Something wonderful happened today. As soon as I came to Motovun, I had a new telephone system installed in my house. It came under a fancy name that took me a while to remember: Integrated Services Digital Network or ISDN. A special telephone unit came with it. The idea was to speed up my connection to the Internet. However, I also needed an electronic gadget connecting my Macintosh computer to the special telephone line. This I have never acquired, though. Four years later, I decided I had enough of ISDN, and a fellow from the telephone company came to see me today. He collected a few cables and a box with several blinking lights. And then he told me that my telephone unit would not work any longer, either. It was designed for the ISDN system alone. Although my computer could still be connected to the Internet in the old way, providing the slowest connection available, the telephone was gone forever. Whenever someone would call me, he or she would get a busy signal. An interminable busy signal, too. The joy I felt upon hearing the news would be impossible to describe. The mother of all joys, or something quite like it.