Franco and The Sweet Life

From D’Annunzio to Dolce & Gabbana, ‘La Dolce Vita’ has always been complicated

It was lunchtime in Rome, and as he does every day, Franco was closing the shop where he restores antique furniture and retouches damaged sculptures and paintings. I was delaying him with my questions.

“You still pay rent, right? You still pay taxes. You still have to eat.” I wanted to understand why Franco shuttered his shop every August, two weeks each December, and -- as on that day -- for a few hours each afternoon.

A few weeks earlier, I’d read that Italy’s economy slipped a notch or two on the list of the world’s largest economies each August, when the country all but shuts down and most Italians go to the beach. I was planning a magazine piece on the topic and wondered whether Italians ever questioned their long tradition of enjoying so much down time.

Author and poet Gabriele D’Annunzio around 1905 (Wikimedia photo)

But Franco -- gray-haired, in his 60s, with callused hands and thick, dusty glasses -- didn’t get my point.

I tried another angle: “Are you good at what you do?”

He nodded.

“Well,” I said, “then how would you feel about someone who does the same job as you earning more money? Not because he’s better at it, but because he lives in a country where people work in August, they work in December, and they don’t close the shop every afternoon.”

“That’s his choice,” Franco shrugged.

“Yes, exactly!” I grew up in the U.S. and knew the value of hard work and efficiency. To me, Franco’s choices seemed irrational. “The other guy makes that choice and so he’s more competitive than you, wealthier than you -- even though he’s not better at his job.”

“But I’m not trying to become wealthy,” Franco told me when I finished. “I’m trying to have a nice life.”

I should have stopped there. Instead, I doubled down.

“How nice will your life be when that other man buys you out?” I asked. “He’ll be able to afford a lifestyle you can’t.”

Franco studied my face for a few seconds, then sighed.

“Look, when I finish talking to you, which will be in about two minutes,” he said, pulling down the retractable steel grill over the glass shop door. “When I finish talking to you, I’ll call my wife and tell her to put on the water for the pasta because I’m headed home. And when I get there, she’ll have a big hot plate of spaghetti waiting for me.

“We’ll have lunch, I’ll tell her about my day so far, and she’ll tell me about hers,” he said. “And sometimes, when I’m lucky -- and I’m usually lucky -- she’ll have a certain look in her eye. We’ll go into the bedroom, and we’ll make love. Then we’ll take a little nap together. After a while, I’ll get up, take a shower. I’ll get dressed and she’ll have a cup of espresso waiting for me before I go back to work.”

Franco cracked a mischievous smile and asked, “Do you think I care about being competitive?”