Enrico Maso, translated into English by Ruth Stephens
Chapter 2 – An Old Dream
It’s early morning, seven o’clock and a beautiful, sunny day.
Antonino gets up slowly, goes into the bathroom, showers and shaves. He makes coffee and gets dressed.
Then he goes into the sitting room and sits down on the sofa, but this time without his newspaper. He sits there in silence for a few minutes, staring fixedly ahead of him.*
“Are you all right, Antonino?” asks his wife, a little anxiously. But he doesn’t answer.
So Signora Daniela goes and sits down beside him.
“Antonino dear, you’re worrying me! Why don’t you say something? Has something happened?”
“No dear, that’s just it! For two whole years nothing has ever happened,” he replies, dully.
“Well, what do you want to happen? We have a quiet, happy life, our children are grown up and doing well, we don’t want for anything…” she continues.
“Exactly, a quiet life. Perhaps a bit too quiet.” observes Antonino, “You know, Daniela, I had a dream.”
She sighs, rolls her eyes and waits for him to tell her.
“I dreamed I was twenty years old again. I had long hair and a multicoloured jacket.”
“I remember when we met! You were very handsome – perhaps a little too hippy….” his wife interrupts him drily.
“I was playing the guitar in my room,” he continues, “then I turned around and saw my friends Umberto, Vittorio and Alessandro. We weren’t in my room now but in the middle of a lot of other people. They were all singing and dancing. There was a big stage ….and do you know who were playing on it? The Vagabonds!”
“Oh, no!” exclaims his wife, getting up and going towards the kitchen, “Not the story of the Vagabonds concert again!”