This, of course, left me with one less companion in the world, and so, as one does, I spent more time in the orbits of my other groups of friends, particularly the Leukos. I’d met Jeremias Leuko through a mutual friend, and in time I’d become a regular guest at their weekly dinners and other family events. There was Sylvia, Peter, Janet, and Hugo, Jeremias’ parents, his wife, Janet’s friend Paula, Sylvia’s friends Claudia and Palestrina, and two or three young men who were very interested in her—the most persistent being Olivero, Ernest, and Stefano. I think Hugo had a little friend of his own, while Peter seemed to keep his friends at a distance; I think he was at the age when family events become embarrassing. I vanished into this mob with a feeling of relief; it was a sort of social bathing. I had only to keep up my end of an incessantly-interrupted conversation on literary and political topics with Jeremias, while a kaleidoscope of faces and gestures, a chamber orchestra of voices, shifted around me. The house was spacious, comfortable in a way that was not compatible with exquisite beauty, but which was so charmingly warm and accommodating that I sometimes found myself more at ease there than in my own home, particularly when I was able to stay later into the silence of the night.

I attended Sylvia’s birthday party at Jeremias’ invitation, and she herself opened the door for me. Bright-faced and breathless, whirled away by Claudia and Palestrina in the act of greeting me. For the rest of the evening, I was like the pin in the center of a glittering pinwheel; beautiful young people, old friends and kind faces spun around me. Sylvia was mobbed by dozens of girlfriends, who flashed around me like Diana’s train, filling the air with their smiles, their laughter, their bright looks and flying hair, their gestures, their singing, their music. Sylvia’s mother hovered over the scene, managing to be everywhere at once, beaming, giving directions, calmly maintaining order, while Jeremias enjoyed himself with a pantomime of mock dismay at all the hubbub. Sylvia was radiant, and, as the celebration took its course, I occupied myself with the study of her three admirers. Olivero and Stefano were like Shakespearean characters, and one brightened with favor as the other one dimmed in neglect, only to reverse positions and reverse again. Ernest was harder to read; his smile never wavered, without ever kindling to any real light, so that I began to wonder if he was stupid. The telephone in the front hall rang incessantly with greetings from far-flung relatives, and I remember he answered it once.

“This is the residence of the Leuko family,” he said.