existential reason, I said, but she wasn’t listening. She put on her coat and left at once, saying as she went out that she would join our party punctually. And in fact I saw her approaching the inn, dressed in her operatic outfit, at the very moment when we were due to start our discussion. Throughout the previous evening I had been preoccupied with Schopenhauer and Maria’s poems, even though I spent all my time standing at the window, comparing the one with the other and trying to establish a philosophical relationship between the two mentalities, between Maria’s poems and Schopenhauer’s philosophy, repeatedly subordinating the one to the other, contrasting them and trying to bring out the philosophical element in Maria’s poems and the poetic element in Schopenhauer’s work. The fact that I didn’t sleep at all that night was a great boon, I told Gambetti. We must be grateful for all the sleepless nights of our lives, Gambetti, as they enable us to progress philosophically. Gambetti listened attentively as I went on with my dream narrative, not letting myself be distracted by the noises on the Pincio. Not even the twittering of the birds, which has always seemed to me the most mind-deadening noise, could interfere with my narration. I had stood all night at my window in The Hermitage, Gambetti, reflecting on Maria and Schopenhauer. The previous evening I had decided to pursue these reflections as long as I could, which was probably why I didn’t sleep. Seeing this grotesque figure, at first completely black and quite unrecognizable as Maria, approaching The Hermitage and advancing out of a snow flurry to a distance of more than forty or fifty yards, I eventually realized that this grotesque apparition, with its marionette-like movements, could only be Maria, and I now knew the reason for her nocturnal visit to Paris: she’d gone there quite simply to see an opera, Gambetti, and of course in this outfit, which I knew from Rome. She’d bought this trouser suit in Rome when we were out shopping together one afternoon, one desperate afternoon, as she always puts it, and by making this purchase we’d turned a desperate afternoon into an enjoyable one. Shopping can sometimes be our salvation, if we brace ourselves and don’t shy away from the greatest luxury, from the most exquisite and expensive goods, the very costliest goods, no matter how grotesque, like this suit of Maria’s. Rather than die of despair it’s better to go into a luxury shop and fit ourselves out in the most grotesque fashion; it’s better to turn ourselves into a luxury creation for a kitsch production of DonGiovanni than to take to our beds and resort to a treble dose of sleeping pills, not knowing whether we’ll ever wake up, even though it’s always been worthwhile to waken. At this moment it was clear to me, as Maria walked toward The Hermitage in her grotesque outfit, that she’d been to Paris to see her favorite opera, Pelléas et Mélisande. Maria thinks nothing of coming straight from the Paris Opera to our Alpine valley in order to keep her promise, I thought as I stood at the window and watched her walk toward The Hermitage while Eisenberg went to meet her, I told Gambetti. Eisenberg hasn’t slept either, I thought as I watched him, so naturally he was the first to see Maria and go out to meet her. That’s typical of Eisenberg, I thought, standing at the window. Maria and Eisenberg always had not only a good understanding but the best understanding: they were intellectual equals. Eisenberg loves the same philosophy as Maria, and they share each other’s ideas about poetry. I’ve learned as much from her as I have from him, I thought. Maria wasn’t carrying anything, I told Gambetti. Emerging from the snow flurry, she looked radiantly happy as she walked toward The Hermitage. How relieved the landlord will be! I said to myself on seeing her. Zacchi had been the only one to doubt that Maria would come. How can she go to Paris in the evening instead of coming with us to the Alps, he had said, and yet be with us first thing in the morning at The Hermitage, where we’ve booked her a room? Zacchi was always the distrustful one, I told Gambetti. We used to call him the doubter. Maria stopped, and Eisenberg went up to her, I had told Gambetti, as I now recalled, standing at my study window and looking down on the Piazza Minerva. Continuing my narration, I told him that I had then heard a dreadful bang, like a thunderclap, and that at the same moment the earth had quaked. But oddly enough, as I learned later, nobody else heard the bang or felt the earth quake. Maria and Eisenberg didn’t hear the bang or feel the quake. As Maria and Eisenberg walked toward the inn, unaware that I was watching them intently from my window, Maria appeared to be walking barefoot, and then I saw that Eisenberg was carrying her shoes; she really was barefoot. Eisenberg was always the most considerate person, I told Gambetti — consideration was second nature to him. I stood awhile longer at the window, looking down and trying to follow as far back as possible the footprints left by Eisenberg and Maria as they walked toward The Hermitage. I counted a hundred twenty. I remember it exactly, I told Gambetti — it’s as though I were dreaming it all now, not four or five years ago. Then there was a break in the sequence. Suddenly I see Maria and Eisenberg in the inn lobby. She pulls off his boots, then puts her shoes on his feet, and he puts his boots on hers. All the time they laugh uproariously, but they stop as soon as I enter the lobby. Then, after a short pause, they burst out laughing again so that the whole of The Hermitage shakes. Maria stretches out her legs and holds them up with Eisenberg’s boots on her feet, the black boots that he always wears, those incredibly soft black boots, Gambetti, while Eisenberg hops to and fro in the lobby, wearing Maria’s shoes, ballet shoes with a slightly silvery sheen. Both of them yell, We’ve swapped shoes! We’ve swapped shoes! until they’re exhausted, and Maria falls on my neck, draws me down onto the seat in the lobby, and kisses me, while Eisenberg stands with his back to the wall and watches as we collapse on the seat. Maria goes on kissing me, but suddenly I jump up. At this moment Eisenberg demands that Maria give him back his boots. She takes them off and throws them at his head. Eisenberg dodges and avoids being hit by them. He bends down to pick them up, while Maria points to her ballet shoes, which Eisenberg is still wearing. It was a grotesque sight, Gambetti: Eisenberg in his black overcoat, reaching almost down to his ankles, and with Maria’s ballet shoes on his feet. Eisenberg says he won’t take off Maria’s shoes himself: we must take them off. Whereupon Maria thumbs her nose at him. But then, seeing that he’s upset about having to take off her shoes himself, she bends down and takes them off for him. He stands barefoot in the lobby, I told Gambetti, and then goes up to Maria, who presses herself against me. He kneels down in front of her and hands her the shoes. They’re your shoes, he says. After giving her the shoes he stands up. Maria kisses him and runs out of the inn, carrying the shoes. Eisenberg and I watch her as she goes out. I hope that child won’t freeze to death, says Eisenberg. It has started snowing again. I next see myself sitting with Eisenberg and Zacchi at a little corner table in The Hermitage, I told Gambetti. Open in front of us are Maria’s poems and Schopenhauer’s World as Will and Idea. The landlord comes in and wants to serve our breakfast. He tells us to clear the table. Move that stuff off the table, he says, then makes to clear it himself. Maria comes in just as the landlord is about to start clearing the table without having been given permission. He tries to whip The World as Will and Idea off the table, but Eisenberg shouts at him, What do you think you’re doing? Maria, standing behind the landlord, doesn’t understand what’s going on, I told Gambetti. Eisenberg jumps up and shouts at the landlord several times,