T A B L E_T A L K How did you learn a second language? Discuss immersion, classroom and other methods in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk ___________________ Are you dying to go to Italy? Read all about it at barnesandnoble.com ___________________   R E C E N T L Y An innocent abroad: Part One By Bill Barich A semester in Florence shapes a young writer's life (12/20/98) If you film it, they will come By Steve Rushin A passionate sports fan begins his cross-country pilgrimage with a visit to Iowa's Field of Dreams (12/18/98) Christmas in Germany By Deanna Hodgin A family visit to Nuremberg's Christkindlesmarkt turns into a lesson for adults and children alike (12/17/98) Brahmaputra: Tales From the River By Tiziana and Gianni Baldizzone Extraordinary photographs portray a mighty river's journey through Tibet, India and Bangladesh (12/16/98) The yuckiest food in the Amazon By Mary Roach What tastes even worse than rodent knee and saliva-flavored manioc mash? (12/15/98)   Browse the Wanderlust Feature archives     Wanderlust's Official Travel Book Partner		_____An innocent abroad, Part 2 _____A YOUNG WRITER IN FLORENCE ENCOUNTERS _____ENDURING LESSONS IN ART AND LOVE.     [ Read Part One ] BY BILL BARICH | Our taxi speeds toward the center of Florence and the piazza where our college is located. We are late arrivals, bad students who have missed the school bus in Portovenere on account of wine, sunshine, Byron and Shelley. The director rolls his eyes at the sight of us. A fleshy, operatic man, he wears an ascot, leans on a walking stick and affects a British accent. Probably he has read too much Henry James. Cynthia is still nervous, thinking she might be expelled, but there's no way. The college has already banked our tuition. Instead, the director reprimands us -- irresponsible behavior, detrimental to the group, blah blah blah. It's silly. In fact, my free-form education on the Continent is progressing nicely. In the last week, I've almost danced with a sailor in drag and almost made it with a hooker in Genoa. Who knows what I'll learn next? In another room, Italian families are waiting. They will be our hosts for the next few months, taking us in as boarders. They're dressed in their church clothes and look uneasy about the deal they've struck. To invite an uncultured young American into your home is no laughing matter. It's best to lock up the jewelry and the majolica. Cynthia is claimed, and so are Gregor and Jessica. Finally, the director summons me and introduces me to an elderly woman with bright blue eyes -- eyes that men must have fallen into, swooning, when she was younger. This is the marchesa. She has on a black dress shiny from wear, and her white hair is in a tight bun held fast with an elegant tortoise-shell comb. Her cheeks are round and rosy. She smiles at me in a serenely accepting way. I am drawn to her immediately. Some people age with a special grace, without any bitterness, and the marchesa is among them. It's her smile that gets me. She can see right into my soul. Absurd, yes, but I'm certain of it. It can happen like that at a first meeting -- no barriers, no sense of opposition, a kind of purity. She knows I'm up to no good in Italy, but it doesn't faze her. What's youth for, if not for adventure? I will bring her a dozen roses one day, and she will weep. At twilight, we set out on foot for her flat. The marchesa limps a bit, favoring her left side. Still, she's cheerful. The walking is tough on me, though, what with a heavy suitcase on my shoulder. My feet are sore from the long taxi ride. I had Cynthia on my lap for hours, and she cut off the blood flow to my legs. How unfair! I've often wished for a woman on my lap, and when I get one it hurts. It turns out the marchesa has fallen on hard times. Her flat occupies the ground floor of an old palazzo, where she has six cold, dark rooms hung with sun-bleached tapestries. Touch an armchair and you raise a cloud of dust. Ancestors in antique gilt frames loom large. They are brooding presences, distant and unfathomable. I can hear them whispering. The marchesa calls for her family. They assemble in the parlor. Here's her son Aldo, a 40ish bureaucrat, who lives in the flat, too, along with his shy wife, Lucretia, and their son Giorgio, who's 13 and -- incredibly -- a baseball fan. He says to me, in perfect English, "Hello, sir. You are from New York. Tell me, please, how are the New York Yankees?" I am thrown off-stride. The few responses I've mastered in Italian will not suffice. "Well, they need a starting pitcher if they hope to win the pennant next year," I say, also in English. "And Mickey Mantle?" "He's been injured. It's been a rough year for him." Giorgio dashes to his bedroom and returns with his baseball glove, scuffed and ragged. He keeps the pocket soft by rubbing it with olive oil. It could be a sacred icon, by his tender caress. We sit down to supper. The marchesa serves thin vegetable soup, chewy bread and a stringy piece of boiled beef, but not a drop of wine. Hardly anyone speaks, mostly because of Aldo. Frankly, he's a pain. He imposes order. He reminds me of the hawk-nosed Florentine merchants you see in paintings, bent over a pile of coins. My soul is a blank to him and always will be. For dessert, there is a special chestnut pudding. It tastes awful to me, but I don't let on. Instead, I kiss my fingertips and sing its praises, a gesture for which I pay dearly. Soon chestnut pudding shows up on the table almost nightly, until the stuff is coming out my ears! Only Gregor suffers a worse fate. He lands in a house with a family that worships fennel, and they feed him endless plates of it over pasta, sautéed, deep-fried or raw in salads. By the end of the semester, he stinks of anise. N E X T+P A G E | The torture of classes   DETAIL OF ILLUSTRATION BY JOE MORSE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Become a Salon member. Click here.