IV + 

Gian-Luca escaped upstairs to his room⁠—Olga’s room, in which he now slept. He wondered why Rosa’s children always howled; he could never remember them other than howling. He thought Geppe greedy and Berta a bore; he did not like either of them very much, and yet they had Mario for their father, and Mario loved them⁠—that was so strange, for he, Gian-Luca went unloved. There was Fabio, of course, but Fabio did not count, or at least he counted very little. Fabio felt old when you touched his skin, he had pains in his back, he was timid of Teresa⁠—Teresa who might have counted. + 

Gian-Luca sat down on the well-worn sofa and began to think over Teresa. With a queer, tight feeling round his heart, he realized that he no longer loved her. She allured him still, and that must be why he had that tight feeling round his heart. When she spoke in her quiet, flat voice, he had to listen; when she wished something done, he had perforce to do it, willing and eager to obey; but he no longer loved her or wished for her love⁠—and that made him feel the more lonely. + 

He tried to picture Teresa as she had been, or rather, as he had once seen her; to recapture some of the sense of beauty that had shrouded her presence like incense. His head fell back and he closed his eyes, the better to conjure up the vision, but all that he saw now was a gaunt, ageing woman with beetling brows and a high, pinched nose; a woman whose hair showed the scalp at the temples, whose lips were too pale, whose chin sagged a little, and whose teeth were no longer very white. And something in all this was intolerable to him, so that unwilling tears trickled under his closed eyelids⁠—tears for himself, but also for Teresa⁠—because he no longer found her fair. + 

He could hear the sound of laughter coming up from downstairs; then of quarrelling⁠—Berta and Geppe⁠—Fabio’s voice, heavy and soft after supper; Rosa’s voice, loud, rather shrill; and from time to time Teresa’s slow words, spoken in a pause between stitches. A door banged; thump⁠—thump⁠—that would be Nerone, come to fetch Fabio for their game of dominoes⁠—“Buona serai Buona sera; vanno bene tutti?” Then more talk, more laughter, and Nerone’s wooden leg stumping away with Fabio. + 

Gian-Luca put his head on one side and listened. His people! But were they his people? If he was English then they were not his people; and at this thought his weeping broke out afresh, he buried his face in his arm. All that was nearest and dearest about them came back to him in a flood; he wept for them now as a small child will weep for faces lost in the dark. Even Rocca and his goats seemed less to be condemned; had not Rocca offered him fruit drops? + 

There was something worth loving then, even in Rocca⁠—something that he wanted to cling to. + 

He lifted his face and stared round the room, his eyes wandered over to the wound above the bed; it had grown in dimensions, for the thin, dry plaster had crumbled still further with the years. Gian-Luca no longer wished to prod it with his finger; he merely thought it very ugly; it seemed to add to his own desolation, itself so desolate a thing. He rubbed away the tears with the back of his hand⁠—resentful, almost angry⁠—then he suddenly remembered Teresa’s words⁠—courageous words, coldly courageous. Going over to the table he found pencil and paper: “I have got myself,” wrote Gian-Luca. Climbing on to the bed, he pinned up his motto, then he climbed down again the better to see it. + 

And that was how Gian-Luca tried to cover up the wound in the plaster⁠—and in his own heart. + 