They were still in the living room. An hour had passed, completing the time allotted for this qualifying exam of sorts. Now the young man was anxious to hear the verdict—and Giancarlo was quite ready to render it. All the same, Giancarlo did not reply right away, but instead sat there for a time, pensively tapping a pencil against the pad on which he had been taking notes from time to time during the session.

“Tell me again,” he finally said, holding the pencil still for a moment. “How many years of Spanish did you say you took in high school?”

“Three,” Carter answered. His eyes showing concern, he cast a worried glance at the notepad.

“I see,” said Giancarlo, scrutinizing the young man with a narrowed gaze while he scribbled another note. “And what kind of grades did you achieve?”

“C’s, mostly,” Carter admitted with a nervous shrug. “Honestly, I don’t think I learned all that much.” Sensing, perhaps, that his first performance in Italian had also not been quite up to standards, he began to look a bit crestfallen.

“Hmm,” grunted Giancarlo, tapping away once more with the pencil, only now against the tip of his nose, something he often did when slipping deep into thought. Then, settling back as he turned things over in his mind, he fell silent again for a few moments. “Very interesting,” he finally said under his breath, more to himself than to Carter.

Carter slouched back in his own chair and squirreled up the side of his mouth in an expression that conveyed deep disappointment. “That bad?” he said, glumly.

Giancarlo gave a little laugh and tossed the pencil onto the table. “Oh no,” he answered with a shake of his head. “It was not bad at all. Actually, you did quite well—better than I had expected.”

“Better than expected” was something of an understatement, and Giancarlo well knew it as he replayed in his mind the hour of teaching just passed. He had begun, as always with a new student, by touching his ear and telling Carter, “Ascolta!” (to listen). Without speaking a word of English, he proceeded to point out various objects in the room, naming them in Italian as he went. Libro, tavolo, quadro, porta, penna, carta, and so forth. He named them again, this time telling Carter, “Ripeta!” and gesturing for him to repeat what he had heard. It was a very simple exercise, but an essential one, as it would form the foundation upon which he would lay the future bricks of the language when and if he continued to teach the young man.