letter number one.

One should think the mountains were smoldering around Naples, because Vesuvius has lain down to rest against the back of this city, but even so it isn't the mountains that are smoldering the most, it's the sea. The distances between us probably eat off of the watery element's majesty, but you might hear a little still, in spite of everything, if you listen closely. Are you listening? Closer, closer. It boils and it bubbles underneath the roar within the surfaces' transparencies, the white foam carries an unappetizing stench of salt.

Do you remember how we wanted to be mermaids when we were young? The Mediterranean was located half a map away and fish tails seemed so exotic back then. Not here and not now do the Neapolitans see much of the mermaids either, but rumor has it and it spreads like ripples in the more stagnant waters, in the rivers and the lakes; sometimes the girls of the harbor disappear without a word, without a single glimpse of skirts and everyone knows with the greatest uncertainty that it is the ruler of the sea who has led them away, he dresses them in netherworld dresses and makes them dance forth storms on floors of sand and stone and swaying seaweed. What to call such creatures, besides lost, I can't tell you, but mermaids they are only related to very far out, where sea meets sea, where the ocean loves its next of kin. It was more innocent beings we imagined as children, Chiara, not capsized body parts in colorful gowns.

I trust that you recall.