“The Visit” (“Visita”)

Translated by Arianna Autieri and Charlotte Spear

How to cite this work:

Pirandello, Luigi. “The Visit” (“Visit”), tr. Arianna Autieri and Charlotte Spear. In Stories for a Year, eds. Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka, Digital Edition, www.pirandellointranslation.org, 2025.

“The Visit” (“Visita”) was first published in the newspaper Corriere della Sera on June 16, 1936, just a few months before Pirandello’s unexpected death. It was included posthumously by the editors of the final Collection of his Stories for a Year (Novelle per un anno), A Single Day (Una giornata), which was published in Milan by Mondadori in 1937.

This short story belongs to the last phase of Pirandello’s production, when he published a number of works that critics have seen as resembling the poetics of Surrealism. Here, Pirandello uses a highly poetic descriptive language to help create an air of mystery as the unnamed protagonist receives a visit, or perhaps a visitation, from the deceased Signora Anna Wheil, whom he had met only once before. The narrative is largely dominated by a flashback to their fleeting, but apparently quite impactful, encounter, which has almost Dantean qualities as he exchanges what he takes to be a deeply meaningful glance and understanding with the woman at a garden party where he glimpses her exposed breast. This flashback helps make sense of the disconcerting strangeness he feels when his butler announces that Signora Wheil has arrived in his home, making the protagonist doubt whether he is awake or dreaming. In addition to playing with a familiar Pirandellian theme – the uncertain nature of reality and its dreamlike qualities – the story also develops a concentrated focus on gender dynamics and the power of the male gaze, with the protagonist ultimately revealing himself to believe in a strong gender hierarchy where the beauty of women is provided to men as a kind of recompense for their suffering in life. At the same time, this late story might also be thought of in connection with a series of earlier pieces that envision an unnamed male protagonist receiving unexpected, spectral visitors in his home: the trilogy of short stories that Pirandello wrote reflecting on his own creative process: “Characters” (“Personaggi,” 1906), “A Character’s Tragedy” (“La tragedia di un personaggio,” 1911), and “Interviews with Characters” (“Colloquii coi personaggi,” 1915). In those stories, an autobiographical first person narrator is visited by characters who present themselves with fully formed stories they seek to have turned into works of art; they are ushered in by the writer’s fantasy as “living germs” (a figuration Pirandello would repeat in the “Preface” that he added to his most famous play, Six Characters in Search of an Author, in 1925). “The Visit” resonates with elements of this meta-literary production and its reflection on the writer’s fantasy. This story thus draws on his earlier poetic articulations as well as his late “Surrealist” tendencies, relating to multiple moments of his artistic development and offering a glimpse into how their outlooks interact in the last phase of his writerly career.

The Editors

I must have told him a hundred times not to bring people home without notice. A lady, what a wonderful excuse:

“Did she say, Wheil?”

“Vàil, yes sir.”[1]

“Signora Wheil passed away yesterday, in Florence.”

“She says she has something to remind you about.”

(Now, I don’t know if I was dreaming, or if this conversation between me and my butler really happened.[2] He’s brought plenty of people home without notice; but that he even let a dead woman in, I just can’t believe. Even more so because I saw her in my dreams, Signora Wheil, still very young and beautiful. Indeed, after reading about her death in Florence in the newspaper as soon as I woke up, I remember falling back to sleep and dreaming about her. She was all confused and smiling, caught in the desperation of not knowing how to shield herself; she was shrouded in a white spring cloud that was slowly dissipating, revealing the rosy nudity of her body. And right there, where modesty would insist that she remain covered, she was pulling on the cloud with her hand—but how does one pull on a wisp of cloud?)

My studio is among the gardens. Five large windows, three on one side, two on the other; the former three are larger, arched; the latter two are French windows and face a lake of sunshine on a magnificent terrace at midday. By all five, a continuous flutter of azure silk curtains. The air inside is green, because of the reflection of the green trees in front.

With its back turned toward the middle window, there is a big sofa, whose fabric is also green, a light, marine green. Among so much green, so much azure, so much air, and so much light, it is delightful to surrender to it, or, I was about to say, to immerse yourself in it.

As I enter, I still hold in my hands the newspaper reporting Signora Wheil’s death, yesterday, in Florence. I can have no doubt about having read it: it’s printed right here. But also, here, seated on the sofa and waiting for me, it’s her, the beautiful Signora Anna Wheil. It may be that she is not real, yes. I would not be surprised in the least, as I have become accustomed to such apparitions for a while now. Or else—there are not many options, just two—the news of her death, printed here in this newspaper, is false.[3]

She is here, wearing a white summer organdy dress like three years ago, a simple, almost childish dress, even with its low-cut neckline. (Here is the cloud I dreamt about, I see). On her head, she wears a straw hat tied with broad, black silk ribbons. She narrows her eyes, protecting herself against the dazzling light coming in from the two big windows before her; but then, very strangely, tilting her head back deliberately, she exposes to this same light the wonderful sweetness of her throat; how this light surges from the dreamy warmth of her candid breast to the curve of her neck, reaching all the way to the most pure arch of her chin.

Suddenly, this attitude, which is certainly deliberate, opens my mind: what the beautiful Signora Anna Wheil has to remind me of is all right there, in the sweetness of that throat, in the candidness of that breast; and all this happens in a single moment, but a moment that becomes eternal and abolishes everything—death and life alike—suspended in a divine inebriation. An inebriation where, all of a sudden, the essential things suddenly leap from mystery, illuminated and precise, once and for all.

I barely know her (if she were dead, I should say: “I barely knew her”; but now she is here in the absolute of an eternal present, and I can therefore say: I barely know her),[4] I had only seen her once before during a garden party at a villa owned by our mutual friends, where she wore this white organdy dress.

In the garden that morning, the younger, more beautiful women had that peculiar, glittering warmth that is borne in every woman from the joy of feeling desired. They let themselves be swept up by the dance and, smiling, wanting to increase this desire, they closely watched the men’s lips to challenge them irresistibly to a kiss. But in the spring, those moments of rapture when in the warmth of the first, intoxicating sunlight; when, in the languid air, delicate perfumes hazily dance with excitement, and the splendor of the new green that is spreading in the lawns shines with such thrilling vivacity in all the trees around; strange threads of bright sounds intertwine; sudden bursts of light stun; flashes of freedom; happy invasions of dizziness; and the sweetness of life is so made of everything and nothing that it does not seem real anymore; nor is all that has been done and said true anymore, nor does it matter, when remembered in the shadows, after the sun sets. Yes, he kissed me. Yes, I made a promise to him. But it was only a peck, on my hair, when we were dancing. So it was a promise for laughs. I’ll say I did not warn him. I’ll ask him if it isn’t crazy to think I’d really keep such a promise.

There could be no doubt that none of this had happened to the beautiful Signora Anna Wheil. Her charm seemed so alien and placid to everyone, that no carnal yearning could have dared to face her. I, however, would have sworn that it was because of that very respect that everyone showed her, that her eyes twinkled with ambiguous and bitter laughter. Not because she secretly felt undeserving, but quite the opposite. It was because nobody displayed desire towards her as a woman, due to the respect that was rightfully hers. It was perhaps envy or jealousy, or perhaps outrage, or ironic melancholy; or, it may have been all these things together.

I suddenly realized this, after having observed her for a long time, as she was taking part in various dances and games, and in races in the meadows with the children, which she may perhaps have done to offer herself an outlet. The hostess, whom I was accompanying, introduced me to her while she was still bent down, putting the little disheveled heads of the children in order and straightening up their untidy clothes. In the sudden rush to answer, Signora Anna Wheil did not think to also straighten up the wide neckline of her organdy dress; so, I couldn’t help but catch a glimpse of her breast, perhaps more than I should have, honestly. It was just a moment. She immediately covered herself with her hand. But from how she looked at me, in that seemingly furtive gesture, I realized that my involuntary and almost inevitable impertinence had not displeased her at all. That gleam of light in her eyes now sparkled differently than before, with an almost frenzied hint of gratitude, because my eyes were laughing, without respect, and showed such pure appreciation for what I had seen that lust remained out of the question. And because only my supreme esteem was revealed, which I attributed to the joy that the love of a beautiful woman like her could offer to a deserving man, with her treasures of divine nudity, which were covered over with such decorous haste.

This, my eyes told her with clarity, as they were still shining from that spark of admiration; and this made me become for her the only Man, truly a man, among all those gathered in that garden; just as she appeared to me to be the only Woman, truly a woman, among all the others. And we could not part from each other for the whole duration of the party. But, except for that tacit understanding, which lasted only a moment, forever, nothing else happened between us. No exchange of words, beyond the usual pleasantries about the beauty of that garden, the gayety of the party, and the gracious hospitality of our mutual friends. But even so, as we were speaking about unrelated or casual matters, that sparkle of laughter remained, happy, in her eyes, springing up like running water. Water running from the deep secret of our understanding and reveling in its run, without minding the stones and weeds among which it now flowed. And one of these stones was her husband, whom we met shortly at the turning of a garden path. She introduced us. I raised my eyes for a moment to look into her eyes. A blink of her eye veiled that gleam of light and, with it, the beautiful lady confessed to me that he, that good man, the husband, never even dreamed of understanding what I had in just a moment. And that this was not to be laughed at, no; actually, it was her mortal affliction. Because a woman like her could never be with any other sort of man. But this did not matter. It was enough that one man had at least understood.

No, no, I shouldn’t any longer, not even without wanting to, continue to walk and converse with her alone, only the two of us together. I should no longer lay my eyes on her breast and oblige her hand to stealthily ensure that I could no longer be indiscreet; now, it would have been sinful for me to insist, and for her to continue to be pleased. We had already understood. It had to be enough. It was no longer about the two of us only; I should no longer seek to know her or discover how she was. She was entirely beautiful, yes, and she alone could know how. We would have had to consider many other things about me; above all, this: that, for her, I should have been at least twenty years younger. A great melancholy of useless regrets; no, no; a beautiful thing was revealed to us, which filled us with pure joy, amidst so much sunshine and the laughter of spring: so essential is a woman’s body on this earth, with all the naked purity of its flesh, amidst the green of earthly heaven.[5]

“If we could just think of you and me...”

I turned. What! Could she be speaking to me so informally? But the beautiful Signora Anna Wheil had disappeared.

I find her next to me now, in this green air, in the light of my study, just as she was three years ago, wearing that organdy dress.

“My breast, if you only knew! I died because of it. They had to cut it off. A terrible disease devastated it, twice. The first, just a year after you, do you remember? After you caught sight of it. Now I can open my neckline widely, with both my hands and show it all to you, as it was, look at it! Look at it! Now that I am no more.”

I look; but, on the sofa, there is only the white of the newspaper.