Via Veneto

It’s July 1957.

Ennio Flaiano sits at a cafe table on Via Veneto under an awning in the late afternoon.

People are passing this way and that. They don’t walk to their destinations, they saunter by, brushing past the tables, lingering, as if they were in the main square of a little town during some holiday.

Those at the tables sit with their eyes fixed upon the stream of people that flows by on the sidewalks, while the passersby stare at the animated banks of tables. It’s as if everybody were tacitly acquainted with one another, a crisscrossing of friendly and befogged glances, which hide - and at this hour, what else could it be? - an erotic assessment.

Ennio sits at the table with Ivella, who never gets tired of watching. He has just come back from America, and had forgotten all about this crowd.

Finally he bursts out, ‘What gets me is that Italians are all different from one another.’

‘It isn’t a race, it’s a collection! Just look! Just look!’