One, No One & 100,000: a fresh, modern translation by Kevan Houser

by Luigi Pirandello

This was my nose, those were my eyes, that was my forehead—all integral parts of me. Busy with my own affairs, lost in my own thoughts, swept away by my own feelings, I never took the time to think about stuff like that.

I couldn’t see myself live.

The idea that others saw in me someone who wasn’t the me I knew, someone that they could only know by looking at me from the outside, with eyes that weren’t mine, giving me an appearance destined to remain forever foreign to me, despite being inside me, despite being mine to them (meaning a “mine” that didn’t exist for me!), a life which, despite being mine for them, was one I couldn’t set foot in—this idea never gave me a moment’s peace.

If only there were a master reality for each of us, outside of us, one that was independent, unvarying, immutable. But there isn’t. I have a reality in me, my reality, the one I create for myself. You have a reality in you, your reality, the one you create for yourself. These will never be the same, either for you or for me.

Everything in life constantly changes right before your eyes. Nothing is for certain. And this non-stop worry about how everything is going to resolve, about seeing how events will turn out, keeps you in such a panicky state of anxiety.

When somebody thinks about killing himself, how come he always sees his death from everyone else’s point of view, and never from his own?”

Who was I saying “me” to? What does “me” even mean, if everyone else had their own meaning and value of “me” that I could never share?