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without moving. Still in the mirror, I saw her stop in the doorway and turn, as she said in a casual tone: “You won’t mind, will you, if I sleep on the divan bed, in the other room?”
    “Just for tonight, you mean?” I inquired, puzzled and still uncomprehending.
    “No, for always,” she replied hurriedly. “To tell you the truth, that was one of the reasons why I wanted a new home. I really can’t go on sleeping with the shutters open, as you like to do. I wake up every morning at the crack of dawn and then I can’t go to sleep again, and I go about all day long with a sleepy feeling in my head. You don’t mind, do you? I do think it’s really better for us to sleep separate.”
    I still failed to understand, and at first I felt no more than vaguely irritated at an innovation so completely unexpected. Walking across to her, I said: “But this can’t go on. We’ve only two rooms; in one there’s the bed, and in the other, the armchairs and divans. Why...? Besides, sleeping on a divan, even if it can be turned into a bed, is not very comfortable!”
    “I never dared tell you, before, “ she answered, lowering her eyes without looking at me.
    “During these two years,” I persisted, “you’ve never once complained...I thought you’d got accustomed to it.”
    She raised her head, pleased, it seemed to me, that I had taken up the point of the excuse she had made. “I’ve never got accustomed to it...I’ve always slept badly...recently, in fact, perhaps because my nerves are bad nowadays, I’ve hardly been sleeping at all...If we could only go to bed early; but, one way or another, we’re always late...and then...” She did not finish her sentence and made as if to move away towards the living-room. I went after her and said hastily: “Wait a minute. If you like, we can perfectly well give up sleeping with the shutters open. It’s all right—from now on we’ll sleep with them shut.”
    I realized, as I spoke, that this proposal was not merely a demonstration of affectionate compliance; in reality, as I knew, I wanted to put her to the test. I saw her shake her head, and she answered, with a faint smile: “No, no...why should you sacrifice yourself? You’ve always said you feel suffocated with the shutters closed. It’s better for us to sleep apart.”
    “I assure you, for me it will be a very slight sacrifice...I shall soon get used to it.”
    She appeared to hesitate and then said, with unexpected firmness: “No, I don’t want any sacrifices—either great or small...I shall sleep in the other room.”
    “And what if I say I don’t like it, and that I want you to sleep with me?”
    She hesitated again. Then, in the good-natured tone which was usual to her: “Riccardo, that’s just like you. You didn’t want to make this sacrifice two years ago, when we got married; and now you want to make it, at all costs. What’s the matter with you? Plenty of married people sleep apart and are fond of each other just the same. And you’ll be freer in the mornings, too, when you have to go to work; you won’t wake me up any more.”
    “But you’ve just said you always woke at dawn...I don’t leave the house at dawn!...”
    “Oh, how pig-headed you are!” she exclaimed impatiently. And this time, without paying any more attention to me, she left the room.
    Left alone, I sat down on the bed, which, despoiled of one of its pillows, already had about it a suggestion of separation and desertion, and so I remained for some moments in bewilderment, looking at the open door through which Emilia had disappeared. One question came into my mind: did Emilia not want to sleep with me any longer because the daylight really annoyed her, or simply because she did not want to go on sleeping with me? I was inclined to believe in the second of these alternatives, although I longed with all my heart to believe in the first. I felt, however, that if I had accepted Emilia’s explanation, there would always have