I knew I would see Arianna again. I sensed it. It was one afternoon, a week later. She was walking idly along Via Frattina, window-shopping. I’d just left the newspaper and was headed back to the hotel on foot. She saw me.

“I can’t believe it!” she said excitedly.

“Yes, you can,” I said. “I survived.”

“I’ll never forgive you,” she said. “What have you been up to?” she went on, grabbing me by the wrists. “Let me see. You don’t even have any scars.” Then she looked at me closely. “I’m pleased to see you, do you know that?”

There was a different tone to her voice, but I recognized it. I would have recognized it among a thousand voices, after a thousand years, in whatever world I found myself. We were silent for a moment, looking each other up and down. She was beautiful, of course, but her style had changed, and she had changed too. She was wearing a calf-length dress and a silk blouse with a black bow at the chest. Her hair was gathered at the back of her neck and her big eyes devoured my face. She was calm, without conceit, and somehow recalled the women you see in old sepia photographs.

“How about a pick-me-up?” she said.

“I’ve quit drinking.”

“Again? That makes it a vice,” she said, walking into the bar opposite. She ordered a sherry and thanked the bartender with one of her smiles. He was elderly and reminded her of Signor Sandro.

“Sandro’s not around anymore,” I said. “He’s retired.” She asked where he’d gone and I said the first thing that came into my head—an old hotel in Stresa.

“Let’s not name names, please,” she said. “What are you doing?”

“The same thing,” I said. “How about you and architecture?”

“I love the Romanesque,” she said innocently. “Why?” Then we started to laugh, and we left the bar to continue window-shopping. “You remember how I liked to think I could buy the clothes?” she said. I remembered. “I’m bored with it now, but he wants me to dress up, always dress up!” she said impatiently.

“Do you love him?” I said.

She said they were getting married at the end of the summer.

“Good.”

“Why do you say good? You, of all people, should say bad.”

“Bad.”

She shrugged, left me high and dry, and walked into a store. I realized I would never love another woman in my entire life. I followed her in. She was looking excitedly through the dresses hanging on a long rack. “There’s never anything here,” she said, completely ignoring the salesclerk. Then she walked out and went into the store next door.