281

We sat down, and I ended up a long way from Roberto and Giuliana, who had found seats next to each other. I perceived immediately that none of those young people were there for thepleasure of being together. Behind the good manners were tensions, enmities, and if they could have they would surely have spent the evening in another way.But already while Roberto was exchanging the first remarks, an atmosphere was created similar to what I had seen among the parishioners in the church in Pascone. Roberto's body—voice, gestures, gaze—began to act asa glue, and, seeing him among those people who loved him as I did, and loved each other only because they loved him, I, too, suddenly felt part of an inevitable bonding. What a voice he had, what eyes: Roberto, now, among a lot of people, seemed much more than what he had been with Giuliana, with me, in the hours of touring Milan. He became what he had been when he addressed that remark to me ("You seem like a person who always thinks she'll be bored but then never is"), and I had to admit that it hadn't been a privilege of mine, he had the gift of showing others more than they were able to see.