Giovanna has sex with Rosario shortly before leaving for Venice with Ida. The encounter brings together competing ideas about sexual choice: Vittoria’s intrusive advice about Giovanna’s body and virginity, Giovanna’s own uncertainty and refusal, and her eventual decision to proceed. Its immediate aftermath is not a romantic resolution; Giovanna takes off Vittoria’s bracelet and leaves it by the bed, then turns toward a new journey with Ida.

Background and Immediate Context

The encounter follows a visit in which Vittoria takes control of Giovanna’s appearance. Looking at her in a mirror, she criticizes the way Giovanna dresses, urges her to display her figure, and tells her to value her virginity and consider the consequences before giving it up. She also fastens the family bracelet onto Giovanna’s wrist. The episode makes the bracelet part of Vittoria’s attempt to shape Giovanna’s presentation and sexual conduct, even as Giovanna’s own choices remain uncertain.

In the hours afterward, Giovanna recognizes that she has no urgent need to lose her virginity. Rosario attracts her for reasons she cannot explain, but she does not call him. Instead, she contacts Ida about their planned trip to Venice. She also calls Tonino, who initially objects that his small room in Mestre cannot accommodate three people; Giovanna says they will come to greet him regardless. When Ida confirms she is coming, the journey becomes a concrete plan rather than a reason to seek out Rosario.

The Meeting and Giovanna’s Decision

Giovanna lacks the money for the trip because she has already spent what her mother gave her for her earlier journey to Milan. She presses her mother for more, this time as money for her promotion, and she and Ida prepare to leave. On a rainy, cool morning, Rosario calls at nine, apparently having heard from Corrado that Giovanna has made up her mind. He proposes taking her to Via Manzoni.

Giovanna does not follow the grooming advice Vittoria gave her. She leaves her hair uncombed and does not put on makeup, but she does wear Vittoria’s bracelet. In the car, Rosario’s apparent good humor gives way to angry complaints about other drivers. He tells Giovanna that he is nervous because he has wanted her since first seeing her and does not know whether she wants him. Giovanna answers that she does, while asking him not to hurt her. Her answer is an expression of willingness, but it does not make the encounter free of hesitation or fear.

At Rosario’s room, Giovanna declines when he proposes touching her. She is tempted to accept his greater experience, yet fears his hands and makes a clear gesture of refusal. Rosario proceeds despite that refusal, and the account presents her first sexual experience as painful. The distinction between Giovanna’s earlier agreement to go with him and her later refusal is central to the scene: agreeing to meet Rosario does not mean that she welcomes every subsequent advance.

The Bracelet and the Aftermath

Afterward, Giovanna asks whether they have had sex, and Rosario confirms that they have. She tells him that this was how she wanted to do it and kisses him. She then goes to wash and dresses. Before leaving, she unhooks the bracelet and places it on the floor beside the bed, treating it as a bad-luck charm. The object that Vittoria had just fastened onto her as part of her counsel about sexual conduct is no longer something Giovanna chooses to wear.

Rosario drives her home, dissatisfied, while Giovanna feels delighted. The contrast leaves the encounter emotionally unsettled rather than giving it a simple shared meaning. The following day, Giovanna leaves for Venice with Ida. On the train, the two friends promise to become adults in a way no one before them has. That departure gives the episode its immediate horizon: Giovanna’s sexual initiation occurs on the threshold of a journey she had already chosen with her friend, and does not replace that plan.

Narrative Significance

The episode connects intimate choice with the conflicting forms of influence surrounding Giovanna. Vittoria speaks as though a girl’s body must be deliberately presented and her virginity carefully guarded; Giovanna, by contrast, approaches Rosario without the grooming Vittoria recommended, agrees to meet him, and later refuses a specific advance. The scene preserves the difference between desire, consent to one encounter, and consent to everything that follows.

The bracelet gives that conflict a material ending. Giovanna wears it to meet Rosario but leaves it behind after the encounter, separating the experience from Vittoria’s prescriptions without erasing their influence. Her next movement is not toward Rosario but toward Venice with Ida. The event therefore marks a threshold in Giovanna’s sexual life while keeping friendship, travel, and her effort to define adulthood alongside it.