Nothing, nothing, not even the shadow of a memory, not even the shadow of a desire. Nothing! It was all over. It had disappeared. The secret of an instant, buried forever. Well, this is what made your husband go mad. Not the sin, which neither of us thought of committing! No, it was this: the thought that an honest woman who is in love with her husband can fall into the arms of another man instantly, unwillingly, as a result of a sudden surprise attack from the senses, because of a mysterious complicity of time and place; and that a moment later it would all be over forever. The whirlpool would be closed and the secret buried. There would be no remorse, no turmoil, no effort expended to lie to others or to one another. He waited one, two, three days. He felt no stirring within himself, neither in your presence nor in mine. He saw me go back to being as I was before, exactly as I was before, with you, with him. A little later he saw my husband return to the villa, remember? He saw how I welcomed him, with what concern, with what love... and so then the watery abyss in which our secret had sunk and disappeared forever without the slightest trace gradually began to attract his attention, until it ultimately destroyed his mind. He thought of you. He thought that perhaps you, too..."

"Me. too?"

"Oh, Bice, no doubt it's never happened to you. That I believe, Bice, my dear! But we, that is, he and I, know from experience that it can happen, and that, since it was possible in our case, without our wanting it, it can be possible for anyone at all! He probably thought that there were times when, returning home, he found you alone in the living room with some friend of his, and that what happened to me and to him could in an instant and in exactly the same way have happened to you and to that friend. And he probably thought that you could have been able to shut up inside yourself without leaving a trace, and hide without lying, that same secret that I shut up inside myself and hid from my husband without lying. And as soon as this thought entered his mind, a subtle, sharp, burning sensation began to gnaw away at his brain, in seeing you so detached, so happy, so loving with him, just as I was with my husband, my husband whom I love, I swear it, more than myself, more than anything in the world! He began thinking: And yet, this woman, who is behaving like this towards her husband, was for a moment in my arms! So then maybe my wife too, in a moment... Who knows?... Who can ever know?... And he went mad. Oh! Quiet, Bice, keep quiet, for heaven's sake!" Gabriella Vanzi got up. She was trembling and extremely pale. She had heard the door open out there in the entrance hall. Her husband had just returned home.

Donna Bicetta Daddi, seeing her friend suddenly recompose herself — her face regaining its color, her eyes turning limpid, and her lips forcing a smile as she moved towards her husband — stood there almost thunderstruck.

Nothing. Yes, it was true: no more anxiety, no remorse, no hint of anything...

And Donna Bicetta understood perfectly well why her husband, Romeo Daddi, had gone mad.

The Reality of the Dream

It seemed that everything he said had the same indisputable to ascendency as his good looks. Since there could be no question about the fact that he was an exceedingly handsome man — really handsome in all respects — it was as if likewise there could never be any question about anything he said.

And yet he understood nothing. He really understood nothing about what was happening within her!

In hearing the explanations he gave with such self-confidence about certain instinctive impulses of hers, certain perhaps unfair dislikes of hers, certain feelings of hers, she was tempted scratch, slap, and bite him.

She felt this way also because, with that same coolness and self-confidence, and that pride that came to him from being a handsome young man, he would fail her in certain other moments when he approached her to satisfy a need. In those moments he was timid, humble, suppliant; in a word, just the opposite of how she would have liked him to be. Hence, even then she had another reason to feel irritated, and so much so that, though inclined to submit to him, she became reluctant to do so, and would freeze up.