Enzo's death is presented through Vittoria’s account at his tomb, not as an independently narrated scene. She says he died of a terrible illness a few months after their relationship ended, and interprets that illness as grief caused by the separation. Her explanation makes the death both a personal loss and an accusation against Andrea, whom she considers responsible for keeping the lovers apart.

The Account at the Tomb

The conversation takes place on the seventeenth anniversary of Vittoria and Enzo’s love. Giovanna asks how Enzo died; Vittoria answers that he suffered from a terrible illness, and that he died a few months after their relationship ended. When Giovanna asks whether he died of grief, Vittoria confirms this interpretation and says Andrea caused their separation and, in that sense, killed Enzo.

The account is framed by Giovanna’s doubts. She remembers Andrea’s insistence that informing on others was the worst thing one could do, and cannot reconcile that principle with Vittoria’s allegation that he had done so. Although she believes Andrea must have had reasons, she does not challenge Vittoria at Enzo’s tomb, feeling that denial would be offensive. Her silence leaves the accusation unresolved rather than establishing it as an uncontested fact.

Separation, Illness, and Loss

Vittoria connects the chronology of Enzo’s illness to the end of their relationship: he became ill after they were separated, and died within months. She attributes his sickness to grief and names Andrea as the cause of that grief. The narrative therefore presents the death through Vittoria’s understanding of its causes; it does not provide an independent medical explanation or confirm her accusation from another perspective.

Vittoria describes the end of the affair as a painful reversal. Margherita had taken Enzo back, but, according to Vittoria, later recognized how ill he was and urged him to return to Vittoria, regretting that she had not done so earlier. By then, Vittoria says, it was too late to prevent his death. The two women remained together through his illness until his last moments.

Margherita and Vittoria’s Shared Grief

The account complicates a simple rivalry between the two women. Vittoria acknowledges that she took Enzo from Margherita and would not have willingly given him up, but describes Margherita as eventually understanding the depth of her love and suffering. Margherita accepted that they had loved the same man and, as Vittoria recounts it, welcomed Vittoria’s affection for Enzo’s children. Their care for him during his final illness turns an earlier conflict over the relationship into a shared vigil.

Vittoria presents Margherita’s response as an exceptional act of generosity, contrasting it with what she sees as the conventional importance and self-regard of Andrea, Giovanna’s mother, and their friends. She wants Giovanna to meet Margherita, whose conduct, in her account, offers a different measure of moral greatness. The death thus remains inseparable from the relationships it rearranges: the loss of Enzo brings the betrayed wife and the lover into a form of painful solidarity.

Giovanna as Listener and Witness

The scene’s emotional force lies partly in Giovanna’s position between competing accounts. She feels sorrow for Vittoria, Enzo, Margherita, and the couple’s three young children, while trying to preserve her faith in Andrea. She does not simply accept Vittoria’s claim, but neither can she dismiss it without seeming to accuse a grieving woman of lying beside Enzo’s tomb.

The flowers in the brightening daylight and the protected photographs at the tomb place the conversation amid visible reminders of death and memory. Vittoria cleans the glass ovals over the photographs with a tear-stained handkerchief as Giovanna asks difficult questions. The death is therefore disclosed through an intimate act of remembrance and a contested explanation: Giovanna hears what Vittoria believes happened, but leaves without resolving whether her father caused Enzo’s separation, illness, or death.