‘But how is it, so young and already so near-sighted?’ the young woman had asked Nunziata, while she signed the receipt for the deposit. ‘And so shabby, too!’ she added.

‘Young lady, in our house we all have good eyes, this is a misfortune that came upon us … along with the rest. God rubs salt in the wound.’

‘Come back in eight days,’ the doctor had said. ‘I’ll have them for you.’

Leaving, Eugenia had tripped on the step.

‘Thank you, Aunt Nunzia,’ she had said after a while. ‘I’m always rude to you. I talk back to you, and you are so kind, buying me eyeglasses.’

Her voice trembled.

‘My child, it’s better not to see the world than to see it,’ Nunziata had responded with sudden melancholy.

Eugenia hadn’t answered her that time, either. Aunt Nunzia was often so strange, she wept and shouted for no good reason, she said so many bad words, and yet she went to Mass regularly, she was a good Christian, and when it came to helping someone in trouble she always volunteered, wholeheartedly. One didn’t have to watch over her.

Since that day, Eugenia had lived in a kind of rapture, waiting for the blessed glasses that would allow her to see all people and things in their tiny details. Until then, she had been wrapped in a fog: the room where she lived, the courtyard always full of hanging laundry, the alley overflowing with colours and cries, everything for her was covered by a thin veil: she knew well only the faces of her family, especially her mother and her siblings, because often she slept with them, and sometimes she woke at night and, in the light of the oil lamp, looked at them. Her mother slept with her mouth open, her broken yellow teeth visible; her brother and sister, Pasqualino and Teresella, were always dirty and snot-nosed and covered with boils: when they slept, they made a strange noise, as if they had wild animals inside them. Sometimes Eugenia surprised herself by staring at them, without understanding, however, what she was thinking. She had a confused feeling that beyond that room always full of wet laundry, with broken chairs and a stinking toilet, there was light, sounds, beautiful things, and in that moment when she had put on the glasses she had had a true revelation: the world outside was beautiful, very beautiful.

‘Marchesa, my respects.’

That was the voice of her father. Covered by a ragged shirt, his back, which until that moment had been framed by the doorway of the basement apartment, could no longer be seen. The voice of the marchesa, a placid and indifferent voice, now said:

‘You must do me a favour, Don Peppino.’

‘At your service … your wish is my command.’

Silently, Eugenia slid out of bed, put on her dress, and, still barefoot, went to the door. The pure and marvellous early morning sun, entering the ugly courtyard through a crack between the buildings, greeted her, lit up her little old lady’s face, her stubbly, dishevelled hair, her rough, hard small hands, with their long, dirty nails. Oh, if only at that moment she could have had the eyeglasses! The marchesa was there, in her black silk dress with its white lace neckpiece. Her imposing yet benign appearance enchanted Eugenia, along with her bejewelled white hands; but she couldn’t see her face very well – it was a whitish oval patch. Above it, some purple feathers quivered.