“The Tight Frock Coat” (“Marsina stretta”)

Translated by Fabio Battista

How to cite this work:

Pirandello, Luigi. “The Tight Frock Coat” (“Marsina stretta”), tr. Fabio Battista. In Stories for a Year, eds. Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka, Digital Edition, www.pirandellointranslation.org, 2022.

“The Tight Frock Coat” (“Marsina stretta”) was first published in Il Marzocco on December 1, 1901, and then included in the 1917 collection The Carnival of the Dead (Il carnevale dei morti). In 1924, the short story became part of Stories for a Year and was one of the fifteen tales gathered in the Collection All Three (Tutt’e tre).

This humorous story offers an alternative to some of the most commonly observed themes in Pirandello’s works, such as the recurrent dyads of life/form and reality/illusion, despite being written at the same time as other early stories that were typically pessimistic in their exploration of human beings’ inability to withstand the twists of chance and fate. “The Tight Frock Coat,” on the other hand, builds on the idea of liberation as a process leading to the characters’ self-affirmation. The story’s unexpectedly happy ending anticipates Pirandello’s dual vision of humor, which he would later elaborate in his essay On Humor (L’umorismo, 1908), emphasizing how contingency (here the titular tight frock coat) leads to unexpected outcomes in unexpected ways that can result in ironic laughter. Old Professor Gori finds himself constrained in the tight frock coat he is supposed to wear to the wedding of his former student, who he has helped pair up with a well-off young man. The coat, which metaphorically represents the limitations imposed on him both personally and socially, becomes the element hampering freedom in his decision making. Likewise, the clutches of societal norms limit the actions of the bride and the groom, as a death in the family is about to sabotage the wedding. Eventually, the stitches coming off the sleeve of Gori’s tight frock coat will be a visual metaphor for his own indignation against the unjust decision to cancel the wedding. By liberating himself from the coat’s tightness, Gori likewise releases the bride and groom from the burden of collective disapproval.

A major film anthology from 1954 titled Questa è la vita (Of Life and Love) was based on “The Tight Frock Coat” together with three other stories by Pirandello (“The Jar,” “The License,” and “The Paper Fan”). The episode inspired by “The Tight Frock Coat,” the last one in the movie, was directed by Aldo Fabrizi, who also starred in the role of Professor Gori.

The Editors

Professor Gori was usually very patient with his old maid, who had been in his service for about twenty years. That day, however, for the first time in his life, he needed to wear a frock coat, and he was at his wits’ end.

The mere thought that something of so little consequence could distress a mind such as his—a stranger to frivolity and oppressed by many intellectual worries—was enough to irritate him. His irritation grew further at the thought that someone with such a mind as his should consent to wear a piece of clothing prescribed by foolish custom for elegant occasions, where life deceives itself with celebration or entertainment.

And then, dear God, with that hippopotamus-like body of his, an antediluvian beast…

And the professor kept grumbling, and flashed his eyes at the poor maid who, small and soft like a ball, relished the sight of her large master in that unusual parade, without realizing —wretched woman—how mortified the old, plain, humble furniture and the poor books in that small, dark, messy room must have felt to witness it.

That frock coat, naturally, was not Professor Gori’s own. He had rented it. The clerk from a nearby store had brought him home a few to choose from. And now, with the air of a well-mannered arbiter elegantiarum,[1] his eyes half-closed, his lips smirking with complacent superiority, he examined him, made him turn around this way and the other (“Pardon! Pardon!”) and finally announced, shaking his locks:[2]

“It doesn’t work.”

The professor grumbled once more and patted his sweat dry.

He had tried on eight, nine, who knows how many. Each one tighter than the last. And that collar that seemed to choke him! And that already rumpled dickey peering out of his waistcoat! And that starched, dangling, little white tie, still in need of a knot he couldn’t make!

In the end, the clerk was pleased to say:

“Here, this is it. We couldn’t possibly find any better, believe me, sir.”

Professor Gori first flashed his angry eyes at the maid again, to bid her not to repeat “it looks painted on you! It looks painted!” and then looked at his frock coat, by virtue of which the clerk no doubt addressed him as “sir.” Then he turned to the clerk:

“Haven’t you got any others with you?”

“I brought twelve, sir!”

“And this one is the twelfth?”

“The twelfth, at your service.”

“Then it works very well.”

It was tighter than the other ones. With some resentment, the young man admitted:

“It is a little tight, yes, but it can work. If you would be so good as to look at yourself in the mirror…”

“Yeah, sure!” squealed the professor, “the show I’m putting on for you and my maid is more than enough, thanks.”

So the clerk bowed his head slightly, with dignity, and left with the other eleven frock coats.

“Can you believe this?” the professor gushed with a raging groan, trying to lift his arms.

He went to look at a scented invitation on the chest of drawers and grumbled again. The meeting time was at eight, at the bride’s home in Via Milano.[3] A twenty-minute walk! And it was already seven fifteen.

The maid, who had walked the clerk to the door, came back to the little room.

“Shut up!” the professor immediately ordered her, “try, if you can, to finish choking me with this tie.”

“Nice and slow… the collar…” the old maid advised him. And having carefully polished her trembling hands with a handkerchief, she began the undertaking.

Silence reigned for five minutes: the professor and the entire room around him seemed to be suspended, as if waiting for the final judgment.

“Done?”

“Uh…” she sighed.

Professor Gori jumped to his feet, yelling:

“Leave it! I’ll try myself! I can’t take this anymore!”

But, as soon as he faced the mirror, he started having such fits of anger that the poor woman got scared. First, he bowed down quite clumsily; but, in doing so, he saw the two tails open and close, so he turned around like a cat who feels something tied to its tail. And in turning around, snap!, the frock coat ripped under his pit.

He became furious.

“It came apart at the seams! It only came apart!” the old servant promptly ran to reassure him, “take it off, I’ll stitch it back together!”

“But I have no more time!” the professor yelled, exasperated. “I will go like this, as punishment! Like this… It just means I won’t extend my hand to anyone. Let me go.”

He furiously knotted his tie, hid his suit’s shame under his greatcoat, and left.

In the end, however, he ought to have been happy, what the heck! That morning they were celebrating the wedding of an old pupil of his, who was very dear to him: Cesara Reis, who, thanks to him, with that wedding, would reap the benefits of the many sacrifices she had endured during her interminable school years.

As he walked, Professor Gori got to thinking about the strange combination of events that had brought about that marriage. Yes. What was the groom’s name? The wealthy widower who had one day presented himself to him at the Teachers’ College [4] to ask for a reference for a tutor for his daughters?

“Grimi? Gritti? No, Mitri! Yes, that was it: Mitri, Mitri.”

And that’s how that marriage had been born. Ms. Reis, poor girl, had lost her father at fifteen, and she had heroically provided for herself and her old mother by working both as a seamstress and as a private tutor, until she had finally managed to complete her certification as a teacher. In awe of her perseverance and fortitude, he had managed, through begging and scheming, to find her a job in Rome, teaching in a technical school. When Mr. Griti asked him…

“Griti, Griti, that’s it! His name’s Griti. Not Mitri!” he had directed him to Ms. Reis. A few days later, there he was back before Professor Gori, sad and embarrassed. Cesara Reis had not accepted the tutoring job, because of her age, her state, her old mother who couldn’t be left alone, and, above all, the fear of people’s nasty rumors. And who knows with what tone and expression she had told him these things, the little rascal!

A pretty girl, Ms. Reis was, and with the kind of beauty that he most enjoyed: a beauty to which diuturnal sorrows (after all, Gori was a professor of Italian: that’s how he put it, “diuturnal sorrows”) had given the grace of a delicate sadness, a lovely, sweet nobility.

Of course, Mr. Grimi…

“I’m afraid his name is actually Grimi, come to think of it!”

Of course, Mr. Grimi had fallen madly in love with her at first sight. Things that happen, it seems. And he had again insisted, however hopelessly, three or four more times, to no avail. Eventually, he got to begging Professor Gori, imploring him to intercede, because if Ms. Reis—so beautiful, so modest, so virtuous—didn’t want to become his daughters’ tutor, she should instead become their second mother. And why not? Professor Gori was more than happy to intercede, and Ms. Reis had accepted: and now the wedding would be celebrated, despite the relatives of Mr… Grimi, or Griti, or Mitri, who had passionately opposed it:

“The devil take them all!” the heavy professor grumbled once again.

He needed to bring the bride a bouquet of flowers. She had begged him to be her witness; but the professor had made her aware that, as a witness, he would have had to buy her a gift befitting the groom’s sizable fortune, which he could not do; in good conscience he could not. The sacrifice of the frock coat was enough. But a little bouquet, yes, that was doable. And Professor Gori walked into a flower shop, hesitating and fidgeting, where they put together a big bundle of greenery with very few flowers for a large sum of money.

Once he got to Via Milano, he saw a crowd of curious people outside the front door of Ms. Reis’ building. He supposed it was late, that the carriages for the wedding procession were already in the atrium, and that all those people were there to watch it. He sped up. But why were all those curious people looking at him like that? The frock coat was hidden below the greatcoat. Perhaps… the tails? He looked behind. No: they weren’t showing. So what? What had happened? Why was the door ajar?

The doorman asked him, with a contrite tone:

“Are you here for the wedding, sir?”

“Yes, sir. I was invited.”

“But… you know, the wedding is not taking place anymore.”

“What?”

“The poor lady… the mother…”

“She died?” Gori exclaimed, dumbfounded, looking at the door.

“Last night, suddenly.”

The professor stayed there, still like a log.

“How can that be! The mother? Mrs. Reis?”

And he turned towards the people gathered, as if he wanted to read in their eyes the confirmation of this incredible news. The bouquet fell from his hands. He stooped over to get it but heard the stitching on the frock coat widen under his armpit and froze. Oh, God! The frock coat… right! The frock coat for the wedding, forced now to appear in the presence of death. What should he do? Should he walk upstairs dressed like that? Should he go back? He grabbed the bouquet and, in shock, handed it to the doorman.

“Do me a favor, keep this for me.”

And in he walked. He tried to leap up the stairs but only managed to do that for the first flight. On the last one—accursed belly!—he could barely breathe.

Once he walked into the small parlor, he noticed a certain embarrassment among those gathered there, a quickly repressed confusion, as if someone had run away when he entered; or as if all of a sudden an intimate, animated conversation had been interrupted.

Already feeling awkward on his own, Professor Gori stopped barely after the entrance. He looked around, perplexed; he felt lost, as if in the middle of hostile territory. Those people were all big shots: relatives and friends of the groom. That old lady was probably his mother; the other two, who looked like old spinsters, were perhaps his sisters or cousins. He bowed clumsily (oh God, the frock coat again…) and, still bowing, as if he was being pulled from the inside, he looked around once more, as if he wanted to figure out whether anyone had heard the crackle of that godforsaken stitching under his armpit. No one replied to his greeting, almost as if their mourning and the seriousness of the moment did not permit them even the slightest nod of the head. Some (perhaps the closest to the family) were dejectedly surrounding a man whom Gori, upon further inspection, seemed to recognize as the groom. He gave out a sigh of relief and approached him cautiously.

“Mr. Grimi…”

“Migri, actually.”

“Oh, right, Migri… I’ve been thinking about it for an hour, believe me! I kept saying Grimi, Mitri, Griti… and I couldn’t think of Migri! I’m sorry… I’m professor Fabio Gori, you’ll remember… although now you see me in…”

“My pleasure, but…” he said, staring at him with cold haughtiness; and then, as if remembering: “Ah, Gori… right! You’re the one… yes, I mean, the author… the, let’s say, indirect author of the wedding! My brother told me…”

“Wait, what? I’m sorry, you’re the brother?”

“Carlo Migri, at your service.”

“My pleasure, thank you. Great resemblance! I’m sorry, Mr. Gri… Migri, right, but… but this bolt from the blue… Right! I unfortunately… I mean unfortunately no: I can’t blame myself for this… but yes, let’s say that indirectly, by arrangement, I contributed…”

Migri interrupted him with a hand gesture and stood up.

“Allow me to introduce you to my mother.”

“I’d be honored, thank you!”

He was brought before the old lady, who was occupying half a sofa with her enormous size. She was clothed in black, with a sort of cap—also black—on the woolly hair which surrounded her flat, yellowish, almost sheepskin face.

“Mother, Professor Gori. You know him? The man who arranged Andrea’s marriage.”

The old lady lifted her sleepy, heavy eyelids, showing murky eyes—one open wider than the other one—and almost lifeless.

“In truth,” the professor corrected him, bowing down with anxious care for the ripped frock coat, “to tell the truth, well… not arranged, no: it’s not… it’s not the right word… I merely…”

“You wanted to give my granddaughters a tutor,” the old lady finished his sentence with her cavernous voice. “Very well! That would have been good.”

“Yes, right…” Professor Gori said. “Knowing the talents and modesty of Ms. Reis.”

“Oh, an excellent young lady, there’s no denying!” the old lady immediately concurred, lowering her eyelids. “And, believe me, today we are very saddened…”

“What a tragedy! Right! And so sudden!” Gori exclaimed.

“It looks as though God didn’t want it to be,” the old lady concluded.

Gori looked at her.

“A cruel fate…”

Then, looking around the parlor, he asked:

“Where’s Mr. Andrea?”

His brother replied, feigning indifference:

“Well… I don’t know, he was here not long ago. He might have gone to get ready.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Gori, suddenly cheery. “So, the wedding will take place, after all?”

“No! What are you saying?” the old lady burst out, offended and shocked. “My Lord! With a dead woman in the house? Ooh!”

“Oooh!” the two whining spinsters echoed in horror.

“To get ready to leave,” explained Migri. “He was supposed to leave for Turin today with the bride. Our paper mills are up there, in Valsangone, and he’s very much needed.”[5]

“And… and he’s going to leave… like this?” Gori asked.

“Of course. If not today, tomorrow. We convinced him, or rather pushed him, the poor fellow. You will understand, it’s no longer safe, or convenient, for him to remain here.”

“For the girl… now she’s alone…” the mother added with her cavernous voice. “The rumors…”

“That’s right…” the brother continued. “And then our business… The wedding was…”

“Rushed!” one of the spinsters burst out.

“Let’s say improvised,” Migri tried to soften the word. “Now this grave tragedy has fatefully happened as if… as if to buy some time. A delay is necessary… for mourning… and… and so each side will be able to think, to work things through…”

Professor Gori remained silent for a while. The irksome awkwardness that that conversation and its cautious reticence caused him was akin to the one caused by his frock coat, tight and ripped under his armpit. That conversation seemed to him to be similarly ripped and, by the way it was uttered, deserving to be taken with the same care as his secret rip. By forcing it, by not keeping it composed and left hanging, with all due respect, the risk was that, just as the sleeve of the frock coat would have detached, so the hypocrisy of those people would have sprung open and been laid bare.

For a moment, he felt the need to remove himself from that oppressiveness and from the irritation that the white lace around the collar of the old lady’s black tunic provoked in him, fallen as he had into a daze. Every time he saw white lace like that, there came back to his memory – who knows why – the image of a certain Pietro Cardella, a haberdasher from his faraway village, who was afflicted by a huge cyst on his nape. He felt the need to groan, but managed to hold back and instead sighed like an idiot:

“Yes, right… poor girl!”

A chorus of commiseration for the bride answered him. Professor Gori suddenly felt whipped by it and asked with supreme irritation:

“Where is she? Can I see her?”

Migri pointed to a door in the parlor:

“That way, go ahead…”

And Professor Gori walked there furiously.

On the small bed, there lay the pale, rigid cadaver of the mother, with a huge, starched cap on her head.

As he entered, Professor Gori saw nothing else, at first. In the grip of a growing irritation the extent of which, amid daze and discomfort, he hadn’t quite grasped, with his mind already raging, instead of compassion, he felt irritation, as if at something truly absurd: a stupid, cruel arrogance of fate that no, for God’s sake, should not be tolerated!

The dead woman’s rigidity seemed to him to be for show, as if the poor old lady had laid on the bed herself, donning that huge, starched cap to treacherously claim her daughter’s party for herself, and Professor Gori was tempted to yell:

“Come on, get up, my dear old lady! This is not the right time for such tricks!”

Cesara Reis was on the ground, kneeling. She was all bundled up, now, close to the little bed where her mother’s corpse was lying. She wasn’t crying anymore; it was as if she were suspended in a grave, empty bewilderment. In her black, unruly hair, there were locks still entwined with pieces of paper, to make them curl.

Well, rather than feeling sympathetic, Professor Gori was almost bothered by her, too. A strong urge to lift her off the floor and shake her out of that bewilderment gained steam inside him. They must not give in to fate, which so unjustly favored the hypocrisy of all those people gathered in the other room! No, no: it was all prepared, all set; those people in there had come wearing frock coats for the wedding like he had: well, someone needed to perform an act of will; someone needed to force that poor girl who had fallen to the ground to rise up; someone needed to take her, drag her, half-bewildered as she was, to conclude the wedding that would save her from ruin.

But that act of will, which would evidently have gone against the will of all those relatives, had a hard time strengthening inside him. However, just as Cesara, with no movement of her head and eyes, barely lifted her hand to point to her mother told him: “You see, professor?” the professor jolted and:

“Yes, my dear, yes!” he replied with an almost spiteful excitement which confused his former pupil. “Stand up! Don’t make me stoop down! Stand up on your own! Come on! Come on, do me the favor!”

Unwillingly, forced by that excitement, the young woman shook off her dejection and, almost panicked, looked at the professor:

“Why?” she asked him.

“Because, my child… but first stand up! I’m telling you I can’t stoop down, dear God!” Gori replied.

Cesara stood up. But when she saw her mother’s corpse on the little bed, she covered her face with her hands and burst into violent sobs. She did not expect to feel the professor grab her arms and shake her and yell in growing excitement:

“No! No! No! Don’t cry now! Be patient, my child! Listen to me!” She looked at him again, this time almost terrified, with tears in her eyes, and said:

“How can you ask me not to cry?”

“You mustn’t, because this is not the time for crying, for you!” the professor said curtly, “you’re alone now, my child, and you must help yourself! You understand you must help yourself? Now, yes, now! Grab all your courage, grit your teeth, and do as I say!”

“What, professor?”

“Nothing. First, take these pieces of paper out of your hair.”

“Oh, God,” the girl whimpered, remembering them, and lifted her trembling hands to her hair.

“Well done!” the professor urged her, “now get in there, and wear your school robes; put on your hat and come with me!”

“Where? What are you saying?”

“To the town hall, my child!”

“Professor, what are you saying?”

“To the town hall, marriage license section, and then to church! Because this wedding must take place, it must take place right now, or you will be ruined! You see how ridiculously I dressed up for you? I’m in a frock coat! And I will be one of the witnesses, as you wanted! Leave your poor mother in here; don’t think about her one more moment, it’s not sacrilegious! Your mother wants this, too! Listen to me, go get dressed! I’ll arrange everything for the ceremony right now!”

“No… no… how could I?” Cesara yelled, collapsing on her mother’s bed and plunging her head between her arms in desperation. “It’s impossible, professor! This is it for me, I know it! He will leave, he won’t come back, he’ll abandon me… but I can’t… I can’t…”

Gori did not give in. He stooped to lift her up, to force her away from that bed. But as he extended his arms, he stomped his foot in a rage, and yelled:

“I don’t care! I’ll be a witness even with only one sleeve, but this wedding will take place today! You understand… look me in the eyes! You understand that, right? You understand that if you let this moment go, you’re lost? What will become of you, with no position, with no one? You want to blame your ruin on your mother? Didn’t the poor woman long for this marriage? And now you want it to go to waste because of her? You’re doing nothing wrong. Come on, Cesara! I’m here. I’ll take responsibility for what you do! Go, go get dressed, go get dressed, my child, there’s no time to waste…”

And in saying so, he led the girl to her bedroom door, holding her by the shoulders. Then he walked back through the dead woman’s room, closed its door, and went back into the little parlor like a warrior.

“Has the groom not arrived yet?”

The relatives and guests turned around to face him, surprised by the imperiousness of his voice, and Migri asked with contrived concern:

“Is the young lady feeling unwell?”

“She feels very well!” the professor replied, staring into his eyes. “In fact, I am pleased to announce to you all that I was lucky enough to persuade her to overcome herself for a little and bury her grief inside her. We’re all here; everything’s ready. One of you will be enough, let me say, will be enough… you, for instance, you’ll be so kind,” (he added, turning to one of the guests), “you’ll do me the favor of taking a carriage to the town hall to inform the marriage license official that…”

A chorus of lively objections interrupted the professor. Scandal, wonder, horror, indignation!

“Let me explain!” Professor Gori yelled, towering over everyone else. “Why should this marriage not take place? Because the bride’s in mourning, right? Well, if the bride herself…”

“But I will never allow…” yelled the old lady, even more loudly than him, cutting off his words, “I will never allow my son…”

“To perform his duty as well as a noble deed?” Gori promptly asked, this time finishing her sentence.

“You stay out of it!” Migri told him in his mother’s defense, pale and shaking with rage.

“Forgive me! I will not stay out of it,” Gori quickly retorted, “because I know that you’re a gentleman, my dear Mr. Grimi…”

“It’s Migri!”

“Migri, Migri, and you will understand that it is neither correct nor honest to back out of the extreme demands of a situation such as this. We must be stronger than the tragedy that hit this poor girl and save her! Can she be left alone, like this, with no help and no position? You tell me! No: this wedding will take place despite the tragedy and despite… allow me!”

He stopped, furious and puffing. He placed his hand under the greatcoat’s sleeve, grabbed the sleeve of the frock coat, and with a violent motion pulled it out and threw it up in the air. Everyone laughed unintentionally as it unexpectedly rocketed off, while the professor continued with a big sigh of relief:

“And despite this sleeve that has been tormenting me until now!”

“You must be joking!” Migri said, composing himself.

“No, sir: it came apart at the seams.”

“You must be joking! This would be an act of violence.”

“An act of violence demanded by circumstance.”

“Or interest! I’m telling you it’s impossible, in these conditions…” The groom luckily arrived.

“No! No! Andrea, no!” many voices yelled at him, here and there. But Gori overpowered them and walked towards Migri.

“You decide! Let me speak! This is the situation: I urged Ms. Reis to be strong, to overcome herself, considering the seriousness of the situation where, kind sir, you put her and would leave her. If you would please, Mr. Migri, we could quietly take a closed carriage, with no pomp or circumstance, rush to the town hall, and celebrate the marriage… I hope you will not want to back out. But you tell me, you tell me…”

Andrea Migri was taken aback. He looked at Gori and then the other ones, and at last he hesitantly replied:

“Well… for me, if Cesara wants it…”

“She does, she does!” Gori yelled, his loud voice dominating over the other people’s sounds of disapproval. “Here is finally a word that comes from the heart! You, kind sir, please come here, run to the town hall!”

He grabbed the guest he had previously addressed by the arm and walked him to the door. In the small lobby he saw a great number of magnificent flower baskets that had been sent as wedding gifts, then he peered out of the parlor door to summon the groom and free him from the enraged relatives who had surrounded him.

“Mr. Migri, Mr. Migri, please! Look…” Migri quickly joined him.

“Let us pay tribute to the poor girl’s feelings. All these flowers, to the dead woman… Help me out!”

He grabbed two baskets and thus walked back into the parlor. He held them triumphantly on his way to the dead woman’s room. The contrite groom followed him carrying two more baskets. The party’s transformation was sudden. More than a few people walked to the little lobby to grab more baskets and carry them as a procession.

“Flowers for the dead woman, excellent. Flowers for the dead woman!”

Shortly thereafter, a supremely pale Cesara walked into the parlor, donning her black school robes, her hair just tidied up, shaking under the effort she was imposing on herself to hold it together. Immediately, the groom ran to her, and compassionately took her in his arms. Everyone was silent. Professor Gori, his eyes glistening with tears, begged three of those men to follow the bride and groom with him to be their witnesses. And they walked in silence.

The mother, brother, spinsters, and guests who had remained in the parlor quickly began voicing their indignation, which they had kept at bay at the sight of Cesara. Luckily, the poor old mother back there, surrounded by the flowers, could not hear those good people express their indignation for such disrespect towards her own death.

But along the way, Professor Gori thought of what was undoubtedly being said about him in that moment in the parlor and was almost stunned, to the point that he seemed drunk by the time he reached the town hall. So stunned, in fact, that he forgot about the frock coat’s sleeve and took off his greatcoat like everyone else.

“Professor!”

“Oh, yes! Golly!” he exclaimed, and quickly put it back on.

Even Cesara smiled about it. But Gori, who had somehow found comfort in telling himself that, after all, he would not be going back among those people, couldn’t laugh it off. He had to go back, because the sleeve needed to be returned with the frock coat to the shop where he had rented it. Signature? What signature? Ah, right! Yes, he needed to sign as a witness. Where?

Once the second ceremony was quickly taken care of at church, the newlyweds and their four witnesses returned home.

They were met with icy silence.

Gori tried to make himself as small as he could, looked around the parlor and, turning to one of the guests, his finger on his lips, he asked, “hush, hush… Could you please tell me where the sleeve from my frock coat ended up? I threw it up in the air not too long ago.”

And having wrapped it, shortly thereafter, in newspaper, he snuck off and began to think that, after all, it was to the sleeve of that tight frock coat that he owed that day’s victory over fate. Because, if that frock coat with an unstitched sleeve under his armpit had not caused him that much irritation, in the face of the tragedy of that sudden death, he would undoubtedly—thanks to the usual expanse of his comfortable, worn-out daily clothes—have given up like a fool to emotion and inert compassion for that poor girl’s unfortunate fate. At his wits’ end because of the tight frock coat, he had instead found in his irritation the courage and strength to rebel and triumph.