The nurse. Misèr Catùlle, dèsinàs inèptire et quòd vidès perìsse pèrditùm ducas... They are scazons, Emmanuel, not normal trimeters. I know: that's exactly why I'm straightening them. Don't be a fool, come on, read them properly. Misèr Catùlle, dèsinàs inèptìre et quòd vidès perìsse pèrditùm dùcas... He finishes reading without further problems. All right. Now translate. Poor Catullus, stop being an asshole, and what you see dead, consider it as dead. But how do you express yourself? Make an effort to use more formal vocabulary. I'm not saying for me, but for the teacher. I will do it in due time. However I can't move forward. Why? What is the third person plural past tense of "splendere"? I don't remember it anymore. Please don't make excuses. It's "splendèttero": they know it even in fifth grade. "Splendèttero"! What a fucking language Italian is. Artificial, full of expressive limits, shit. Yes, in fact Dante is famous for his expressive limits. What does Dante have to do with it? Dante is Dante. It has something to do with it. Try making me a declaration of love in Dutch. Ik hou van je. "Amor che a nullo amato amar perdona". In intimate moments I don't use Dante. But not even Dutch, I hope. No, not even Dutch. What language would you like to speak? I do not know. Perhaps Shakespeare's English. If you don't like "splendettero" you can use "brillarono" or "rifulsero". Go on. Bright days once shone for you, when you used to go wherever the girl took you. The maiden. Maiden? But who uses these words anymore? It's poetry, Emmanuel. Poetry! Arianna, poetry is not made of words: poetry is flesh and blood, sometimes even lower organic fluids, do you understand? Try to think of the "Sonnet du trou du cul". And don't tell me that Rimbaud isn't poetry, because I'll leave right away. But some words have a nice sound. For a deceased person, perhaps; for a mummy. Listen, use whatever words you want: just go ahead. Wherever the girl took you, the girl loved by me as much as no one else will be loved. There were played those many love games that you wanted and she didn't refuse. The text says "puella", not "she". For him she was just she. Okay, let's forget about it. What is "dèsinas"? An exhortative subjunctive. I'll warn you: yes, I also know the "dèsino" paradigm and other shit like that. Emmanuel, can you explain to me where you want to go with this attitude? You are irritating. I made a promise to your mother, you know, and I intend to keep it. Oh shit, I've seen this movie before. Why do you make everything seem so stupid? Maybe because it is? No, it's not: it's you who makes him stupid by acting stupid. You have a goal in front of you: you will take your final exam, or rather we will take it together, and this time you will overcome it. But it depends on you: if you don't put in the work, the results won't come. They won't come even if you put in the work. It's not true. In the things that matter I've always worked hard and it didn't do any good. However, at least there is one positive thing. What? I'm discovering Latin. I never thought I could say it, but the literature of the last year is magnificent: Tacitus is crooked and unpredictable like a Sonic Youth song, Petronio's style has the same effect on me as certain Pixies songs. And who would they be? You don't know them, it's not for you. Apuleius, under his frivolous appearance, is completely rotten: I don't know what soundtrack to pair with him, perhaps something by the Velvet Underground, or perhaps Vivaldi's Stabat Mater: Vivaldi's is pagan music disguised as sacred. Too bad I discovered it too late. Why too late? Because I can't tell the only person who would care to know. Well, you're telling me. The fact is that you don't care about music, you never listen to it and you don't care about talking about it. If you mean that I don't listen to your music, it's the pure truth: the musical genres you like are very far from my tastes. But do you have any? I mean, musical tastes. I'm not a music connoisseur: I like things that you would consider too commercial. It's not for sure. Try giving me some examples. No, come on, you'd make fun of me. I never make fun of people for their tastes. So? What do you like? Do you want me to quote you a title? Yes, the first one that comes to mind. Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush. That piece is brilliant of its kind, I like it too. And then I also like 80s disco music. Not all of it, but some songs yes. This is already more difficult for me to digest. I told you I would disappoint you. No, you didn't disappoint me. In any case, don't beat around the bush: we were translating Catullus, go ahead. Wretch, woe betide you, what life do you have left? Who will come to you now? Who will tell you you are beautiful? Who will you love now? Who will you tell "I'm yours"? Who will you kiss? Whose lips will you bite? Where are you going? To the toilet. I close the book with a sigh and look out the window: it's raining cats and dogs and the pink oleander has withered. Contini, brushing up on Catullus for the final exam, created an additional problem for me, even if on the whole Emmanuel's scholastic situation is discreet: he gets along well with Greek and Latin, not to mention that the aforementioned teacher has an obvious crush on him; the grades she gives him, usually far superior to those he deserves, are a kind of reward for his blue eyes. While I wait for him to return, I go over the weeks I spent with him in my mind, trying to draw some sort of balance sheet. The first days were very difficult. Emmanuel had underestimated the effects of physical dependence, but he endured the withdrawal symptoms with great fortitude. I could hear him through his bedroom door stifling moans into his pillow; I knocked and entered with the excuse of bringing him something, tea, orange juice, a slice of apple pie made by my mother. He sat up and thanked me. His face was often very pale, his forehead beaded with sweat, but he managed to put on an attitude. He was always very polite and formal with me. I hoped he would ask me to sit on his bed sometime, but he never did. I had started taking the pill secretly; useless precaution: he never even gave me a kiss. My parents never knew the truth; I passed off his discomfort as a serious nervous breakdown, but they are not naive, they sense that there is something else going on. Initially they were wary of him, but then his sweet and submissive attitude reassured them: Emmanuel is very respectful towards older people, it is one of the most beautiful sides of his character. As for psychological dependence, it's a completely different story: it's clear that he still suffers like a dog for that woman. For two months I practically kept him under lock and key, to prevent him from doing something stupid that he would otherwise have done for sure: I confiscated his cell phone, saying I had lost it, and I gave him a new one, with a number that she doesn't know; I had calls to that woman's number deactivated; several times I saw him secretly approach the house telephone, even in the middle of the night; to prevent him from calling, I would unplug the phone downstairs, cutting off the line. She called him two or three times, and this alarmed me a lot, because it means that in fact there was an important history between them, but I always made the waitress tell her that she had the wrong number. That woman has no right to torment him now that she is married to someone else. Then I began to grant him some freedom, without ever ceasing to monitor him discreetly; sometimes, to distract him from that obsessive thought and keep him busy, I would have him cut the grass in the garden, but I had to do it towards the evening: Emmanuel has become photophobic and direct sunlight takes his breath away, like vampires. In his room he always keeps the shutters closed and outdoors he wears dark glasses. I've read that it's a sign of serious mental distress. One day, in an unforgettable October twilight, as we were sitting on the porch, he told me that he would never try to hurt himself again. So far he has kept his promise, but a more serious problem has arisen. Emmanuel is losing sight of his body, he is progressively dematerializing: he is becoming thinner and paler, he neglects himself, he has let his hair grow to his shoulders and has been losing it for some time: even today there are several on the desk. I would much prefer him with short hair: he would look healthier and would attract less attention from our classmates, of whom I am unmotivatedly jealous. I say unmotivatedly because Emmanuel doesn't even spare them a glance: when we leave school, we always walk together towards the bus stop, just the two of us. In those moments I am a very envied girl. Too bad there's no reason for it. He spends his nights awake at the computer doing I don't know what - we don't have any internet connection, and even if we had I would have had it deactivated -, during the day he studies and listens to music. He eats very little: my mother is an excellent cook and doesn't know what to invent anymore to make him eat, but after a couple of bites he says he's already full. Sometimes he locks himself in the bathroom and vomits what little he has eaten. All this has a name: anorexia. By mutual agreement with his parents, we placed him under the care of a good analyst; he rebelled with all his strength, but I was adamant. I wonder what he's doing in the bathroom. I go to the kitchen and ask the maid to prepare a sandwich and some orange juice. Then I go back to my room and sit down to reflect, in the grip of a deep bitterness. I fear I have embarked on an undertaking beyond my strength: if I didn't love that boy with all of myself, I would have already given up. I would like to understand the root of his evil, but it is too beyond my ability. Emmanuel is burning his brief existence trying to understand what he calls "the meaning", as if everything that exists must have meaning. He lacks the ability, which we all more or less have, to stay afloat on the surface of things. Culture hurts people like Emmanuel: it was a mistake to make him study classical. I believe that his most serious problem is the fact of being beautiful, of a beauty that does not go unnoticed and that he lives in the most self-defeating of ways, as if beauty also had a hidden meaning to be discovered at all costs; his life is a frantic hunt for a non-existent treasure. There is something in him that irresistibly attracts me and something that inspires an unspeakable disgust in me: that letting go of his, that letting the body do its thing, so in contradiction to his presumed thirst for spirituality. The truth is that, although I love him, I have no more respect for him than I have for a child who pees on himself. Probably all this is the consequence of the morbid relationship with that woman who could almost be his mother; but if I try to imagine them together, overcoming jealousy and embarrassment, the scenes that come to my mind are ridiculous or banal. What was he attracted to? Not to her physical appearance: there are many girls younger and more beautiful than her. To pleasure? But Emmanuel's lifestyle, in recent times, is downright ascetic: he seems perfectly at ease in chastity. To transgression? To what? What did she do to him? By thinking about it, however, I began to ask the question in different terms: what did she do to him that "I" couldn't do to him too? Too bad I don't have the faintest idea what she did to him. But there is a way to know: have him tell me. The sandwich and the juice have been ready for a while, but he still doesn't come out of the bathroom. I hear the water running. While waiting, I leaf through his notebooks. One of them, with a black leather cover and a red border, opens almost by chance. The writing is dense and almost illegible: it is a strange diary, sometimes in dramatic form, sometimes as an interior monologue, sometimes as a letter, sometimes as an imaginary response, sometimes as a story in the third person, sometimes in a pseudo-poetic form. Some scenes are conceived as a sort of strange screenplay, complete with soundtrack; I don't have time to read them, because the handle turns. I snap the notebook shut. He comes back with congested eyes and hair stuck to his forehead from the water he washed his face with. He cried, I can see it. I had you prepare something for the snack. Thanks, you shouldn't have bothered. No bother. Eat, come on. Do you want to lie down on the bed for a while? You seem tired to me. Yes, I have a bad headache. He lies down on my bed. Can I stay here and read or does it bother you? Of course, you're in your room. I brush his wet hair away from his forehead. He holds my hand and kisses it. You are very dear. My heart is pounding. He closes his eyes. After a few seconds he says: Catullus, poem 72. What? Nothing. I remain still like this until I feel the grip of his hand loosen and I see him tilt his head to the side. He has fallen asleep. I turn off the light and tiptoe out, silently closing the door behind me.