concerns tlie management of her vast estaternshe rehes on the lawyer who used tornl)e a close friend of her mother’s, AwocatornI —, and it was to his office in S. Crocernthat I had been asked to come at tenrno’clock that morning. The lease hadrnlong been agreed, drawn up, faxed backrnand forth between the contracting parties,rnand although all sorts of fast ones hadrnbeen pulled in the process, I had decidedrnnot to quibble and just get the thing overrnwith. I was there to sign.rnThe subjunctive mood of verbs, usedrnto express condition, hypothesis, contingency,rnor possibility, does not exist inrnRussian grammar. Although the ghost ofrna subjunctive lingers on in English, Italianrnretains four whole tenses (plus a conditional).rnIt is only when one finds oneselfrnface to face with an Italian lawyer,rnintent on wasting his time at the expensernof his client, a wealthy orphan, that onernfinally grasps the concept of language as arnsocial instrument in all its ruthlesslyrngrasping actuality. From 10 to 11:30, thernAvvocato spoke to me in interminablernsentences where no verb had a suffix Irnhad ever heard before and exotic particlesrnwhizzed by me like ricocheting bullets,rnwhich was mighty strange, I kept sayingrnto myself, since the document hadrnalready been signed by his client. Sornwhat eartiily reason could there he for allrnthose conditions, hypotheses, contingencies,rnand possibilities?rnI managed to sign the thing just beforernnoon, but the Awocato would not let merngo. Still in his jolliest subjunctive, hernlaunched into a discussion of Italian inefficiencyrn—”in government! and in finance!!rnand in /AW!!!”—which ended arnfull hour later with a perfectly simplernstatement, delivered by a pretty secretaryrnusing Uic indicative mood of the relevantrnverb, to the effect that he had a luncheonrnengagement in 1 5 minutes. We shookrnhands, and at quarter past one I finallyrncrept away, thinking how marvelous itrnwas that I wasn’t the dumb sucker payingrnthe bill. One hundred and ninety-fivernminutes to sign a piece of paper! If itrnhadn’t been for that luncheon entr’acte,rnI’m sure I would have had to hear a sermonrnon the general imperfection ofrnman, perhaps in both the Venetian andrnthe Milanese versions, and if he ever gotrntired of the subjunctive he might haverntreated me to a recital of the No. 82 vaporettorntimetable between Piazzale Romarnand Ponte dell’ Accademia. No, no,rnI know, this is the whole point. That simplyrnisn’t done.rnHaving had some experience of litigationrnand lawyers in both the UnitedrnStates and Britain, I can declare that, byrnthose standards, the behavior of AwocatornI —, not by any means a fly-by-night operatorrnor ambulance-chaser but a longtrustedrnfamily practitioner and pillar ofrnthe community, is shocking and absurd.rnYet there are no lawyer jokes in Italy. Italiansrnprefer to tell jokes about politiciansrnand policemen, and I have an amusingrnlittie statistic here that helps to explainrnwhy. According to Corriere della Sera,rnthe total number oiTangentopoli indictments,rnthat is, indichncnts ordered byrnprosecutors in the eight-year history ofrnflic “Clean klands” corruption investigationsrnin Italy, stands at 3,146. The numberrnof indichnents actually granted byrnthe courts is 1,233. The number of actualrnconvictions is 582. The number ofrnpeople actually serving prison sentencesrnis four.rnThe reason why there are no lawyerrnjokes in Italy is that lawyers—like doctors,rnpharmacists, architects, engineers, accountants,rnsurveyors—are professionals,rnand hence invulnerably, unshakably, immovablyrnmiddle class. Can anyone thinkrnof a single American joke at the expensernof an architect? Of an English joke aboutrnan engineer? Neither obvious upstartsrnlike the politicians nor poor deadbeatsrnlike the carahinieri, Italian professionalsrnare all of tiiem pillars of the communityrnand models of responsible citizenship.rnThey arc more than bourgeois professionals;rnthey are professional bourgeois.rnThey may not be revered, or even deeplyrnrespected, but making jokes about themrnis too much like cutting off your nose tornspite your face. Thus a lawyer may berncheating an orphan, a surveyor may bernsoliciting a bribe, an accountant may bernarranging the payoff for a contract killing,rnbut drey are each other’s and everybodyrnelse’s own, they are the conmiunity’srnflesh and blood, fliey arc what everyonernwants to be and is. Except for the classrndistinction fliat is their affected speech —rnderacinated, phantasmagoric, mellifluous,rnsoporific, interwoven with tidy contradistinctionsrnand tiny possibilities.rnGenteel syntax, of which the subjunctivernmood of verbs is a serviceable gauge,rnis tiie sword and flic shield of flic professional,rnthe stratification police of Italianrnmiddle-class diction, the invisible dragonrnwaiting to leap from flie moufli of everyrnwhite-collar gallant from Lombardy tornSicily. I’m not envious of fliesc people’srncommand of Italian, I swear. Ouite therncontrary. English cidture until the 19thrncentury and Russian culture well into thern20th were aristocratic in both tone andrnorigin, more open by far to the itinerantrncraftsman than to the rich academician.rnLogically, it is the indicative and, evenrnmore clearly, the imperative mood ofrnverbs fliat takes pride of place in my systemrnof cultural values, and this level ofrnsyntax, fortuitously, is much easier on thernforeigner’s tongue.rnThe diarist Woodrow Wyatt recordsrnthat Kingsley Amis liked to tell the storyrnof how he and Anthony Powell oncernwent to tape a literary discussion at thernBBC. The producer, a loquacious andrneager young man, kept fiddling with thernpresentation, saying he woidd like thernwriters to speak more about this, highlightrnfliat, and so on. “We’re not interestedrnin the way you woidd like it,” saidrnPowell funereally in what, to my mind, isrna perfect ]3arody of genteel syntax in English.rn”We’re only interested in the wayrnwe would like it.”rnThe very term, “command of language,”rnhas something about it that isrnneither civilian nor very civil. “I wouldrnhave liked to have done this for you, certainly,”rnsays flie enlisted man to the commandingrnofficer in a play about Italianrnlife which somebody may one day write,rn”but unfortunately, due to circiunstancesrnwhich would not have been in my controlrneven if the course of events hadrnshown itself to be something other than itrnhad, I was not able to be of much help inrncarrying out my ord —, I mean your instructions.”rnThis is more or less how therngallant professional uses his education tornkeep his dignity, by distancing himselfrnfrom the thing which must be done in orderrnnot to become its doer, fliat is to say arnmere servant or subject, and hence somethingrnother than perfectly genteel:rn”Voglio far il gentiluomo, I e non vogliornpill servir,” as the lout Leporello sings inrnthe opening scene of DOH Giovanni, borrowing,rnlike a nobleman’s cloak, his master’srnindicative mood of the verb “tornwant.”rn”I want fliis.” “Give me that.” “Do it.”rnThis is how a child talks. Or a nobleman.rnOr a foreigner. I have never cracked anrnItalian grammar book, and now fliat myrnabysmal laziness has found for itself suchrnprofound rationale, somehow I doubt Irnever will. Too much grammar is the onlyrnfliing that’s wrong with this country.rnAndrei Navrozov is Chronicles’rnEuropean correspondent.rnJUNE 2000/39rnrnrn