Lake Maggiore is the setting of the narrator’s mother’s attempt to build a life apart from the narrator’s father. She finds work at a hospital there after their separation, and the lake becomes the backdrop to a brief interval of distance from the family home and its past; when the father falls ill again, she leaves Italy and returns to Schleswig.

Setting and New Beginning

After the separation, the narrator’s mother remains in the family house for a time, then goes to Italy and finds what the narrator describes as beautiful work at a hospital on Lake Maggiore. The move is an effort to begin again, not simply a change of address: the parents are apart, and the house they shared, situated within the psychiatric hospital grounds, stands empty, with plans afoot to turn it into an assisted-living ward.

Life Above the Lake

The narrator’s calls make the distance vivid. While the father is living in Lübeck, children can be heard in the background when the narrator speaks with him. The mother, by contrast, is pictured sitting on a balcony high above the lake, enjoying the warm evening. The scene gives Lake Maggiore a quiet association with her newly established independence, set against the unresolved changes in the family.

Departure and Significance

That new life does not last. When the father becomes ill again, the mother eventually leaves Italy and returns to Schleswig. The narrator says it took time to understand her decision to dismantle the life she had just built and go back to him, despite the years of betrayal and emotional distance in their marriage. Lake Maggiore therefore marks both a real beginning and a temporary one: it is the place from which she returns when her former family life, changed by illness, draws her back.