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to the station, then until dawn on the train - in Milan immediately home to take a cold shower and gulp down a double coffee - off to run on another tram to the office, where sometimes he would fall asleep at his desk. One night, on a return trip standing in the corridor, he ended up in the toilet vomiting from exhaustion. I didn't understand how he managed to have fun these weekends. But he was returning.

The train arrives late, as always. As soon as I saw Antonio's blonde head in the crowd, I ran up to him to tell him that we had to go immediately to the Ciro Bar, where the Hemingways were waiting for us for dinner. "Can I change my shirt?" he asked. No, there was no time and the Hemingways were not the type to be formalized.

At the door of the Ciro Bar I stopped, dumbfounded: Aspasia of Greece was sitting among the Hemingways. I had nothing against her, on the contrary: every time I met her she always gave me a sweet smile and, since I often met her, I had by now stored up a large number of sweet smiles. But how to chat and joke freely with an Aspasia seated royally at our table?

Mister Papa seemed to be in a very good mood that evening. During lunch he had talked about bullfighting and, soon after, he had moved on to a practical demonstration by getting up and redoing the steps and moves of a bullfighter. He then decided that he needed a bull and Mary had taken the time to charge up and down, her hands resting on her forehead like horns.

"Muleta" had announced Mister Papa, pushing aside plates and glasses with his arm and tearing off the tablecloth in front of a royally stiffened and increasingly astonished Aspasia.

He moved to an empty spot in the room and stopped. Now facing us, with feet together, with elegant arm movement and slow shoulder shift, he provoked the bull with the veil.