“That was him. He buys all sorts, but poetry is his great passion. He’s a real expert, apart from anything else. Then there’s a Kurdish girl who escaped from Turkey. She’s an engineering graduate, works in a bar and often, when she 155finishes her shift, she comes here before going home to bed, reads for free for half an hour and we chat. Every now and again she buys a book.” Ottavio paused for a moment. “Even the professor sitting there isn’t bad.”

“Who is he?”

“He used to teach moral philosophy, but not in Bari. He was in some university in Central Italy, I can’t remember which one. He came back here when he retired. When he was young, he was a wrestling champion. Now he’s a philosophical consultant and at least once a week comes here about one, reads, makes notes; he always orders a cappuccino and a slice of cake. About four he leaves.”

“What’s a philosophical consultant?”

“It’s not very easy to explain. If I’ve understood correctly, people with problems of an existential kind come to him and he helps them to find the system, the philosophical method that best suits their problem, so that they can overcome it.”

“So it’s a kind of psychotherapy?” I said, glancing over at the professor, who was still absorbed in his reading.

“Well, he’d say: absolutely not. They don’t treat illnesses or mental disorders. They help their clients (who they carefully avoid calling patients) to think about their own lives in a new way. But if you want my opinion, it is a kind of psychotherapy. He’s an interesting character. To give you an idea: he collects animal prints.”

“What do you mean?”

“He goes walking outside the city, in the country, in the woods, on the beaches. He looks for animal prints and where possible makes a plaster cast of them, otherwise he photographs them. Would you like to meet him?”

“Why not?”156

Ottavio invited him over to have a drink with us. The professor accepted willingly, and we introduced ourselves and started chatting. He explained what his work involved and insisted on one thing: if one of his clients presented a psychological or psychiatric problem rather than an existential one, he would direct him or her straight to a psychologist or a psychiatrist.

“How do you draw the line between an existential problem and an illness?”

“I admit it’s not always easy. Not surprisingly, there’s an area of overlap between the work of a psychologist – but not of a psychiatrist – and mine. There are types of personal suffering that aren’t illnesses and that can be treated either with various forms of psychotherapy or with philosophical consultancy. Then there are actual mental illnesses, which absolutely aren’t in my remit.”