A Coin in Nine Hands by Marguerite Yourcenar
"A Coin in Nine Hands" is a novel by Marguerite Yourcenar set during the tumultuous reign of Benito Mussolini in 1933. The narrative interlinks a diverse cast of characters through the symbolism of a circulating ten-lira coin, which serves as a vehicle for exploring their lives and the impact of the political climate on their illusions and realities. Each character embodies a search for meaning amidst societal decay, grappling with personal and collective struggles. For instance, Paolo Farina finds solace in fleeting relationships, while Rosalia di Credo clings to an idealized vision of her family home, Gemera, only to face its imminent destruction.
Yourcenar's work contrasts the human desire for illusion with the harsh truths of existence, as seen through the actions of characters like Marcella, who, driven by revolutionary zeal, attempts to assassinate Mussolini. The novel eschews a single protagonist, instead presenting a tapestry of interlinked lives marked by commercial interactions and a yearning for purpose. Critics have had mixed reactions to the novel, praising its thematic depth while critiquing its structure. Despite this, "A Coin in Nine Hands" remains a poignant reflection on the human condition against the backdrop of historical turmoil.
A Coin in Nine Hands by Marguerite Yourcenar
First published:Denier du rêve, 1934; rev. ed., 1959 (English translation, 1982)
Type of work: Social realism
Time of work: 1933
Locale: Rome
Principal Characters:
Marcella Sarte , a revolutionary who attempts to assassinate Benito MussoliniMassimo , a double agent who is drawn to Marcella but is disturbed at her ardorRosalia di Credo , a dislocated woman who longs for her ancestral home in Sicily
The Novel
A Coin in Nine Hands is a novel about a social group and about a period, the reign of Benito Mussolini in 1933. Marguerite Yourcenar uses the device of the circulating ten-lira coin to link her diverse characters, but they are also linked by the period and by the effect Mussolini had on each of them. The first three characters whom the reader encounters are all in search of some illusion that will enable them to survive. For example, Paolo Farina can still think of himself as a desirable man when the Roman prostitute, Lina Chiari, goes to bed with him. Lina can face the world with the help of cosmetics she purchases from Giulio. Giulio’s difficulties are more complex—his wife is a shrew, his daughter’s husband, Carlo, is in jail, and his daughter, Vanna, and her sick child live with Giulio—and his consoling illusion is the Catholic church. The relationships between these people are primarily commercial rather than human; they are selling and buying illusions.
Rosalia di Credo’s story is somewhat different; her difficulty is her inability to recover or return to the family home, Gemera, in Sicily. Nevertheless, while Rosalia idealizes that home, its description and history suggest that it is merely another comforting illusion. Not only is Gemera decayed and decrepit, but its springs have dried up as well. In addition, Rosalia was driven from the decaying mansion by the enraged villagers, who think that her father is a demon. Rosalia comes to Rome with her mother to live out a meager existence. Rosalia’s illusion of a return to Gemera is shattered when she receives a letter from her father announcing that Gemera is to be sold and torn down. Her response to the death of an illusion is to spend the ten-lira coin given to her by Giulio to buy hot coals, which she spreads upon her bed, making it her funeral pyre. When people rush into her apartment after seeing the smoke, they find a Rosalia who is “peaceful,” who has “just reached the foot of a nocturnal, monstrous Gemera.”
The next chapter, the central one in the book, brings together Vanna, Massimo, Dr. Sarte, and his wife, Marcella. Each wants something different. Vanna wishes to have her husband return, and she is “radiant” when she hears that Carlo has retracted his “errors.” Marcella, the revolutionary, wants a dead martyr for her anti-Fascist cause rather than a living Carlo. Dr. Sarte, like Vanna, is worldly and opposed to the romantic idealism of Marcella. He and Marcella have separated because of a difference in political and social views. He informs Marcella that Carlo has died on the prison island of Lipari; this news, and the news that Massimo is a double agent, however, do not reduce her ardor for her revolutionary ideals. Instead, she is provoked to act; she tells her husband that she is going to assassinate Mussolini with the gun that she has taken from his desk. Dr. Sarte is not appalled by this proposed action; he is a student of human character and, although a Fascist, not committed to the cause of Mussolini. He even tells Marcella that he will be nearby to witness this intriguing event. Marcella passes the ten-lira coin to her husband as payment for his gun and as a symbol of her commitment. Marcella next tells Massimo of her plan, and a debate ensues; he argues that it would be a useless gesture, but she remains committed to the act—even if it is meaningless. She describes herself as doing “the dirty work no one else would do.”
During the attempted assassination, Marcella thinks that she has been released from her flesh and become “pure strength.” A moment later, she sees the act as absurd, yet at the crucial moment “she raised her arm, fired—and missed.” She has put her illusions into action rather than rely on them to soothe her, as others have done, but the result is merely ridiculous.
The next chapter deals with Angiola Farina and is almost a commentary on the previous action of Marcella. Angiola is in a motion-picture theater watching her screen idol, Angiola Fides, whom she uses to supply the missing romance in her life. Dr. Sarte, whose wife has just played out a cinematic action, sees Angiola as an easy sexual conquest, and they enact a scene similar to that in the film they have just watched. They part, with Angiola in pursuit of a marriage to an Australian lord and Dr. Sarte in pursuit of some meaning in his life. Since Marcella has not met him as arranged, Dr. Sarte thinks that she also lacks courage, like everyone else in this society, but a bystander tells him that some madwoman attempted and failed to assassinate Mussolini and has been shot down. The chapter ends with a gruesome and realistic description of Marcella’s body lying on a Roman street.
The rest of the novel is anticlimactic. Old Mother Dida is a miser who extracts work and profit from everyone with whom she comes in contact. Her old habits and thrift drive her, and she seems unable to change. At the end of the chapter, however, a slight transformation does occur. She is walking by a dark street in Rome, when she sees a poor man whom she distinguishes from the usual run of derelicts. She gives him the ten-lira coin that Dr. Sarte had given her earlier for flowers. Nevertheless, this realistic woman, who seems to have altered suddenly, falls prey to the same errors and illusions that the others do. The man to whom she has given the coin is not a poverty-stricken wretch but an artist suffering from angina.
The mistaken beggar, Clement Roux, and the enigmatic Massimo next encounter each other. Roux is an artist who mourns for the loss of the Rome he had known thirty years earlier. He meets Massimo, who is attempting to mourn for Marcella or find some expiation for his failure either to join or to prevent her attempt. Massimo has seen Roux’s self-portrait in a museum and knows who he is, but they still talk at cross-purposes. Massimo continually refers to the attempted assassination, while Roux talks about either his art or his past. Roux, who is seventy, has had no experience with the realities of life; he was even too old for World War I, in which his brother died. In contrast, Massimo is twenty-two and seems to have experienced too much reality to be able to bear it. Roux’s thoughts are of art and beauty, while Massimo’s are of war, torture, and assassination. As they are about to part, Roux takes the ten-lira coin he received from Mother Dida and throws it into the recess of a rock, rather than into Massimo’s hand. Roux is leaving Rome because of the climate and the changes brought about by the modern world. He leaves Massimo to the streets, as he returns to his comfortable home and the perceived safety it creates.
The last chapter of the book is a suitably fragmented survey of all the major characters in the novel. Paolo sleeps and is still unaware. Giulio is once more annoyed at the talk of his women and cannot sleep. Dr. Sarte is being interrogated by the authorities about his knowledge of his wife, Marcella, but remains in control of himself. Lina Chiari is lying on her bed thinking of Massimo—who is not thinking of her—and of her breast cancer. Angiola dreams of Angiola Fides, and Massimo collapses in weariness. Oreste Marinuzzi, a new character, appears and finds the coin, using it to get drunk and pass out—which makes him “as happy as a dead man.”
The Characters
There is no one central character in A Coin in Nine Hands; instead, several characters have a tenuous relationship with one another and share a com-mon need for illusion or obliteration. No one strives for meaningful action or consciousness; they simply act out predetermined roles or wear appropriate masks. Yourcenar’s other novels are very different, especially Memoires d’Hadrien (1951; Memoirs of Hadrian, 1954). One critic makes the differences clear: “In that early work, Yourcenar made modern characters of mythical ones. Here [A Coin in Nine Hands], she has reversed the process. Marcella, the assassin, is seen not as a modern woman, but as a doomed spirit of revenge.” Yourcenar has also described her characterization as mythic; she suggests that “Massimo is of course Thanatos, the angel of death [and] Marinuzzi is Dionysus.”
Two other characters deserve mention. Dr. Sarte is, in contrast to most of the others, objective and aloof. He is not the victim of illusion but sees the world as it is. He is, moreover, an opportunist who is using Fascism rather than being used by it. Nevertheless, he wants and needs to reestablish his relationship with Marcella, since without it, his life is empty. Another disinterested character is Massimo. He is the product of the modern world, not of Marcella’s mythic one. He has been initiated by “hunger, war, escape, being arrested at the border.” His only value is survival in a meaningless world.
Critical Context
The reception of A Coin in Nine Hands has been mixed. Critics have usually praised the thematic content of the novel while damning the structure or technique. For example, one critic speaks of the novel as a “tragedy” which also depicts “the hope inherent in human lives.” In contrast, another scathingly calls it a “disjointed and curiously artificial work, breathing a facile pathos.” The fullest and most useful discussion of the novel is in Marguerite Yourcenar in Counterpoint (1983) by C. Frederick Farrell, Jr., and Edith R. Farrell; they place A Coin in Nine Hands into context with all Yourcenar’s other works. Especially significant is the contrast with Memoirs of Hadrian; they point out that the characters in Memoirs of Hadrian are “introspective, and eminently capable of self analysis” while those in A Coin in Nine Hands are in need of “masks and mirrors.”
Marguerite Yourcenar wrote eight novels, as well as plays, nonfiction,poems, and translations. Her best-known work is Memoirs of Hadrian. A Coin in Nine Hands is quite different from that famous novel on the Roman Empire, but it is also a novel that deals with a specific historical period. According to Yourcenar, in writing A Coin in Nine Hands, “Before me was a different set of models. For the first time in my life I felt aware of current events, of what was going on in that particular year of history, and I had to improvise my technique as the scene around me changed.” Nevertheless, even though Yourcenar was dealing with the specific period of 1933, she gave the novel the mythic dimension that is present in all of her novels.
Bibliography
Horn, Pierre L. Marguerite Yourcenar. Boston: Twayne, 1985. As a part of the Twayne’s World Authors Series, Horn’s book offers a comprehensive introduction to Yourcenar’s complete oeuvre—autobiography, poetry, prose, fiction, theater, essays, and translations. He ranks her as one of the most “original” post-World War II writers, given her “independence” and “creativity.”
Howard, Joan E. From Violence to Vision: Sacrifice in the Works of Marguerite Yourcenar. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992. Howard focuses on seven works, including A Coin in Nine Hands, in order to investigate Yourcenar’s frequent use of mythical or historical subject matter. She sees this predilection not as a turning away from the problems of her age but as an existential critique of twentieth century life.
Savigneau, Josyane. Marguerite Yourcenar: Inventing a Life. Translated by Joan E. Howard. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. The translation of this highly rated biography by a noted French journalist is an important addition to the work available in English on Yourcenar. It provides useful information on the literary influences and personal experiences that helped to shape her work.
Tilby, Michael. “Marguerite Yourcenar.” In Beyond the Nouveau Roman: Essays on the Contemporary French Novel, edited by Michael Tilby. New York: Berg, 1990. Tilby sees Yourcenar’s work as rooted in a search for self which nevertheless transcends the individual experience to reveal the universality of human life despite “differences of time, of place and of gender.” According to Tilby, Yourcenar offers the reader a “resolutely masculine view” of the world which she herself felt privileged to enjoy.