Reptilia II. Pieve Santo Stefano, 6 April 1997. We are back at our little church, lying on the lawn away from prying eyes. It was beautiful, Emmanuel: I want to do it again right away. No Arianna, that's enough for today, really. We mustn't overdo it. His tone is paternal, almost severe: I don't dare contradict him. I realize that he was thinking only of me. And you? He smiles: I'm fine like this. Seriously, I'm fine. It shouldn't work like this. A man shouldn't be able to control himself so easily if he were really into sex. I'm about to tell him, but then I see his expression, beautiful, and I let it go. The fallen angel has decided to reopen the box of memories and take out his old arsenal; he has delayed a little the moment of ascending to the stars and has returned among the common mortals. I didn't quite understand what happened to me a moment ago: at a certain point it was as if a warm wave lifted me up and then overwhelmed me and made me glide with a regular rhythm. It was beautiful. He must have liked seeing me like that too: he looks at me with the sweet and satisfied expression of someone who has done something good and beautiful. Suddenly, however, I see him stiffen: his eyes become almost purple, they take on an unreal fixity. Don't move. He picks me up with inexplicable slowness and caution, then, in a strange slow motion scene, he takes a few steps back, then suddenly begins to run. When he reaches the parish church he slows down and is about to put me down, but a look at my high heels makes him change his mind. The strength of his weakened body amazes me. He carries me to the car, lays me on the seat and lets himself fall into the driver's seat, panting and exhausted. I don't ask questions, I wait for him to explain. He catches his breath. There was a viper behind you, on the low wall. A shiver of horror runs through me. Oh my God... I wonder how long it had been there. For quite some time, I'm afraid. She must have enjoyed the whole scene. Let's at least hope she liked it. He reclines both seatbacks, lies down next to me and takes my hand. This place is perfect for us, viper aside. Would you like to get married here? Get married? I'm just saying. I would like to get married in a place like this in a long white dress, even though I'm no longer a virgin because of you. Because of me, yeah. You raped me that December night. Funny, I seem to remember the opposite. And then I would like them to play Schubert's Ave Maria, a classic. I've always thought that the perfect music for a wedding is a song from a few years ago: if you want, I'll let you listen to it when we get home. No, come on, out of the question: for a wedding you need Schubert. Then I would like a bouquet of daffodils, my favorite flowers, instead of the usual roses. As a witness I would like my cousin Letizia, Aunt Giovanna's daughter; I would throw the bouquet to her, of course: she can't wait to find a boyfriend, and maybe now that she's taken off her braces she'll succeed. Who would you like as a witness? The viper: she knows everything about us by now. I wasn't talking about our marriage: it was a generic hypothesis. Sooner or later I'll get married. I'm allergic to weddings, Arianna, you should know: it's at a wedding that we met. I can't connect marriage with the idea of beauty. In what sense? The thought of beauty has always haunted me. I keep wondering what it means. Your beauty? Beauty in general, and also my own, assuming I'm beautiful. Avoid false modesty: you know you are beautiful. Even more so, I would like to understand what meaning beauty has. Because it must have a meaning, even apart from Plato. It is an ephemeral privilege, it lasts as long as the life of a butterfly, but as long as you possess it, it seems that everything is permitted to you: it is a very serious error of perspective, but in fact people behave as if this were true. I wonder why, what people feel is so important in beauty. They probably just like it, no big deal. No, Arianna, don't trivialize. There is a profound reason why beauty has this effect on people. If it were that simple, Plato wouldn't have built an entire philosophical system on it. Pay attention: if someone falls in love with an ugly person, he is required to give justifications to the world: she is good, she is nice, she is intelligent, etc., If she is stupid and bad, but beautiful, he doesn't have to justify anything to anyone. Yes, it is true, and this is especially true for women. Just turn on the television to realize it: presenters can be whatever they want, even old, fat and ugly, while women are forced to be pretty. It is the same in politics: no one asks what women are doing there, if they are beautiful. Ugly, balding and paunchy men find it obvious to surround themselves with beautiful girls: who knows why the opposite is not true. Because it is the male who dominates, in this society of imbeciles. However, what I ask myself is a more general problem: all of us, when we see a butterfly, we are happy, when we see a spider we feel like squashing it. If you see a ladybug in the pool you scoop it up with the net, if you see an ugly insect you let it drown. It is only with an effort of rationality that you can avoid it, but instinct leads you to act this way. What do you deduce from this? What should I deduce? That beauty and goodness are not the same thing. Love tends toward beauty, but does not necessarily tend toward goodness: either what Plato says is not true, or I am the one who does not understand. Unless by beautiful you mean something deeper than aesthetic beauty. But that's a next step. Let's stop at the base, at the beginning of everything. Be honest, Arianna: when you met me I was a drug addict, rotten and depressed, but you felt the need to pick me up with a net. I was a bug, but you saw a ladybug. If I had been ugly would you have picked me up? I've never thought about it. Liar. You know exactly what you would have done: you would have let me drown. You probably would have done the right thing, but that's not the point: the point is that you saved me because I was beautiful. It's true, at first I noticed you for your beauty, but over time I learned to appreciate you for who you are. He turns to look at me ironically. And what am I? I find you very beautiful inside, Emmanuel. You mean you find my soul beautiful? Yes, really. He bursts out laughing. You have a lovely way of talking bullshit. I suck, Arianna. You don't know how many times I've been ashamed of myself. There are people who don't need to look for the meaning of life, they find it in life; they have everything they need to be successful: superficiality and contempt. And then there are people who find meaning in dedicating their life to others, like you and Don Luciano. I can't do either one or the other: I've tried, believe me, but I just can't. I'm not superficial enough to be satisfied with social conventions nor generous enough to dedicate my life to others. I'm in a position of absolute stalemate. You can try, Emmanuel: summer camp can be a start. It's not about that, Arianna: I can't make myself understood. I'll go to summer camp, but it doesn't change anything. I admire people who try to do good to others, but I wonder what would happen to these people if evil didn't exist. Would they lose their reason for living? So what does it mean, that evil is necessary to give meaning to their life? But that's absurd: meaning, if there is one, should be found in oneself, not in looking for the evil of others to try to eliminate it. In this way one becomes a parasite of evil and ends up cultivating it, don't you think? You're making a lot of unnecessary problems for yourself, Emmanuel. I don't know why I'm a parish animator, I just know that I do it willingly and it makes me feel good. I'd love to do it too, but it wasn't my initiative, you understand? I get towed, I'm going where you drag me. It would never occur to me to do something like that. Then try to take some initiative yourself. And here we come to the point: I don't think I've ever had an initiative in my life, apart from those that destroyed it. Maybe you haven't found your way yet. I think you should be an artist. I have no talent, Arianna: if I had any I would be a musician, the only thing that really interests me. You write well. What do you know? I happened to read something of yours. What did you read? Some class essay, stuff like that. What I write concerns only me and, if anything, the psychologist. You're wrong, it might be of interest to others too. I never thought about publishing anything, I don't care about being successful. The spelling of success is suck-sess. Who said that? Someone dear to me. To love, you have to be completely alive, Arianna. Don't let appearances fool you: I'm no more alive than a survivor of a nuclear catastrophe. Contaminated, at best. You will get better. You didn't know me before: I wasn't much different, just more naive. I've always been like that, someone who can't live if he doesn't understand the meaning. Why didn't you ask yourself these questions with her? Because with her I felt like I had found the meaning. But the meaning of what? The meaning of meaningless pain. I don't understand. He sighs deeply. I'll explain with an example. Last time, while I was driving here, I was trying to avoid the lizards that were sunbathing on the asphalt. I tried for a while, then you told me that you were feeling nauseous because I was driving badly and you asked me to stop: then I started to run them over, trying not to think about it. At a certain point I found myself in front of a big green lizard: I mistook it for a leaf, I realized too late that it was alive and looking at me. I couldn't avoid it, I crushed its head with a tire. In the rearview mirror I saw its half-dead body struggling. These things drive me crazy. Emmanuel, he was just a lizard that had grown a little. Life is life, Arianna: either it's all respectable or it's not. If you cry because a child dies and then you crush a lizard without remorse, it means you haven't understood anything: you're crying only because that child belongs to your species, and this has nothing to do with morality. So even when you eat a chicken it's the same thing. In fact, that's why I have problems with food. It's also the fault of philosophers and theologians. What do philosophers and theologians have to do with it? They justified an absurd crime: they invented that man is the king of creation, the most stupid thing I can imagine. In this way they gave us a monstrous alibi: we mistreat, we torture, we kill, but that's okay, as long as we don't hurt other human beings. We also hurt other human beings a lot, Emmanuel. Yes, but the law and religion punish us for this, at least in theory. There is no punishment for the harm done to other creatures, we don't even have to confess: we are murderers but we feel absolved. What you call religion is all built on this ridiculous axiom, while I wouldn't want to harm even a fly. Even if the entire human race were exterminated by a catastrophe, in any case we would never pay enough for our sins. I'm not talking about the sins we have towards each other, that in a certain sense is an internal settling of scores within our clan: I'm talking about the sins we have towards the rest of creation. It's the law of life, Emmanuel, religion has nothing to do with it: it's nature that has decided that the strongest wins. Yes, but who is the director, Arianna? What do you mean? Who is behind all this? The law of nature has nothing to do with what is written in the Gospels and with the common sense of justice: was nature created by another God? No, it is impossible: God, if he exists, is only one. God knows nothing about it? Or can't he do anything about it? It's absurd: he wouldn't be omniscient and omnipotent. So he wanted the law of nature. Yes, of course. But I don't understand this law and I don't agree with it: why should I accept it? People have children without thinking, they're all happy when a child is born, they celebrate as if something good had happened, while I feel a sense of terrible anguish. Do you remember that commercial where you only see blond children, pregnant women, satisfied husbands and stupid grandparents? How banal do you have to be to appreciate it? And yet, if they've been showing it for years, it means it works. You're right, it's banal. Don't tell me I'm right, I'm not so presumptuous as to think that everything else is wrong: it's I who's wrong. Rebelling against life is useless, you might as well live it simply, if you can. The point is that I can't. I notice that some red spots have appeared on his face: he is getting too agitated. Okay, Ibut now relax. He leans his head back against the seat and takes a deep breath, slowly calming down. ... San Mauro Torinese, April 6, 1997. I took the Carrera to be washed: they thought I had transported a corpse cut into pieces. Anyway, it came back as good as new. Thanks for everything, Freddy, you were wonderful. I never thought I could get by as a midwife: it's a disgusting job, but it has its uses. The baby came out well: three thousand five hundred grams and fifty centimeters, all normal. Yes, he is beautiful. He will have red hair like me and blue eyes like his father. And so now you're not alone anymore. I have to tell you something, little sister. Tell me. I'm in love. Who is she? Mathilda Battenberg. A Swiss countess. Is she beautiful? Beautiful, distant, unapproachable. A true princess. Elegant as a swan, cold as ice, frigid, unloving, emotionless. Indifferent to sex, muscles and aftershave. The only kind of woman you can love. Indeed. I'm getting married in a fortnight. I'm sorry, little sister. I had grown fond of you, but love is something else. I know. I've always known. And what will you do now? Now? I'm breastfeeding the baby. I can't attend, I guess. No. I'll walk you to the door. I don't think we'll see each other again, little sister. Goodbye, Freddy. Thanks for everything.