Summary

In Chapter 5, “Valera is Dead”, Valera reflected on his first motorcycle ride and realized that the old version of himself had died and he had become a new person. A young man called Lonzi, from a wealthy Milanese family, was the unofficial leader of the group of people Valera had begun hanging around with at the Caffé Aragno. The men were convinced that Italy had become stale and lethargic and that a new kind of world was coming, but they could not yet predict what it would be like. Lonzi said that in the future women would be reduced to silent entities whose sole purpose was the sexual satisfaction of men.

When World War 1 began, the gang from the Caffé Aragno all volunteered and ended up in motorcycle battalions. Half of the gang was killed during the course of the war. After the war...