24	PORTA PALAZZO

I’ve never taken myself too seriously. And—Sergio always criticized me for this—I’ve never had a particular predilection for details, and so never taken much care over them. I haven’t kept a diary. I envy Alessandro Galante Garrone, whose biography I read recently. He always wrote everything down, day by day, minute by minute. A great historian, of himself too. Not me. I don’t even have a complete archive of the things I have written, or that others have written about me. Now that my students Mario Cedrini, Alberto Martinengo, and Santiago Zabala are organizing the publication of my collected works, they are going to have their hands full.

In the mind, many dates get mixed up. And time dilates or contracts in memory.

But I remember perfectly every detail of the first time I went looking for a hustler.

I had been at the Olivetti factory, summoned by Furio Colombo, who worked there and insisted I should come for an interview too. So I went along to be inspected by the managers: Nicola Tufarelli, and then Carlo Novara, whom I still see at demonstrations, at that time head psychologist for Olivetti. Neither had much enthusiasm for me. I don’t suppose I made much of an impression on these Olivetti types, and anyway I wanted to study philosophy.

I had taken the bus to Ivrea. On the way back, I remembered Porta Palazzo. One of the boys I met in Azione Cattolica had told me about it, without suspecting my interest: “If you go to Porta Palazzo, you can find guys who prostitute themselves.” Porta Palazzo has always been where you go to find everything, for that matter.

I got off the bus and went to Porta Palazzo, the corner of Via XX Settembre and Corso Regina. There was still rubble there from the bombings, and the dirty business was carried on amid the rubble. I had never seen a hustler in my life. I saw this boy leaning against a pole. Naturally he wanted to be paid first, but I had no money in my pockets. We talked a bit. He told me his name was Marcello. Up came an old man who explicitly wanted me. I was a good-looking blond boy too, then. Marcello started urging me, “Come on, go for it, make some money.” But I just didn’t want to, and finally I left and went home.

But one evening, after leaving La Stampa, where I had gone looking for archival material that Furio had asked me for, I went back, trying to walk unobtrusively. And there I found him, just the same, thin as a rail, the same Marcello. We went to a park, the Giardini Reali. I could still show you the tower we went to the base of. It was the evening before Epiphany, January 5, 1961. That’s how I celebrated my twenty-fifth birthday, just one day late.

The devastating feeling of guilt afterward—I needn’t tell you.

But I’ve also had occasion to act in defense of the oppressed. The shining, fearless hero.

In June 1967, Michele Pellegrino was named cardinal by Pope Paul VI and became the archbishop of Turin, so his chair at the university fell vacant.

One evening I went to see Pareyson to talk about this critical juncture for us and the city. On my way home in my car, I decided to drive by the Valentino Park. I’m driving along slowly, looking around, and at a certain point I see a group of cops ganging up on a thin little rent boy, giving him a beating. Without thinking, I stop my car, get out, identify myself, and take up the kid’s defense until they let him go. But the cops aren’t too happy about being interrupted, and they take it out on me. I’m a reputable university teacher, so there’s only so much they can do to me. But precisely the fact that I’m a reputable professor makes me vulnerable. Their questions were more than insinuating: “And you sir, what are you doing here at this hour?” “I was passing through, on my way home.” And that’s how I got into the police files.