“Two Double Beds” (Due letti a due)

Translated by Oonagh Stransky

How to cite this work:

Pirandello, Luigi. “Two Double Beds” (“Due letti a due”), tr. Oonagh Stransky. In Stories for a Year, eds. Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka, Digital Edition, www.pirandellointranslation.org, 2024.

“Two Double Beds” (“Due letti a due”) was first published in the pages of the literary magazine Il Marzocco on January 3, 1909. Pirandello then added it to his Stories for a Year as part of the eleventh Collection, The Jar (La giara), which was published by Bemporad in Florence in 1928.

“Two Double Beds” traces an unlikely account of two bereaved spouses, one widow and one widower, themselves friends and lovers. The widow Zorzi comes into conflict with her lover, the lawyer Gàttica-Mei, on account of the latter’s approach to the construction and arrangement of two mausoleums in the cemetery for their respective spouses: he has insisted on a perfect symmetry, with two double beds, space for side-by-side tombs in each where the deceased can await their spouses faithfully. Offended by the epitaph that Gàttica-Mei wrote for Zorzi’s husband, the widow issues an ultimatum demanding that the lawyer take her for his new wife. A turn of events leads to that marriage, which is itself destined to be unhappy and short-lived, but ultimately posing the same problem as before: what is to be done about the two mausoleums and their epitaphs? The story can ultimately perhaps best be described as an ironic subversion of the love triangle motif, although this may not emerge until the final pages of the story, which is constructed to only gradually reveal new facets of the protagonists and their relationship both with one another and with their spouses. At the same time, the story also develops a number of typical themes from across Pirandello’s corpus: the interest in tombstones, cemeteries, and death rituals is one recurring motif, for instance, that can be traced through other short stories like “Wedding Night” (“Prima notte,” 1900), “The Illustrious Deceased” (“L’illustre estinto,” 1909), “Let’s Get It Over With” (“Leviamoci questo pensiero,” 1910), or “By Himself” (“Da sé,” 1913), as well as in Pirandello’s theater, such as in the one-act At the Exit (All’uscita, 1916). Similarly, the questions of marriage, social propriety, and love versus material considerations are all major themes in many of his works, including stories such as “With Other Eyes” (“Con altri occhi,” 1901) and “The New Suit” (“L’abito nuovo,” 1913) as well as longer works like his novels The Late Mattia Pascal (Il fu Mattia Pascal, 1904), Shoot! / The Notebooks of Serafino Gubbio, Cameraman (Si gira… / Quaderni di Serafino Gubbio operatore, 1916/1925), and One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand (Uno, nessuno e centomila, 1926). The humorous structure of the story, on the other hand, resonates clearly with the approach to ironic tragicomedy that Pirandello theorizes in his important essay On Humor (L’umorismo, 1908). The comic aspects of the story, and particularly its conclusion, provide an opportunity to laugh at the characters and the absurdity of their situation while also appreciating with compassion the suffering and difficulty underlying the seemingly absurd cascade of events leading to that end.

The Editors

On her first visit to her husband’s grave, widow Zorzi, dressed in mourning crepe from head to toe, was accompanied by Gàttica-Mei Esquire, an old friend of the deceased and a widower himself as of three years.

The gentleman wore a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez with a chain, also of gold, which encircled one of his ears, fell over his shoulder, and was pinned to the fabric under the collar of his impeccable redingote.[1] With his prominent chin shaved and polished with utmost care, his somewhat too dark and curly hair perfectly parted down the middle of his head to the nape of his neck and then combed upward in a fan toward his ears, and with his high shoulders and stiff neck, the lawyer exuded the solemnity and gravitas necessary for the occasion, making him look frozen in bereavement.

He was the first to step down from the San Lorenzo tram and, quickly assuming an almost military stance, he then extended his hand to help widow Zorzi descend.[2]

They both carried large bouquets of flowers: she for her husband, he for his wife.

But in addition to holding her bouquet as she climbed down from the tram, widow Zorzi also had to raise up her voluminous skirts; and with her sight impeded by her long crepe veil, which entirely concealed her face from view, she could neither see where to step nor the lawyer’s outreached black-gloved hand, which she could not have made use of in any case as her hands were full. The result was that she practically fell on top of him, almost pulling him down with her.

“Idiot! Didn’t you see that my hands were full?” signora Zorzi hissed angrily from beneath her trailing veil.

“That’s precisely why I held out my hand…” he apologized, deeply mortified, without looking at her. “But you didn’t see it.”

“Hush, that’s quite enough. Now which way?”

“Over here, this way…”

Recomposed, staid and stern, each one carrying their bouquet of flowers, they made their way towards the Pincetto section of the cemetery.[3]

This was the place where, three years earlier, Gàttica-Mei had arranged for a double mausoleum to be built for his wife and himself. It had side-by-side crypts, each one marked with its own slightly elevated, elegant gravestone, and two columns, both of which had a niche for a candle, and was entirely surrounded by flowering shrubs and artificial volcanic rock.

Poor old Zorzi, such a good friend to both Gàttica-Mei and his wife, had greatly admired the mausoleum only one year earlier when they had made a trip to the cemetery on the day of the dead![4]

“Oh my, how lovely! Why it looks just like a double bed! Lovely! Absolutely lovely!”

In something of a presage to his imminent departure, he decided to have a completely identical one built nearby for himself and his wife, straight away and with no delays.

A double bed, exactly! Indeed, Gàttica-Mei, a man for whom precision was everything, had lain his wife to rest in the niche on the left so that, when the time came and he was laid to rest, she would be on his right, the same way they had slept in their marriage bed.

Even the epitaph, which he had had engraved on his wife’s gravestone, had been much admired by old Zorzi, poor soul, for its moving simplicity:

HERE RESTS

MARGHERITA GÀTTICA-MEI

EXEMPLARY WIFE

WHO DEPARTED FROM THE LIVING MAY XV MCMII

MAY SHE WAIT IN PEACE

FOR HER HUSBAND

Gàttica-Mei had prepared another epitaph for himself, which one day would be engraved on his adjacent tombstone, thereby complementing hers in an elegant manner. His own would not say REST IN PEACE or that he DIED ON, etc., etc., but simply that ON (…) DAY OF (…) YEAR, ANTON MARIA GÀTTICA-MEI REJOINED HIS WIFE.

As he was composing his own epitaph, he almost wished he knew the exact date of his death so that the stone could be prepared in advance and everything left in perfect order.

He had, after all, designed the mausoleum for the two of them, a husband and wife with no offspring, and in order not to interrupt the harmony of the whole, the epitaphs needed to correspond in this way.

When he assumed the sad responsibility of taking care of the funeral, transportation of the coffin, and burial of his dear friend Zorzi, as was his duty, Gàttica-Mei came up with a variation on an epitaph that—for crying out loud!—if only he had thought of it earlier… But that’s just how it goes: over time, upon reflection, things always get perfected… The “May she wait in peace for her husband” he had chosen for his wife’s gravestone now seemed too cold, too simple, too dry, compared with what he had engraved on the stone that rested in the right-hand niche of the mausoleum where Gerolamo Zorzi lay:

AWAITING HIS FAITHFUL COMPANION

TO COME SLEEP BESIDE HIM

Oh, how much better that sounded! Music to his ears!

He couldn’t wait to reach the mausoleum so that he could bask in the praises that widow Zorzi would surely sing, and which he felt he fully deserved.

However, when widow Zorzi turned to him after kneeling down to say a prayer, deposing her flowers at the foot of her husband’s grave, lifting her long veil, and reading the epitaph, he saw that her face had gone pale and serious, that she was scowling and that something moved on her chin: a large hairy wart that quivered when she was deeply irritated, in a kind of tic.

“I have to say… I think it’s rather good… what do you think?” he found the courage to ask, somewhat confused, concerned, and even a bit frightened.

“Later. At home,” widow Zorzi said drily. “We can hardly discuss that here, now.”

She looked back at the tombstone and slowly shook her head, eventually pulling out a black-striped handkerchief to dab her eyes. She was truly crying, her whole body shook, she was wracked by violent sobs that were clearly difficult to restrain. At that point, even Gàttica-Mei pulled a scented kerchief out of the cuff of his shirt and, after carefully removing his spectacles, delicately dried first one eye and then the other several times.

“No! You, no!” the widow barked at him angrily, interrupting her tears. “You, no!”

And she blew her nose angrily.

“Wh––why not?” stammered Gàttica-Mei.

“Later. At home,” widow Zorzi snapped again.

Confused, he shrugged and tried to speak.

“But I thought… I don’t understand…”

He looked carefully at the epitaph, his eyes resting on “faithful companion.” Of course… why, yes… oh good God! It was a cliché! Tried and true, blessed by time. People used the phrase “faithful companion” the same way they said “large vase” or “heavenly vale”… It hadn’t occurred to him.

“I think, I think I understand,” he stammered. “But…”

“At home, I said,” widow Zorzi snapped for the third time. “And to make things worse, my poor Momo cared so deeply about this ‘masterpiece’… Just one question: why on earth are there two columns? Why are there two niches for candles? One was sufficient.”

“Only one? What? How…?” Gàttica-Mei asked in amazement, his hands open before him, a vacuous smile on his face.

“You did it for symmetry, isn’t that right?” widow Zorzi asked bitterly. “Well, since we have no children, and no other relatives to speak of, for as long as one of us is alive we can come and light their candles. But who will come light my candle? And who will come light your candle?”

“Why, yes, you’re right, this is true…” the man admitted, stumped and a bit shaken, instinctively bringing his hands to the nape of his neck and smoothing up the two wings of hair that had flopped down, which happened whenever—albeit briefly—he lost his composure (which to be honest, in the presence of widow Zorzi, actually happened quite frequently). “However, well, the thing is…” he found his voice again and went on. “When that comes to pass… and heaven forbid, but, actually, I would like to point out that both candles, the one on your side and the one on mine, will remain unlit, so actually…”

Symmetry was safe. But at this point widow Zorzi would not back down.

“And so…? So one of the two candles will always be new, never lit, never used and therefore useless. You see how we could have easily done without. One candle for each mausoleum would have been enough.”

“Mine is arranged the same way,” Gàttica-Mei replied. “But it’s worth mentioning that, for what you say to come true,” he went on to say softly and with a meek glance, “we would have to die at the same time, Chiara...”

“Are you saying that you would come and light my candle? Or that I should come and light yours?” widow Zorzi asked, with rising hostility. “Well, thank you very much, my dear, thanks a lot! We shall continue this conversation at home.”

And with a flutter of her hand, she waved him off, suggesting he go rest his bouquet of flowers on his wife’s tomb.

In the meantime, she stood pensively clutching her chin, index finger outstretched to the corner of her mouth, silently observing the mausoleum. A rose, its petals almost entirely fallen due to the gusty wind, wavered unsteadily on its stalk near the column; its head was bowed and it appeared to be close to collapsing, as if with bitterness, for poor old Momolo Zorzi, who lay deep below ground.

So widow Zorzi hadn’t been upset about the lie inherent in the cliché, as Gàttica-Mei had naively thought.

Of course she knew—and how!—that epitaphs are not written to honor the dead, who will be consumed by worms, but for the vanity of the living.[5]

Therefore it had not been the pointless offense to her deceased husband that had angered her, but the offense that the epitaph conveyed to herself, a living human being.

What on earth had Gàttica-Mei been thinking? Did he know who he was dealing with? Had he really thought that, by choosing that epitaph, they, who were both fully alive, would remain bound like slaves to that stupid sense of order, to the stupid symmetry of those two double beds, built for the dead? The lie, of course, the lie had certain decorative value—for the dead—but how could they possibly propagate it? How could they let the lie of those two gravestones impose itself on the living? Who did that lawyer take her for? Did he expect her to graciously and conveniently remain his lover so that his wife would continue to wait in peace for her husband while her husband lay awaiting his faithful companion, until the day came when she would go back to being his faithful companion and be put to rest, no, to sleep beside him, and he next to his exemplary wife?

No, not at all! No indeed, my dear sir!

While lies might be fine for the dead who rest on the far side, and can even be engraved into stone, they certainly cannot be applied to the living. And while sometimes it is necessary to tell a lie over here on this side, she personally had only ever done so out of absolute necessity. Yes, she was an honest woman (God knows how hard it had been for her!) and she had been forced to live a lie for three long years, while her husband was still alive. But now, that’s enough! Why should she continue to be forced to lie, now that her husband was dead? Just on account of those stupid tombstones? He had been the one to uphold the lie, Gàttica-Mei, it was all his fault. And he had done it first with his wife’s tombstone and now with her husband’s!

Oh no, no, no! I’m sorry, my dear sir! But I will not live the lie that is the “faithful companion.”

Yes, she was an honest woman. If she had lied before, it had been out of necessity, to deceive her husband while he was alive. But now he was dead, and Gàttica-Mei, Esquire, wants her to continue to carry out this deception? With no good reason? Or merely because of the ludicrous fact that those twin mausoleums exist? It was unacceptable! Never! When he was alive, fine; there was no way around it. But now, no. She no longer wanted to deceive her dead husband. It was unthinkable, untenable, it was an offense to her sense of honesty, her dignity, her decorum. Why, the lawyer had been free for the past three years. Now it was her turn to be free. It’s either each man for himself, honestly, or, we are honestly united before the law and the church.

Their argument was lengthy and harsh.

Gattica-Mei spoke frankly and from the heart, saying that nothing, nothing at all of what she had so cruelly suspected had ever passed through his mind when he came up with the epitaph. If she could just try and enter, for a moment, into the spirit of his conception for the crypts for the childless couples, she would perceive how naturally the epitaphs had come to him, how logical, even inevitable, a decision it had been. A ridiculous idea? Not at all, not in the slightest…

“Utterly and entirely ridiculous! Ridiculous is what it is! Ridiculous!” widow Zorzi exclaimed with fervent anger. “Just think of your wife, your exemplary wife lying there, waiting for you in peace… Don’t make me say something I will regret! I know very well—and you better than I—what you went through with her…”

“What has that got to do with anything?”

“Let me finish, will you? When did poor Margherita ever fully understand you? She was always such a burden! How often did you come and complain to us, to poor Momo and me?”

“Yes… but…”

“Let me finish! And why did I love you? Because I, in turn, felt misunderstood by poor Momo! Oh dear God, nothing makes a person fight like injustice… Even so, you chose to remain faithful until the very end to Margherita and you came up with that lovely epitaph for her tomb. How I admired you back then… Yes, I thought so highly of you, and so poorly of your wife, how unworthy she was of your loyalty. Then… yes, and it’s pointless to try and deny it… I just didn’t know how to say no to you. But I shouldn’t have done what I did! I should have waited, just like you waited! I should have waited until Momo died. But I didn’t and so I, only I, have failed in my duties. Yes, of course, you also wronged him… but my husband was only your friend. As a husband, you were faithful! And so you see, more than anything else, it is this—now that my husband and your wife have left us, and you remain alone, standing here, in front of me—that weighs heavily on me. That’s why I am speaking up now! Because I am an honest woman. I, like your wife, am honest. Just like you are! Just like my husband was! And now I want to be your wife, do you understand? Or nothing! Ah, you think the idea is utterly absurd? Well, try imagining me lying there, ‘faithful companion’, next to my husband. That’s what’s absurd! It’s insane! Outrageously funny! Anyone who knows us, and even those who do not, will look at those two mausoleums and say, Well! Would you look at that! What heavenly peace must have existed between those two couples. Dearly departed – ha! It’s a farce, a farce, that’s all it is: a farce!”

Widow Zorzi was so annoyed that the hairy wart on her chin had started quivering and continued to do so for a full five minutes.

Gàttica-Mei was deeply wounded by her long tirade, and even more by her derision. A serious and composed man, he never allowed any jokes about himself or his affairs, much in the same way that he never could have betrayed his wife while she was alive.

The fact that widow Zorzi now expected him to marry her spoiled everything. Forget about the beds that lay waiting for them; ever since he became a widower three years earlier, his life had taken on a new order, and he liked it very much. Why should he undergo a new upheaval in his life, now? It was senseless, that’s what it was. Senseless. While poor old Zorzi had been alive, Gàttica-Mei had respected her scruples, her pain, her regrets. But now? Of course, if she had divorced Zorzi and married him before his friend had died, then fine; they could have hoped to repair the deceit they had caused the man, robbing him of his honor, creating subterfuges (which had been so very delightful, mind you). But now? Now that no one was being deceived, both of them were free, widower and widow, and of a certain age, and there was no one to answer to anymore—who would care if they carried on their comfortable relationship? Was it merely a question of decorum? But they were doing nothing wrong now… To whom did she want to make amends for her past mistakes? Poor Momo was gone! To herself? But why? What wrong had she done either of them? Was it wrong to love someone? And that’s not to mention… Oh for God’s sake, why not mention it? Did she really want to give up receiving her husband’s pension, the checks she received for one hundred and sixty lire each month? Now that would be a sin![6]

Gàttica-Mei tried in every possible way to convince her that she was being obstinate, that it was pure folly, that she was being deplorably stubborn, it was mad!

But widow Zorzi stood her ground.

“Wife or nothing.”

Hoping that time would heal her of that obsession, he told her that it was pointless and even cruel to behave so harshly with him. The law, in any event, prevented her from getting remarried for nine months. They would discuss it then, if at all.

No, no, no, and no: “Wife or nothing.”

For eight months, widow Zorzi remained firm on the matter. He grew tired of begging her every day, wringing his hands, poor man, and finally gave up. Another week of silence passed, then two. A whole month went by, more even, and still no word from him.

Flustered and agitated, widow Zorzi considered bumping into him in the street, as if by chance, or maybe she should write to him, or just go straight to his house and face him directly, when suddenly his servant came and informed her that his employer was seriously ill with pneumonia and eager to see her.

She rushed to his side, devastated with remorse at how hard she had been on him, how she may indeed have been the cause for some of the turmoil in his life, making her therefore responsible for the illness; she rushed over filled with the darkest of presentiments. And as a matter of fact, she found him lying in bed, wheezing and choking, with death practically at the door, unrecognizable. She placed all social mores aside and stayed with him night and day, doing battle with death, without a moment of rest.

On the seventh day, when the doctors declared that he was out of danger, widow Zorzi, drained of energy after so many sleepless nights, cried, she cried with joy, and she rested her head on the side of the bed. He thus took the initiative and lovingly stroked her hair, and told her that as soon as he was completely healed, he would make her his wife.

Actually, the very first thing Gàttica-Mei had to do, once he was able to stand up, was learn how to walk again. Once so poised and erect, he now stood hunched over and trembling, a mere shadow of himself. And his lungs… well, his lungs… what a cough he had! Each time he was overcome by a fit of coughing, he’d pant and gag for breath, then thump his chest with his hands, only to then say to her as she watched with dismay:

“There, that’s better.”

Over the summer he showed some signs of improvement. He wanted to go outdoors, get some fresh air, first in a carriage, then on foot, with a walking stick and her for support. Once he had finally, more or less, reacquired his strength, he wanted her to quickly make all the arrangements for their marriage.

“I’ll be fine, you’ll see… I already feel much, much better.”

He had kept the home where he had lived with his wife; it was intact. The only change he had made was to remove their marriage bed, or rather, he had had his servants take it apart and remove one of the twin brass beds, the one where his wife had slept. However, the widow Zorzi’s home, where she had lived with her husband, was also in perfect condition.

Now that they would be married, which of the two houses would they keep? While she certainly didn’t want to create problems for the convalescent Gàttica-Mei—she knew how precise and methodical he was, what a slave to routines he was—she knew she couldn’t possibly live in his house, not as his wife. Everything in that abode spoke of Margherita. She could not open a drawer without experiencing the strangest sensation, an undefinable consternation, as if all the objects within jealously preserved the memory of the woman who had given life to them. But he, too, would surely have felt ill at ease among the objects in her home. Could they buy a new home, with new furniture, and sell their old belongings? That would be the best solution… She surely would’ve been able to convince him of it—had he been healthy, had he been the man he once was—but now she had to resign herself to making him happy by changing as little as possible. Their marriage bed, that, of course, had to be new. Once she managed to free herself of her first husband’s house, she would bring her favorite furnishings to the lawyer’s house. They would then choose the objects that were in the best condition, and everything superfluous or unwanted would be sold.

This is exactly what they did. And they were married.

The marriage ceremony actually seemed to do him some good. For the first three months, until the middle of autumn, he was in fine health. He had good coloring, almost too good, and no cough at all. But with the first cold weather, he fell ill again and quickly realized he was nearing the end.

Throughout the winter, which he spent between the bed and the armchair, grimly tasting death as it hung over him, he was tormented by a single thought that came to him in the form of a problem with no resolution: the two companion crypts in the Pincetto section of the Verano cemetery.

Where exactly would his wife bury him?

And with each passing day, between the fever’s slow burn and the anguished frenzy of his illness, a profound, voiceless vexation with her increasingly took hold of him. She was the one who had wanted, more than anything else, this pointless, idiotic, and most unfortunate marriage. He understood that she, on the other hand, thought it had been idiotic of him to build those two mausoleums, but he simply couldn’t accept it. Any discussion of the matter was not only pointless, it also worsened his exasperation. But now the issue was something else entirely. Now that he was her husband, how could he possibly be laid to rest next to his first wife? And, when the time came, how could she, now the wife of another, lay next to her first husband?

He chose not to speak about it for as long as he could until he could no longer resist and decided to ask her about it.

“How can you possibly think of such things now!” she yelled at him, without letting him finish.

“On the contrary, we must discuss it, before it’s too late,” he muttered darkly, casting spiteful glances at her. “I want to know! Tell me! I want to know!”

“Are you mad?” she shouted back at him. “Your health will improve, you’ll get better… You’ll see, you’ll get better!”

He tried to get up from his armchair, incensed.

“Me? I won’t make it to the end of the month! And then what’ll you do? What will you do?”

“We’ll deal with it when it happens, Antonio! Now please! Oh, please!” she broke down and started to cry.

Gàttica-Mei, seeing her cry, was silent for a bit. Then he started in again, mumbling and looking at his purplish nails.

“When it happens… she’ll deal with it… after so many expenses… so many doctors… and all for nothing… What a disaster… And for what?... If only everything had stayed the way it was… everything was fine the way it was…”

What he was referring to was the epitaph that he had put away in the drawer of his desk, the epitaph that four years ago he had prepared for himself, the one that said ON (…) DAY OF (…) YEAR, ANTON MARIA GÀTTICA-MEI REJOINED HIS WIFE.

A few days later, his wife, now twice a widow, in her hurry to give instructions for the funeral, found the epitaph while looking through the drawers of his desk.

She read it, re-read it, then threw it away and stomped her foot, deeply offended.

Buried next to his first wife? No, no, and no! Not, it wouldn’t do at all. He was her husband now and she couldn’t possibly tolerate the idea of him lying next to another woman.

But then where would he lay?

Why, in the Zorzi mausoleum of course. Both husbands could rest together. She had been married to one first, and then the other.

In so doing, the “faithful companion” that the poor old Momolo Zorzi was “waiting for” to “sleep by his side” was Gàttica Mei, Esquire. And in the other mausoleum made for two, Margherita, the exemplary wife, would continue to

WAIT IN PEACE

FOR HER HUSBAND

And there, one day, as late as possible, she would join her. Yes, a place for two widows.[7]

This way, both candles on one mausoleum would remain lit, and both candles on the other mausoleum would remain extinguished.

Symmetry had been preserved. At least in this, Gàttica-Mei, Esquire, could rest easy.