‘You see how beautiful it is, with no need to go to the seaside?’

I felt the entirety of her innocent soul pressing against me. I was overcome by love. And I, too, now searched for something simple to say to her. With my cheek resting on her cool arm, I whispered:

‘Your modest desires deserve a prize.’

She softened and once again laughed joyfully. But when I didn’t join in she stopped laughing and looked at me expectantly. Something fluttered in the air and touched me. I saw that she also had felt something. Her shoulders instantly trembled and she said:

‘What is it? How beautiful!’

The whole room filled with a kind of light breath which then immediately disappeared. All around me I saw a flickering light; this too passed before my and Aminta’s eyes, then fled away.

‘Oh, how fabulous this is!’ Aminta murmured.

She was sitting at the edge of the carpet and I was further back, almost behind her. A sweet, strange murmuring sound reached us, fading at her feet. I saw that she was listening intently.

The ground murmured again, while before our eyes everything in the room vanished into a light mist infiltrated by blue shadows and silver flashes.

By now the murmuring coming from the ground had become regular and frequent. It originated far away, swished nearby and died down at her feet. The murmuring then became prolonged: one, coming close, seemed to expand. Suddenly, she let out a cry and drew back her feet.

‘Look, look,’ she cried.

I looked. Her green slipper was wet, as was her foot up to her ankle.

And again, again …

The gushing increased. The sound of tiny waves arriving at the edge of the carpet continued, pushing at her feet and alongside her legs. Fearlessly, she leaned forward, plunged her hands into those waves, then lifted them out dripping with water.

‘The sea, the sea.’

The silver and blue mist around us filled with light and the carpet burned like sand. Aminta dived in, outstretched, her breasts extending over the edge, then she came back up, the wet silk clinging to her chest, her nipples erect. I stared at her, ecstatic, and listened to the sea, which had come to visit us.

Suddenly, a bigger wave reached me and I felt the water rising as far as my calves.

I jumped to my feet, alarmed: ‘Aminta, I’d better go and put on my bathing suit too.’

‘Yes,’ she cried. ‘There’s one in the bottom drawer of your bureau, but hurry.’

And both of us were very happy.

‘La spiaggia miracolosa ovvero Premio della modestia (Aminta)’

Written between 1925 and 1927 and published in a national newspaper, then included in Donna nel sole e altri idilli (Mondadori, 1928) and in Miracoli (Mondadori, 1938).