get the full effect of these paradoxes and analyses the closest attention of the reader and of the auditor is required, and as a matter of fact Pirandello's comedies read much better than they play. Those who know maintain that he has little capacity for stage technic, that he knows nothing of the art of the stage. Hence his comedies have not had the success of Giacosa and of Bracco. As human documents they depend upon their humor and veiled irony more than upon any other qualities. The humor, which seems to be obtained by simple means, is nearly always the result of an analysis so fine, so subtle, that sometimes one loses track of the premises on which it is founded. He compels the attention of his reader and he makes him think. Without such attention and thought the subtleties of Pirandello often escape the reader. Sometimes he labors a point almost to a tiresome degree, for instance, in the play "Così è se vi pare" ("It's so if You Think It's so"). The central point is the identity of a woman, which would seem, to the average individual, could be established readily beyond peradventure, but the point is--is there anything that can be established beyond peradventure? Is there any such thing as literal truth? Is not truth in reality synonymous with belief, individual or collective, or both? Discussion of questions of this sort may become very tiresome, but Pirandello has the art of mixing them up with human weaknesses and human virtues which makes the mixture not only palatable but appetizing. In his last comedies--"Il Giuoco delle Parti" ("Each One Plays His Own Rôle") and "Ma non è una Cosa Seria" ("But It isn't a Serious Matter")--he reverts to matrimonial tangles and attempts at disentanglement, depicting in the former the "temperamental" woman who gets what she wants, but who finds when she gets it she does not want it, and the long-suffering husband who is discerning enough to know how to handle her by conceding what she demands that he may get what he should have. The man who usurps the conjugal privileges of the husband must also discharge his obligations. So it transpires when his temperamental wife has been insulted by some intoxicated gilded youths who by their conduct in her house provoke a scandal in the neighborhood, it is necessary for the _de facto_ husband to challenge the most aggressive of them to a duel. During the excitement of the preparation the happy thought comes to him to have the vicarious husband fight the duel. He does so and is killed. The cause of all the trouble, the lady, is quite ignorant of this arrangement and thinks the _de facto_ husband is battling with the most invincible sword of the city and that he will get killed, which is her desire. On returning to her house she finds her husband lunching as if nothing unusual had happened. The dramatic climax soon comes when she scornfully taunts him with having some one fight a duel for him and he replies: "Not for me but for you."