She said to me this and some other fragmented things: Congratulations, you have an intelligent and handsome husband, he speaks as if he were religious even if he's not a believer, he knows ancient and modern facts, in particular he knows a lot of things about Naples, I'm ashamed, I'm Neapolitan but I don't know anything. Gennaro is growing up, my mother takes care of him more than I do, he's smart in school. With Enzo things are good, we work a lot, we rarely see each other. Stefano has ruined himself with his own hands: the carabinieri found stolen goods in the back of the shop, I don't know what, he was arrested; now he's out but he has to be careful, he has nothing anymore, I give him money, not the other way around. You see how things change: if I had remained Signora Carracci I would be ruined, I would have ended up with my ass on the ground like all the Carraccis; instead I am Raffaella Cerullo and I'm the technical director for Michele Solara at four hundred and twenty thousand lire a month. The result is that my mother treats me like a queen, my father has forgiven me for everything, my brother sucks money out of me, Pinuccia says she loves me so much, their children call me Auntie. But it's a boring job, completely the opposite of what it seemed at first: still too slow, you waste a lot of time, let's hope that the new machines get here soon -- they're a lot faster. Or no. Speed consumes everything, as when photographs come out blurry. Alfonso used that expression, he used it in fun, he said that he came out blurry, without clear outlines. Lately he's been talking to me constantly about friendship. He wants to be my friend, he would like to copy me on copying paper, he swears that he would like to be a girl like me. What sort of girl, I said to him, you're a male, Alfò, you don't know anything about what I'm like, and even if we're friends and you study me and spy on me and copy me, you'll never know anything. So -- he was having a good time -- what do I do, I suffer being the way I am. And he confessed to me that he has always loved Michele -- yes, Michele Solara -- and he wishes Michele would like him the way he thinks Michele likes me. You understand, Lenù, what happens to people: we have too much stuff inside and it swells us, breaks us. All right, I said, we're friends, but get out of your mind that you can be a woman like me, all you'd succeed in being is what a woman is according to you men. You can copy me, make a portrait as precise as an artist, but my shit will always remain mine, and yours will be yours. Ah, Lenù, what happens to us all, we're like pipes when the water freezes, what a terrible thing a dissatisfied mind is. You remember what we did with my wedding picture? I want to continue on that path. The day will come when I reduce myself to diagrams, I'll become a perforated tape and you won't find me anymore.

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