Luigi Pirandello
WAR
(Quando si comprende - 1925)
The passengers who had left Rome by
the night express had had to stop
until dawn at the small station of
Fabriano in order to continue their
journey by the small old-fashioned
local joining the main line with
Sulmona.
At dawn, in a stuffy and smoky
second-class carriage in which five
people had already spent the night,
a bulky woman in deep mourning was
hosted in--almost like a shapeless
bundle. Behind her--puffing and
moaning, followed her husband--a
tiny man; thin and weakly, his face
death-white, his eyes small and
bright and looking shy and uneasy.
Having at last taken a seat he
politely thanked the passengers who
had helped his wife and who had made
room for her; then he turned round
to the woman trying to pull down the
collar of her coat and politely
inquired:
"Are you all right, dear?"
The wife, instead of answering,
pulled up her collar again to her
eyes, so as to hide her face.
"Nasty world," muttered the husband
with a sad smile.
And he felt it his duty to explain
to his traveling companions that the
poor woman was to be pitied for the
war was taking away from her her
only son, a boy of twenty to whom
both had devoted their entire life,
even breaking up their home at
Sulmona to follow him to Rome, where
he had to go as a student, then
allowing him to volunteer for war
with an assurance, however, that at
least six months he would not be
sent to the front and now, all of a
sudden, receiving a wire saying that
he was due to leave in three days'
time and asking them to go and see
them off.
The woman under the big coat was
twisting and wriggling, at times
growling like a wild animal, feeling
certain that all those explanations
would not have aroused even a shadow
of sympathy from those people
who--most likely--were in the same
plight as herself. One of them, who
had been listening with particular
attention, said:
"You should thank God that your son
is only leaving now for the front.
Mine has been sent there the first
day of the war. He has already come
back twice wounded and been sent
back again to the front."
"What about me? I have two sons and
three nephews at the front," said
another passenger.
"Maybe, but in our case it is our
only son," ventured the husband.
"What difference can it make? You
may spoil your only son by excessive
attentions, but you cannot love him
more than you would all your other
children if you had any. Parental
love is not like bread that can be
broken to pieces and split amongst
the children in equal shares. A
father gives all his love to
each one of his children without
discrimination, whether it be one or
ten, and if I am suffering now for
my two sons, I am not suffering half
for each of them but double..."
"True...true..." sighed the
embarrassed husband, "but suppose (of
course we all hope it will never be
your case) a father has two sons at
the front and he loses one of them,
there is still one left to console
him...while..."
"Yes," answered the other, getting
cross, "a son left to console him
but also a son left for whom he must
survive, while in the case of the
father of an only son if the son
dies the father can die too and put
an end to his distress. Which of
the two positions is worse? Don't
you see how my case would be worse
than yours?"
"Nonsense," interrupted another
traveler, a fat, red-faced man with
bloodshot eyes of the palest gray.
He was panting. From his bulging
eyes seemed to spurt inner violence
of an uncontrolled vitality which
his weakened body could hardly
contain.
"Nonsense,"he repeated, trying to
cover his mouth with his hand so as
to hide the two missing front teeth.
"Nonsense. Do we give life to our
own children for our own benefit?"
The other travelers stared at him in
distress. The one who had had his
son at the front since the first day
of the war sighed: "You are right.
Our children do not belong to us,
they belong to the country..."
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"Bosh," retorted the fat traveler.
"Do we think of the country when we
give life to our children? Our sons
are born because...well, because
they must be born and when they come
to life they take our own life with
them. This is the truth. We belong
to them but they never belong to us.
And when they reach twenty they are
exactly what we were at their age.
We too had a father and mother, but
there were so many other things as
well...girls, cigarettes, illusions,
new ties...and the Country, of
course, whose call we would have
answered--when we were twenty--even
if father and mother had said no.
Now, at our age, the love of our
Country is still great, of course,
but stronger than it is the love of
our children. Is there any one of
us here who wouldn't gladly take his
son's place at the front if he could?"
There was a silence all round,
everybody nodding as to approve.
"Why then," continued the fat man, "should
we consider the feelings of our
children when they are twenty? Isn't
it natural that at their age they
should consider the love for their
Country (I am speaking of decent
boys, of course) even greater than
the love for us? Isn't it natural
that it should be so, as after all
they must look upon us as upon old
boys who cannot move any more and
must sat at home? If Country is a
natural necessity like bread of
which each of us must eat in order
not to die of hunger, somebody must
go to defend it. And our sons go,
when they are twenty, and they don't
want tears, because if they die,
they die inflamed and happy (I am
speaking, of course, of decent boys).
Now, if one dies young and happy,
without having the ugly sides of
life, the boredom of it, the
pettiness, the bitterness of
disillusion...what more can we ask
for him? Everyone should stop
crying; everyone should laugh, as I
do...or at least thank God--as I
do--because my son, before dying,
sent me a message saying that he was
dying satisfied at having ended his
life in the best way he could have
wished. That is why, as you see, I
do not even wear mourning..."
He shook his light fawn coat as to
show it; his livid lip over his
missing teeth was trembling, his
eyes were watery and motionless, and
soon after he ended with a shrill
laugh which might well have been a
sob.
"Quite so...quite so..." agreed the
others.
The woman who, bundled in a corner
under her coat, had been sitting and
listening had--for the last three
months--tried to find in the words
of her husband and her friends
something to console her in her deep
sorrow, something that might show
her how a mother should resign
herself to send her son not even to
death but to a probable danger of
life. Yet not a word had she found
amongst the many that had been said...and
her grief had been greater in seeing
that nobody--as she thought--could
share her feelings.
But now the words of the traveler
amazed and almost stunned her. he
suddenly realized that it wasn't the
others who were wrong and could not
understand her but herself who could
not rise up to the same height of
those fathers and mothers willing to
resign themselves, without crying,
not only to the departure of their
sons but even to their death.
She lifted her head, she bent over
from her corner trying to listen
with great attention to the details
which the fat man was giving to his
companions about the way his son had
fallen as a hero, for his King and
his Country, happy and without
regrets. It seemed to her that she
had stumbled into a world she had
never dreamt of, a world so far
unknown to her, and she was so
pleased to hear everyone joining in
congratulating that brave father who
could so stoically speak of his
child's death.
Then suddenly, just as if she had
heard nothing of what had been said
and almost as if waking up from a
dream, she turned to the old man,
asking him:
"Then...is your son really dead?"
Everyone stared at her. The old
man, too, turned to look at her,
fixing his great, bulging, horribly
watery light gray eyes, deep in her
face. For some time he tried to
answer, but words failed him. He
looked and looked at her, almost as
if only then--at that silly,
incongruous question--he had
suddenly realized at last that his
son was really dead--gone for
ever--for ever. His face contracted,
became horribly distorted, then he
snatched in haste a handkerchief
from his pocket and, to the
amazement of everyone, broke into
harrowing, heart-breaking,
uncontrollable sobs.
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