My Brilliant Friend

The plebs were us. The plebs were that fight for food and wine, that quarrel over who should be served first and better, that dirty floor on which the waiters clattered back and forth, those increasingly vulgar toasts. The plebs were my mother, who had drunk wine and now was leaning against my father’s shoulder, while he, serious, laughed, his mouth gaping, at the sexual allusions of the metal dealer.

He had no brain, and in his heart he had only himself

thickly wooded hill and a few structures in the shelter of the gleaming railroad tracks.

four-story white apartment buildings, the courtyard, the parish church, the public gardens, I had never felt the urge to.

Trains passed continuously on the other side of the scrubland,

Nor had Lila appeared particularly interested, but this time she organized everything.

But she became less lively, especially in class, probably because she realized that the teacher had stopped praising her, and sometimes seemed irritated by her excesses of virtuosity

When it came time for the competition at the end of the year she was still the best, but without her old impudence.

Gigliola and I struggled in vain. Lila, narrowing her eyes to cracks, applied herself.

One day when I was at Maestra Oliviero’s house for our lesson, I took advantage of Gigliola being in the bathroom to take out The Blue Fairy.