Giovanna confronts Nella and Mariano’s relationship not through a direct explanation, but through gestures, silences, and their sudden appearance together. The episode ends a prolonged crisis in her home and sharpens her understanding that childhood cannot shield her from adult relationships or their consequences.

Family Distance and the Journey Down

Giovanna’s discovery unfolds against the distance separating her father’s family from the world she knows. Her maternal relatives live in Museo, while her father’s relatives seem to belong to a nameless region reached by a long descent into Naples. Her parents’ reluctance to visit, and their visible strain when they do, make the city’s geography feel like a boundary between families as well as neighborhoods. On the drive to meet Vittoria, her father finally describes the poor district where he grew up and points out the building where he lived and where Vittoria still lives.

Vittoria then takes Giovanna to meet paternal relatives in Cavone, Campi Flegrei, and Pozzuoli. The visits unsettle the narrator’s inherited assumptions: the apartments are small and plainly furnished, but the relatives welcome her warmly. They call her Giannina, a name her parents do not use, and she feels more relaxed and affectionate among them than she expects. Vittoria presses her to look closely at the contrast between these relatives and her parents, turning the family visits into a lesson in how appearances and loyalties shape what Giovanna sees.

Suspicion in the Family Circle

At a gathering with Mariano and Costanza, Giovanna watches her mother and Mariano closely. Her mother scarcely joins the conversation, while Mariano repeatedly looks toward her and speaks to her in an unusually soft, coaxing manner. When Angela asks Giovanna to stay overnight, Nella hesitates; Mariano intervenes, emphasizing that there is no school the next day and offering to take Giovanna home himself. Giovanna senses that the exchange carries a meaning the others do not acknowledge, though she cannot establish what it is.

Later, in the dark at Angela’s home, Giovanna recalls seeing her mother’s ankle between Mariano’s. She tries to dismiss the image as harmless, but cannot. Vittoria’s insistence that she look carefully returns to her mind, along with the fear that Vittoria would interpret the scene in the harshest terms and use it against Nella. Giovanna decides not to tell her aunt. The choice leaves her alone with the suspicion: she has noticed something that might matter, but has no secure way to explain it.

The Quarrel and Its Aftermath

The uncertainty deepens when Mariano disappears from Via San Giacomo dei Capri and Giovanna sees Angela and Ida less often. Angela recounts a violent quarrel between the two fathers at her home on Via Cimarosa. What began as a familiar discussion of politics and economics escalated into shouting; Costanza left, and Giovanna’s father ran after her. The girls cannot make sense of the scene, though they suspect the conflict concerns sex rather than the political subjects their fathers appeared to be debating.

Giovanna privately assembles a possible explanation: Vittoria may have told her father what Giovanna had seen, and Costanza may have learned of the closeness between Nella and Mariano. Yet the explanation remains conjecture. Her father’s anger, Costanza’s departure, and his decision to follow her leave important parts of the family crisis unresolved. The episode therefore presents the relationship through Giovanna’s partial, anxious interpretation rather than through a confirmed account of what the adults know or intend.

The Moment of Recognition

The crisis reaches its final stage when Mariano calls Giovanna and tells her that he has contacted her because she understands. After the call, Nella appears from the bedroom that used to belong to Giovanna’s parents, dressed to go out. She asks whether Giovanna had meant to go to the movies; when Giovanna says they did not, Nella says they are going now and asks whether she needs a coat. Mariano then emerges from the same room, also dressed up. Their coordinated departure gives Giovanna a concrete sign of their closeness, but the scene offers no further explanation of their relationship.

Giovanna responds cordially and accepts Mariano’s customary cheek kiss, though she notices his familiar glance at her breasts. When the two adults leave, she takes a long shower, as if to wash the encounter away. The scene’s significance lies in the shift from suspicion to an unmistakable domestic reality: her mother and Mariano are leaving together, and Giovanna cannot restore the household to its earlier order. She recognizes this as both the last phase of the crisis at home and a decisive step in her difficult approach to adulthood.

Independence and Changed Loyalties

Afterward, Giovanna reduces her contact with Nella and speaks curtly about her own plans, saying she will go to Pascone because she wants to. She understands this distance as an effort to loosen old bonds and escape the judgments of relatives and friends, including their expectations that she live consistently with the values they claim. The confrontation thus alters more than her view of her mother and Mariano: it helps propel her toward a more separate, self-directed life.