'O lupo perde 'o pilo ma nun 'o vizio

Old habits stay underneath, even when they seem to be gone.

The smoke of the past

A guy in my building had quit smoking eight years earlier and told everyone about it. One summer evening I saw him on his balcony with a cigarette in his hand, in the dark. He saw me too. We didn’t say anything; he just raised his hand a little, as if to wave. The next day, in the elevator, he told me about when he’d started, at fourteen, behind the school gym.