The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V picked out the roles to which different languages were best suited: Spanish to speak with God, French to speak with men, Italian with women and German to horses. A similar remark has been attributed to the Prussian Frederick the Great, who added that English was the language he used to speak with his accountant.

I read Moravia’s “Gli Indifferenti” (“Time of Indifference”) and “La Noia” (“The Empty Canvas”). Pavese’s “La Luna e i Falò” (“The Moon and the Bonfires”). The poetry of Quasimodo, of Saba… I make a list of terms to look up, to learn. Imbambolato, sbilenco, incrinatura, capezzale (dazed, lopsided, crack, bedside or bolster). Sgangherato, scorbutico, barcollare, bisticciare (unhinged, crabby, sway, bicker).

A ball rolls under a chair, the only furniture in a room: “things seem to have some sort of survival instinct.” Trying to quit cigarettes, Nabokov imagines the angels smoking in Heaven like guilty schoolboys. When the archangel passes, they throw their cigarettes away, and “this is what falling stars are.” From Paris, he describes the Métro: “It stinks like between the toes and it’s just as cramped.”