L'arte di perdere un treno (The art of missing a train)
QCER C1443 parole
I have missed exactly one train in my life that mattered, and I have been dining out on it ever since. The 07:42 to the coast left, as advertised, at 07:42. I arrived at 07:43, which under any humane system of justice ought to count as arriving. The train disagreed. It is one of the very few institutions in this country that do precisely what they promise, and I resent it deeply for choosing that particular morning to prove the point.
What follows is a short and violent period of grief. There is the sprint along the platform, performed for an audience of nobody, in which I explain to a departing rear window that I would have made it if physics had been arranged more generously. There is the standing still. There is the reading of the departures board three separate times, with the face of someone checking a lottery ticket that has already lost. And then the board says what it was always going to say: the next one is at 09:50, and the intervening two hours are mine.
This is the part nobody warns you about. Two hours is too much to waste and not nearly enough to go home, so it arrives like a gift I did not order and cannot send back. My first instinct is always to fill it. Out comes the laptop. I answer three emails that could comfortably have waited a decade. I design, in considerable detail, a system of alarms and safety margins that will guarantee this never happens again, and that I will have abandoned by Thursday afternoon.
Then, somewhere around the fortieth minute, the resistance gives way. I buy a coffee I do not need and drink it slowly, which in my case counts as a spiritual accomplishment. I watch a stranger argue with a vending machine and lose. I read an entire newspaper, including the weather at sea and a long column about tomatoes, and discover that I hold views on tomatoes. Nothing whatsoever happens. It is magnificent.
I would like to end with a lesson, since that is the shape these pieces are meant to take. The difficulty is that the lesson would have to be 'miss more trains', and I have tested it. Missing a train on purpose does not work at all; the hours stay stubbornly ordinary. They only open up when they are taken from you against your will, which makes the whole thing impossible to recommend and is, I suspect, the only reason it is worth anything. So I shall go on setting the alarms. And I shall go on, roughly twice a year, arriving at 07:43.
Parole che forse non conosci
- to dine out on somethingraccontare sempre lo stesso aneddoto
- as advertisedcome da programma, come annunciato
- to resentprovare rancore verso
- griefdolore, lutto
- sprintscatto, corsa breve
- departingin partenza
- departures boardtabellone delle partenze
- interveningche sta nel mezzo
- safety marginmargine di sicurezza
- to give waycedere
- vending machinedistributore automatico
- to hold views onavere idee precise su
- stubbornlyostinatamente
Domande
Si risponde con il testo davanti. Non è memoria: è capire.
What is ironic in the first paragraph?
The train did exactly what it had promised, and that is precisely the complaint — Il treno è partito alle 07:42, «as advertised», cioè in orario. La battuta sta nel rimprovero: gli si porta rancore per aver mantenuto la parola proprio quella mattina. Se il treno fosse partito in ritardo, non ci sarebbe la rubrica.
The text makes it clear that running along the platform changed nothing.
True — Non lo dice con queste parole, ma lo lascia capire benissimo: la corsa avviene «for an audience of nobody» e la spiegazione è rivolta a un finestrino che ormai se ne va. Correre non è servito proprio a niente.
The system of alarms and safety margins will already have been abandoned by ___ afternoon.
Thursday — La battuta sta nella data: il sistema che promette che non succeda più sarà abbandonato «by Thursday afternoon». L'iperbole non sta nel piano, ma in quanto poco dura.
What is the point of the phrase 'three emails that could comfortably have waited a decade'?
The work was not urgent at all, and the exaggeration is the joke — «A decade» è un'iperbole: nessuno crede che delle email possano aspettare dieci anni. Quello che si ammette, senza dirlo, è che quel lavoro non aveva alcuna fretta e serviva solo a non stare fermi.
Drinking a coffee slowly is jokingly presented as a personal achievement.
True — Testuale: «which in my case counts as a spiritual accomplishment». È autoironia: definire «conquista spirituale» il bere un caffè con calma misura quanta poca abitudine abbia a non fare nulla.
Why is the lesson 'miss more trains' rejected at the end?
Because the two hours only work when they are imposed, so the advice cannot be followed — Lo dice e lo motiva: perdere il treno apposta «does not work at all», perché quelle ore si aprono solo quando te le tolgono «against your will». Per questo la rubrica finisce ammettendo che continuerà a mettere le sveglie.