I dreamt that I was carrying some crates around my house in Motovun when a gaggle of women in their late teens or early twenties walked down the street. There were four or five of them. The crate I was carrying was full of old wine glasses, which I was taking to the basement. “Hey,” said one of the women, “that old man doesn’t look that bad.” Thinking that locals could not understand English, she spoke loudly enough. She had a strong American accent, too. “What?!” protested another woman with a touch of disgust in her voice. “Pretty good body for his age,” the first one said. Then they all giggled. When they were some way down the street, I put the crate down and looked after them. “What about my head?” I remember thinking. Although I felt a bit proud of my body, I also felt protective of my head. “It doesn’t look that bad either!” But the young women appalled me. Vapid, torpid, stupid. When I woke up in the middle of the night, I felt only disgust for them. “The geese,” I mumbled to myself. And I was asleep again in a jiffy.