My first impulse was to write home and beg my father and mother to send me to study in another city. But how could I explain my punishment? I would not have been understood; in fact, they would have scolded me. They were making sacrifices to support me at school. I decided to put up with everything. On my return to school after the suspension, the offences against G. and me multiplied. Summer was approaching, however, and with summer, vacation would come. At home I would think about what to do the following year; perhaps I would abandon my studies and find a job. But just then the worst trouble befell me.

One Sunday morning, having left my pensione early to enjoy the bright colours of late spring, I saw the walls plastered with vivid posters and groups of people lingering to admire them. The three figures that stood out in the posters immediately made me turn up my nose: a bull, his head lowered as if in the act of hurling himself into the street; a slender colt pawing the ground; and a herdsman who was looking at the two animals with contemptuous self-confidence. I drew closer. The posters announced that next Sunday, in a field near the hippodrome, for the first time in a city, the horsemen of the Maremma would perform in thrilling feats of derring-do.

I had never been in the Maremma, nor had I ever seen the herdsmen except in photographs. A better occasion to laugh at them could not have been offered to me. Besides, I liked immensely the place where the event would take place. As the river leaves the city, it withdraws into the countryside through bizarre bends, finally free of the houses and bridges. Between the right riverbank and a row of hills lie some very beautiful parks with wooden cafés and enormous trees; there are also pretty green meadows surrounded by well-kept boxwood hedges, which suddenly open up amid the trees. I liked the green meadows and hedges even more than the riverbank, and on the afternoons when I did not have class, I would never miss going to visit them. I would sit at the borders, next to the hedges, and from there observe the low, tender grass, which filled my soul with joy.

‘I shall go there Sunday,’ I decided, and at noon, on my return to the pensione, I invited my mess-mates, the goalie I had injured in the football match and two students in my high school to go to the performance with me.

‘We’ve already seen the posters,’ said the goalie. ‘We’ll come to admire your teachers.’ The others also accepted and on the appointed day we walked to the site of the performance. I was not expecting the huge crowd, drawn there, I thought, more by the splendid day than by the herdsmen and their animals. There were beautiful ladies and girls, just like at the races. I had already begun looking at the women who went strolling near the hippodrome on Sundays. Following the crowd we entered a field, where on one side several stands had been constructed. I suddenly realized that I was no longer with my mates; perhaps the throng had separated us. I found a place to sit.