As he often mentioned how important his classical education had been to him, it therefore seems appropriate to me now to recall the final verses of a well-known poem by Eugenio Montale, “Non chiederci la parola”, “Don’t Ask Us for the Word”), a poem also dear to Federico Caffè: “N on domandarci la formula che mondi possa aprirti, / sì qualche storta sillaba e secca come un ramo.
/ Codesto solo oggi possiamo dirti, / ciò che non siamo, ciò che non vogliamo.” (in Valeriu Raut’s English translation: “Don’t ask us for the phrase that can open worlds, / just a few gnarled syllables, dry like a branch. / This, today, is all that we can tell you: / what we are not, what we do not want.”).