“Me?” she said. “I don’t know anything.” Passing the mirror in the entryway, she reacted with annoyance, because although she couldn’t under any circumstances get by without looking at herself in the mirror, right now she was so hysterical she couldn’t even bear her own image. She kept going as far as the armchair and sat down on the book I’d left open. “Well,” she said, looking around her but as usual without drawing any comfort from it, “how does it feel to have gotten your head together?”

People going around remembering things I’d said was something I was starting to find hard to take. Arianna continued looking at me, while I felt almost physically the presence of the book under her thighs. As if she’d read my thoughts, she shifted just enough to pull it out and throw it on the floor. I felt anger overwhelm me.

“Pick up the book,” I said.

“No,” she said, “I’m not picking it up.”

“Pick up the book,” I said again.

She looked at me defiantly. Then she bent down and picked up the book, but as soon as she had it in her hands, she couldn’t resist, she tore it in half and threw it back on the floor. When she looked at me again something in her was broken. “I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes full of tears. “I’ll buy you another copy, all right? I’ll buy you another copy!” I turned my back on her and stared at the wall, trying to control myself. “I was so worried,” she said. “I thought something had happened to you.” Her nails were digging into the palms of her hands.

“Nothing happened,” I said. “I just couldn’t take it, that’s all.” I gathered the scattered pages of the book from the floor.

“Couldn’t you have made an effort?” she said.

“For who?” I said. “For what? You yourself said that I’m me.”

“It’s not true!” she said, tears in her eyes. “You’re not a screwup.”

“Who said I was?”

“Nobody,” she said hastily. “Nobody said it.”

“I found work as a journalist,” I said. It took guts to define my job at the Corriere dello Sport like that, but I felt I had to boost myself in some way.

She looked at me uncertainly. “Really?” she said. “You mean that sports paper hired you?” I said yes and she passed a hand across her forehead. “Oh, all right, then,” she said, calming down. She sat down again in the armchair. “Can I stay here?” she said. “I don’t know where else to go.”

So she’d quarreled with Eva. “Have you quarreled with Eva?” I said. It was like taking the lid off a pressure cooker.