Dominick's visit to Prosperine during the hurricane is a bedside plea for forgiveness staged through the image of two rabbits becoming one. As wind and rain strike the building, he brings the rabbits to a woman whose chart says Do Not Resuscitate, asks her to make him whole again, and repeats before her the reversal of a mysterious event she had witnessed long ago. Her final response is a touch and a sequence of gestures, not a spoken assurance; Dominick leaves without looking back.

Arrival at the bedside

Dominick reaches Prosperine during the hurricane with two borrowed rabbits in a box. The borrowing is awkward and urgent: he backs away from the person who has lent them, explaining that there is an emergency. His own description of the undertaking as a rabbit emergency underscores how strange the errand must seem against the storm outside. The animals are not incidental cargo. Dominick carries them into the room because the plea he needs to make depends on their presence.

The name on the medical information identifies the patient as Prosperine Albrizio, while Dominick also considers her as Prosperine Tucci. He sets aside the uncertainty of which name applies, concentrating instead on arriving before it is too late. The chart's Do Not Resuscitate instruction makes the room a place where the possibility of death is explicit, even as Dominick's purpose is not medical intervention but an attempt at reconciliation.

He places the box on the floor and stands before her. Prosperine is barely responsive: her breathing is wheezy, her eyes are filmy and narrowed, and at first she gives no clear sign that she knows anyone is there. Dominick's request therefore begins under radical uncertainty. He cannot tell whether she hears him or understands why he has come.

The plea and the rabbits

Dominick asks Prosperine to forgive him, then asks whether she can forgive him and make him whole again. The repeated appeal makes the visit more than an act of companionship at a deathbed. He presents himself as someone who needs forgiveness, but also as someone who feels incomplete without it. He does not explain the offense in this moment; the scene gives the request its force through repetition, the dying woman's condition, and the rabbits he has brought to her.

He lifts both rabbits by the scruffs of their necks and holds them before her. One kicks in the air and then becomes still as the pair rocks back and forth before the Monkey. The handling is deliberate and visible: Dominick positions the animals in Prosperine's line of sight, making them the focus of his appeal. When he puts one rabbit back in the box and holds the other alone before her, the two have become one in the scene's staging.

Dominick connects this image to the dark magic Prosperine had witnessed long ago. The encounter thus turns on a reversal: he brings before her a paired image, then reduces it to one, recalling an earlier experience without explaining it anew. The rabbits give his request a form that words alone cannot supply. Whether he intends the display as a re-creation, a correction, or an appeal for release, its meaning is anchored in the past event she saw and in his present need to be forgiven.

Prosperine's response

After Dominick whispers for forgiveness, Prosperine's hand emerges from beneath the sheet. She reaches out and caresses the rabbit's fur. The gesture is the clearest sign of contact in the encounter: she has not answered his question aloud, but she touches the animal he has held before her. Her hand then moves back to touch her forehead, heart, left shoulder, and right shoulder, in that order.

The scene preserves the difference between response and certainty. Prosperine's eyes close again, and Dominick does not report that she speaks, recognizes him, or grants forgiveness. Her touch may carry significance for him, but the narration does not convert it into an explicit answer. Instead, the reader sees a frail hand move from the rabbit to Prosperine's own body while the storm continues outside. The gesture is concrete; its ultimate meaning remains unstated.

Departure and significance

Dominick puts the rabbit back in the box, picks it up, and leaves without looking back. The departure ends the scene without resolving the plea in words. He has brought the animals, arranged the reversal, and asked to be made whole; Prosperine has touched the rabbit and made a measured gesture, but the question of forgiveness remains open to interpretation.

The visit concentrates several of the novel's recurring concerns in one sharply bounded action: pairedness and loss, memory made present through an object, and the wish to undo or reverse what cannot simply be undone. The rabbits make the past visible in the room, while Prosperine's condition places the possibility of a reply beyond Dominick's control. His final choice not to look back gives the encounter its quiet ending: he carries the box away, but the scene does not claim that his burden has been lifted.