Every return to Zagreb is a return for true. No matter how much time has passed since my last visit, it takes me a while to feel, as it were, at home again. My last return is no different in spite of the fact that I have been away for a fortnight only. But this time around I am focusing on one aspect of the Croatian capital that goes well beyond its limits, as well as well as the limits of Croatia, or even Europe. I am simply stunned by the way that women of all ages present themselves in public. In my eyes, whoredom has become the norm. And I feel like the ghost of Pietro Aretino revisiting this debauched world. Searching for him in my Residua, I immediately came upon his eulogy to whoredom that I was looking for (“La melodia del mondo,” February 17, 1998). Gosh, how he would chuckle at so many short skirts and bare legs, puffy lips painted bright red, fake eyelashes, bouncing breasts, and voluptuous hairdos! How he would giggle at so many extravagant eyeglasses, high heels, colorful handbags fit for giants, and fake jewelry that glitters with every move. And his heart would swiftly go to the whores of Sixteenth Century Venice that were struggling hard for their rightful place in the world. In five short centuries, they would be free at last! Try as he might, though, Aretino could not understand that the women on public display were not whores. “Pray,” he would insist, “what are they?”