Nino stayed for ten days. Nothing of what happened in that time had anything to do with the yearning for seduction I had experienced years earlier. I didn’t joke with him; I didn’t act flirtatious; I didn’t assail him with all sorts of favors; I didn’t play the part of the liberated woman, modeling myself on my sister-in-law; I didn’t tenderly seek his gaze; I didn’t contrive to sit next to him at the table or on the couch, in front of the television; I didn’t go around the house half-dressed; I didn’t try to be alone with him; I didn’t graze his elbow with mine, his arm with my arm or breast, his leg with my leg. I was timid, restrained, spoke concisely, making sure only that he ate well, that the girls didn’t bother him, that he felt comfortable. And it wasn’t a choice, I couldn’t have behaved differently. He joked a lot with Pietro, with Dede, with Elsa, but as soon as he spoke to me he became serious, he seemed to measure his words as if there were not an old friendship between us. And it seemed right to me to do the same. I was very happy to have him in the house, and yet I felt no need for confidential tones and gestures; in fact, I liked staying on the edge and avoiding contact between us. I felt like a drop of rain in a spiderweb, and I was careful not to slide down.