My wife and I were sitting in front of a rattling electric fan. I held the remote in my hand and changed the channels one by one, and then ran through them again in reverse sequence. My back was soaked in sweat and I was in an irritable mood. My wife, on the other hand, was quite composed, sitting there perfectly still. On her shiny forehead I couldn’t see even a bead of sweat, and she seemed to be illustrating the old saying “Your body feels cool, mind calm as a pool.” But I wasn’t happy with things: since I’d got married, in fact, I had begun to be unhappy with things. Cursing under my breath, I banged away at the keys, converting the TV picture into a series of flashes, making my young eyes go blurry. I cursed the summer heat, the TV programs, the lousy rattling fan, the dinner I had just eaten, the underwear drying on the balcony … My wife kept her composure: so long as I was in this room, so long as I was keeping her company, then however much I cussed, whatever crazy thing I did, she would be perfectly at ease.
