What do you think you’re doing? This makes the landlord really angry. As quick as lightning he tries to whip the open volume of Schopenhauer off the table. But Eisenberg forestalls him; he snatches up the book and clasps it to his chest. I snatched up Maria’s poems and Zacchi rescued our notebooks, which were also on the table. The landlord was so furious that he threatened to kill us. He was a strong man and we were all scared of him. Maria had now sat down next to me and pressed herself against me. She didn’t understand what had happened. In Rome she’d been told that The Hermitage would be an ideal place for our project, that it was run by a friendly and extremely accommodating landlord and was in every way the perfect setting for our project. And now she was faced with a man who was getting fearfully worked up, threatening to kill us, and would clearly shrink from nothing. We had chosen The Hermitage because no other inn seemed suitable for our purpose. Continuing to threaten us, the landlord laid the table, because he was accustomed to laying the table for breakfast under all circumstances, I told Gambetti. He had to lay it because his wife had told him to, and so, while continuing to threaten us, he simultaneously laid the table. And you haven’t even paid yet! he shouted as we clasped our books and papers to our chests in fright, unable to utter a word. You must pay right away! he shouted, and repeated this several times until he’d finished laying the table. We couldn’t say a word, but we knew that the landlord’s wife was lurking behind the kitchen door. Or at least I did, as I could hear her breathing. At the sight of our books and papers the landlord couldn’t contain himself, and even after he’d finished laying the table he went on threatening us. People like you should be locked up, he exclaimed, they should be behind bars, people like you who carry books and papers like that around and wear clothes like that, he said, quite out of breath and pointing first at Maria’s outfit and then at Eisenberg’s long black coat. Finally he pointed at Eisenberg’s beard and said, People with beards like that should be hanged. He worked himself into a terrible state, I told Gambetti, and shouted several times, Riffraff like you should be exterminated. Several times he screamed the word exterminated in our faces. Then he seemed to suffer some sort of seizure. He suddenly put his hand to his chest and supported himself on the table with the other. We took advantage of the landlord’s sudden indisposition to leave the parlor and flee from The Hermitage. We ran down the valley, clutching our Schopenhauer and Maria’s poems, as if we were running for our lives. Maria ran in the middle. There was such a dense snow flurry in the valley that we couldn’t see a thing, but it was a narrow valley and we managed to reach the end. Gambetti, as always, had listened attentively. He did not ask a single question about my dream. Naturally I had told Eisenberg, Zacchi, and Maria about it too. None of them had said anything either. Gambetti speaks of Maria as someone who has everything permanently present in her mind and, because of her intelligence, can hold her own in any company. This is why Maria immediately becomes the focal point of any gathering, without having to say a word. Spadolini too, in his way, is the focal point of any gathering. Maria is inevitably the person on whom everyone has to concentrate, and she knows it, just as Spadolini always knows that he is bound to be the center ofattention in whatever company. If Maria and Spadolini are both present at the same party they inevitably disrupt it; they quite simply break it up. I’ve often seen this happen, I told Gambetti. When they’ve been together at a party it has immediately split up into its constituent parts, as they say, because they’ve disrupted it. Either Spadolini or Maria is the focal point, but they can’t both be. Spadolini at least gives the impression that he doesn’t hate Maria, but she never conceals her contempt for him; on the contrary, she flaunts it whenever she has a chance, I told Gambetti. Spadolini constantly says how much he admires Maria’s poems, thereby hoping to divert attention from his hatred of her and seeing such expressions of admiration and esteem as a means of concealing his hatred, but of course he doesn’t succeed, Gambetti. He always goes a shade too far in his praise for Maria’s poems, which incidentally can’t possibly appeal to him because they are directed against him in every way and must have a positively devastating effect on him, I said. Spadolini publicly praises Maria’s translations of Ungaretti’s poems, but his praise is so fulsome as to reveal the true measure of his hatred. He pays court to her, even though he doesn’t like her and finds everything she says repugnant. Maria, on the other hand, openly criticizes Spadolini and can’t understand why I didn’t sever my links with him long ago, Gambetti. She can’t understand that I’m attached to him and don’t want to give him up. She always describes Spadolini as a depraved character and tells me why, Gambetti. She reproaches me for seeing him relatively often, for meeting this dingy character who repeatedly seduces your mother, as she puts it. In her eyes Spadolini is the most hypocritical person, a born charlatan, a born opportunist when his own interests are involved, not just his ecclesiastical interests but his wholly despicable personal interests. Only last night she told me that my continued association with him showed a lack of character on my part, I told Gambetti on the Pincio. Maria gives a poetry reading at the Austrian Cultural Institute and Spadolini applauds enthusiastically because he thinks it will be to his advantage, not because he’s enjoyed the poems, I told Gambetti. Spadolini introduces Maria to the Peruvian ambassador as the greatest living woman poet, although he can’t stand her. He hates her, and yet he invites her to dinner at least once a month in the Via Veneto, which he loves but she loathes and detests, and although she declines all his invitations he goes on issuing them. He says to me, I’ve invited Maria out again and she’s turned me down. I’ll go on inviting her out and she’ll go on turning me down. In his way Spadolini is what they call a great personality and therefore bound to be rejected by Maria. She can’t tolerate a great personality beside her, but Spadolini is a great social diplomat who has mastered all the subtleties. Maria hasn’t mastered them and demonstrates this openly because she can’t do otherwise. Each of them, I told Gambetti, is the focal point—there aren’t two focal points—Spadolini through his sophistication, Maria through her naturalness, I told Gambetti. Maria’s naturalness derives from her Austrian origins, Spadolini’s sophistication from his Vatican connections, I told Gambetti. Both are equally great, and they hate each other with equal fervor. Both are conscious of their greatness and their hatred, but Spadolini is the stronger of the two and therefore does not always have to retreat, unlike Maria, whose only weapon has always been retreat. Spadolini really comes into his own when things get dangerous, I told Gambetti, but Maria retreats. Both have a penchant not only for sartorial extravagance but for extravagance generally. After all, they both came from the provinces, Gambetti, and could assert themselves only through their extravagance. Everything about Spadolini is extravagant, and so is everything about Maria; his extravagance is extremely sophisticated, hers extremely natural. She once told me that if she were to write a book about the quintessence of charlatanry she wouldn’t hesitate for one moment to make Spadolini the chief figure. She says she’s always dreamed of writing prose, but all her efforts in this direction have failed: either she’s given up at once or, if not, she’s realized that she hasn’t produced a work of art but only what she calls an astonishing performance. Spadolini is the great zealot, Maria the great artist, I told Gambetti. Basically I’m fortunate in having two such people, two great personalities, as friends, no matter how these friendships are viewed from outside, no matter how Spadolini views Maria or she views him. I’ll go on cultivating them and never forfeit them, never, I told Gambetti. Listening to Spadolini telling me about Peru is just like listening to Maria reading me her poems: both experiences are on a par, Gambetti. If we associate only with people of high character we very soon become dull, I told Gambetti. We have to keep company with supposedly bad characters if we are to survive and not succumb to mental atrophy. People of good character, so called, are the ones who end up boring us to death. We must be especially careful to avoid their company, I told Gambetti. Maria and Spadolini have always taught me a great deal, Gambetti. But I’ve never told them this. I got to know Maria through Zacchi, who is an expert at bringing people together — Zacchi the eccentric philosopher, the much traveled man of the world. He was already acquainted with Eisenberg, who introduced me to him. Before going to Vienna, Zacchi spent three years in Rome. Eisenberg broke away from his home in Switzerland in order to go to Vienna, where he became my dearest friend. It now occurred to me that the time I spent in Vienna with Eisenberg after my flight from Wolfsegg — for which I have to thank Uncle Georg — was vital to my subsequent mental development. The direction in which I developed was determined by Eisenberg. I began to study the world and gradually to decode and analyze it. Eisenberg, who was my own age, was the person who had the greatest influence on me intellectually and pointed my ideas in the right direction. Standing by my window and watching the few people strolling across the Piazza Minerva, I recalled that when I was in Vienna with Maria we had spent most of our time with Eisenberg, making excursions to the Kahlenberg, the Kobenzl, and Heiligenstadt. He introduced Maria to Vienna and showed her the beauties of the city, which was crucial to her existence too. We were always happy when we were with Eisenberg and never bored, I thought. Right from the beginning Eisenberg and Maria had a