1958, Genoa. A young German, Frederick Schultze Bookslow, is at the port waiting for a cargo ship to go far away, to India. He is twenty years old, has read Herman Hesse, and is eager to live and discover a different world. His partner doesn't want him to go, says she loves him, but then the ship takes a long time to arrive, she gets tired and returns to Germany. Frederick, on the other hand, waits and leaves, determined, on a long journey to Bombay.

I have the feeling that Donald Trump's miserable display of insolence when he received Zelensky in Washington marks a turning point. Since then, the American president has begun to show signs of losing control of the scene. Judges are starting to rebel, citizens are showing the first signs of disagreement and disaffection, the reputations of some of the magnates who support him are slipping, Europe is beginning to take a stand. And the inconsistency of Trump's narrative is becoming substantial. It seems that he was the man who had Vladimir Putin under control, and from the very beginning, we have already seen that Putin is using the short bargaining chip: when he has him ahead, Trump's fanciful promises fall apart. He considered the negotiations to be on track, and in the first attempt at concrete results, he left with his tail between his legs. A vague one-month agreement without attacks on energy plants is all that Trump has achieved from his signature move: the phone call with Putin. And while Europe begins to show some willingness to rearmament and coherence, Russia's strategy of untangling the skein becomes evident. In the meantime, China, until now very discreet and convinced that Trump's noise has a limited reach and that the fish will fall to the hatchet, begins to show its face. Lest anyone fantasize about its discretion. The Chinese are here, betting on capitalizing on Western bewilderment.