Читать книгу One, None and a Hundred-thousand - Luigi Pirandello - Страница 5

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I at once imagined that everybody, now that my wife had made the discovery, must be aware of those same bodily defects, and that they must see nothing else in me.

"Is it my nose you are staring at?" I suddenly asked a friend, that very day, who had stopped to speak to me of some matter or other that meant a great deal to him.

"No," he said. "Why?"

I smiled nervously:

"The right side is a little lower, haven't you noticed?"

And I insisted upon his pausing to observe it attentively, as if that defect in my nose were an irreparable hitch that had occurred in the mechanism of the universe. My friend surveyed me at first in some astonishment; he surely suspected that my reason for thus, suddenly and without rhyme or reason, dragging in that remark about my nose, was that I did not deem the business of which he had been speaking to me worth my attention or a reply, for he gave a shrug of the shoulders and started to leave me, unceremoniously. I caught him by the arm.

"No, no," I said, "I am very much interested in your proposition. But you will have to excuse me for the moment."

"Is it your nose you're thinking of?"

"I never noticed before that it sagged to the right. My wife called my attention to it this morning."

"Really?" said my friend. His tone was questioning, and there was an incredulous and even derisive smile in his eyes.

I stood there gazing at him, as I had gazed at my wife that morning, with a mixture, that is to say, of humiliation, of anger and of astonishment. So he, too, had noticed it, had he? And how many others! How many? Yet I had been unaware of it, and, being unaware, had gone on believing that I was to everybody a Moscarda with a straight nose, whereas the truth was, every one saw me as a Moscarda with a crooked nose. And how many times, quite unsuspectingly, had I chanced to speak of Tizio or Cajo's defective nose, and how many times must I have caused a laugh, as those who heard me thought: "But just give a look at that poor chap, will you, talking about other people's faulty noses!"

It is true, I might have consoled myself with the reflection that, in the long run, my case was obviously common enough, all of which only goes to prove once again a well-known fact, namely, that we are ready enough to note the faults of others, while all the time unconscious of our own. The first germs of the malady had, however, begun to take root in my mind; and this reflection was unable to bring me any consolation. The thought, rather, remained firmly planted, that I was not for others what up to then I had inwardly pictured myself as being.

For the moment, I was thinking only of my body; and as my friend still stood there in front of me, with that derisive and incredulous air, I asked him, by way of retaliation, if he, for his part, knew that he had a dimple in his chin, which divided it into two not wholly equal parts, one of which stood out more than the other.

"I? What are you talking about! I have a dimple, I know, but it's not like what you say."

"Let's go into that barber shop over there," I suggested to him on the spur of the moment, "and you will see."

When my friend, having gone into the barber's, had satisfied himself to his own astonishment that what I had told him was true, he did his best not to display any annoyance, but observed that, when all was said, it was a trifling matter.

No doubt, he was right: it was a trifling matter; but following him at a distance, I saw him stop first at one shop window and then at another, further down the street; and then, yet further down, he came to a stop for a third time, before a shop-front mirror, to have a look at his chin; and I am quite sure that, the moment he reached his house, he must have run to the clothes press in order more conveniently to become acquainted with his new and blemished self. Nor have I the slightest doubt that, by way of avenging himself in his turn, or by way of carrying out a jest which he thought deserved to be passed along, he proceeded to treat some other friend as I had treated him, and that, after having inquired if the friend had noticed that blemish in his chin, he had gone on to discover some defect or other in his friend's forehead or mouth; while his friend, in turn—Ah, yes! ah, yes!—I could swear that, for days in a row, in the worthy city of Richieri, I saw (unless it was nothing more than my own imagination) a very considerable number of my fellow-citizens going from one shop window to another and coming to a stop before each to observe their own reflections, one to study a zygoma, another the corner of his eye, a third to examine the lobe of an ear, and a fourth to investigate his nostril. At the end of a week, moreover, a certain acquaintance accosted me; he appeared to be perplexed, and asked me if it was true that, every time he went to speak, he inadvertently contracted his left eyebrow.

"Yes, old man," I hastened to assure him. "Look at me, will you? My nose sags to the right; but I know it without your telling me. And my circumflex eyebrows! And my ears—look here—one of them stands out more than the other. And my hands—dumpy, aren't they? And the crooked joint on this little finger. And my legs—here, look at this one, this one here—does it look to you the same as the other one? It doesn't, does it? But I know it without your telling me. See you later."

I left him standing there and was on my way. I had taken but a few steps, when I heard a call:

"Ps-t!"

With the utmost serenity, the fellow buttonholed me and drew me to him.

"Excuse me," he inquired, "but your mother did not bear any other sons after you, did she?"

"No," I replied, "neither before nor after. I am an only son. Why?"

"Because," he said, "if your mother had given birth another time, it would surely have been a male."

"Yes? How do you know?"

"Listen, and I will tell you. The women of the people have a saying that, when the hair on the back of the neck ends in a little bobtail like the one you have, the next born will be a boy."

I put a hand to the back of my neck.

"Ah," I said, coldly and with the beginning of a sneer, "so I have a—what do you call it?—"

"A bobtail, old man; that's what we call it in Richieri."

"Oh, that's nothing!" I exclaimed. "I can have it cut off."

He contradicted me with his finger:

"It's a sign that will stay with you, old boy, even if you have it shaved off."

And this time, it was he who left me in the lurch.