And there was another aspect. One that was more substantial – I can’t think of a better word. Being with Lorenza, that night, wasn’t like being with the other girls I had known and dated up until then.

It’s hard to explain the difference. I can only think of one example, which some will consider inappropriate. Once, a professional boxer, who had actually fought in the Italian middleweight championships, came to visit the gym where I trained. At the request of the coach, he changed and sparred a little with us boys. It was a game, totally relaxed (at least he was) and sportsmanlike. And yet for the two minutes I 146was in the ring with him, I felt I was dealing with a creature of a different species. Made of different material. With loose, almost casual movements, he’d land these blows on your helmet, your arms, your ribs, that felt like stones; you tried to hit him and he dodged your blows as I could have done with a child’s; there was an uncommon truth in the way he moved, dodged, parried, punched. There was total mastery; there was harshness and truth. He gave you the impression that whatever we did, in our training and our fighting – training and fighting hard, we thought – was little more than a pillow fight.

Well, Lorenza, that night, conveyed a similar feeling to me. The idea that all my previous experiences had been child’s play.

When I got home, I realized to my annoyance that I hadn’t even asked her for her telephone number. True, I knew where she lived, but the idea of staking out her building in order to make contact and arrange another date didn’t strike me as very practical. Although, now that I came to think of it, I didn’t recall noticing a telephone in her apartment.

Mixed up as I was, I went to bed and fell asleep a few seconds after laying my head on the pillow.

That was how it worked in those days.

I don’t care too much about the fact that I’d become an adult, a real adult. Many things about me at that age seem strange to me now; I don’t feel particularly sympathetic to the young man I was then and I wouldn’t be very interested in chatting with him and hearing his opinions, which were often marked by an arrogant scepticism. But I do envy him his sleep. The ability to yield in a few seconds to that total loss of consciousness that lasted, uninterruptedly, joyfully, until the following morning. A wonderful ability, lost for ever.147

All right, I’m sorry, I’ve digressed.