Padua

Renato arrives in Padua immediately after the Christmas holidays. He is surprisingly cheerful. Not at all upset at the idea of leaving his home for the first time, breaking the delicate balance of his habits. He goes down to the Leon Bianco hotel, where other professors stay and show themselves to be friendly, even affectionate towards him. He begins to hold his seminar, followed by a large group of students who participate with enthusiasm. He is serene, reassured by the atmosphere that surrounds and inspires him; in his first letters to Maria he talks of tranquillity, ease, comfort. He even goes so far as to have fun, he who was so reluctant to take part in any type of sporting entertainment, going on trips to the Colli Euganei perched on the crossbar of the young mathematician Pietro Pagani’s bicycle: “An iron bar,” he writes, “has harshly ruled the less conspicuous part of my person (buium ammaccavit, Nella would say).” During the long bike rides, his colleague, whom Renato affectionately calls Pichetto, confides in him. He is sad in those days—he tells him—“because his wife can’t decide to have a child”.