Oh, the delights of anagnorisis and the false stranger! Nor have they been rejected by Achille Campanile, who employed them, though with surreal good sense, at the beginning of his novel Se la luna mi porta fortuna (1928):
Anyone, on that gray morning of the 16 December 19— . . . , furtively entering, and at their own risk and peril, the bedroom where the opening scene of our story takes place, would have been exceedingly surprised to find a young man with curly hair and pale cheeks, pacing nervously backward and forward; a young man whom no one would have recognized as Doctor Falcuccio, first of all because he was not Doctor Falcuccio, and, in the second place, because he bore not the slightest resemblance to Doctor Falcuccio. We observe, in passing, that the surprise of anyone furtively entering that room to which we refer is wholly unjustified. That man was in his own home and had every right to pace about in whatever way he pleased. (From
Opere: Romanzi e racconti, 1924–1933)