It’s finally time to set off on holiday: a guide to different types of holidaymakers

Now on our fourth heatwave, we’re only still alive by some miracle. I don’t think there’s any real hope of finding a bit of cool somewhere, nor of spending a night with the air con off so we can wake up – I can’t even remember what that was like anymore – with at least a semblance of our faculties intact. We wander around the cities like insects that have flown into the blue light too many times, harbouring a thought we wouldn’t even admit to ourselves because it’s so grave and merely an expression of crass capitalism: but in this state, why go on holiday at all? With what energy, with how much enthusiasm, to go where, to do what, to be with whom, to tell ourselves what?

Let’s count them.

I am the Ulysses whom no one realises is right beside them: because everyone is unaware of how ‘polytropos’ one must be to have held out heroically, still standing, productive and clear-headed during this period when the medical advice was: stay at home and don’t move. They’ve been harbouring a grudge about my departure since June; now they’ve run out of strength and beneath their skin there’s an electric current of nervousness ready to explode. At the seaside, they’ll sleep the whole time with their book still open at page one, and the people around them, who don’t know any better, will wonder, ‘What’s wrong with them?’ Everything – we’ve got everything – just leave us be.

Il Malinconico semplice has been posing as a summer-hater for years now and so continues with his literary streak of discontent. He always posts the same designer cards on Instagram:

Ginzburg: The days leading up to Ferragosto seem to drag on forever. Everyone’s going away, and they ask us if we’re going too. It’s impossible to answer, as we’re among those who have no desire either to go away or to stay.

Flaiano: Boredom and melancholy lie in wait wherever one goes in search of entertainment or a change of scene. Tourism, a sad invention. There is no health outside one’s own cave. Stay put.

Pavese: Summer is killing me.

He’s tired, but not in the same way as ‘Low Blood Pressure’; his tiredness is more a matter of character development. He thinks summer is just a contrivance invented to force people to prove they have friends and desires.

Since that’s a form of hubris too, it happens that a wealthy acquaintance – one of those who’ll say on the phone, without boasting, “we’re on a boat heading for Capri”, just as I’d say “I’m at Esselunga” – invites him over for the weekend. The Simple Melancholic accepts, and it’s the best thing that could happen to him. A swim in the blue sea in the morning, gin and tonic in the afternoon, red freselle piled high with tomato, deserted coves with green water. The offshore wind revitalises him; he feels joy returning to his body, and thinks about how lucky we are – that, despite everything, despite the wretched business of living, we could try to be happy. At six in the evening, tipsy and with his nose slightly sunburnt, he’d like to admit: “Perhaps life is beautiful.” But his inner trade-unionist voice is quick to chime in: “Of course it’s beautiful – but only for the rich.”

Ecce Homo looks at the suitcases lying open on the bed and wonders how he ended up there. So this, then, is the reward for a year of working my fingers to the bone. Two weeks of breakfasts with the family, chats with the family, market trips with the family, carrying the crate of water home, the supermarket at six, ice cream and a stroll at nine. In desperate cases: the merry-go-rounds.

They have no will of their own; they go with the flow, let anyone have their way, they approve, pay up and pack their bags. They don’t complain; they’re decent enough company. The Darwinian species.

These are fireproof; the heat hasn’t broken them because they are devoted to the cause. They are the ones convinced that there are only two ways to travel, and that they possess the correct version of the art of moving from one place to another.

Tough itineraries, domestic flights (the more ramshackle the plane, the more colourful stories they’ll have to tell). An overnight coach leaving at 4 am. A light rucksack weighing eleven kilos. What I’ve realised is that they do it for narrative prestige: they’re convinced that on winter evenings over dinner with friends, they’ll be the ones to shine, like Robinson Crusoe. A recurring theme is the stories of ticks or insects they’ve picked up during their wildest adventures. Fortunately, they’re interrupted and overshadowed by the friend who never goes anywhere but has the most incredible gossip.