The Late Mattia Pascal Chapter 1 – A Wrong Life
My name is Mattia Pascal. Or at least… that’s what I called myself.
I lived for years in a small town in Liguria,
in a house that didn’t feel like my own, with a wife I never really loved
and a mother-in-law who seemed born to make my life impossible.
After my father died, our fortune quickly disappeared.
Two dishonest men managed our money,
and I could only watch them vanish.
To make a living, I took a boring job in a municipal library.
No one respected me, neither at home nor outside. My wife Romilda became increasingly bitter,
my mother-in-law crueler.
Every day I returned home with the weight of the world on my shoulders.
No one listened to me, no one understood me.
And I, slowly, began to disappear inside myself.
Then, in a moment like many others, I decided to run away.
Without saying anything to anyone, I got on a train,
headed randomly. I had no plan,
I had no hope. I just wanted to change my life.
Forever.
I couldn’t imagine that a few days later
I would succeed. Too well, even.
Chapter 2 – Escape and Fortune I arrived in Monte Carlo almost by chance.
I still had some money in my pocket and a great desire to forget everything.
I took a room in a modest hotel
and went into the casino, more out of curiosity than anything else.
I had never been lucky in my life, but that evening everything changed.
I bet a few francs… and I won. I played again… and I won again.
My hands were shaking, but I didn’t stop. I kept winning,
as if fate wanted to compensate me for everything it had taken from me.
In the end I left with an enormous sum.
I had more money in my pocket than I had ever seen.
For the first time I felt light. Free.
I sat on a bench,
looking at the sea. I thought:
“What if I never went back? What if I started from scratch?
With a new identity, a new life?”
While I was thinking these thoughts, I bought a newspaper.
There, on one of the pages, I read a news item:
a body had been found in my town. And everyone thought it was me.
At that moment I understood: fate was offering me
a chance. Only one.
Chapter 3 – The Wrong Dead Man I read that article three times.
It said that a man had thrown himself into the canal,
near my house, and that the body was unrecognizable.
He had clothes and objects that looked like mine. People, the police,
even my wife… everyone was sure: that dead man was me.
At first I shivered. Then, slowly,
an idea began to grow inside me.
No one was looking for me. No one knew I was alive.
If I had remained silent, I could really disappear.
I spent the night walking. I thought about my wife, my mother-in-law,
my gray life. There, among the lights of Monte Carlo,
everything seemed so far away.
And so I decided:
I would never return. Mattia Pascal was dead.
With the winnings I began to travel:
first Nice, then Marseille, finally Italy.
I cut my mustache, changed my hairstyle,
bought new clothes. I burned my old wallet.
I chose a new name: Adriano Meis.
I felt reborn.
Lighter than ever. But underneath that freedom
there was also a strange restlessness.
I no longer had a past. And without a past…
building a future might not be so easy. But I would only understand this later.
Chapter 4 – Adriano Meis
With the name of Adriano Meis I crossed Italy
like a ghost. With a full wallet,
no one knew me, no one asked me questions.
It was a strange, almost sweet feeling.
I could be anyone, say anything.
In Venice I was a tourist. In Florence I spent days in museums.
In Rome I rented a quiet room, near the Tiber.
I said I came from Switzerland, that I was there for health reasons.
Everyone believed me, no one suspected.
But I soon understood one thing:
I was free, yes… but also invisible.
Without real documents I couldn’t sign contracts,
open an account, get married.
Once I tried to stop a thief and the police asked me for my documents.
I had to run away.
And then Adriana, the daughter of the landlord, arrived.
Sweet, intelligent, with two eyes full of melancholy.
We started talking every day, then walking together.
She looked at me with trust. And I… I was nobody.
I couldn’t tell her the truth, but I couldn’t keep lying either.
I was living a fake life, and I was starting to want it to be real.
For the first time,
I wanted to stay. And that… was a problem.
Chapter 5 – Meeting the truth
I really liked Adriana. I spoke sincerely with her,
even if I didn’t say everything.
Every day I waited for the moment to see her,
to hear her voice. At home they began to trust me.
Even her father, a difficult man, seemed to appreciate me.
Sometimes I dreamed of staying there forever.
Of marrying her. Of building a normal life.
But every time I really thought about it, something inside me broke.
Who was I to ask for the hand of an honest girl?
I had no identity, no documents,
no history. Only lies.
One day I heard Adriana
talking to a friend of hers. She said that maybe she loved me.
I felt happy and guilty at the same time.
That night I didn't sleep. The next day, in front of the mirror,
I looked at my face.
I no longer saw Adriano Meis or Mattia Pascal.
Only a man who didn't know who he was.
I had created an elegant cage,
full of silences and illusions. I couldn't go on like this.
Then I decided: Adriano Meis had to disappear too.
I would erase my identity once again.
Chapter 6 – The Impossible Return
To make Adriano Meis disappear I chose a simple gesture:
I left my clothes on a bridge and a farewell letter.
Everything seemed to indicate that I would never return.
So everyone would believe that Adriano had disappeared forever.
Then I got on a train. Destination: home.
I wanted to go back to being Mattia Pascal.
I thought that, once there, everything would be fine.
I was wrong.
When I arrived in town, no one recognized me right away.
And when I finally spoke to my mother, she almost fainted. She
couldn’t believe I was alive. But the news that hit me the most
was another: my wife had remarried.
They had held a funeral. They had cried for me.
And then… life had moved on.
Romilda had a new husband,
a new home, a new peace.
And I… was a dead man who had returned too late.
No one could accept my return. Not even the law.
For the world, Mattia Pascal was dead.
I couldn’t go back to my old life. I couldn’t go back.
I had lost everything. Even the right to exist.
Chapter 7 – The Late Mattia Pascal
I tried to explain the truth, but the truth was no longer useful.
My wife looked at me like a ghost.
Her husband was someone else, and I was just a walking memory.
I turned to a lawyer,
but he also confirmed what I feared: for the State, I was legally dead.
I couldn’t take back my name, or get my rights back.
I couldn’t even ask for justice, because I would have had to report myself
for false identity.
I asked myself: who am I now?
Adriano Meis died in the river. Mattia Pascal died years ago,
at least for everyone else.
And I, in the middle… what am I?
A shadow. An idea.
A person who doesn’t exist.
I no longer had a home, nor a future,
nor a past that I could take back.
Just a body that walked in the world without purpose.
So I did the only thing possible: I left,
in silence, without looking for anything anymore.
I had nothing left to lose. And in the emptiness that surrounded me,
I began to understand something.
Maybe the real prison
It wasn’t my old life. It was absolute freedom.
Chapter 8 – Alive, but not too much
Now I live in a modest little room
and spend my days between books and silence.
I’ve returned to the library where I used to work,
but no one knows who I really am.
They call me “the strange one” and that’s okay.
Every now and then I bump into someone from the past.
They look at me with a mixture of doubt and indifference.
No one has the courage to ask. Maybe they’re afraid of the truth.
I haven’t tried to see my wife again.
I know she’s happy. Or at least calm.
I don’t want to disturb her. I don’t want to be a shadow that ruins everything.
I’m writing this to fix my thoughts,
as if it would serve any purpose. But I’m doing it anyway.
I’ve lived two lives and in the end
I didn’t save even one.
My name is Mattia Pascal. Or rather,
the late Mattia Pascal.
Because even if I breathe,
eat and walk… I don’t really exist anymore.
I’m a man
who has lost the right to be someone.
And maybe, after all,
this is precisely my freedom.
An empty freedom.
Silent. But mine.