I was only a schoolboy at the time, but I shall never
forget my first glimpse of the High City, or the stimulating
sensation, like the tips of countless pincneedles lightly
pricking my skin, of the tonic air, full of electricity,
after the enervating boardship atmosphere in which I
had been living for some days. The death of both my
parents in a road accident had left, nothing but debts, so
that I couldn’t travel by air, as almost everyone did who
came to this new town, so unlike anything I had ever
seen before, where I was about to begin a new and splen—
did life, thanks to an unknown rich uncle, who had
always been a sort of family fable, and had now offered
to take responsibility for me.