I was mistaken. Now I return to the moment when Stefano took us away from Ischia, and I know for certain that the moment the boat pulled out from the shore and Lila realized that she would no longer find Nino waiting for her on the beach in the morning, would no longer debate, talk, whisper with him, that they would no longer swim together, no longer kiss and caress and love each other, she was violently scarred by suffering. Within a few days the entire life of Signora Carracci—balances and imbalances, strategies, battles, wars and alliances, troubles with suppliers and customers, the art of cheating on the weight, the devotion to piling up money in the drawer of the cash register—dematerialized, lost truth. Only Nino was concrete and true, and she who wanted him, who desired him day and night, who clung to her husband in the darkness of the bedroom to forget the other even for a few moments. A terrible fraction of time. It was in those very moments that she felt most strongly the need to have him, and so clearly, with such a precision of detail, that she pushed Stefano away like a stranger and took refuge in a corner of the bed, weeping and shouting insults, or she ran to the bathroom and locked herself in.