[...] When I look at Michele, I’m sorry I no longer want to go to Venice with him. Everything would be easy, simple, clear, and I wouldn’t struggle with so many opposing feelings. But if I went with him, I wouldn’t feel that happiness I long for. We’d sit at a café in Piazza San Marco, silent, listening to the music, distracting ourselves with the faces of the passersby, as we do sometimes in August when Rome is deserted and we sit in the café in the square nearby, where there’s a little orchestra that often plays Ratcliff’s Dream. Maybe we’d find some excitement at a table in a trattoria with good food; but I don’t like going to a trattoria with Michele. At the end, when I see the bills that, after checking the figure twice, he places on the table, I always think it wasn’t worth the trouble.