Tonino’s fight at the cinema and his departure from Naples form a single turning point: an evening out with Angela, Giuliana, and Giovanna escalates from harassment to violence, then ends with Tonino calling Giovanna to apologize and say goodbye. The episode exposes the danger of being unable to see clearly under emotional pressure, while making Giovanna the person Tonino trusts to understand him.

Setting and Circumstances

The outing takes place at the Modernissimo. Tonino pays for the tickets and buys candy and ice cream; the four enter while the lights are still on and sit together. Three boys behind them begin talking and laughing. The girls, absorbed in conversation, initially pay them little attention, but their indifference appears to provoke the boys. One calls for the girls to sit with them, and the boys continue making advances and disrupting the group.

The immediate tension is not only between the boys and the girls. Angela is already angry with Tonino and uses the confrontation as an occasion to tell him she is fed up and will no longer go out with him. When he proposes moving to seats farther ahead, Giuliana and Giovanna follow him; Angela hesitates, then joins them, calling him ridiculous. The group has shifted seats, but the hostility follows: the boys move behind them again and accuse Tonino of letting Angela order him around.

The Fight

As the film begins, Angela asks Tonino whether he heard the insult. Tonino suddenly slaps her. The blow startles the group and leaves Angela crying; Giuliana takes Giovanna’s hand and urges that they get Tonino out of the theater. The boys’ spokesman taunts Tonino, and Tonino responds by attacking him. Giuliana tries to restrain her brother, while the other boys look for a way out.

The confrontation grows into a wider disturbance. Tonino continues attacking the boy as the audience shouts for the lights to be turned on and for the police. Giuliana, Giovanna, and Angela pull at Tonino’s arms and urge him to leave. They eventually get him to the exit. Giuliana urges him to run, and Tonino insists that a respectable person ought to be able to watch a film peacefully in the city. Giovanna agrees in order to calm him. He then runs off toward Piazza Dante.

Consequences for Angela and Giovanna

On the way to the funicular, Angela is confused and distressed. She complains that Tonino struck her, says she never wants to see him again, and is also hurt that Giuliana said goodbye only to Giovanna. At first she blames Tonino and Giuliana, describing them as badly brought up; she then concedes that she was wrong to love someone like Tonino and acknowledges her own part in what happened. Her account does not erase the harm or her anger, but it shows her moving between blame, regret, and self-reproach.

Giovanna rejects Angela’s simple judgment that Tonino and Giuliana are badly brought up. She suggests instead that people can reach a point when they can no longer see straight. Walking home, she turns that phrase over, imagining blindness as something that can fall across ordinary, orderly social behavior and make a person collide with others. She considers whether intense feelings—hatred and love alike—can obscure judgment, and connects the question to earlier family conflicts and to her own anger after an insult. The cinema episode thus becomes more than a quarrel: it gives Giovanna a way to think about emotional blindness across different relationships.

Apology and Departure

Later that Saturday evening, Giovanna is alone in the dark, quiet apartment when the telephone rings. Expecting Giuliana, she finds Tonino on the line. He speaks calmly and says, “I wanted to apologize and say goodbye to you.” Giovanna asks where he is going. In their brief exchange, he explains that he will write once he has a place and gives his reason for calling: “Because you’re someone who understands.”

The call follows the public outburst with a private recognition of responsibility: Tonino apologizes to Giovanna and announces his departure, rather than asking her to excuse the violence. His confidence in her understanding also distinguishes her from the other people caught up in the incident. The episode ends without detailing what happens after he leaves or showing a reconciliation with Angela; its immediate aftermath is Tonino’s farewell and Giovanna’s sadness after hanging up.