It was late in the season, and the four guests—an elderly English couple and a young one—stood around the table as singly as the surviving fruits lay in the china dishes. Old Mr. Fenwick, who had been at the villa just a week, pushed his chair back into place and crossed to the windows. Unlatching one of the shutters, he peered into the garden, and only his wife’s going over to join him suppressed his daily utterance concerning a brisk walk. There was something of fearful symmetry about the Fenwicks, he slim and inflexible, she plump and stately. It was their first journey to Italy, and they had been gratified to find so many forebodings justified.

Through the slit that now parted the shutters, the old man stared despondently at the day. The scene, it was true, was of dimensions comparable to those of his own land—in fact, he had made the comparison all too frequently, as though Tuscany were remarkable only for this similarity—but then there was that sky. He had never experienced such a sky. In England, where heaven is a low-hung, personal affair, thoroughly identified with the King James Version, a sky such as this would not have been tolerated for a moment. It was a high, pagan explosion of a sky, promising indulgence for all kinds of offenses to which he had not the slightest inclination. He felt, beneath it, exposed and ridiculed. And the light, too—a light that not only illuminated but was an element in itself, as distinct as rain … He would go and read in his room, after all, for he realized that the brisk walk, if taken, would be somehow impeded by that dazzling light.

The younger couple, the Stapletons, lingered at the table, folding their napkins. The Stapletons had spent other summers at the villa, but this year, for the first time, they had brought with them some unconfided anxiety of their London life. Francis, a fair man with a sensitive and orderly manner, contrived to conceal his present unhappiness—or at least to give it a reasonable, disciplined air that made it socially presentable. But his wife, Harriet, carried her part of their suffering publicly, and in return received, unfairly, a greater deference.

Marina had begun to stack the dishes for the maids, who had their lunch at this hour. “Vai riposarti, cara,” she told Harriet, drawing the napkin out of her hand.