How Long Is “L'autuomo”?

During a press conference introducing Drusilla, a prototype of Androids, Abele perceives a great truth: it makes no sense for men to waste energies building, planning and mass-marketing robots. They have been there for more than 1000 years: men themselves are machines! In an automatized world such as the one we live in, human beings no longer exist: everything is pre-planned, everybody animated by invisible threads that move men which have become machines without a soul or a heart. Abele attempts to transmit this message to the world, but it goes unheeded, and following certain acts which are considered to be acts of pure folly, the pathetic protagonist of this story is tried and condemned to spend the rest of his days in the dark of an asylum cell. But Abele smiles on: he is sure that the madmen are those who are left outside, while he is the only sane man left upon this tormented earth.