But the Mathematician shuts up, and for two reasons: the first is that he considers himself, and without a doubt is, what they call a gentleman, or rather, considering that, according to the exact phrase that crosses his mind, he couldn’t give two shits about La Chichito’s virginity or virginity in general, he doesn’t want the attentively listening Leto to think that he is suggesting that La Chichito isn’t a virgin, and the second — actually more important than the first — is that if he goes on too long with the problem, Leto could assume that virginity in general, that non-issue
par excellence, might occupy a space in his thoughts, no matter how small. But a third reason contributes to his silence: they have reached the corner, and because at this intersection the road opens to traffic again, the same bottleneck as several blocks back, when they started walking down the middle of the street with Tomatis, is repeated in the opposite direction. Crossing is going to be, the Mathematician’s face seems to say when they stop at the cable and take in the so-called panorama, a problem, but in any case we will try to solve it, Leto reads in the expression of the Mathematician, whose concentration on the task at hand is so intense that, shaking his head thoughtfully and rubbing his chin in a mechanical way, softly and distractedly — and to Leto’s unmistakable disbelief — he starts singing to himself.