A leopard parses his concern

1. I am concerned about Claudia Cardinale.

2. By ‘concerned’ I mean ‘in lust with’.

3. By ‘in lust with’ I mean ‘I sigh for’.

4. By ‘I sigh for’ I mean ‘my eyes are hungry for her when she appears on screen’.

5. By ‘hungry’ I mean ‘revel in her’.

6. By ‘revel’ I mean ‘enjoy’.

7. By ‘enjoy’ I mean ‘endure’.

8. By ‘endure’ I mean ‘wait in the hope that she might, like a god, pick me out to be noticed, even though I have done nothing noticeable’.

9. By ‘pick me out’ I mean ‘not actually come near me lest my reserves of charm desert me at a highly inopportune moment’.

10. By ‘not actually come near me’ I mean ‘actually come near me, preferably in a darkened Neapolitan hotel room’.

11. By ‘darkened’ I mean ‘the presence of Lampedusa will be evident; he will be sitting in a green damask armchair, his walking stick tapping out the beat of a fugue’.

12. By ‘fugue’ I mean ‘a Morse code translation of his most famous quote’.

13. By ‘quote’ I mean ‘the only appropriate approach to living’.

14. By ‘living’ I mean ‘love’.