Another young writer for the stage is Nino Berrini. The success of "Il Beffardo" ("The Jester") was so great that one may confidently look forward to his career without fear of disappointment. Other successes in the theatrical world of 1919 in Italy were "La Vena d'Oro" ("The Vein of Gold"), of Zorzi, and in much lesser degree "La nostra Ricchezza" of Gotta. The author of the latter is a man of thirty-three years who returned from the war with new ideas regarding the rights of the people, liberty, or whatever one calls that which underlies the present social unrest. He has written many short stories, several romances, of which "Ragnatele" ("Cobwebs"), "Il Figlio Inquieto" ("The Restless Son") and "La più Bella Donna del Mondo" ("The Most Beautiful Woman in the World") are the most important. Not only is he a man of ideas, but he has disciplined himself to a chaste and virile way of expressing them. In "Our Riches" he has given an admirable picture of the honest, high-principled aristocrat-farmer of his native territory Ivrea, who has the same feeling for his acres that the ideal patriot has for his country: reverence and love, and a paternal interest in the welfare of those who gain their livelihood in serving him. In contrast with him is his grandson, who has the same reverence and affection for the ancestral home and acres but who sees life, its entailments and its privileges, in an entirely different light, who is a socialist in the correct sense of the term. Then he draws with great distinctness the daughter of the former and the mother of the latter, who is confronted with the conflict of choosing between her son, father, and husband, the latter a profiteering shark in the world of affairs. The weakness of the play is the author's failure or unwillingness to define his own state of mind concerning property rights and property distribution, or to define the relationship that should exist between product and producer, capital and labor. Were I obliged to characterize the fictional output of Italy during the past few years, I should say that it was imaginatively sterile and emotionally fecund. Whereas much of it displays technical efficiency in form, construction, and finish, it lacks originality and does not reveal comprehensive imaginativeness, which the renowned fiction of every country has always had and must continue to have. It must be said, however, that it portrays human nature: that is, thoughts and emotional reactions incited and elicited by new conditions and new aspirations in such a way as to pique the reader's curiosity and sustain his interest. The Italian novelists of to-day are not story-tellers; they are incident-relaters, narrators of personal experiences, observers armed with cameras. CHAPTER VIII FICTIONAL BIOGRAPHY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY