We are stories, we are the stories we belonged to, we are the stories we listened to. And Maggiani does indeed listen. He listens to the river of voices that rises in the song of the nation we could have been and are not, the voices of a people returned within the immateriality of memory. He creeps into the folds of the seemingly ordinary lives of his characters and tells all about it. He tells about a mother and father who passed away, taking with them, first in forgetfulness and then in death, a world of very concrete certainties: how to take care of things, of a home, of parental relationships. He recalls the righteous (and unrighteous) struggle of making ends meet and keeping up with those dreams lit up just beyond, in the political battles, on the sunny plain when news of Togliatti's death arrives. He tells, setting up a remarkable narrative theater, of the construction of the Military Arsenal: an immense, seething construction site where engineers and laborers, doctors and sailors, lifers and revolutionaries, cannoneers and smelters, inventors and prophets, cooks and embroiderers, flock to work to push forward common destinies, common adventures, common hopes. He tells of growing up and creating hope when hope is long gone. Never had someone looked into the eyes of a father so deeply asking for a silent forgiveness, something that goes beyond life. We all are there in Maurizio Maggiani's mythical county, assessing how much we have been, or have not been, 'founders of nations'.