Casaubon resists Lorenza’s advances

Casaubon resists Lorenza Pellegrini’s apparent advances during a night at Belbo’s house, but the episode is not a simple absence of desire: he recognizes that he wants her and then deliberately turns his thoughts toward Lia and their hoped-for child. The brief encounter exposes a tension between attraction and commitment without showing Casaubon acting on the attraction.

The Night at Belbo’s House

Earlier that evening, Lorenza had tested Jacopo Belbo’s nerves. Later, as Casaubon lay in his room, he heard a scratching at his door. Half-asleep, he could not determine whether it came from an animal; he had seen no dogs or cats in the house. He nonetheless experienced the sound as a possible invitation, request, or trap, and wondered whether Lorenza was provoking him because she knew Belbo was watching her.

Casaubon’s Interpretation of Lorenza

Until that night, Casaubon had treated Lorenza as Belbo’s territory, at least in his own understanding of their relationships. He had taken the sly, conspiratorial looks she gave him in the office or a bar, while teasing Belbo, as part of a game in which he was an ally or witness. He understood her manner as a sexual challenge to men, but had not regarded himself as its object. The scratching at his door changes the meaning of those earlier looks: he can no longer keep his response at the distance of observation.

Desire and Restraint

Casaubon names the change plainly: he feels desire for Lorenza. His response, however, is to put his head under the pillow and think of Lia. He reminds himself that he wants to have a child with Lia, imagining teaching that child to play the trumpet once there is enough breath. The thought does not erase his attraction; it gives him a chosen direction at the moment it becomes personal. The episode therefore records both the temptation and his refusal to pursue it.

Significance

The scene turns on the contrast between a possible summons from Lorenza and Casaubon’s inward return to Lia and a shared future. Its outcome is limited but clear: the evidence shows desire, hesitation, and a deliberate redirection of thought, not an affair or a spoken confrontation. By connecting restraint to Casaubon’s wish for a child and even to the trumpet, the episode gives his commitment a concrete imagined shape rather than presenting it as an abstract rule.