The square was flooded with sunlight. It was break time, and I sat down at Domiziano’s and ordered some cheese sandwiches, hoping to see Graziano. Every now and again, I’d look up at the church clock. The sandwiches were edible, but the thought of going back to that building took away my appetite. I smoked one cigarette after another and watched the hands of the clock move. By half past two, things had turned serious; at a quarter to three, after a final attempt to stand up, I closed my eyes and counted to a hundred. When I opened them again it was too late to get back in time and I knew that instead of that glass building I would go to the offices of the Corriere dello Sport. The thought of the pleasant forty-year-old wondering where I’d ended up amused me. Then I ordered another beer and started eating the sandwiches, thinking about how to save face.

“Christ, what a getup!” Rosario said when I walked into the newspaper office. “You look like someone.”

“Yes,” I said, “Lord Jim.” Then I asked him if the offer of a permanent job was still open. He thought it was, but we’d have to wait until the head of department arrived. He was pleased. He liked the idea that we’d be working together, because with all these girls around he felt like a rooster in a henhouse, and also because we’d be able to split the night shift. Even the head of department, when he arrived, was pleased that I’d made up my mind. He was a blue-eyed pit bull who kept his hands on the armrests of his chair as if constantly having to restrain himself from jumping on you. He put me straight to work, and I hammered away like a fury at the typewriter, transcribing one article after another, until the end of the shift, when the girls suggested opening a bottle of bubbly. “We’ve trapped you,” they said, but they were pleased too.