LAUDISI [wanders round the study for a little while, grinning to himself and shaking his head. Then he stops in front of the large mirror which rests on the mantelpiece, looks at his own reflection and starts talking to it.]: Ah, there you are! [He gives his reflection a mock salute with a couple of fingers, winks one eye cunningly, and grins at it.]: Well, my dear fellow! Now which of us two is mad? [He raises his hand, pointing the forefinger at its reflection, which, in turn, points its forefinger at him. He grins again, then] Ah yes, I know! I say you and you point at me! Dear me! Dear me! Between you and me and the gatepost we know one another pretty well, you and I! But what an awful fix you’re in, old chap! Other people don’t see you the way I see you! So what do you become? I can say that, as far as I’m concerned, standing in front of you as I am now, I’m able to see myself and touch myself. But as for you, when it’s a question of how other people see you, what happens to you? You become a phantom, my dear fellow, a creature of fantasy! And yet, do you see what these lunatics are up to? Without taking the slightest notice of their own phantom, the phantom that is implicit within them, they go haring about, frantic with curiosity, chasing after other people’s phantoms! And they believe they’re doing something quite quite different.

[The BUTLER enters and is rather taken aback as he hears LAUDISI’S last words to the mirror. Then he says]:

“Right You Are! (If you Think So)” – “Cosí è (se vi pare)” – Act I, Luigi Pirandello. Penguin Books. 1962.