“Servitude” (“Servitù”)

Translated by Robin Pickering-Iazzi

How to cite this work:

Pirandello, Luigi. “Servitude” (“Servitù”), tr. Robin Pickering-Iazzi. In Stories for a Year, eds. Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka, Digital Edition, www.pirandellointranslation.org, 2025.

“Servitude” (“Servitù”) first appeared in the daily newspaper Corriere della Sera on July 30, 1914 and was later included in the miscellany collection And Tomorrow, Monday… (E domani, lunedì…), published in Milan by Treves in 1917. In 1928, the story became part of Candelora, the thirteenth collection of Stories for a Year (Novelle per un anno).

Despite its first publication date, and even though its reprint in a broader collection fell within the years of the First World War, when Pirandello composed many stories inspired by the atrocities of the conflict, this tale is not inspired by the tragedy of events and the shadow of death linked to the war. In fact, the plot centers on the encounter between a bourgeois child and the daughter of a poor nurse, revealing the irreconcilable contrast between the world of wealth and imagination and the harsh realities of poverty and childhood trauma. Through the mechanics of a short narrative, this tale unfolds in a child’s room and then in a tenement garret, tracing the fragile passage from enchantment to disillusion. Dolly is a bourgeois girl recovering from illness among satin cushions and elegant dolls, who likes to play-act a world of fashionable ladies and capricious rituals. Her playmate is Nenè, the nurse’s poor daughter, who can barely speak but still can reanimate the dolls with her silent wonder, infusing them with a soul that Dolly herself is unable to understand. When Dolly impulsively gifts Nenè a special doll, the object takes on a charged meaning of luxury out of place and a lifestyle that cannot be translated into poverty. Back home, Nenè tries to protect the doll from her sordid room by staging a fantasy of service and order until reality breaks into imagination through the brutal gesture of her drunken father.

This story can certainly be read in light of Pirandello’s poetics of humor, which he theorized in his essay On Humor (L’umorismo, 1908). In fact, “Servitude” dramatizes what Pirandello describes in his essay as the “feeling of the opposite” (“sentiment del contrario”): first we smile at the dainty affectations of Dolly’s dolls, then we are pierced by pity as the same affectations expose a social and moral rift. Pirandello’s humor thus frames a moment that goes beyond satire as it captures the essence of a more serious revelation. The doll itself is both a plaything and a mask, granting Nenè a fleeting sense of identity while also revealing how it is impossible for her to sustain that fiction in her everyday reality. The father’s final act of brutality strips away all illusion, exposing the clash between appearance and truth, role and being. In this story, Pirandello shows how comedy can suddenly turn into tragedy when playful illusion gives way to painful clarity.

The Editors

Her mommy had stuck her head through the door two times to warn Dolly not to talk too much, not to move around so much, or otherwise her fever would go up.

“You’re talking all the time… you’re the only one playing…”

Propped up by a bunch of pillows, little Dolly was sitting on her small bed in the company of all her beautiful dolls. And while shaking her little head to get the golden curls that had escaped from her light-blue satin bonnet out of her eyes, two times she had answered her mamma:

“No, not only me. Nenè is playing too…”

Nenè was the daughter of the nurse.[1]

But up until then, to tell the truth, Nenè had never said a word. Instead, she had been almost terrified both times the lady stuck her head through the door. And the clicking of the door handle, the creaking of the closed door, that head sticking through it, and the voice of Dolly’s[2] mamma had been a din, a crash, and confusion for her. Because for two hours it was as if Nenè had been in a dream, suspended, almost pained by the doubt that what she could see and touch around her might not even be real.  

The little chickpea-colored dress from two years ago was cutting into her neck, cutting into her underarms, binding her small shoulders. The slightly faded, little pink satin ribbon tied around her head kept slowly loosening and giving way to her black hair unwieldily standing on end, coarse and dense, still soaking wet (because she had been washed all over with unusual care). She did not feel anything, did not notice anything, as she was enchanted, dazzled by the luxury of that girlish little bedroom wrapped in blue satin. Lightly, without realizing it, her plump little hand—swollen because of the sleeve that was too tight and too short, squeezing her arm like a sausage—was stroking the blanket on the small bed, so smooth, so soft, while, all eyes and her little mouth agape, she followed the busy, capricious chatter of the sick little mistress of the house.           

Little Dolly fully sensed that Nenè was really playing the game, even though she had not said anything so far. Her absorbed, silent amazement gave new spirit to those seven dolls,[3] sitting on the small bed like famous ladies, and new pleasure to her as she made them move and talk. For a long time now, in fact, those seven dolls were almost not alive any more for Dolly; they were pieces of wood, little heads of wax or porcelain, glass eyes, straw hair. But now they had spirit again, new spirit, and they were living a new, wonderful life again for her too, one that she would never have imagined giving them, a kind of spirit and life that acquired qualities precisely from Nenè’s amazement, which was the amazement of a little servant. That’s why she made them talk like grand ladies of the big world, full of caprice and affectation, more or less like how her mamma’s women friends talked.

Here: this one was Countess Lulú who drove her car by herself,[4] smoked cigarettes with a gold cigarette holder, and always yelled, waving a finger threateningly in the air:

“Moringhi, Moringhi, if you run away I’ll catch up with you!”

Who was Moringhi? A wizard? Who knows! Perhaps a friend of her mamma too, a friend of all her mamma’s women friends. But the name, yelled like that, seemed like a wizard’s name to Nenè, since little Dolly said he was especially a friend of that other doll there, of Mistress Betsy.

“All right, thank you!”[5]

No, no, without laughing! Mistress Betsy always spoke English. With mamma, with everyone. And she always went horseback riding—giddy up! giddy up!—but not sitting sidesaddle at all. With her legs apart, like this… like rough men, the nasty hussy![6] And she often fell off. And one time, fox hunting, she hurt herself here on her cheekbone, you see. Oh, it served her right, the nasty American lady! She would show everyone her wounds from horseback riding, on her breast, her shoulders, even her legs. And when she shook hands it hurt.

“All right! Thank you!”[7]

And this other doll? Ah, this other one here, what a laugh! This stuff, this stuff could make you die laughing! This one is Donna Mariú. Always ailing. “Oh God here, oh God there…” “My poor head! My poor heart!” “I beg you, Moringhi, be good! Moringhi, don’t hurt me. I can’t laugh any more, Moringhi! My poor head! My poor heart!” But not at all “heart” spoken normally… A heart with the he separated: he-art. Moringhi said it that way. A heart with the he, stuff to die laughing about![8]

Nenè did not understand a thing.

For her, it could be true that that doll there might smoke, and that other one rode a horse. That little scratch, actually on her cheekbone… Because if they even had little underpants with lace and little silk bows and also silk stockings with velvet garters and golden buckles and little patent-leather shoes, then they would also be able to really go horseback riding, smoke, and speak that incomprehensible language. Any wondrous thing could be true in that little bedroom there, even real ponies, living ponies, ever so tiny, could appear out of the blue from one moment to the next and start caracoling high up in the far,[9] far-away countryside of that velvety blue carpet with those little ladies riding them, their veils fluttering.

Fascinated by that vision, Nenè found it hard to believe, or rather she still could not understand that little Dolly, tired at the end of the game, was now about to give her one of those dolls as a present, and she still did not know which one.

“No, not this one,” little Dolly was saying. “This one’s arm is hurt, and she has to stay in bed with me. Here… I’ll give you… I’ll give you this other one instead, Mistress Betsy… But no, not her either… Mistress Betsy, she’ll run away from you—she’s so bad! Ill-behaved… And also, she always speaks English, and you wouldn’t understand her. So I’ll give you this other one. Her name is Mimì. But you always have to call her Signora Little Marchioness. She’s a little marchioness, you know? Little Marchioness Mimì. Demanding… ah, demanding! She has to find her bath ready every morning, and then breakfast with chocolate and cookies, and then… and then… she doesn’t eat anything, you know? She doesn’t eat anything other than little silver balls… the ones you can buy where mamma buys them, at signor Baker’s pharmacy across the street from the Grand Hôtel. Yes, I’m giving her to you. Here, take her. I’m giving her to you for real, yes… for good… take her, I’m telling you… Wait, so I can give her a kiss… There, now you can take her away with you.”

Nenè was watching, astounded and more bewildered and pained than ever. She had gotten to her feet at Dolly’s insistence, but stayed there, unable to lift her hand, almost on the verge of crying.

The lady of the house came into the little bedroom, followed by the nurse, who had stayed on after wet-nursing to serve in in that house of lords and ladies. At that point, it seemed to Nenè as if her mamma, dressed so well, like a nurse, with the little cap on her head and her white, embroidered bib apron, standing next to the lady, were also transfigured in the light of that home, as if permeated by the blue of a wonderful distance.

What was she saying? She was telling Dolly no, she was not supposed to give her the doll. She was not supposed to give it to her first of all because it was too beautiful, too well dressed, it even had socks and shoes, gloves and a hat, just imagine! such a fine doll to Nenè! And what would Nenè even do with it? Nenè, she’s the little mommy of the house. She must attend to serving her daddy, and doesn’t have any time to play, because there’s trouble if her daddy doesn’t find everything ready for him every evening.

Daddy? where? By now he seemed so far away to Nenè, that mean daddy of hers that always came home drunk and unhappy, and would beat her and grab her by the hair over nothing, or hurled the first thing that happened to be within reach at her, yelling:

“Why couldn’t you have died, instead?”

Yes, her, instead of her little brother, whom their mother had left un-weaned in order to go be a wet nurse. A neighbor woman had taken it upon herself to raise him for a few lire a month, and Nenè was supposed to be his little mommy. But the fact is that one day her little brother died in her arms. Dead, and and she did not know it. She had continued to carry him in her arms for a while, so very cold, so very white, and silent and stiff… [10] Since then her daddy had become mean, so mean that her mamma had refused to stay with him anymore and had remained to serve in that house, or rather, to be a well-to-do lady there, as her daddy would say, and as it actually seemed to Nenè now as well. Certainly, her mamma was now talking and looking and smiling and gesturing like a lady, exactly like Dolly’s mamma, and she did not seem like her mamma anymore.

“But, no, come on, little lady! How could you think such a thing? But not even in your dreams! Such a beautiful doll for my poor Nenè!”

But look, the lady of the house was taking one of her small arms, then placing the doll, that Little Marchioness Mimì, against her chest, and then folding her small arm over the doll again so that she would hold her tightly.

“Stupid girl, you don’t even say thank you, eh? Come on, what do you say? “

Nothing. Nenè could not say a word. And she did not even dare to look at that little marchioness doll pressed against her chest, underneath her small arm.

She went away stunned, her wide-open eyes staring blankly, her little mouth agape, and her hair sticking out from under the pink ribbon, the more her mother tried to smooth it down on her head. She went down the stairs, crossed so many streets, and returned to the hovel where she lived with her father, without seeing anything, without hearing anything, nearly alienated from every sense of life.

In contrast, that wonderful doll was there living against her chest, held tightly beneath her arm, but belonged to an incomprehensible life that was still sparkling in her mind through the busy and capricious chatter of the sick little lady of the house. Oh God, if that doll spoke with the language that Dolly had put in her mouth, how would she manage to understand her?

“Moringhi, Moringhi, if you run away I’ll catch up with you!”

Ah, Moringhi, he certainly would not have shown up there at the hovel to visit Little Marchioness Mimì, and none of her friends would come either. And the cigarettes with the gold cigarette holder? and the little silver, scented balls? and the real ponies, the ever so tiny, living ponies?

Not even the slightest idea of being able to play with that doll crossed her mind. Serving her, yes, she could have served her, but how, if she did not even know how to talk to her? if she did not understand anything about the life to which the doll was accustomed?

Upon entering the little cubby hole where her raggedy bed was, with a chair that had lost its straw and a little bench she used as a small table to draw the straight lines and vowels when she was still going to school, she looked around bewildered, disheartened, not for herself but for the little lady she was carrying in her arms. She still did not dare to look at her.

Certainly, for her part, Little Marchioness Mimì had glass eyes and could not see. But now she, Nenè, saw the ugly dire poverty of that cubby hole of hers through Little Marchioness Mimì’s eyes, which were used to the luxury of the little bedroom she came from. So long as Nenè did not look at Little Marchioness Mimì, still held tightly under her arm, Mimì could see nothing. She would see though, as soon as Nenè made up her mind to look at her. Well, she had to see the least worst possible from the start.

She thought that in the drawer of clothes under the raggedy bed there was a blue pinafore, one of Dolly’s cast-offs given by the Signora to the wet-nurse for her. It had been washed and rewashed so many times, it had faded and was torn in a few places, but it came from there, it had been Dolly’s, and perhaps Little Marchioness Mimì would recognize it.

Without putting her down, without looking at her, Nenè bent over, took the pinafore out of the drawer and spread it out on the bench like a rug, taking care that the tears in the material, at least the biggest ones, weren’t showing on top. There, for the moment she could sit her down, on the cleanliness of that old, but fine, pinafore.

She put her down in a sitting position very slowly, her hands trembling for fear she might hurt her or ruin her dress. She finally dared to look at her. In a gesture of anguished uncertainty, her little hands still held open in front of her chest expressed mixed emotions of pity and adoration. And little by little she bent down on her knees, looking into the doll’s eyes. Alas, it was as if the wondrous life with which little Dolly had nourished her in her little bedroom had died. The doll sat in front of her, as if she did not see anything, and were waiting for Nenè to do something that would give her life again, her lost life, the life of a grand lady. But how? what? she was missing everything. Little Dolly had told her that her dolls were used to changing their outfits several times a day, and also that Little Marchioness Mimì had so many dressing gowns, one more beautiful than the other, red, yellow, purple, with little flowers, with little Japanese umbrellas… Now, how could she possibly stay dressed in the same way forever, always with that little hat on her head, those little shoes on her feet, those little bracelets on her wrist, and that small chain around her neck with the little fan hanging from it? Ah, that little feather fan was so beautiful, an actual fan that really stirred the air a bit, just a little, just enough for that little Little Marchioness Mimì…

Ah, there, yes, she would have been happy to serve that little marchioness doll at Dolly’s house, which had all the right things, the cute little bed out of white wood and the other little furnishings and rich accessories. But here? How had little Dolly not thought that she should have also given her at the very least the cute little bed and some of the accessories, not to make the gift more lavish and complete, but so that the doll would not have to suffer, and so that she, Nenè, would have a way to serve her? How would she be able to otherwise, with nothing? At the very most, she could clean her little patent-leather shoes with her breath or her finger, or with the tip of a rag. Nothing else.

It was almost better to go back to Dolly’s house with the doll and tell her:

“Either you give me what’s needed to make her live the way she’s accustomed, or keep her yourself.”

Who knows! Maybe Dolly would have given her everything…

A long, huge sigh filled Nenè’s chest as she crouched there in front of the small bench. She turned her head, and in an instant, dazzled again, she saw Little Marchioness Mimì’s little bedroom in a filthy corner of the hovel. A little bedroom? A grand, large bedroom, with the velvety blue rug there on the floor, and the small bed made of white wood, with a draping canopy of light blue silk, and over there, a small armoire with a mirror, small golden chairs, and the dressing table. And she saw herself, well dressed like her mamma, entirely absorbed in serving that demanding and capricious little mistress of hers, in anticipating all her desires, so she wouldn’t get yelled at, because surely, as much as she might do for her, Little Marchioness Mimì, alone there with Nenè, although surrounded by all her comforts, all her luxuries, would be reluctant to stay, without visits from her lady friends or Moringhi, or any outings on horseback. And to vent her feelings she would certainly have bossed her around.

“Is the bath ready?”

“Yes, just a moment, Signora Little Marchioness…”

“But my bath must be ready immediately, as soon as I get up! What are you doing? Give me my chocolate and cookies now! My dressing gown, now!”

“Which one Signora Little Marchioness? The red one? The yellow one? The one with the little Japanese umbrellas?”

“No, that purple one! Don’t you know?”

“Right away, Signora Little Marchioness, here it is.”

With her eyes wide open, Nenè saw that dream, there in that enchanted corner, and was talking alone like that for a while, strong and imperious for Little Marchioness Mimì’s part, and humble and compliant for her own, like a loving little servant who sympathizes with her little tyrannical mistress’s caprices, when suddenly, as terror chilled her spine she saw an enormous, ugly, rough hand reach over her head and snatch the doll from the small bench.

She shrank her head down, then, appalled, she dared to look over her little shoulder out of the corner of her eye.  

Behind her, her father had a sneer on his surly lips as he gawked at the fragile doll in that rough, ugly hand of his and shook his head, repeating:

“Ah, yes? ah, yes?”

Her heart overwhelmed by anguish, she saw him raise his other hand, grasp the brim of the doll’s little hat with two fingers and give it a violent tug.

She stifled an involuntary moan.

The head had come off along with the little hat. And that head with the little hat and the decapitated body, two horribly mutilated, formless things, flew away through the window near the roof, accompanied by a kick and an angry exclamation:

“Come on, on your feet! I won’t have any grand ladies around the house!”