When his father died, Benedetto Vai, already fifty years old, was momentarily overcome with emotion that touched him to the very depths of his soul: with emotion and grandeur the moment the old man, with a strength unexpected in a dying person, grabbed his son’s wrist before breathing his last. And he felt, after that brief, fleeting moment, as if his whole being were slipping free from a bond: after that last squeeze of the hand he alone was responsible for his own actions and for himself, as if it was only then that he had actually become a grown man.

For over twenty years the house of Benedetto Vai dwelt in the silence he had imposed on it as if fulfilling a most exacting duty.

He had ended up living in one spacious room, where he had his childhood bed, a chest of drawers, a cupboard and, in the middle of it, a large round table. Three times a day Leonia would serve his meals on it, and on that table every Monday the master would leave her the money for the weekly shopping, almost as if a little angel had conveniently deposited it there during the night. Leonia had to manage this money with all the cunning and resourcefulness of her station, since it was impossible for her to ask for any additional amount. Sometimes the master would attempt to leave a little less on the table, but fearing that this might give the woman occasion to open her mouth, the next time he would end up leaving a little more.

If in that house, where an old gentleman lived with his equally elderly housekeeper, there had occurred between yawns the usual discussions relating to everyday life; the endless chatter and the most conventional, inevitable squabbling over every domestic chore, the unseasonable weather and the shopping bills, the increases in the price of milk, vegetables and pasta; the gossip of the concierge about petty news of the neighbourhood that was as old as the hills, subjects of a stagnant life that was absurdly vacuous, entirely vegetative and insulated against the slightest vibration or shock – then the house would have seemed cold and empty. Instead it was full, brimming, swollen, at boiling point with that silence, like a boiler threatening daily to explode. There was not a moment in the day when silence did not fill the place entirely; there was not a single nook or cranny that the silence had not filled with the imposing solemnity of its presence.

The Vai family linen was dwindling by the day; Leonia had to repair the repairs, to patch and to sew, to make do and mend in order to prolong its life. Even the undergarments of the master, along with the rest of his wardrobe, were only kept going by this woman’s incessant ministrations, allowing him to cut a still respectable figure in public.