Читать книгу One, None and a Hundred-thousand - Luigi Pirandello - Страница 13

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There is a point which may be raised against me:

"But how does it come that it never entered your mind, poor deluded Moscarda, that the same thing happens to all the rest that happened to you, that none can see themselves living, and that if you were not to others what up to then you had believed yourself to be, so, in the same manner, others could not have been as you saw them, etc., etc."

My answer is:

It did enter my mind. But I beg your pardon, is it really true that it entered your minds as well? I have been willing to suppose it, but I do not believe it. I moreover believe that if, in reality, such a thought had entered your minds, and had taken root there as it took root in my mind, every one of you would have committed the same follies that I committed.

Be sincere. The thought never passed through your heads that you would like to see yourselves living. You are bent upon living for your own sakes, and you are wise in so doing, without giving yourselves a thought of what, in the meanwhile, you may be to others; not, in fact, that the opinion of others does not matter to you—it matters very much indeed; it is rather because you are under the blissful illusion that others, from without, must picture you to themselves as you picture yourselves. And accordingly, should someone call your attention to the fact that your nose sags a little to the right—it doesn't?—that yesterday you told a lie—nothing of the sort?—Oh, come, a very little one, of no consequence—In short, if on certain occasions you become barely conscious of not being to others the same individual that you are to yourselves, what do you do? (Be sincere.) You do nothing, or very little. You make up your minds, in the long run, with an admirable and utter sureness of yourselves, that others have misunderstood you, misjudged you, and that is that. If it is a matter of concern to you, you seek to correct that judgment by giving clarifying explanations; if it is not a matter of concern, you let it go and shrug your shoulders, exclaiming, "Oh, well, my conscience is clear, and that suffices me."

Isn't that the way it is?

I beg your pardon, my good people. You have just had a big word in your mouths; permit me now to insert a tiny, tiny thought in your minds. This thought: that your conscience, here, has nothing to do with the case. I shall not say that it is worth nothing, if it means everything to you; I shall say, to please you, that I similarly have my own, and know that it is worth nothing. Do you know why? Because I know, there is your conscience, too. Ah, yes. And so very different from mine. Excuse me, if I talk for a moment like the philosophers. Is your conscience, by any means, something absolute, that may suffice to itself? If we were solitary beings, it might be so. But in that case, my good friends, it would not be conscience. Unfortunately, here I am, and here are you. Unfortunately. And what does it mean, then, that you have your conscience, and that it suffices you? That others may think of you and judge you as they please, that is, unjustly, because you all the while are safe in the comforting assurance that you have done no wrong? Come, come, I beg you: and is it not others who give you that very assurance, that selfsame comfort?

It is you yourselves, is it? And how does that come?

Ah, I know how: through that obstinate belief you hold that, if others had been in your place and had understood your case as it was, they would all have acted exactly as you did, would have done neither more nor less than you did. Excellent! But upon what do you base that assertion? I know the answer to that question, too, eh? Upon certain abstract and general principles, upon which, abstractly and generally, which means aside from concrete and particular cases in life, it is possible for all to agree (at a very slight cost). Yet how does it come, meanwhile, that all condemn you, or fail to approve you, or even deride you? It is obvious that they are unable to recognize, as you do, those same general principles, in the particular case that concerns you, or to recognize themselves in the action which you have performed.

For what is it, then, that your conscience suffices you? For enabling you to feel alone? Good heavens, no. Solitude terrifies you. What do you thereupon do? You picture to yourselves any number of heads, all like your own. Any number of heads that are also your own. And these heads, at a given signal, drawn out from you as by an invisible wire, say yes and no, and no and yes, to you, as you would have them say. All of which comforts you and gives you a feeling of security.

It is a splendid game you have there, that of the self-sufficing conscience.