The world is made of stairs; some go up and some go down

The world is made of stairs; some go up and some go down is a recurring maxim in Domenico Onofrio Tempesta’s account of his emigration and early years in America. First spoken as a defiant reply to people who have humiliated him, it turns social hierarchy into an image of movement: some rise, some fall, and Domenico intends to climb.

The Shipboard Humiliation

Still half-asleep, Domenico stumbles toward the ship’s hold after a well-dressed couple and a waiter have treated him with contempt. As his consciousness returns, so does his dignity. He turns back and shouts the maxim at them, making the encounter more than an insult endured: his reply asserts that the positions separating them are not fixed.

The phrase carries the charge of that moment into a vow. Domenico declares that one day he will have enough power and money to spit in the faces of those who humiliated him; in America, he expects his destiny to be fulfilled and his revenge achieved. The stairs therefore suggest both social mobility and a future reversal of the shipboard imbalance.

A Maxim Made into a Creed

In his recollection of the years that follow, the saying returns as a private spur. During his free hours, Domenico studies English at the library with discarded newspapers and magazines. A kind one-eyed librarian gives him a beloved dictionary whose cover is missing, rescuing it from the library’s disposal pile. He is appalled by the idea that a book’s contents might be discarded because of its exterior, while his brothers, Pasquale and Vincenzo, spend their remaining wages on entertainment and drink. Against their example, he presents himself as disciplined: he studies and saves, determined to seize opportunity and succeed.

The maxim connects that effort to the memory of the couple aboard the SS Napolitano. Domenico says he often pictures them and remains glad that they heard his answer. The line is not simply an observation about unequal fortunes; in his account it gives his ambition a direction, binding self-improvement to the wish to reverse the humiliation that first inspired it.

Resentment and the Image of Reversal

The saying’s promise of eventual ascent does not erase the anger beneath it. Domenico recalls the waiter with such hostility that he imagines him tripping over his own shoelaces, falling into the ocean, and being strangled by a hungry octopus. This grotesque fantasy is not a reported event but an expression of resentment that has survived the passage of time. His satisfaction that the couple heard his reply likewise keeps the original encounter present within the story of his later striving.

As a repeated expression, the staircase image compresses the conflict between humiliation and aspiration. It allows Domenico to imagine that status can change, while also revealing how thoroughly his plans remain tied to those who once looked down on him. The maxim’s movement is upward, but its emotional force still comes from the people he wants to see brought low.