“Yesterday and Today” (“Jeri e oggi”)

Translated by Shirley Vinall

How to cite this work:

Pirandello, Luigi. “Yesterday and Today” (“Jeri e oggi”), tr. Shirley Vinall. In Stories for a Year, eds. Lisa Sarti and Michael Subialka, Digital Edition, www.pirandellointranslation.org, 2026.

“Yesterday and Today” (“Jeri e oggi”) appeared for the first time in Il messaggero della domenica on June 8, 1919, and in the same year it was included in the miscellany collection The Carnival of the Dead (Il carnevale dei morti; Florence: Battistelli, 1919). Only later, in 1925, would the story become part of From Nose to Sky (Dal naso al cielo), the eighth collection of Stories for a Year, published by Bemporad in Florence.

Written in the immediate aftermath of World War I, “Yesterday and Today” belongs to a group of short stories inspired by the war, such as  “Berecche and the War” (“Berecche e la guerra,” 1915), “Fragment of the Chronicle of Marco Leccio and His War on Paper at the Time of Europe’s Great War” (“Frammento di cronaca di Marco Leccio e della sua guerra sulla carta nel tempo della Grande Guerra europea,” 1915), and “War” (“Quando si comprende,” 1918). Like these works, “Yesterday and Today” does not focus on heroic actions at the front, but rather on the psychological and emotional tensions generated by the conflict, especially in moments of departure and separation. Pirandello himself experienced similar feelings when his son Stefano left for the front, and the story contains several instances reflecting on the author’s personal experience of the war.

At the center of the narrative is Marino Lerna, a young officer who is unexpectedly ordered to leave for the front after only a few days of training. His imminent departure exposes a network of contrasting behaviors and emotional responses. On one hand, we find the anxious and instinctive grief of his mother counterbalanced by the forced rational composure of his father, and on the other, the cynical detachment of his companion Sarri, whose callous behavior is paired with the ambiguous yet deeply human reaction of Nini, a young woman connected to the soldiers. All these figures play a crucial narrative role as they allow Pirandello to present a fragmented reality in which no single perspective can claim absolute truth. It is in fact this multiplicity of viewpoints that reflects a central aspect of Pirandello’s poetics: the relativism of truth and the contrast between appearance and reality. Each character wears a social “mask”: the brave soldier, the dignified father, the grieving mother, the frivolous woman. Yet, beneath these roles lie conflicting and often contradictory emotions. The war intensifies this fracture, dissolving traditional values and moral certainties. In particular, the final contrast between the mother’s grief for her son, to the exclusion of others, and Nini’s claim to weep for all reveals a deeper, more universal dimension of suffering that challenges conventional judgments.

Ultimately, “Yesterday and Today” embodies Pirandello’s idea of life as fluid and contradictory (“vita”) in opposition to rigid social forms (“forma”), which have often been seen as two poles in a dialectic at the center of his poetics. The title itself encapsulates this tension: what is felt as absolute and definitive “yesterday” may already be transformed “today.” Through this narration, Pirandello exposes the instability of human identity and the impossibility of reducing experience to a single, coherent meaning.

The Editors

The war had broken out a few days earlier.[1]

Marino Lerna had volunteered for the first accelerated course for officer cadets and had been commissioned as a sub-lieutenant in the infantry. After spending eight days’ leave with his family, he left for Macerata, the depot of the regiment to which he had been assigned, the 12th Regiment [2] of the Casale Brigade.[3]

He expected to spend a few months there training recruits before being sent to the front. Instead, three days later, while he was in the barracks parade ground, he suddenly heard his name being called; he did not know by whom; and as he was going up the steps he found himself with the other eleven sub-lieutenants who had come with him to Macerata from different platoons.[4]

“But where? Why?”

Upstairs, to the hall. To the colonel.

Shortly afterwards, standing stiffly to attention with his comrades, in front of a massive table, laden with files, he gathered from the opening words of the colonel of the carabinieri, who was temporarily replacing the commanding officer of the barracks, that a movement order must have come for them.

At first, still dazzled by the June sun which was blazing down on the large parade ground, all he could see in the darkness of that gloomy hall was the silver trim at the collar of the colonel’s uniform, the pinkish color of a long horse-like face divided by a large moustache, and the whiteness of the papers on the table.

For a while, in the tumultuous confusion of his thoughts and feelings, he failed to grasp the meaning of the words being spoken in a harsh, grating voice. He made an effort to pay attention, and, yes indeed, that was the case: the movement order was for the evening of the following day.

It was already common knowledge at the depot that the 12th Brigade was occupying one of the most difficult positions on the front, on the Podgora hill;[5] and that the youngest officers had been mown down in a series of unsuccessful attacks. It was essential, therefore, to rush immediately to fill those gaps.

As soon as the colonel dismissed those twelve young men, the tension in each of their minds dissolved, for a moment, into a strange daze, almost like a disappointed intoxication. They immediately pulled themselves out of it to lose themselves in noisy over-confidence; from which, however, they recovered a moment later, making an effort to show each other that their self-confidence was not in the least put on.

At any rate, they found themselves in agreement in deciding to rush to the telegraph office to tell their relatives, boldly, that that they were being moved.

All of them, except one. In fact, that one man—out of the eighty members of the officer cadets’ platoon from Rome who had been assigned along with Marino Lerna to the 12th regiment—was a certain Sarri. He was the very Sarri whom Marino Lerna was so unhappy to have as a companion, as though fate had chosen from amongst the eighty comrades from the Roman platoon, the very one whom he found most disagreeable.

But the fact was that Sarri did not have anyone to whom he could telegraph his departure. Although Marino Lerna had not managed to change his basic view of him during the three days they had spent together at Macerata, he had, nevertheless, come to feel a little better disposed towards him, perhaps because when they were just the two of them he had dropped the scornful manner which in Rome had made him so unpopular with the other members of the platoon. Marino Lerna had come to think that Sarri’s scornfulness resulted from a desire, almost an instinctive need, to never let his feelings be confused with those of others: thus he always made clear that his feelings were not just different but completely opposite to theirs, and that he cared nothing for other people’s esteem. In a word, perhaps, he was disagreeable by design rather than by nature, and he took pride in the feelings of antipathy which he aroused. He could allow himself this, because he was very rich and alone in the world.

He had brought with him from Rome to Macerata a young woman of easy virtue, whom he had been keeping for three months, and who was well known to his comrades in the platoon. He too expected to stay at the depot, perhaps for a month or more, and in that time he wanted to get everything he could out of it, he said, and at least to satisfy his easiest taste, his brute desire for the opposite sex, since he was sure that it was certainly likely that he would die in the war, and the idea of carrying on living after the war, in the grandiloquence of a nation full of heroes, was so intolerable to him.[6]

While Marino Lerna was going with the others to the telegraph office, he saw Sarri staying behind, and stopped to talk.

“Aren’t you coming?”

Sarri shrugged his shoulders.

“No… I meant…,” Lerna continued, in a slightly embarrassed way, to make up for his foolish question. “I wanted to ask you for some advice.”

“From me, really?”

“I don’t know… look: three days ago, when I was leaving Rome, I assured my father and mother…”

“Are you an only child?”

“Yes, why?”

“I pity you.”

“Oh yes, I know, for my family. I assured them that I would not leave for the front for at least a few months, and that before leaving I would go to say goodbye to them for…”

He was about to say “for the last time”. He broke off. Sarri understood him; he smiled.

“But go on then, say it, for the last time.”

“No, indeed, let’s hope not; touch wood.[7] To say goodbye to them, let’s say, one more time, before leaving.”

“Fine. And then?”

“Wait. My father made me promise him that if by chance I were to be refused leave, I would let him know in time for him to come with my mother to say goodbye to me here. But now, we are leaving at five tomorrow evening.”

“If they catch the ten o’clock train tonight,” went on Sarri, “they can be here at seven tomorrow morning to spend almost all day with you.”

“So, is that what you advise me?” asked Marino Lerna.

“No, not at all!” exclaimed Sarri, without hesitation. “Sorry, but you have been lucky enough to leave without any tears…”

“No, my mother has been in tears about this!”

“And aren’t you glad about that? Would you rather see her cry again? Just say you are leaving this evening and say goodbye to them from here! It will be better for you and for them.”

Then, seeing that Lerna was still there, hesitating and uncertain, he went on:

“Goodbye, then,” he said. “I’m going to tell Nini about it, that we are leaving. That will be a laugh. She loves me! But as for her, if she cries, I’ll slap her.”

And off he went.

Marino Lerno made his way to the telegraph office still in two minds as to whether or not to follow that advice. At the office he found his comrades who had all telegraphed their farewells, without further ado; and he followed their lead; but then, thinking about it again and feeling that he had betrayed his poor mother, and his father, he sent another urgent telegram, in which he told his father that if they caught the train at ten o’clock in the evening, they would be in time to say goodbye to him before he left.

Marino Lerna’s mother was a tough, old-fashioned little woman, such as can still be found in the provinces.

She was upright, firmly corseted, bony and rather wooden, yet without being thin; constantly anxious, prey to suspicions and misgivings, with sharp little mouse-like eyes which darted here and there, restlessly.

She was so devoted to that only son of hers that, for his sake, not wanting to be separated from him while he was already studying at university, she had given up the comforts of her old house, and the patriarchal customs of her life in a village in the Abruzzi;[8] and for two years she had gone to live in the capital, where she felt out of place.

She arrived at Macerata the following morning in such a state that her son immediately felt sorry that he had made her come. But as soon as she got off the train she protested that he should not be sorry: no, no. Unable to take her arms from around her son’s neck, and burying her head on his breast, she cried:

“Don’t tell me, Rinuccio…[9] don’t tell me…”

His father meanwhile, keeping totally serious, tapped her on her shoulder. For he was a man. And he did not cry.

In Rome, shortly before leaving, he had had a certain conversation with a gentleman whom he did not know, who also had had a son at the camp since the first day of the war, as well as two other younger ones at home. A certain conversation, yes. Nothing. Just a chat between two fathers, that was all.

“Without crying…”

Yet, in the effort to hold back his tears at all costs (an effort which seemed obvious from his frantic, watery little eyes), his thin, carefully dressed little figure now had a ridiculous, artificial solemnity which was heartbreaking to his son, perhaps even more so than his mother’s abandoned grief.[10]

He was certainly agitated; he alluded to that mysterious conversation which he had had with the unknown gentleman, as though using it to disguise a feeling that meanwhile had a very curious effect: that of making him see, as though from without, his agitation masked with calm, and perhaps making him experience a mixture of remorse and annoyance about it, when faced with the unvarnished sincerity and strong, silent emotion of his son who was upset by his mother’s tears and was consoling her more with his caresses than with his words.

Unfortunately, as Sarri had predicted, the torment was in vain.

After taking his parents to their hotel, Marino Lerna immediately had to hurry to his barracks, where he was detained until almost midday. And as soon as lunch was over, in the hotel room itself (since it was not possible to take his mother to the restaurant in her tearful state, and in any case she could no longer stand on her feet), he had to rush off back to the barracks for the final briefing. As a result, his father and mother were only able to see him for a few short minutes, before he left.

But his father did try to have a good talk, a long and sensible conversation, with his wife when they were left alone. He told her strange things in that conversation, often struggling to swallow, and rubbing his trembling hand over his lips: that she shouldn’t cry like that, because it wasn’t certain that Rinuccio… God forbid… all sorts of things could happen… the regiment could be sent, for the moment, into the second line, if, as they were saying, it had been in the forefront of the attack since the first day of the war… and then, if all soldiers who went to the front had died, then that was that… it was more likely that they were wounded… a slight little wound… to an arm, for instance… God would help him, their dear son… why tempt fate with those tears? Now, now then… if Rinuccio saw her crying like that, he would be upset; he would really be upset… But his mother said that it wasn’t her fault. Her eyes… her eyes… what could she do about them? Because of the effect made on her by all her son’s words and actions: a strange, cruel effect, like a memory.

“Every word, do you understand? It makes me feel as if he is not saying it to me now, but that he said it to me… It’s like that! It remains etched in my memory, as though he were now no longer with us… What can I do about it?... Oh God…oh God…”[11]

“And isn’t that tempting fate?”

“No! What are you saying!”

“I am saying that you are tempting fate! And I will make an effort to smile, you’ll see that I make an effort to smile, when he leaves.”

If they had carried on a little longer, they would have fallen out. Their impatience at their son’s delay was already intense and painful. But for God’s sake, how did his superiors not understand that those final moments should be reserved for a poor mother, a poor father?

Their impatience became unbearable desperation when all Marino’s comrades began to rush to the hotel one by one, along with the coaches which stopped in front to wait for the baggage and set off again immediately for the station. Indeed, the orderly of one of them was already bringing his trunk; while another’s was bringing his knapsack, his overcoat and his sword; and off they all rushed, in the coach, at a brisk pace.

Marino, who was the last to come out of the barracks, had run back to collect a pair of hobnailed boots for use in the countryside, which he had ordered the day before; and he was late.

Rather than a departure, it was a tearing away, a furious dash, a headlong rush. He risked missing the train. In fact, he arrived at the station with his father and mother, when the doors of the carriages were already being closed: he threw himself into one, where his comrades were gesticulating furiously to attract his attention; and immediately the train started off, amidst a tumult of shouting, crying and calls of good luck, with handkerchiefs fluttering and hands and hats being waved.

Signor Lerna waved his hat until the very last moment, though with no sense of conviction, and was almost annoyed that he had not been given the time to do it properly. When he turned, still half dazed, to look for his wife, he could not find her: she had fainted and been carried away into the waiting room.

Total silence now reigned in the station. There was no longer anyone there. All that could be seen in the dazzling emptiness of the long, exhausted summer afternoon were the shining railway lines, and the only sound was the constant screeching of cicadas in the distance.

By the time that Marino Lerna’s mother had finally come round and was in a condition to be taken back to the hotel, all the coaches which had brought the people to say goodbye to the departing troops had already taken them back to the town, and there was not a single one of them left outside the station.

The waiting room attendant, who took pity on her, offered to go to the nearby garage to call the motor omnibus, which must by now have returned.

At the last moment, when the lady, who was being supported and almost carried, had taken her seat, and the omnibus was about to set off, a young blonde woman turned up out of nowhere and rushed to board: on her head she had a huge straw hat adorned with roses, and she wore a strange, very low-cut dress, and make-up on her eyes and lips; but she too was in floods of tears.

A pretty young woman.

In one hand she clutched a tiny little blue cotton embroidered handkerchief, while she held the other, sparkling with rings, against her right cheek, as though to hide the redness and soreness caused by a dreadful slap.

It was Nini, whom sub-lieutenant Sarri had brought with him from Rome, three days before.

Marino Lerna’s father immediately grasped what kind of woman the little blonde was.

But his mother, seeing another woman opposite her, crying just as she was, could not stop herself from asking her:

“Are you the wife of one of the men, madam?”

The other woman, holding her childish handkerchief to her eyes, shook her head.

“A sister?” insisted the mother.

But at this point, her husband intervened, signaling to her by nudging her surreptitiously.

Perhaps the young woman saw this signal: in any case, she realized that the old lady’s misunderstanding on her account could not last long, and offered no reply.

But she also realized something else, something much sadder, as she carried on crying. She realized that she was now preventing the elderly mother from crying, because that elderly mother was ashamed for her own tears to be confused with hers.

For her tears were tears too; and tears caused by a much rarer sorrow than the ordinary, natural pain of a mother.

Nini had not only belonged to Sarri recently, in Rome; she had also belonged to comrades of his in the officer cadets’ platoon; and, who knows, perhaps also to the one for whom the elderly mother was weeping.

At midday, she had been at lunch with them, with ten of them. A table filled with young devils. They had got up to all sorts of things with her, and she had let them carry on, for they drank themselves silly, those poor young boys about to depart for the war. They had even wanted her to show them her bosom, there in the restaurant, for her little bosom was famous amongst them, still almost virginal, with its pert little breasts; and they had wanted to baptize them, with champagne, the mad young things; and she had let them do it, and touch, kiss, press, hold, snatch, so that they could take away with them, up to the front, this vivid impression, this last memory of her sensuous flesh; up there where, one after the other, perhaps, these fine twenty-year-old young men would die tomorrow. She had laughed so much with them, and then, indeed, good God… then kissing them for the last time… But then she had been struck on her right cheek by Sarri’s terrible slap. And no, no: she had not taken it badly…

Come on, she could have let her cry without being offended by it, that poor old mother. She did indeed let her cry, but she herself no longer cried, the poor old mother, although she so badly needed to do so.

And then, what happened was this: the young woman made an effort to hold back her tears to allow the mother’s tears to flow. But in vain. The more she struggled to hold them back, the more vigorously they poured from her eyes, encouraged by the cruel reason for which she was trying to prevent them from flowing. And finally, in great distress, she removed her hands from her face, broke into sobs, and groaned:

“Please… for pity’s sake… I cannot stop myself, madam… from crying like this… I can cry too, madam… You cry for your son… and I… not for your son, exactly… for someone who has left with him, and who struck me, because I was crying… You are crying for just one person… I for all of them… I can cry for all of them… including for your son… madam, for them all… for them all…”

And she hid her face once again, unable to bear that mother’s harsh frown, as she continued to look at her with the jealous resentment felt by all mothers towards women like her.

The son’s departure had been too heavy a blow for the mother. And now her need for a short respite and some silence was too great. That woman not only disturbed her need but also offended it. The thought that her son would not be exposed to danger for the next two days granted her that respite. Therefore she could be tough; and she was tough. Luckily the journey from the station to the city was a short one. As soon as she arrived, she alighted from the omnibus without even a glance toward that woman.

At Fabriano station on the following day, during their return journey, when Signora Lerna was looking out of a first-class carriage window with her husband, she saw the young woman again. She was hurrying to find a seat on the train. She was in the company of a young man; she held a bunch of flowers in her hand, and she was laughing. Signora Lerna turned to her husband, and said loudly, so that she could be heard:

“Oh, just look at her there, that woman who was crying for everyone.” The young woman turned round, without any anger or contempt.

“You poor good, stupid mother,” her look said. “Don’t you realize that this is what life is about? Yesterday I cried for one man. Today I must laugh for another.”[12]