I went to my room early. Michele had already gone to bed, and was reading. I lay close to him, as he went on reading, and I pretended to sleep as if it were any other evening. I thought that perhaps Michele, too, sometimes pretended to sleep. And that of this continuous pretense of being asleep and remaining awake in one’s own anguish, without the other realizing it, the story of an exemplary marriage is made.
