IV.ix. Trials

"Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end."
- Oscar Wilde

After Alaric left for Siena, my friend Elizabeth called. She was in a flustered state, as her exam for our semiotics of art class was to be held later that day. She asked if I could help her study. I consented, knowing that in the distant future I too would have to take the exam. I arrived to find Elizabeth almost in tears. A friend of hers had already taken the exam and apparently the examiners had been very severe, not at all lenient towards foreign students as had been so widely reported.
    Having had a certain amount of experience in helping people study art history, I first told Elizabeth to relax. I couldn't see her doing badly on the exam, for she was an Ivy League girl, after all, marked by the diligence I have always lacked but somehow made up for all my life. Secretly though, I was afraid as well, as I couldn't put off the exam indefinitely, and my Italian was far less evolved than hers. Together we summarized much of the course material. We reviewed the differences between the Enunciated and the Ennunciator, the different types of passions, the varying approaches to visualizing a text. We must have presented ourselves as a model of struggling foreign students. The material itself wasn't what worried us, but rather the difficulty of presenting it all in Italian.
    Eventually, we walked over to Palazzo Poggi, where the exam was to take place. In a cramped hallway we found twenty or so other students cramming at the last minute. Intermittently, students would leave the door marked with our Professor's name. None of them lingered to tell us how it went. Eventually, it was Elizabeth's turn. A white haired teaching assistant arrived, smoking a cigarette, and ushered her in through the office door. Others peered in to try to get a glimpse of what lay beyond the mysterious threshold. I told her I would wait for her outside, though after half an hour, much longer than normal, I assumed she had left through some other door and so I left as well. Only later did I find out that she did extremely well, scoring a twenty eight out of thirty on the convoluted Italian scoring system, after being kept inside for over an hour. Our professor told her that she had done very well. "Sei stata brava." It gave me encouragement.

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    That evening, I invited the greater extent of my social circle over to my apartment for drinks. We had to wish Alex off, as he was leaving tonight, while at the same time premiering our latest collaborative project, a short film about our respective experiences in Bologna.
    As brothers, Alex and I have been creating short films of varying quality for a few years now. Never too serious, these projects appeal to his penchant for literature and my love of the visual. They nearly always solicit laughs. Our latest effort, more serious than in the past, rehashed a sustained conversation we had on the day of his arrival in Bologna. It was well received.
    From my apartment we transferred ourselves to the Scuderia, the student hangout I had been frequenting of late, and said a last goodbye to Alex. He caught his train, though my evening was just beginning…