Tales of Madness by Luigi Pirandello Read Free Book Online Page A

What is more, while everyone was shouting, that fat, dwarfish cousin with the round glasses took courage from the general excitement to scream into my face with clenched fists:
    "Imbecile!"
    She was right, poor thing.
    They hastened to transport the dead woman to the church in the next village, and left me alone.
    Two years later, I see myself again traveling. Vardi deserted Mirina, and she, rescued from poverty, vice, and desperation, now lives at the home of a relative. However, she is in the grips of a horrible illness and is about to die from it. With my forgiving and peaceful spirit I had hoped and dreamt of comforting her remaining days by bringing her back to our countryside. I go to see her in that squalid room and say to her:
    "Do you understand me now?"
    "No!" she answers, withdrawing her hand as I am about to caress it, and looking at me odiously.
    She, too, was right, poor thing.
    4. The School of Wisdom
    As everyone knows, to exercise any profession well, we need ample resources which can allow us to hold out for the best opportunities without having to seize the first ones, like dogs fighting over a bone, which is the fate of the person who finds himself in financial troubles and, to make ends meet today, is constrained to make his tomorrow, himself, and his profession, wretched.
    Now this goes for the thief's profession as well.
    A poor thief who has to live from hand to mouth usually ends up badly. Instead, a thief who is not in such dire straits and has the ability and knowledge to await the proper time and to prepare himself well, will attain the highest and most revered positions, with the praise and satisfaction of everyone.
    Therefore, please, let's not be so generous as to call those who have stolen from me, wise men.
    All those who exercised their profession on my considerable wealth do not deserve the praise of sane people. They could have robbed courteously, comfortably, and with caution and foresight, and thus could have created an honorable and quite respected position for themselves. Instead, without really needing to at all, they flocked to plunder, and naturally, they plundered badly. Having reduced me to poverty in just a few years, they deprived themselves of the means by which they could live comfortably at my expense. In fact, soon thereafter, they began to have a great number of problems they didn't have before. And I know, and I'm sorry, that one of them even ended up badly.
    My wife Marta shares this opinion with me. However, she observes that when a poor man who is fairly honest finds himself among so many thieves who are greedy in the administration of the resources of a rich imbecile or madman (namely, me), the tactic of being parsimonious in the theft is no longer wise; moderate, gentle, daily theft is no longer, then, a sign of foresight, but of stupidity and a weak heart. And this seems to be the case of Santi Bensai, my secretary and my dear Marta's first husband.
    Poor Santi (to whom I'm now indebted for not now being reduced to receiving handouts) knew the extent of my wealth and wisely estimated that it was sufficient to provide generously for myself, as well as for all those others who, like him, could be satisfied with discreetly scraping a bit off the top without causing exceedingly obvious damage. Perhaps, for the sake of their common interest, he didn't fail to advise moderation to his colleagues. Certainly he wasn't heeded. He created enemies for himself and suffered quite a bit, poor man. The others continued to bundle and cart off all they could. He, instead, pilfered like a sober little ant. And when I finally became as poor as Job, one could easily see that good old Santi was much more distressed than I was. He had scraped together just enough to live modestly, and could not resign himself to the fact that those others had not even condescended to leave me in the condition he was in.
    "Persecutors!" he would exclaim, he who had drawn blood from me reluctantly and