I felt different, there illegally, without the necessary credentials to shout myself, to remain inside those fumes and those odors that brought to mind, now, the odors and fumes that came from Antonio’s body, from his breath, when we embraced at the ponds. I had been too wretched, too crushed by the obligation to excel in school. I had hardly ever gone to the movies. I had never bought records, yet how I would have liked to. I wasn’t a fan of any singers, hadn’t rushed to concerts, collected autographs; I had never been drunk, and my limited sexual experiences had taken place uncomfortably, amid subterfuges, fearfully. Those girls, on the other hand, to varying degrees, must have grown up in easier circumstances, and were more prepared to change their skin; maybe they felt their presence in that place, in that atmosphere, not as a derailment but as a just and urgent choice. Now that I have some money, I thought, now that I’ll earn who knows how much, I can have some of the things I missed. Or maybe not, I was now too cultured, too ignorant, too controlled, too accustomed to freezing life by storing up ideas and facts, too close to marriage and settling down, in short too obtusely fixed within an order that here appeared to be in decline. That last thought frightened me. Get out of this place right away, I said to myself, every gesture or word is an insult to the work I’ve done. Instead I slipped farther inside the crowded classroom.