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for you and for our son.
    Are you so sure the child will be a boy?
    I have the feeling I have a son.
    I have no feeling about it being a boy or a girl, but then for me it’s unimportant. I will be glad of either. I would not like to have a plain girl, for her sake not for mine. It is simpler for a boy. His looks don’t matter.
    I am proud of you. I am proud of my son. I want to hide nothing.
    You couldn’t hide us if you tried!
    I wish to give you all you need.
    We are not asking for anything.
    Laura, I will tell you something. Perhaps something you have not understood. In all my life, always, I have been rich enough to do what I wish. When I was younger, my wishes were more modest. But now I am ambitious. Ambitious for you and for our son.
    Why are you talking about money? Money has nothing to do with it, absolutely nothing. I never think about money.
    I was speaking of the feelings in my heart and my plans. I want to tell you how proud I am.
    What are your plans?
    You, the two of you, must come and live in Italy where I can see you.
    Come to Livorno, you mean?
    Livorno is an unhappy mad city.
    And your wife is there! That is why you call it mad.
    She is not from Livorno.
    She lives there. Waiting.
    Waiting?
    Waiting for you to come back.
    Passeretta mia
, you know I am married. You have known since three years.
    So we mustn’t come to Livorno. So we must become your illegitimate wife and your illegitimate child. Do you know what we call that? Bastard. It’s your bastard. But it’s my child. And that’s why we can’t come to Livorno.
    Do not be excited.
    Why have you never let me come to Livorno? Because you were frightened we would be recognized.
    I wanted all possible things to please you. I wanted the days we spent together to have no shadow on them. I feel that still. I want it. But now we have more than days together to share. I can hardly believe what has happened to us, to you and me, to me, Umberto, and to you, Laura. Everything is changed.
    What will your wife say when you tell her that you have installed your mistress and your bastard child in the town?
    She will say nothing.
    You propose to tell her?
    No.
    And you imagine she will not know?
    Naturally she will know, but she will say nothing.
    And you say you are proud of us! You are not a father. You are a man with a weakness for a little American tart.
    I beg you not to shout and say words like that.
Passeretta mia
, what has changed you?
    This is what has changed me. (She thumps her stomach.)
    Yes, he has changed everything. I want you to live in Pisa. I have seen a villa there, a beautiful villa with a magnificent English garden and tall rooms with painted ceilings. Once it belonged to a
Conte
. I want to buy it for you, Laura.
    And we are to wait there for you to visit us. How many times a week? Every Tuesday and Friday?
    Or you could live in Florence, in Fiesole above the Arno which is a corner of paradise.
    When you have installed us, what do you propose we do? How can you be so stupid? Can you not see that we would be prisoners in a jail?
    Jail! You would be free to go wherever you wished.
    Who would we meet? Who would we talk to?
    I would arrange Italian lessons for you.
    That is why you want to call him Giovanni!
    I would like him to speak several languages. Then he will be able to travel. I have not travelled enough in my life.
    Umberto, I cannot believe you are being serious. You should know better than I what kind of country Italy is. Nobody would know us. We would be outcasts. A woman who is not married with an illegitimate child.
    My dear, you are married.
    Not to you I’m not.
    One day I may be in a position to marry you.
    You mean you will get a divorce?
    In my country to make a divorce is almost impossible.
    So you cannot marry me.
    My wife is a sick woman.
    I see. We shall wait in our jail until she dies. And then you will be gracious enough to make us respectable. How do you dare to make such a proposal?
    I love you.
    Love! What is it?