“None whatsoever. Much better to put the word around that the gift of imagination is very low-class indeed.”

“And no philosophy?”

“Let’s be quite clear: a smattering perhaps when writing or speaking, but in reality, none. ‘Philosophy of history,’ for example, is a phrase you should frequently employ, but I forbid you to arrive at any conclusions that have not already been reached by others. Avoid anything that has about it so much as a whiff of reflection, originality, or the like.”

“And humor?”

“What do you mean, ‘humor’?”

“Should I always be very serious?”

“It all depends. You have a jovial, fun-loving nature and there’s no need to smother or suppress it entirely—you can laugh and joke once in a while. Being a bigwig doesn’t necessarily require you to be a melancholic. A serious man can have his lighthearted moments too. Only—and this is a crucial point . . .”

“Go on.”

“You must never use irony—that mysterious little twitch at the corners of the mouth, invented by some decadent Greek, caught by Lucian, transmitted to Swift and Voltaire, and typical of all skeptics and impudent freethinkers. No. Better to tell a rude joke, our good old friend, the chubby-cheeked, brash, and blatantly rude joke, wrapped in neither veils nor false modesty, which hits you right between the eyes, stings like a slap on the back, makes your blood pound, and snaps your suspenders with laughter. What’s that?”

“It’s midnight.”

“Midnight? Well, then, young man, you are already entering your twenty-second year; you have definitively come of age. Let’s turn in; it’s late. Chew over what I’ve told you, son. All things considered, our conversation tonight has been worthy of Machiavelli’s The Prince. Time for bed.”

Dona Benedita

DONA BENEDITA

A Portrait

Chapter I

THE MOST DIFFICULT THING in the world, apart from governing a country, must surely be that of guessing Dona Benedita’s exact age. Some said forty, some forty-five, others thirty-six. One stockbroker went as low as twenty-nine, but his judgment, clouded by hidden intentions, lacked the necessary stamp of sincerity that we all like to see in human opinions. Indeed, I only mention it to illustrate, from the very outset, that Dona Benedita was always the very model of good manners. The stockbroker’s flattery served only to arouse her indignation, albeit momentarily, yes, momentarily. As for those other estimates, oscillating between thirty-six and forty-five, none of them could be contradicted by Dona Benedita’s appearance, which was both maturely serious and youthfully graceful. The only surprising thing is that such speculation continued, when in order to know the truth one needed only to ask her.