And yet it was nice to leave home in the morning with everyone else. It made you feel a straight-up kind of person. In my old Alfa Romeo I drove into the city, down a steep slope lined with trees so dense they gave you the feeling you were going through a forest, then left the car in a parking lot and continued on foot. The city, beneath a fresh, bright sun, was animated in a different way than the pinched, febrile animation of the night, and the traffic didn’t have the tragic cheerlessness of the afternoon. Gangs of small children released from school were playing in the shade of the monuments, and in the doorways of stores housewives were talking in loud voices, waiting for the heat of the afternoon. The cafés were being kind, in their own way, thanks perhaps to all that milk overflowing from the cups of cappuccino, and only the cold brioches made me sad for a moment. I’d given up on the pleasure of breakfast at home and had it instead in the café near the newspaper offices, where Rosario was waiting for me so that we could play pinball before going into work. Even the absolute stupidity of the work could be tolerated, especially as it didn’t usually start until an hour after we arrived and we had enough time to read the papers, smoke a few cigarettes, and chat with the girls.

That same afternoon, while I was transcribing the account of a friendly soccer match that had ended, much to our correspondent’s dismay, in a fight, I again smelled the scent of lilacs. With my eyes fixed on the keyboard, and my ears blocked by the headphones, the only thing I had at my disposal to connect me with reality was my nose. But there was no mistaking it: Coeur Joyeux. I spun around. Arianna was behind me. She’d been in the neighborhood and had thought to drop by to see me, wasn’t I pleased? “We were so stupid last night,” she said. What was I writing? I stood up to introduce her to Rosario, and keep her at a distance. We were alone in the big copy department. “Keep working,” she said, sitting down in the head of department’s armchair. “Don’t you have air-conditioning here?”