...and to me he seemed to have opened the doors of a new kingdom, one to be looked at no longer with alarm and mistrust but with shared enthusiasm.
The narrator, Cosimo's brother, is always the normal one out of the two of them. Nevertheless, he looks at his older brother's bravery with admiration and a sense of jealousy. Soon everyone starts to accept Cosimo's way of life and his refusal to come down from the trees. His mother, to whom he was the least close to, is the first one to accept her son's decision and follow his trail in the trees. This idea of kingdom will appear later as Cosimo's dream of united humanity and sameness, the main reason he refuse to leave the trees.
Understanding the character of Enea Silvio Carrega was a help to Cosimo; it made him understand a lot about loneliness, which was to be of use to him later in life.
His quiet and asocial uncle is, in a way, similar to Cosimo. He begins to realize this and makes an effort to get closer to him. Cosimo also soon realizes that he doesn't want to be like his uncle, that he doesn't want to complete separate from the world. He doesn't want that kind of loneliness, and Cosimo is never far away from the rest of the world. He is always keeping close to the people and becomes a part of Ombrosa, as well as Ombrosa a part of him. His interesting way of life leaks even into the rest of the Europe.
What he meant to say is not there, for he understood something else, something that was all-embracing, and he could not say it in words but only by living as he did.
After Cosimo is gone, his brother tries to find the answer to his life in books, in philosophy. But, he soon realizes that there is no answer there. In his persistence to be entirely himself until the end, to not touch the ground even in his death, gives something to the entire humanity.
