very little to snicker at, my dear Zagardi! I say, and I affirm it, sixfold! I have the books right here. I will demonstrate it to you!”
And so he did. At the end, leaping up from this terrible demonstration more animated and inflamed than before, he concluded, addressing the Council:
“Now I ask you, oh unseeing councilmen, in what a condition of inferiority the municipality and village of Milocca should find itself, with the electric horsepower of a mere one thousand, when this enormous revolution in industry, nay, in life, will soon be a fait accompli?”
“Pardon me,” I said softly to my friend Tucci, while applause roared through the hall with such violence that it seemed that the roof would soon collapse, “just one thing: in the meantime, isn’t the village of Milocca in the dark?”
Tucci would not answer my question.
“Quiet, quiet! Zagardi’s speaking now! Listen!”
The squat, bearded little man had in fact risen, the sneer still on his lips, twisting his red beard in disdain.
“I snickered,” said he, “and I still snicker, my dear colleague Ansatti, at seeing you so inflamed by industrial oxygen, such an ardent paladin for Professor Pictet! I snickered, and do so still, dear Ansatti, not out of indignation, but out of sorrow, upon seeing how you, so wise, you, such a young and vigilant bloodhound of for science, have come to the new discovery of that French professor and, blinded by the light of Auer wire meshes intensified twentyfold, have ignored a more recent illumination system with which the authorities in Paris are experimenting, which shall soon be implemented throughout the City of Light. This is Lusol, dear Ansatti, and I will not sing odes to the glory of this new discovery, for odes do not make revolutions in the fields of science, technology, and industry. That, my friend, is done through cold, rigorous calculations.”
And now Zagardi, never ceasing to twist his reddish beard around his chin, slowly began, in his biting, caustic manner, to speak of the wondrous simplicity of Lusol lamps, in which the heat of combustion of the fuse and capillary action alone were sufficient, with no machinery at all, to cause the illuminating liquid to rise, vaporize, and mix with the high proportion of air, making the flame hotter and brighter than that obtained with any other system. For a mere centime, one could now get the same light that base kerosene could fetch at five or six, at eight or ten with newfangled electricity, at fifteen or twenty with good old-fashioned oil. And Lusol required no workshops, installations, or channeling. Was he not perhaps justified in snickering?
Perhaps it was tempest raised in the thin air of the hall by the delirious acclamation and applause of the public, or perhaps it was a simple lack of fuel, as the meeting had gone far longer than anticipated. The fact is that upon the conclusion of Zagardi’s speech the lamps had dimmed to the point that it was almost entirely dark when the gigantic, flabby old Colacci rose as the final speaker. But lo, first one usher, then another, then a third sallied into the hall, each holding a stearic candle. The public’s anticipation was intense; the scene playing out in that dark, crowded hall unforgettable. In semidarkness, with those three candles trained on the old giant, he began. With sweeping gestures and a booming voice, he exalted Science, fertile mother of unquenchable light, inexorable creator of all new energies and ever finer life. After the worthy discoveries discussed by Ansatti and Zagardi, could it be possible to support the hydrothermal electric installation proposed by the Council? What sort of an impression would the village of Milocca make if it was illuminated only by electric light? This was an era of great discoveries, and any Administration that truly had the honor of the village and the good of its citizens at heart must keep an eye out for the ever-changing surprises of Science. Thus, councilman Colacci, assured of having correctly interpreted the will of the good people of Milocca and of his colleagues on the council, moved to table the Council’s proposed project, with a view toward new studies and new discoveries that would ultimately bring light to the village of Milocca.
“Do you understand?” Tucci asked me, exiting soon after into the shadows of the scrubby expanse outside the town hall. “And so it is with water, and with roads, and with everything. For the past twenty years, Colacci has been getting up at the end of each meeting to sing the praises of Science, of light, meanwhile the lamps go out. He moves to table every project, with a view toward new studies and new discoveries. And so, my friend, we are spared! You can rest assured that in Milocca, Science will never arrive. Do you have a box of matches? Take one out and light the way yourself.”
Endnotes
1. The story appeared with a dedication page preceding the text when it was collected in the volume Erma bifronte (Two-faced Herm, Milan: Treves, 1906). The dedication read: “To Giustino L. Ferri.” Ferri (1857-1913) was a journalist and writer who was part of the Roman literary and cultural circle that Pirandello took part in at this time. As such, the story is somewhat positioned as a contribution to some kind of literary exchange within that circle, which is also evident in elements of autobiographical self-reference and meta-literary play in the text.
2. The Sicilian village of Milena, in the province of Caltanissetta, was known as Milocca until 1933, when it was officially renamed in honor of Milena Petrova Vukotić (1847-1923), Queen consort of Montenegro and mother-in-law of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy. Pirandello is using the old Sicilian name, an indication of his familiarity with local history and tradition. At his time, this village was well known for its mines, a business in which Pirandello’s family was also involved.
3. An indirect reference to Pirandello’s own novel, The Late Mattia Pascal (Il fu Mattia Pascal, 1904). [Translator’s note]
4. The lyceum, or liceo classico, is the oldest form of public secondary school in Italy, dating back to the 1850s as an official institution but going back to the Napeolonic era in a broader sense.
5. The name ‘Merigo’ is short for Amerigo. The use of the diminutive here further contributes to the colloquial tone of the story, visible throughout.
6. The theme or opposition between urban and rural settings and their different values and types of life is recurrent in many of Pirandello’s works across genres and times. For instance, in his last novel, One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand (Uno, nessuno e centomila, 1926), Pirandello figures the countryside and its proximity to nature as an alternative to and escape from the travails of society represented by urban life and its battles for money, status, power, etc. The theme also recurs throughout the Stories for a Year in various forms, sometimes figuring the beauty of rural simplicity but other times making that simplicity itself an object of criticism.
7. An imaginary place, the Chiarenza falls appear to play on the name’s etymological resemblance to ‘clarity’— an ironical hint at the ‘clarifying’ scope of the meeting in the plot. Interestingly, Pirandello had previously given one of his characters the same name: Dimo Chiarenza, the wicked, shady usurer, appears in his 1904 short story “Fumes” (“Il fumo”).
8. Daniello Bartoli (1608-1685) was an Italian Jesuit writer and historiographer. [Translator’s note]
9. The squirting cucumber (Ecballium elaterium) is a spiny plant that squirts a mucilaginous liquid as a means of seed dispersal. [Translator’s note]
10. What appears to be an editorial mark here, the (sic) in the text is actually in all likelihood a part of the original text itself and not an editorial intervention. It appears at least as early as the 1906 version collected in Erma bifronte (Milan: Teves). It would thus seem to be part of a meta-literary or meta-textual game that Pirandello is playing here indicating the presence of an authorial voice and perspective that intervenes into the text as text, commenting, as it were, on the speech and word choice of the character, Maganza, in a kind of modernist wink at the reader. This fits with the other meta-literary elements of the story, including its dedication to the writer Giustino L. Ferri, who was part of Pirandello’s literary circle in Rome, and the evident autobiographical references in the text pointing to a link between the unnamed narrator in the story and Pirandello himself. At least one aspect of this story, then, is its meta-literary participation in the debates circulating in Pirandello’s literary and cultural circle in Rome.
11. The oldest Italian electric utility company, The Edison Society was founded in Milan in 1884 by the skillful electric engineer Giuseppe Colombo. The society applied and made available to Italians the life-changing inventions of Thomas Edison. Colombo himself was a fond admirer of Edison and quickly sensed the potential of his inventions when the two met in the United States in 1881, so much so that he negotiated an exclusive license for some of Edison’s patents for Italy.
12. Alta Italia was another major electric company headquartered in Turin and initially founded in 1896 as a chemical company using the capital of Swiss investors. By the time of Pirandello’s story, Alta Italia already had a monopoly on electrical distribution in Piedmont.
13. The action of rushing up to kiss the speaker is simply a gesture of approval and friendship that fits within the heteronormative framework of behavior at the time – it doesn’t suggest anything sexual or romantic, in other words, even if it might be read as a bit overenthusiastic for a city council speech on hydroelectricity.
14. Galileo Ferraris (1847-1897) was an Italian physicist who developed the basic principle of the induction motor, which converts electrical to mechanical power. [Translator’s note.]
15. Raoul-Pierre Pictet (1846-1929) was a Swiss physicist, famous among other things for being the first person to liquefy nitrogen. [Translator’s note.]
16. The Italian term sottovoce indicates a low, whispering kind of tone (under, as it were, one’s breath or an ‘undertone’). It is often written as two words, sotto voce, in English, where it commonly appears as a term in music.