Lago di Lugano is more than the setting for a journey: it is the landscape through which Donna Fedele and Lelia approach San Mamette, and its changing weather gives outward form to the inward pressure of their travel. For Donna Fedele, the lake marks the approach to a meeting she fears and longs for; for Lelia, its rain, fog, and sudden wind accompany a passage from dread toward decisive purpose. The same waters can seem still and sheltering or dark and wild, making the crossing a measure of each woman’s changing state.

Setting and Route

At Porto Ceresio, Donna Fedele first sees the lake and knows that she is nearing her destination. She is so unsteady that the porter must accompany her to the café, carrying her valise, handbag, and umbrella stand. Seated on the terrace, she can scarcely taste the milk she has ordered. The boat from Ponte Tresa has not yet appeared beyond the wooded headland, and the wait prolongs her anticipation: she is certain she will reach the people she has come to see, but that certainty brings anxiety as well as pleasure.

The view at this pause is composed around stillness. The terrace is empty, the green water lies motionless in the fierce sun, and white Morcote stands opposite in silence. Mountains rise behind the lake and frame its winding course toward Lugano, which remains out of sight. Their apparent peace is precisely what Donna Fedele cannot share; she feels it as something she longs for but cannot possess. The boat’s emergence from behind the western headland turns this quiet prospect into a practical threshold. She must leave the café and make her way to the landing, and the porter returns to help her when the time comes.

Crossings and Encounters

Lelia reaches Porto Ceresio in rain, under a fog so thick that only the dark lower edges of the mountains can be seen around the pale, rippled lake. Unlike Donna Fedele, she is glad of the obscured view: she can imagine approaching Massimo without being seen. The empty landing and lack of any visible boat postpone the meeting she is travelling toward. When a dark speck finally appears beyond the headland, however, the delay ends. Boarding in the heavy rain, she pauses on the gangway, nearly breathless and without opening her umbrella.

The voyage initially leaves Lelia withdrawn. She sits at the stern, scarcely attending to the water, while the measured thud of the engines seems to join the pounding of her heart. Asked where she is going, she names San Mamette rather than Lugano. Learning that the crossing will take more than an hour, and that Lugano comes first, briefly eases the immediacy of the encounter. She watches the rain stipple the water and the dark foothills along the shore, but remains absorbed in her own tension. San Mamette, pointed out in the distance where the lake fades into fog, becomes a place of mystery as well as a destination.

Weather and Emotional Change

The shore recedes behind the boat as it passes the hotels, damp houses, and dark gardens of Lugano. With the departure from the city, Lelia’s inward state changes abruptly: the reasons for giving herself to the course she has chosen return with force. She leaves her seat in first class and stands alone at the bow, facing forward in the fine rain. At Gandria, the rain stops. A violent tivano darkens the water ahead, while fog rises along the wet mountain slopes; the summits of Galbiga and Bisgnago, the dolomitic heights of Valsolda, and, far away, Legnone emerge through the cloud.

When the boat enters the wind, Lelia’s veil and clothes stream backward like banners, but she does not move. The black lake and dark, rugged mountains intensify her sense of purpose. The scene briefly gives the natural world a voice: the wind seems to ask whether she is there, while the mountains silently affirm her presence. Across the water, the dolomite peaks appear to expose a passion of stone that answers her own passion. This is not simply picturesque scenery. The weather and landscape make visible the force gathering within Lelia, and the lake crossing becomes the hinge between her earlier hesitation and her newfound certainty.

Arrival and Narrative Significance

The approach to San Mamette restores a practical rhythm to the scene. When the ticket collector announces the next stop, Lelia becomes cold and composed. She leaves the boat with a firm step, although the bad weather has left the landing and square nearly empty. A worker at the pier points her toward Albergo Valsolda, only a short distance away. Its small, dark entrance offers no immediate sign of life; Lelia hesitates at the foot of the stairs until someone comes down, sees her, and goes back up, apparently to alert the innkeeper.

The lake thus connects two journeys without making them emotionally identical. Donna Fedele’s crossing begins in physical weakness and anxious expectation; Lelia’s passage moves from concealment and delay to a resolve that the wind seems to confirm. Porto Ceresio, Lugano, Gandria, and San Mamette are not interchangeable points on a route: each marks a shift in what can be seen, how soon the meeting seems to come, and how each traveller can bear its approach. By making the women’s inward changes legible through the lake’s stillness, fog, rain, and sudden storm wind, the novel turns the crossing itself into a consequential part of the action.