What a wonderful story! I am enchanted and delighted. To create so much effect with so little action. You let the human imagination come alive.

A very good contrast between repentance, insensitive children, the regret of a life that wasn't lived to its full bloom and the late realization that it's never too late. For an adventure that can be as exciting for an older man as a climb on a steep cliff. I want to shout to Mario that he doesn't have to regret anything. To be a man of responsibility is to be a man of appropriate action. All in good time. And: he could just as well have died that night. And we would smile anyway.

It's beautiful how you've covered the modern world with a touch of classicism, which I take to be totally positive, because I much prefer this kind of romance. How difficult it would have been on its own to actually do all this and turn Allesandro into Mario. It's a good thing you spared him this. I almost was smelling her perfume.

You could make friends with death by reading these lines:

Mario always thought the young man was lucky. He lived full and utterly and died before life weakened him with its ceaseless demands.

As long as a person knows how to distinguish between carelessness and serenity, it doesn't matter how long he lives.