“Victory of the Ants” (“Vittoria delle formiche”)

Translated by Julia Nelsen

How to cite this work:

Pirandello, Luigi. “Victory of the Ants” (“Vittoria delle formiche”), tr. Julia Nelsen. In Stories for a Year, eds. Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka, Digital Edition, www.pirandellointranslation.org, 2024.

“Victory of the Ants” (“Vittoria delle formiche”) was first published in February of 1936 in La Lettura, the monthly illustrated installment of the Corriere della Sera. This was less than a year before the author’s untimely death from pneumonia that December. As such, Pirandello himself never republished the work, but it was included by the editors as a part of the posthumous final Collection of Stories for a Year, A Single Day (Una giornata; Milan: Mondadori, 1937).

The plot of this short story is quite simple, and indeed the very first paragraph encompasses the entirety of what happens in the tale. The subsequent pages delve into the reasons behind it: in an attempt to kill off an infestation of ants overtaking his ramshackle hovel, the protagonist accidentally sets fire to the dwelling and is himself fatally burned. The structure of the story, though, develops that image into a psychological profile of the unnamed protagonist, helping us understand these seemingly bizarre and perhaps incomprehensible actions. The resulting character sketch is typical of Pirandello’s approach to humor, which combines the laughter of ironic distance with a sense of compassion for the suffering of others: the protagonist is caught up in a seemingly ridiculous “battle” or “war” against the ants, who he seeks to defeat by burning their colony and instead ends up burning his own house; at the same time, the reasons for this battle are pathetic, rooted in the backstory of his own financial ruin and destitution, which seems to have driven him to the edge of mental instability.

The image of the burning hut or hovel is one that recurs in a number of Pirandello’s stories, though not always with the same connotations. In fact, his very first short story, “Little Hut. Sicilian Sketch” (“Capannetta. Bozzetto siciliano”), composed in 1883 and published in 1884 when Pirandello was still living in Sicily, focused on precisely this image – it concludes with an angry madman setting fire to the titular hut, which a young girl watches burn. Similarly, in his story “Set Fire to the Straw” (“Fuoco alla paglia,” 1905), a madman sets fire to the protagonist Simone Lampo’s grain, which is all that remains of his once great fortune. Indeed, the similarities between “Set Fire to the Straw” and “Victory of the Ants” are notable: in both cases, the protagonist has suffered financial ruin and is left to live as a social outcast on a small plot of land, the only possession remaining to him. Likewise, in both the madman burns the estate’s grain, with the difference that in the earlier story the madman is a separate character from the protagonist, whereas here they are one and the same. Likewise varying here is the outcome: the grain, unintentionally set ablaze, is inside the protagonist’s little hovel in “Victory of the Ants,” with the result that when it burns so does his only shelter, reducing him to his final state of madness when he sacrifices himself running into the blaze. In some sense, then, we might think that Pirandello’s later story, “Victory of the Ants,” is rewriting a familiar trope that has run across his entire production of short stories, from his very first, through those following his own family’s financial disaster in the early 1900s, to his late work after he had become an international celebrity and Nobel laureate.

The Editors

It was perhaps ridiculous in itself, but in effect a terrible thing: a house completely overrun by ants. And a mad thought: that the wind had conspired with them. The wind with the ants. An alliance made with the wind’s typical lack of consideration, so rash that it wouldn’t stop even for a moment to reflect on its actions. Just like that, a gust kicked up at the very moment that the man had decided to set fire to the anthill by the door. And just like that, the house burst into flames. As if ousting the ants could be done by no other means but fire: burning it down.

Before reaching this crucial juncture, however, we should remember the many prior events that may somehow explain both how the ants had managed to conquer the house so completely, and how the man could have conceived the outlandish thought of this alliance between the ants and the wind.

Reduced to hunger from the affluent position he’d inherited upon his father’s death, he’d been abandoned by his wife and children who had found a way to make do on their own, finally rid of his arrogant antics that one could call many things, not least contradictory (he, instead, considered himself the victim for being overly submissive, his peaceful traits and sensible views never reciprocated). He lived alone on the only land that remained of all the estates he once owned, a reclaimed plot at the valley’s edge below the town, in a hovel of barely three rooms where the tenant farmer used to live. Now he lived there, a gentleman worse off than the poorest of peasants, still wearing the genteel suit that looked shabbier and dirtier on him than on a beggar who might have received it as charity. Nonetheless, that dreadful blue-blooded poverty of his seemed almost cheerful at times, like the kind of colorful patches that the poor wear on their clothes, which almost serve as their banner. In his long, haggard face and dark yet lively eyes was an air of gaiety that matched his tousled curls, red streaked with grey, and a certain joyful sparkle that suddenly vanished at the idea that anyone who noticed it might think him mad. He himself understood that others could easily think of him that way, yet he was perfectly content to live as he pleased, savoring to infinity what little—hardly anything—poverty had to offer. He didn’t even have enough to light a fire for a daily soup of fava beans or lentils. He would have liked to, since he was a better cook than anyone else, seasoning artfully with salt and pepper and adding the right vegetables that made the aroma alone intoxicating as the soup simmered; the taste, delectable. But he could also do without. It was enough to step outside in the evening and pluck a tomato from the garden, an onion to go with the stale bread that he carefully sliced with his pocketknife and, with two fingers, brought to his mouth bit by bit like prized morsels.

He’d found a new kind of wealth in experience, that one needn’t have much to live carefree and in good health, the whole world to himself, with no home nor family, no concerns nor affairs—filthy and tattered, perhaps, but at peace, sitting out on the stoop in the moonlight. And if a dog were to wander by, just as lost as he, he would let it curl up and pet its head: a man and a dog, alone in the world, underneath the stars.[1]

But carefree was the wrong word. Sprawled before long on a bed of straw on the floor like an animal, rather than sleep he’d gnaw unthinkingly at his nails until they’d bleed and burn, leaving his fingers swollen and infected for days. He fretted over everything he should have done but hadn’t to protect his estate, writhing in anger or whimpering with regret, as if he’d fallen into ruin only yesterday, as if only yesterday he’d feigned ignorance that his downfall would come soon and was by then inevitable. It was unbelievable! He’d let the usurers seize his plots of land, his homes, one by one, just so he could have a bit more money at his disposal, unbeknownst to his wife, to afford the occasional modest, fleeting distraction. (In fact, these were neither modest nor fleeting; there was no use in making light of it now; he had to plainly admit to himself that he’d led a secret life for years, like a pig—that’s what he ought to say—like a real pig: women, wine, gambling.) The fact that his wife realized nothing, was enough for him to carry on as if he, likewise, were unaware of his imminent ruin. Meanwhile, he would unleash his bile and pent-up agitation on his ingenuous son, who studied Latin. Incredible, indeed: he too had begun brushing up on Latin, to tutor and keep an eye on his son, as if he had nothing else to do, and as if this attention and care of his could make up for the catastrophe that was brewing for his entire family. The same catastrophe would befall his son, to his exasperation, when he failed to understand the ablative absolute[2] or the adversative case:[3] he’d grow incensed while explaining it, and the whole house shook as he barked furiously at that poor, bewildered young man, who might have eventually figured it out on his own. The look in the boy’s eyes, after such a scolding! Stung with regret, remembering his son’s gaze, the man now scratched at his face with those claw-like nails and chided himself—a pig, a pig, a brute, to lash out like that at an innocent child!

Giving up on sleep, he left the straw bed and returned to the stoop, where the dreamy silence of the countryside enveloped in darkness gradually calmed his nerves. Disrupted though it was, the silence seemed amplified by the distant chirping of crickets from the valley. The melancholy of the changing season already filled the country air, and he loved those damp, misty days when—who knows why—the first light rain awakened a vague nostalgia for his distant youth, that bittersweet wistfulness that sparks fondness for the land and its scent. His chest swelled with emotion, his throat tightened with sorrow, and he began to cry. He was destined to end up in the countryside. But this wasn’t how he imagined it.

Lacking the might and the means to farm the land himself, which barely yielded enough to repay the estate tax that was owed, he had granted it to the tenant farmer who leased the neighboring plot, on the condition that he would pay the tax and provide him enough to eat—a small amount, a pittance—out of what the land produced: bread, vegetables, and some soup, on occasion, if he felt so inclined.

With this agreement in place, he had begun to consider everything in his sight—the almond and olive trees, the wheat fields, the crops—as things that were no longer his. The hovel was all he owned, but if he began to regard it as his only asset, he couldn’t help but smile with the most bitter disdain. The ants had already invaded. Up until then, he would amuse himself watching them move up and down the walls in endless processions. Sometimes there were so many that the walls appeared to tremble. But he most enjoyed seeing them take possession—in every sense—of the funny, elegant furniture from his former home in the city, debris from the shipwreck of his family, piled haphazardly and topped with a finger’s width of dust. While loafing about, as a distraction, he’d even begun to study those ants for hours on end.

They were the tiniest of ants, faint and pinkish, so slight that a puff of air could have swept away more than a hundred of them. But right away, a hundred more would suddenly appear from every direction, hurrying busily, creating order out of chaos, one team here, another over there, to and fro without rest, colliding and swerving off course, but then finding their way again. Surely, they were chattering and conferring with each other the whole time.

Perhaps because they were so slender and small, he hadn’t yet thought of them as fearsome, that they wanted above all to lord over the house and himself, never to leave him in peace again. He’d find them everywhere, inside every drawer, coming out from where he least expected them. Sometimes he even found them in his mouth, when he took a bite of bread that had been left for a moment on the table or somewhere else. It hadn’t yet occurred to him that he’d have to seriously defend himself, to gird himself for a serious battle. The thought came to him in a flash one morning, perhaps because of the bad mood he was in, after a long, dark night more terrible than the rest.

He took off his coat and started carrying into the hovel the few dozen sheaves of grain left out after the harvest, which the farmer hadn’t yet brought to his plot. The sky had darkened during the night, and a storm was looming. Used to always doing nothing, he was exhausted from the unusual exertion and foolish act of foresight—which, in fact, wasn’t his responsibility at all, since those sheaves, like everything else, belonged to the farmer. So when he had to find room for the last sheaf inside the hovel, which was already packed to the gills, he left it at the door and sat down to rest, spent.

With his head bowed, he rested his arms on his legs and let his hands hang between them. And at a certain point, there they were, coming out of his sleeves: the ants, crawling across his hands, across his body underneath his shirt, making themselves right at home. Ah—so this was why he could no longer sleep at night, and why all of his thoughts and regrets tormented him anew. Furious, he decided right then and there to destroy them. The anthill was a few steps from the door. He would set it on fire.

How did he not think of the wind? That’s a good one. He didn’t think of it because there was no wind, none at all. The air was still, in anticipation of the rain that hovered over the countryside, in a suspended silence that heralds the first big drops. Not a leaf fell. The gust came all of a sudden, by surprise, as soon as he ignited the bundle of hay gathered from the ground. Holding it like a torch, as he bent over to burn the anthill, the gust swept the sparks to the sheaf that had been left by the door. Flaring up, the fire quickly spread to the other grain stored inside, where the blaze exploded in an instant, crackling and filling the house with smoke. Screaming like a madman, arms flailing, he ran into the fire, perhaps hoping to put it out.[4]

When the townspeople who rushed to his rescue pulled him out, it was a fright to see him so horribly burned and not yet dead, but instead thrashing about with feverish excitement, his clothes and his big floppy curls all aflame. He died a few hours later at the hospital where they’d transported him. Delirious, he kept muttering about the wind, the wind and the ants.

“An alliance… an alliance…”

But they already knew he was mad. And they mourned his demise, indeed, but not without the hint of a smile.