“Marcus Aurelius was the only Roman emperor who was also a philosopher—you’re familiar with the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, aren’t you?” Em was asking Giuseppe. I knew this was going where it always went—it didn’t matter to Em that Marcus Aurelius had died in AD 180. Giuseppe said nothing. He didn’t know anything about Marcus Aurelius.

“How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it,” Marcus Aurelius had written, but this would be lost on Giuseppe.

“Chinless Mitch and dickless Lindsey will still have their jobs after Trump is gone,” Em was telling Giuseppe.

“Where is Trump going?” I heard Giuseppe ask. I knew where Em hoped Trump would end up; she had a Shakespearean ending in mind.

“Al Capone went to jail for tax evasion,” Em was saying to Giuseppe. “Trump is just another criminal—he’s going to end up in jail, where he’ll be killed by his fellow inmates,” Em told Giuseppe, who was writing this down. It sounded like what would happen in a novel—or what should happen, I was thinking. “Trump is just another tyrant, more despotic than presidential—think of Shakespeare’s wicked kings,” Em was saying. “Macbeth was born to feel sorry for himself—all he does is whine. ‘Life’s but a walking shadow,’ and more self-pitying shit,” Em was saying, but Giuseppe had stopped writing this down. “Losers never stop whining—‘a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’—all Trump will end up doing is whining,” Em went on. Giuseppe was confused about Macbeth; he might have thought Macbeth was like McConnell, one of the craven Republicans.

I was waiting for Richard III—I knew Richard, the murderous coward, would be coming. Em was working herself up to him. “And there’s fucking Richard—‘Now is the winter of our discontent,’ the scumbag begins, but he ends up sniveling,” Em told Giuseppe, who looked lost. Giuseppe was wondering if fucking Richard was like dickless Lindsey, one of the Senate Republicans. “The chickenshit ends up crying—‘A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!’ Fucking Richard is begging,” Em was crying. That was when the older Italian woman started screaming about the beetles. Em had more to say as we were leaving the terrace, but only Matthew and I could hear her over the shrieking. Giuseppe was stomping on the olives.

In the car, on our way back to the Albergo, Em kept talking; she was saying something about a plague. Matthew and I were wondering what plague she meant, but Em only meant that Trump would be a bad plague president—even worse than Ronald Reagan—if there ever was another plague.

“Not to change the subject, but Bella knows something about Giuseppe,” Matthew told us.