“Without Malice” (“Senza Malizia”)

Translated by Caterina Agostini

How to cite this work:

Pirandello, Luigi. “Without Malice” (“Senza malizia”), tr. Caterina Agostini. In Stories for a Year, eds. Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka, Digital Edition, www.pirandellointranslation.org, 2026.

“Without Malice” (“Senza Malizia”) was first published in the literary magazine Il Marzocco on May 7, 1905. As Lucio Lugnani has pointed out, this title was likely selected by the editor Adolfo Orvieto, to whom Pirandello had written a letter suggesting a number of possible names and instructing him to choose whatever seemed best.[1] Pirandello republished “Without Malice,” using the same title, in his miscellany collection Naked Life (La vita nuda), which was printed by the Milanese publishing house Treves in 1910. From there, Pirandello added it to the second Collection, also titled Naked Life (La vita nuda), in his Stories for a Year when he began to collect them in 1922 (Florence: Bemporad).

“Without Malice” tells a relatively simple story, but in a way that allows Pirandello to draw out the complexity of human perspectives and emotions as well as the ironic humor of how events reverse those perspective and relationships. Four genteel but impoverished sisters see their quiet routine upended when a timid civil servant, Spiro Tempini, unexpectedly proposes to the youngest, Iduccia. His arrival rekindles hopes and rivalries among them, surfacing new family dynamics that are further complicated by Iduccia’s pregnancy. But after a shocking turn of events, the household’s order is absurdly reversed: when Iduccia is no longer on the scene, Spiro becomes the object of anxious, jealous devotion from the three remaining sisters, in a darkly humorous study of love, loneliness, and misplaced family duty. This story develops in a way that highlights the humor of an unexpected situation, emphasizing the incongruent perspectival understandings that each character has in relation to the same set of objective conditions. Its structural development thus resembles those of other stories that he wrote in the same period, including “On Guard” (“Di guardia,” 1905) and “Granella’s House” (“La casa del Granella,” 1905). Likewise, in this story the portrayal of children mirrors that of other stories, such as “Niní and Nené” (“Niní e Nené,” 1912)  and “Either of One or of No One” (“O di uno o di nessuno,” 1912); in all these stories, children are treated in a highly detached, unaffectionate way, as if they are passed from one person to another like parcels.

“Without Malice” can also be compared to another story to highlight the way that Pirandello explores different perspectives on family tragedy and ruin. In the short story “The Hook” (“Il gancio,” 1902), which was later republished as “The Doctor’s Duty” (“Il dovere del medico,” 1911) after Pirandello adapted the story into a one-act play of the same name, he presents what could be thought of as a contrasting case. In that story and play, Pirandello presents a man who acts “with malice” and whose selfish and thoughtless behavior has destructive consequences, leading to the ruin of his family through deliberate wrongdoing. In contrast, “Without Malice” offers the opposite scenario, depicting a man of good intentions who, without meaning any harm, becomes caught up in events that spiral into a form of tragedy. Rather than acting out of malice, he is drawn into misfortune by circumstance, highlighting how responsibility and guilt can emerge even in the absence of intentional wrongdoing.

The Editors

I

Spiro Tempini was shy and lank, nearsighted and proper, with the long tips of his moustache slicked like two ends of twine about to be threaded through the hole made by a stitching awl. Prying on his starched cuffs with his fingers, so that he could pull them through his jacket sleeves, he formally asked the oldest of the four Margheri sisters for the hand of Iduccia, the youngest sister, and then walked away with the slabs of his feet nicely shod, but crooked and aching, bowing over and over again. Serafina, Carlotta, Zoe, and Iduccia herself were all equally dazed, for a while.

By then, they were no longer expecting that it would occur to anyone to ask for one of their hands in marriage. After resigning themselves to many devastating tragedies, their sudden bankruptcy and their father’s ensuing death from sorrow, then their mother’s, and then having to make a profit from their thorough studies completed to exquisitely enrich their high-class education, they had also accepted they would be spinsters.

Truly, some of their very dear lady friends did not want to believe in this last submission, because it seemed to them that the Margheri sisters, for some time now, had been digging in their heels: Serafina at thirty years old; Carlotta, twenty-nine; Zoe, twenty-seven; Ida, twenty-five. Time went by and started treating them a bit unkindly behind their backs; in vain. There, standing obstinately still on the sad threshold of those bygone years, what were they waiting for? Ha! Come on, for someone to finally make them move on from there, to go forward, no longer alone. When these dear friends heard the three older sisters call the youngest by name, they admitted that it seemed like they called her from far, far away: Iduccia. Since, all things considered, Ida, come on! She had to have been at least twenty-eight.[2]

Meanwhile, helped by respectable friends who remained faithful after their ruin, the Margheri sisters had worked giving private lessons in foreign languages (English and French), watercolor painting, harp, and illumination, and so managed to keep their house unchanged. The sober and simple elegance of its furniture and upholstery attested to the comfortable circumstances in which they had been born, and had enjoyed ever since; and they still went to concerts and conferences, being received everywhere with much deference and kindness for the courage they showed, for the nonchalant charm with which they dressed in clothes that were no longer of the highest quality, for their very kind and sweet manners, and also for their pretty and still attractive looks. They were a bit skinny (perhaps a bit too much; leaned up,[3] as the scandalmongers said of them) and tall, all four of them; Ida and Serafina, blondes; Carlotta and Zoe, brunettes.

Certainly, it was their great satisfaction to be able to provide for themselves with their work. They could have died of hunger, but they did not die. They could afford their food, modest clothing, and rent. And those dear friends who had husbands, and the others with a fiancé or who had lovers, complimented them often on this wonderful fact. They also promised to have little Tittí or little Cocò learn the harp or watercolor painting from them; others, by some miracle amid these outpourings of affection and admiration, refrained from promising that they would rush to have a child merely to help their brave friends buy ordinary clothes, pay the rent, and keep from starving.

Meanwhile here’s this Mr. Tempini, fallen from the sky.

It took a good while before the four sisters recovered from their shock. They had only known Tempini for a few months. They had met him about a dozen times in the salons that they frequented; and it did not seem to them that he had ever shown in any way––shy as he was, and always worried about those overlarge feet of his, well-shod, and sore––that he had set them in his sights.

One could almost say, after such vain and frantic waiting, that the sudden and unexpected proposal bothered them. It made them wary.

What could this fellow have been thinking, coming to mingle so light-heartedly, with that bewildered air, among four lonely girls without dowries, with no status if not precarious, or at least very uncertain, united amongst themselves, inseparably connected by the help that they were forced to give to each other? What had he imagined? How had he convinced himself? What had Iduccia done to convince him?

“But nothing! I swear to you: less than nothing!” Iduccia took care to object, with flaming cheeks.

At first the sisters looked incredulous, so much so that Iduccia got upset and declared that she wanted nothing to do with it, because she found him unpleasant, well, very unpleasant, that one...  What was his name? Tempini.

Well, come on, now! Come on! Unpleasant? Why? Actually, no! “A respectable young man,” said Serafina. “An educated young man,” said Carlotta. “With a law degree,” Zoe said, and Serafina added: “Secretary at the Ministry of Grace and Justice.” And Carlotta: “Lecturer of… of… I don’t remember what exactly, at the University of Rome.”

And they say they hardly knew him, the Margheri sisters!

Zoe even remembered that Mr. Tempini had once given a talk at the Law Club; yes, a talk with slides, in which criminals’ fingerprints were shown––she remembered it very well––actually, the talk had been titled: “Traits of dactyloscopy through the examination of fingerprints.”

Otherwise, Serafina and Carlotta would have asked for more details, they would have asked for the advice of their influential friends, not because they doubted Tempini in the least, but to do things properly.

II

Three days later, Spiro Tempini was received at their home, then introduced at gatherings as Iduccia’s betrothed.

Only Iduccia’s? He honestly seemed like the betrothed of all four Margheris; or rather, he appeared to belong to the other three even more than to Iduccia. Seeing her sisters so naturally taken up in the delight, in the joy that should have been principally hers, Iduccia stiffened, assuming a posture of quiet reserve, and did much worse. Meanwhile her sisters, supposing that she was still unable to overcome her early, unfair antipathy towards Tempini, believed that it was their duty to compensate for that detachment, smothering him with attentions and courtesies, so that he would not notice.

“Spiro, your neckerchief! Keep yourself well covered, I beg you. Your voice is a little hoarse.”

“Spiro, your hands are too warm. How come?”

Then, each one asked him to accommodate them a little.

Zoe:

“For goodness’ sake, Spiro, stop greasing your moustache.”

Carlotta:

“If I were you, Spiro, I would let my hair grow a little bit longer. Don’t you think, Iduccia, that this crew cut looks bad on him? A side part is better. Guglielmo style.”[4]

And Serafina:

“Iduccia should have you quit those glasses with a frame. Like a notary, my God, or a German professor! Better to have spectacles, Spiro! A pair of spectacles, and no cord, I beg you! Pince-nez.”[5]

About his ample, broad feet,[6] no mention. There was no remedy for those.

In less than a month Spiro Tempini became another man. The scandalmongers who pitied him were wrong, however, because having always been alone, without a family, without attention, he was very happy among those four very good, very smart and lively sisters, who pampered him and were always hanging around asking him now for news, now for advice, now for a little favor.

“Spiro, who is Bacon?”[7]

“Please, Spiro, button up this glove for me.”

“Ugh, it’s so warm! Would you mind carrying this little cape for me, Spiro?”

“Oh, say, Spiro, would you be able to set my little watch? It’s always slow…”

Iduccia remained silent. Suspicious of her sisters, certainly not, it never even crossed her mind. But sure, she began feeling a little tired of the whole display of flirtatiousness without malice. Her sisters should have understood it, what on earth! They ought to have noticed that Tempini, being so naturally shy and accommodating, with the three of them hanging around him like that, three bores without respite, was neglecting her to pay attention to them. They left him no time or any way to get closer to her, let alone even to breathe anymore. Spiro here, Spiro there... He should have had four arms, the poor guy, one arm to offer each of them, and as many hands to grab hold of all four. It bothered her even more that they nearly induced him with their little routines to bring four gifts every time, instead of one. Oh yes! How much fanfare they showed him, each time that he carefully avoided bringing any special gift for the one who was his fiancée, for fear of disappointing the others.

Iduccia did not say anything, but she developed such bile at that display of affectation and solicitude! At this rate, for God’s sake, he could have surely asked for the hand of Zoe, or of Carlotta, or even of Serafina... Why had he asked for hers?

So Iduccia did indeed look forward to their wedding day, though without the slightest enthusiasm. Clearly, she hoped that, on that day at least, he would finally show her a certain special regard.

III

A very inconvenient mishap occurred.

To afford the honeymoon, Spiro Tempini had requested an additional assignment from the Ministry of Grace and Justice.[8] Regardless of the love and the great to-do that his dear would-be sisters-in-law caused him, he had completed it with that meticulous diligence and scrupulous zeal that he habitually displayed in all his office work and in his impeccable studies in the positive sciences. It was fundamental that he be paid for this work a few days before the date booked for the wedding; but, at the last minute, when everything was already ready for the marriage celebration—wedding invitations printed, guests invited—the ministerial decree was rejected by the Court of Auditors on a technicality.

Spiro Tempini seemed on the verge of dropping dead from a stroke right then and there. He who was normally so shy, so obsequious, so measured in his ways, erupted with heated words against the bureaucracy, the state administration, as well as the Minister, against the entire government, which was wrecking his honeymoon. This was not on account of the honeymoon itself, but because he felt he had to forgo a gesture of modesty that he owed his three little unmarried sisters-in-law.

It had been decided (actually, it had never even been discussed) that he would share their house. Yes, for God’s sake, at least for the first night he wouldn’t have wished to stay there, under the same roof. He could imagine the embarrassment, to say the least, of the three poor girls, when, all guests having left, the party being over, he and Iduccia... Ha! The thought made him sweat bullets. It would have been a terrible moment, a break with all decency, an anguishing torment all night long… How would those three poor souls spend it, with their little sister separated from them for the first time, over there, in another bedroom with him?

To remedy this, Spiro Tempini begged in vain, implored Iduccia, that she should settle for a little trip of a few days, just so, a little excursion to Frascati or Albano.[9] Iduccia––perhaps because she did not understand, and he did not dare inform her in advance––Iduccia would not hear word of it. It seemed to her a makeshift solution, shabby and humiliating. Come, come, better to stay at home.

Tempini swallowed a bit, and dared to say:

“I meant because... For your sisters, you see...”

But the bride-to-be, who had been restraining herself for some time already, fixed him with a stare, and asked:

“Why? What do my sisters have to do with it? Again?”

And who knows what more Iduccia would have added, piqued, if she were not a respectable girl, who had to feign ignorance until the very last moment.

It was, however, a fine party: not very lively, since the idea of marriage, as everyone knows, calls to mind no minor duties and responsibilities for anyone with a bit of reason and integrity, but nonetheless a worthy and dignified party, due especially to the high caliber of the guests. Spiro Tempini, more attached to his lecturing position than his job at the Ministry of Grace and Justice, since after all he believed he counted for something outside the office, had invited a few colleagues and many professors, who condescended to have animated discussions on anthropological and psychophysiological studies, on sociology, and ethnography, and statistics.

Then the “terrible moment” came and was, regrettably, just as Tempini had anticipated.

Although they tried to look casual, the three sisters as well as Iduccia herself were shaking with emotion. They had treated Tempini with the utmost confidence until then, but that night, what awkwardness! What a feeling, to see him remain in the house with them; he, the only man; already fully in the right to enter an intimacy that, however timid and embarrassed in those first moments, he was hurrying along.

Deeply upset, with glittering eyes, the three sisters looked at the bride. They read in her eyes the same anguish that squeezed their dear souls, not completely unknowing of course, but all the more anxious because of it.

Iduccia was detaching from them. From that night on she began to belong more to that stranger than she did to them. It was a violence that troubled them as much more as his manners had once appeared delicate. And then? Then, in a few brief moments, Iduccia alone would be able to say... 

They approached her, smiling nervously, to give her a kiss. Instantly, their smiles turned into tears. Two ran into their bedroom, Serafina and Carlotta, without even turning back to look at their brother-in-law. Zoe was braver: she showed him her eyes, red from crying, and said to him between sobs, raising the fist in which she clutched her handkerchief:

“You’re mean!”

IV

But it was meant to be that Iduccia should not enjoy the special distinction that Tempini finally had to make between her and her sisters. And indeed she paid for it, and how! Some distinction, poor Iduccia. One could say that she started dying the morning after.

Tempini intended to make Iduccia as much as her sisters understand that it was not really an illness.

“Ailments” he would say to his dear sisters-in-law, feeling anxious but not worried.

To his wife, he said:

“Ha, too soon, my Iduccia! Too soon! Enough. Let’s be patient.”

But Iduccia suffered a great deal! She suffered too much. She did not have a moment of rest. Bouts of nausea, dizziness, and a fatigue so severe in every part of her body that, after the third month, she could no longer stand up.

Sunken into an armchair, her eyes closed, without even the strength to lift a finger anymore, she meanwhile heard coming from over there, in the dining room, her three sisters talking amiably with her husband; and she was consumed with envy. Ah, what a rabid envy rose up in her little by little at the sight of those three women who seemed to flaunt before her, who was so defeated, all their movements, their wild sprints across the rooms, as if proclaiming their victory: the victory of having remained still agile and strong in their virginity.

The discomfort was so much that she almost believed her illness derived mainly from how she was troubled by seeing them and hearing them speak.

Well, they laughed, they played the harp, they got ready, as if nothing were the matter, without any consideration for her, who was doing so poorly.

But wasn’t it fair? Wasn’t it natural?

She had a husband; they did not. It was therefore necessary that she also suffer the consequences.

Spiro, after all, reassured them. He told them there was no reason to worry about it. The slight affliction they might have felt for her discomfort was balanced by the joy of a little nephew or niece on the way. This joy was such that on occasion they even considered her complaints and her sighs to be unjust.

Ah! On certain days, seeing her three sisters behaving as before, even more than before around her husband, really glued to him like stickers, Iduccia’s envy filled her with venom to the point of becoming real and genuine jealousy.

She calmed down then and regretted those bad thoughts. She told herself that it was fair, after all, that at least they tend to Spiro since she could not. And perhaps, who knows! They might always look after him, all three of them, in black.

Because she would be dead. Yes, yes, she could feel it. She was certain of it! That tiny life that little by little was growing in her bosom was sucking her own life away, thread by thread. What a slow and tortuous ordeal! She could just feel her life being pulled, one thread at a time, from her heart. She would be dead. Her three sisters would have to be a mother to her little creature. If female, they would name her Iduccia, like her. Then, as the years passed, none of the three would give her another thought, because they would have another Iduccia, their own.

But her husband? For him the baby girl could not mean the same thing. He perhaps… Which of the three would he choose?

Zoe? Carlotta? Serafina?

What an abomination! But why was she thinking about that? All three together, yes, they could be like a mother to her little creature; but if he chose just one... Zoe, for example, no, you see Zoe would not be a good mother, because she would have to look after other children, her own; and Carlotta and Serafina, the ones he did not choose, would then look after the little orphan with more love.

Well, then: if he were going to act for the good of his little girl, Spiro ought not to choose any of them. Why not stay on in the house, like a brother?

Iduccia resolved to ask him, a few days before childbirth, confessing to him her great fear of dying and the sad thoughts that had tormented her during all those months of agony.

Spiro reproached her at first. He resisted. But then, giving in to her pressure––which was childish, come on! Like that fear of dying––he had to make a promise.

“Are you happy now?”

“Happy...”

Three days later, Iduccia died.

V

But could the three surviving sisters ever seriously think of replacing their dead little sister, who had left such a great void in their hearts and house? How could one suspect that? But none of the three!

Here, in fact, Zoe was wrong to show too much sorrow and tenderness for the little orphan baby girl.

Serafina and Carlotta, more reserved and closed off, nearly immobilized by their grief, reproached her:

“Zoe!”

“Why?” Zoe asked, upon trying in vain to read in her sisters’ eyes the reason for the reproach.

“Never mind,” Carlotta said to her coldly.

Serafina then privately recommended that she, well, contain a bit those too lively displays of affection for the little girl.

“But why?” Zoe would ask again, stunned. “That poor little thing of ours!”

“Alright. But in front of him...”

“Of Spiro?”

“Yes. Control yourself. It could seem to him that you...”

“What?”

“You will see... Our situation is now a little... a little complicated, so... as long as Iduccia was around...”

Ah, yes! Zoe understood. As long as Iduccia was around, Spiro was like a brother; but now that Iduccia was no more... They were three single women, forced to cohabitate with their brother-in-law widow, because of that little baby girl, and… and…

“We have to do it for our Iduccia!” Serafina concluded, with a deep sigh.

A little while later though, thinking it over again, Zoe asked herself:

What do we have to do for our Iduccia? Fewer pats for the little one? And why? Because Spiro, seeing me give her too many, might suppose... Oh God! How could Serafina entertain such an idea? Me?

So all three were now monitoring each other when Spiro was at home, and also when he was not. And little by little the punctilious monitoring and stiff demeanor loosened and let drop all the bonds of familiarity that had formerly tied the fraternal knot between them and their brother-in-law.

He soon noticed their coldness, but at first he supposed it was a consequence of their mourning over the recent tragedy. Then he began noticing a certain almost distrustful restraint in his dear sisters-in-laws’ glances, in their words, in all their manners, like a scowling, awkward face that upended his confidence.

Why? Did they no longer intend to treat him like a brother?

The coldness increased day by day.

And Spiro, too, was then forced to restrain himself, to withdraw.

One day, his spectacles fell off his nose, and instead of buying another pair, he put on the glasses with a frame, the ones he had quit using to please Serafina.

The first time he needed to visit a barber, he told him that he wanted to quit having his hairstyle with a part, chosen on Carlotta’s advice, and got a crew cut like before.

He did not resume waxing his moustache so as not to raise any suspicions that, while a widow, he still took any special care of his appearance, even though Zoe had told him that a waxed moustache looked bad on him.

But then, at the table, noticing Serafina and Carlotta glancing sideways at the moustache then looking at each other, fearing their suspicions of Zoe’s special treatment, he also resumed waxing his moustache like he used to.

Thus, he withdrew from familiarity, even in his looks.

So much care––he thought––so many courtesies before, and now... But where was he lacking? Was he perhaps the reason Iduccia had died? It had been a tragedy.

He felt it as they did, more than they did. Actually, shouldn’t their common sorrow bring them together like siblings even more? Did his sisters-in-law wish he would move out perhaps, and live on his own? But he had believed his staying on would please them. He helped them, and in no small way; he was taking care of almost all of the expenses in the house by then. And then there was the baby. The little Iduccia. Hadn’t he entrusted her to their attentions? But now, meanwhile, he noticed with extreme discomfort that the little one was also treated with coldness, if not altogether neglected.

Spiro Tempini did not know what to think anymore. He resolved to stay out of the house as much as possible to place the least burden on the family. It seemed he had to deduce, from an abundance of clues, that his presence was an offence and an interference.

But the coldness only increased. Now Serafina said to Carlotta:

“See? He is never at home anymore, the signore.[10] And if he ever is, he is wary, awkward. Who knows what he’s up to! Ah, our poor Iduccia!”

Carlotta shrugged:

“What can we do about it?”

“Indeed,” Serafina pressed on, “I would like to know what he expects from us, with such coldness. Should we perhaps throw our arms around him, to keep him here? To tell you the truth, I would have never anticipated this!”

Carlotta lowered her eyes, and sighed:

“He seemed so nice...”

And off went Zoe, saying:

“Are you talking about Spiro? Men, that’s all you need to know! They’re all the same. It’s only been six months, and already...”

Another sigh from Carlotta. Serafina sighed, too, and added:

“What torments me is when I think about that little creature.”

And Zoe:

“Evidently it’s not enough for him that we treat him the way we do.”

And Carlotta, once more with downcast eyes:

“In our situation...”

“Think, meanwhile, think,” Serafina resumed.

“Our little Iduccia, in the hands of a stranger, a stepmother!”

The three sisters shuddered at the prospect. They felt certain shivers slice across their backs, razor-sharp and treacherous.

No, no, come on! A sacrifice was needed for love of the little girl. Need! Dire need! But which of the three should sacrifice herself?

Serafina thought: It is up to me. I am the oldest. Now, here it is not a matter of being a lover anymore. More than a wife for himself, he must choose a mother for the little girl. I am the oldest; therefore, the most suitable. Choosing me, he will show that he does not wish to dishonor the memory of Iduccia. We are almost the same age. I am only six months older than him.

It is up to me, Zoe thought, instead. I am the youngest, the closest to Iduccia, blessed be her memory! Back then he chose the youngest one. Now, the youngest one is me. Therefore it is up to me. Without a doubt, if he also admits to the necessity of this sacrifice, he will choose me.

Carlotta, then, for her part, did not believe she was any less suitable than the other two. She thought Serafina was a little too elderly, and that, should he marry Zoe, Spiro would show more concern for himself than for the little girl. Therefore it seemed unquestionable that he should instead choose her, who was in the middle, like virtue.[11]

But what about Spiro? What did Spiro think?

He had made a promise. It is true that the one who survives cannot always keep faith to a promise made to the departed. Life has certain difficulties, from which whomever passes on comes unbound. And those who come unbound cannot keep the living fastened.

Except that, when Spiro Tempini had first, suddenly approached the four Margheri sisters, the choice had been his. Now, to be at peace, he understood that they should choose, instead.

But how to choose, for God’s sake, if he was one, and they were three? [12]