" That drawer was full of photographs of her. She showed me any number, old and recent.
"All dead," I told her.
She turned her head and glanced at me quickly:
"Dead?"
"Yes, for all they appear to be alive."
"Even this one with the smile?"
"Yes. And this pensive one: and the one with the eyes drooped."
"But how can they be dead, if I here am alive?"
"Ah, you, yes; because you do not see yourself now. But when you are in front of a mirror, the moment you look at yourself again, you are no longer alive."
"And why not?"
"Because, in order to behold yourself, you must for a moment halt life within you. Excuse me, but seeing that you go to the photographer's so often—when the photographer, in front of you with his camera, tells you to be sure not to move, you must have noticed—life is suspended in you—and you feel that such suspension cannot last more than a second—it is like turning into a statue—For life is constant motion, and one can never really see one's self."
"You mean to say that I, while living, have never seen myself?"
"Never; not as I can see you. But I see a likeness of you that is mine and mine alone; it is assuredly not yours. You, while living, have possibly been able to catch no more than a bare glimpse of your own in some snapshot or other that has been made of you; and it has come as an unpleasant surprise; it may even have pained you to recognize yourself, in helter-skelter motion like that."
"That's true."
"For you can only know yourself when you strike an attitude: a statue: not alive. When one is alive, one lives and does not see himself. To know one's self is to die. The reason you spend so much time looking at yourself in that mirror, in all mirrors, is that you are not alive; you do not know how to live, you cannot or you do not want to live. You want too much to know yourself; and meanwhile, you are not living."
"Why, nothing of the sort! I never can succeed in keeping still a moment."
"But you want to see yourself always. In every act of your life. It is as if you had before you always the likeness of yourself, in every action, in every gesture. It is from this that your intolerance comes. You do not want the feeling in you to be blind. You compel it to open its eyes and look at itself in a mirror which you are forever holding up in front of it. And feeling, the moment it sees itself, turns ice within you. You cannot go on living before a mirror. One's aim should be never to see one's self. For the reason that, however much you may try, you can never know yourself as others see you. And of what use is it, then, to know one's self for one's self's sake? You may even come to the point where you will no longer be able to understand why you must have that likeness which the mirror gives you back. "
― Luigi Pirandello , One, No One and One Hundred Thousand
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![Luigi Pirandello quote : That drawer was full of photographs of her. She showed me any number, old and recent.<br /><br />](/image/2756951.jpg)
She turned her head and glanced at me quickly:
"Dead?"
"Yes, for all they appear to be alive."
"Even this one with the smile?"
"Yes. And this pensive one: and the one with the eyes drooped."
"But how can they be dead, if I here am alive?"
"Ah, you, yes; because you do not see yourself now. But when you are in front of a mirror, the moment you look at yourself again, you are no longer alive."
"And why not?"
"Because, in order to behold yourself, you must for a moment halt life within you. Excuse me, but seeing that you go to the photographer's so often—when the photographer, in front of you with his camera, tells you to be sure not to move, you must have noticed—life is suspended in you—and you feel that such suspension cannot last more than a second—it is like turning into a statue—For life is constant motion, and one can never really see one's self."
"You mean to say that I, while living, have never seen myself?"
"Never; not as I can see you. But I see a likeness of you that is mine and mine alone; it is assuredly not yours. You, while living, have possibly been able to catch no more than a bare glimpse of your own in some snapshot or other that has been made of you; and it has come as an unpleasant surprise; it may even have pained you to recognize yourself, in helter-skelter motion like that."
"That's true."
"For you can only know yourself when you strike an attitude: a statue: not alive. When one is alive, one lives and does not see himself. To know one's self is to die. The reason you spend so much time looking at yourself in that mirror, in all mirrors, is that you are not alive; you do not know how to live, you cannot or you do not want to live. You want too much to know yourself; and meanwhile, you are not living."
"Why, nothing of the sort! I never can succeed in keeping still a moment."
"But you want to see yourself always. In every act of your life. It is as if you had before you always the likeness of yourself, in every action, in every gesture. It is from this that your intolerance comes. You do not want the feeling in you to be blind. You compel it to open its eyes and look at itself in a mirror which you are forever holding up in front of it. And feeling, the moment it sees itself, turns ice within you. You cannot go on living before a mirror. One's aim should be never to see one's self. For the reason that, however much you may try, you can never know yourself as others see you. And of what use is it, then, to know one's self for one's self's sake? You may even come to the point where you will no longer be able to understand why you must have that likeness which the mirror gives you back." style="width:100%;margin:20px 0;"/>