(translated by Rosalinda Dal Pra)

I have a house in the country which I like because it has lots of holes, that is under the stairs, cellars and storerooms where it is nice to enter and wander about if you are not scared of spiders and scorpions. I am not scared of spiders and I often watch them when, with their very fast legs, they run away, into the cracks in the old walls to reach safety. I really like those with a small body and thread-like legs that make them look like space creatures. Many times I lie in wait very close to listen to the danger signals which they surely exchange between each other, but I never manage to hear them. I often leave breadcrumbs and pecorino cheese morsels around for them. Even the black ones with a hairy, stumpy body are interesting because you can see their small head with skin-deep eyes that scrutinise firm and tough. These are the toughest animals’ eyes I have ever seen. Antonio says I’m wrong in finding spiders interesting as they are great tricksters, real professional assassins with their astute and merciless webs. He tells me this whilst he is going scorpion hunting with an old metal sieve. He immobilises them and then gases them with spray.

- Well, I say - and you who have the courage to administer such nazi-like actions to those poor devils, which would then be nice to look at with their ancient and fanciful shape, how dare you criticise spiders? -. Without counting the sheets of plywood covered with glue that he hides in corners to catch mice. I know that, for at times when I sweep the kitchen floor I find them.

We argue about the vegetable garden too. The vegetable garden is our great mutual passion, but I like watering it late in the evening, when the sun has gone down in a triumph of red. To sit on a stone looking at the sprinkler which turns around seems to me a very romantic thing. At the same time I observe the pumpkin flowers and the smaller flowers of the cucumbers, which dot the thick mass of hairy lanceolated leaves with their lovely yellow colour and I inhale the tomatoes’ sharp smell. In front of me the field with perfect cylinders of forage seems an abstract painting and it fascinates me because I know that in a short while, when all the cylinders will be stacked under the sloping roof, the Greek temple will rise again. Instead, Antonio wants to water early in the morning, at six o’clock, just when I’m dreaming of the Greek temple or I fly away, pruning the tree tops with my fire-red shears while everything is wrapped up in the fog.

Then, that sound of water just under the window breaks this beauty and it is a real shame because my day begins badly. It is something I would never want to happen in the countryside. In town it is fine, you can get annoyed by the uproar of traffic, by the telephone forever ringing, by the Jehovah’s witnesses at your bell every other day and maybe also by the letterbox filled up with paper, but not in the countryside. Why then would we have looked for a house so isolated that to get there you need to cross a wood and which, when it snows, we remain so cut off that it seems to be on an island where we know that no one will come for several days but meantime we have all our nice stale bread in the freezer to make "pappa al pomodoro" for an entire month, and onions, cabbages and potatoes in our vegetable garden. Precisely, the vegetable garden. So, it is out of envy of my dreams that Antonio waters the vegetable garden early in the morning, because he is not able to make dreams as beautiful as mine or maybe he does it out of spite, as I cannot stand scorpions and mouse hunting and I don’t praise him enough for how he breeds his two pigs. But this is obvious, as we won’t have them forever, they will be slaughtered. And what then? Does he think I will be able to put up with such a thing? If one needs to breed animals why not take two sheep or two horses, in short animals which could have lived forever with us? The fact is that I too love those two pigs. I enter the pen to stroke them, especially when Antonio is not around. They have those fine platinum blonde bristles and they are very clean. They are very affectionate and have out of proportion small curly tails which are very touching.

I hope Antonio can be persuaded that we can keep them like two dogs. After all, I’ve seen him hugging them, him in the middle, them one on either side. He was whispering something softly, I didn’t understand. Their small eyes were glittering and their soft noses were rubbing against his neck. The three of them seemed very happy and he no longer looked like the hunter of scorpions and mice. I confess that I was struck by jealousy because it is a long time since we hugged in such a way. So, I went down the "barullo", that is the overhanging rock, and I tore off all the leaves on my way. To cheer myself up I thought of Angiolino, of when he comes to bring me some courgettes and aubergines picked from his vegetable garden and between his wrinkles burnt by the sun he looks at me with those lively eyes while I say "thank you very much Angiolino, but what can I give you in return as there is nothing I could do for you?". And I laugh inside because I know what he is thinking while I enjoy looking at him there, all stiff with his thick red neck which sticks out of the stripy T-shirt open on his hairy chest. Certainly this is not a great consolation but here there is no-one else with whom you can begin a conversation and take some liberties with in a discrete manner.

This is the only reason for which I do not like living in an isolated house. Antonio instead does not feel the need to meet anyone else at all. He spends hours digging up, seeding and strimming. At times, if I want to speak to him, I have to go there and invent something.

- Where has the ointment for insect bites gone? -

- It should be next to the one for torn muscles near the box of tonic vials behind the line of eye drops boxes - he answers without lifting his head. Antonio has a passion for medicines, he has at least twenty-five between tubes and bottles and that is without counting the vitamin B intramuscular phials, the packets of sterile gauze and the Bertelli plasters. After a while I go back and try again. - What can we make for dinner tonight? -. - Whatever you prefer - he mutters while he is all absorbed in starting the strimmer which suits him because it makes him look like a war king with a lowered visor, but which horribly drowns any attempt at conversation I make with its noise. - Drop dead then - I say in the kitchen while I let water splash down the saucepan and I think that if I had a telephone I could ring my friend Bianca who, at this time, she too, poor thing, is busy with pots and pans making dinner. But you know that a telephone cannot be found in isolated houses. Otherwise what type of isolation would that be, farewell to peace. We don’t even have a television; we didn’t want one. To make a change, to clear our systems.

- Let’s go for a walk, under the moon - Antonio had said with an intriguing air. - I’ll teach you the names of the stars -. In fact he knows them all: Denebola, Altair, Vega, Orione, Cassiopea and dozens more. But at times I get bored. Then I take his hand and pull him towards the grassy lane where in the month of June it is so full of fireflies that it enchants you. I would like him to remember that the first time he took me to these parts there were lots of them and that it had been an unforgettable evening. But he is all lost amongst the constellations, with his nose up in the air, and I feel the damp cold of the night.

The other evening, when we came back to the kitchen where the dark was interrupted only by the cold dim light of the fluorescent clock, I stretched out in the armchair. I was pouting (it’s a shame he couldn’t see that) while I was thinking about summer evenings in my village, when I was a young girl, and of the wonderful walks we had along the wide road, laughing like mad. Then when it was time to go back, knowing that darkness was pressing behind our backs almost scared us and so we quickened our pace, searching through the bushes with an electric torch. When at the bend the compact group of houses livened by dim lights appeared that tension would disappear and our steps became more tranquil. At one point it seemed to me that Antonio drew me towards his armchair and clasped me tight in his arms while the radio played softly Smoke gets in your eyes. I don’t know how, but his eyes were shining.