No one had uttered a word to me; I had been barely introduced, named as a dog might be; I had not opened my mouth; I remained silent....

I noticed that my silent presence, the necessity for which she failed to see, but which impressed her, nevertheless, as being mysteriously necessary, was beginning to disturb her. No one thought of offering her any explanation; I could not offer her one myself. I had seemed to her a person like the rest; or rather, at first sight, a person more akin to herself than the rest. Now she was beginning to be aware that for these other people and also for herself (in a vague way) I was not, properly speaking, a person. She began to feel that my person was not necessary; but that my presence there had the necessity of a thing, which she as yet did not understand; and that I remained silent for that reason. They might speak, yes, they, all four of them--because they were people, each of them represented a person, his or her own; but I, no: I was a thing: why, perhaps the thing that was resting on my knees, wrapped in a black cloth.

And yet I too had a mouth to speak with, eyes to see with, and the said eyes, look, were shining as they rested on her; and certainly within myself I felt...

Oh, Signorina Luisetta, if you only knew the joy that his own feelings were affording the person--not necessary as such, but as a thing--who sat opposite to you! Did it occur to you that I--albeit seated in front of you like that, like a thing--was capable of feeling within myself? Perhaps. But what I was feeling, behind my mask of impassivity, that you certainly could not imagine.