The party was in a large apartment in an old block in the Corso Sonnino area. The host was a professor of theoretical philosophy, not especially well known for his contribution to the history of thought, but rather famous in the city for his affairs with female students with unquestionable physical virtues.

As Verio had promised, there were indeed a lot of people. They were all talking at the same time, producing a kind of low-level din. I knew almost nobody.

The apartment was full of books; they were everywhere, even in the bathroom and the kitchen. Our host was sitting in an armchair in a corner of the living room. On his knees was a girl equipped with a decidedly competitive chest; they were exchanging a joint of remarkable proportions. He was about fifty at the time – not much younger than my father.

In a room at the end of the corridor somebody was singing, somebody playing the guitar.

Verio and Antonello had immediately abandoned me, so I decided to grab something to eat and go and listen to the music. If I didn’t find anyone – male or female – to make 80friends with within half an hour, I would leave. And I doubt anyone would have noticed.

The boy who was playing the guitar and the girl who was singing were on a sofa; around them, amid all the books, people were sitting on a rug on the ground or on chairs and stools. It was not the classic situation of an intimate party. It was more like a show, with two performers and an audience.

When I walked in they were doing Neil Young’s “Harvest”. The girl had a steady, slightly raucous voice; she came across as professional. She was looking at her hands and didn’t get a single word wrong. She had long, elegant black eyelashes, very thick wavy hair and a face that had something old-fashioned about it, with a look in her eyes that was halfway between melancholy and arrogance.

I sat down on a stool at the back. When they finished, everyone clapped and the girl – not a young girl, she was older than me – thanked them with a couple of small bows. It was then that our eyes met. I thought – it’s one of the things I remember most clearly – that I would like to get to know her and spend my life with her. Immediately afterwards it struck me that neither of these two things would happen, certainly not the latter, and that upset me.

Unaware, or maybe aware, of my torment, she whispered something to the guitarist. He nodded, retuned his guitar and started whistling – a structured, melodious whistle – the intro to “Heart of Gold”. The girl sang and every now and again raised her eyes to me, cutting the air between us.