The Story of a New Name

The store opening in Piazza dei Martiri is a lavish occasion and all the guests are dressed in the clothes they wore to Lila’s wedding. Lila complains to Rino that the shop sign above the entrance reads “Solara,” even though it is Cerullo shoes that are being sold (127). Rino tells Lila to stop complaining and assures her things have to be this way for diplomatic purposes. Lila is very pale and sickly because of her pregnancy. When she goes to the bathroom, she finds blood.

Lila miscarries. Her husband and sister-in-law blame the incident on her “unwillingness” to keep a baby. But her mother-in-law, Maria Carracci, takes her side and admires her hard work in the grocery (129).

Elena, meanwhile, goes back to school. With Antonio away serving in the military and Nino off at university, she finds herself doing well. Professor Galiani wants her to attend a peace march in Naples, but her mother insists that she takes her brothers. Elena is mortified when her brothers join a group of children who are throwing stones at the demonstrators. Given that she cannot find sickly Maestra Oliviero, the woman who usually buys her books, Elena asks to share Alfonso’s books. Lila, however, who says Elena must pass with only the best grades, buys her the books. 

Professor Galiani encourages Elena to get into the habit of reading the newspapers and gives her own, used copies. In one of the papers, Elena finds a short, unsigned article that praises the artwork in the shoe shop. When Elena goes to find Lila, Lila is unimpressed, knowing that Marcello Solara paid for the publicity. One article, written in a “pompous” tone, bears the signature of Donato Sarratore, Nino’s father (137). Lila jokes that father and son resemble one another, but Elena does not want to associate Nino with his father’s “factitious phrases” (137).

The shoes are successful and both the Solaras and Carraccis make money from the shop. Rino and Stefano diminish Lila’s role in the store’s success, but Michele knows how essential she is to the enterprise. An unexplained incident happens: Lila’s panel “let out a rasping sound, a kind of sick breath, and burst into flame” (140). It escalates into a fire, which Rino must extinguish with his bare hands.

Gigliola, the sales assistant, is blamed for the fire because she has a habit of toying with her lighter. (Gigliola is Michele’s fiancée, and she is jealous of Michele’s admiration for Lila.) Gigliola claims that the image “caught fire spontaneously, like the Devil” (140). When Lila hears this explanation, she tells Elena that she has an inner violence that is “pressing” and shares a destructive fantasy about everything—from her marriage to the Solara’s and Carracci’s business interests (145).

Michele wants Lila to design more shoes, but she feels that they “had come out of her brain only that one time and they wouldn’t again.” The whole business of shoemaking has been tainted for her because she associates the activity with her brother, Rino, when they were close (143).

Lila tells Rino to design the shop’s new collection of shoes because she no longer feels capable. Rino frequently comes back to Lila for approval. At the end of every consultation, he asks for a house key. He secretly takes Pinuccia there.

Meanwhile, Elena invites Lila out and they go to a science lecture at a cultural club, where they attend a talk about Darwinism. Lila is captivated and says that she never wants to forget that humans are animals, with not much to differentiate them from the apes.

When Lila returns home, Stefano is furious because Pinuccia has become pregnant from her encounters with Rino in their bed. To add insult to injury, Pinuccia shouts: “You’re jealous because I’m a woman and Lila isn’t, because Rino knows how to behave with women and you don’t” (148). When Lila laughs at Stefano and he drives off, she assumes he is looking for a prostitute.

Elena is thrown into despair when Professor Galiani asks her to attend a party at her house. She is ashamed of her old clothes and when she tells Lila, Lila offers to accompany her. Elena worries that Lila will overdress and speak in vulgar dialect as much as she fears that everyone at the party will be “hypnotised by her intelligence” and beauty and forget about Elena (151). When Elena begs Lila not to speak in vulgar dialect, Lila asks if Elena is ashamed of her.

At the party, Elena is preceded by her reputation as a great essay writer. Lila remains quiet and answers Professor Galiani “self-consciously in monosyllables” (155). Armando says that Nadia, Professor Galiani’s daughter, is eager to meet Elena. Nadia has been dancing with Nino and she is the same “luminous girl” that Elena saw outside school, a long time ago (156).

The discovery that Nadia is Nino’s girlfriend does not ruin Elena’s evening because she feels that Nadia is “in every way better” than her. Elena is “calmed” that Nino has found such a superior match (156). Nadia is thrilled to meet Elena, who has received high praise from Professor Galiani. While Elena feels at ease at the party, Lila retreats into the library to look at the many books. Elena drags her out onto the terrace, where they are all talking about political themes. While Elena feels inspired and challenged, Lila claims that she is bored and wants to call Stefano to collect her.

In reality, as Elena later discovers from her Lila’s notebooks, Lila feels extremely hurt at Professor Galiani’s party. She feels she is either ignored or treated “as if she weren’t capable of understanding” (161). She realizes that her life will forever be Stefano and the intrigues of the neighborhood, and she feels “irrefutably lost” (161). On the way home, when Stefano picks them up, Lila heartlessly mocks the party, the attendees, and even Elena’s manner of being with them. 

Elena avoids Lila and takes a summer job in a bookshop. One day, Nadia and Nino visit and ask to see Elena on her day off. Nino turns up in the neighborhood to take a walk with Elena, ostensibly to ask her opinion on an article he has written. He asks her to show it to Lila too, but Elena refuses. He reveals he will be studying on the island of Ischia. He invites Elena to come and stay with him because he enjoys her company. Elena cannot imagine that her parents will permit this. Meanwhile, Melina mistakes Nino for his father, Donato, who was formerly her lover.

Elena is one of the few guests who has been invited to Pinuccia and Rino’s wedding—a much more modest affair than Lila and Stefano’s. Elena avoids Lila, but sees her making havoc as she flirts with Michele in front of Gigliola. Worst of all, when the toastmaster, metal merchant’s wife, lifts up Pinuccia’s wedding dress to comment on the robust, childbearing nature of her body, Lila throws a glass of wine into the woman’s face. 

At the wedding, Lila’s father Fernando asks Elena to speak to Lila. He repeats this request when Carmen, Ada, and Pasquale also beg Elena to see Lila. Apparently, Stefano and his relatives want Lila to go to the doctor to see why she has become pregnant only once. Lila is reluctant to go, and they want Elena to take her.

At Lila’s gynecological examination, the doctor advises her to become physically stronger by swimming all summer. Lila invites Elena to quit her job at the bookstore to become her paid companion in a beach house in Torre Annunziata, where her mother and Pinuccia will be present. Elena refuses.

Nino comes to the bookshop and when Elena praises his article, he kisses her lightly. He is about to go and study at Ischia.

Elena goes back to Lila and tells her that if she goes to Ischia instead of Torre Annunziata, she will go with her.

Elena, Lila, Pinuccia, Nunzia, Stefano and Rino arrive at Ischia the second Sunday in July. The men stay to get the women settled and make love to their wives. Nunzia and Elena prepare the house. Elena imagines that she will see Nino soon.

Elena persuades Lila and Pinuccia to walk to Forio, but there is no sign of Nino. Then, she suggests that they visit Barano and the Maronti, with the stated purpose of greeting Nella, the host who she stayed with two summers earlier. Apparently, the Sarratores have returned and Nino comes to visit them “when he needs money” (186).

On their way to the beach where the Sarratores are, Lila and Pinuccia tease Elena about bringing them to Ischia for Nino’s sake. Elena threatens that if the two of them embarrass her, she will go back to Naples. At the beach, they find the Sarratores and womanizing Donato Sarratore. Donato immediately tries to hug Elena and lavishes attention on Lila and Pinuccia. He offers to teach Lila how to swim. While they are in the water, Nino watches them, angry about the way his father behaves around the women. He gives Elena his house address and stalks off.

On the way home, Lila and Pinuccia are impressed with Donato, who has taught Lila how to swim. On the other hand, Elena “thought of Donato’s molestations and shuddered” (189). When she reminds them that Donato ruined Melina, Lila jokes about Donato giving Melina pleasure for once in her life. Elena feels her inexperience and says that she is going to visit Nino while the women are with their husbands. Lila, who envies Elena’s freedom, declares it is Elena’s duty to keep Nunzia company.

When the husbands arrive for the weekend, Elena notices that Lila and Stefano have reached a truce. The next day, Lila and Pinuccia take motorcycle rides on the backs of their husbands’ Lambrettas. On their return, they announce that they have seen Nino with his new friend, Bruno Soccavo, whose rich father owns a mortadella sausage factory.

Elena walks to Nino’s house in Forio and they talk about on contemporary political topics for a while. Elena realizes that while Nino loves to instruct, he does not like to be shown the gaps in his knowledge. Thus, Elena “felt that I had to pay special attention to say what he wanted today, hiding from him both my ignorance and the few things that I knew and he didn’t” (196). Nino takes Elena’s hand and they go to look at a view.

Then she hears Stefano and Rino, who are enthusiastically riding their Lambrettas, with their wives in the back. Nino says he cannot understand why Lila married moronic Stefano. 

At the beach, Lila learns to swim perfectly. Nino and Bruno Soccavo join the women. While Bruno takes Pinuccia for a walk to buy fresh coconut, Nino lectures the girls, talking about how the whole of the South of Italy has “ended up in the hands of the worst people” (202). Lila is unimpressed, saying that she was hoping to understand (by listening to Nino and Elena talk) how it was that her dead father-in-law, Don Achille, made his fortune as a loan shark and yet is close friends with Pasquale Peluso, the son of Don Achille’s Communist murderer. Nino is intimidated because he cannot give Lila a satisfactory answer. At home, Lila asks Elena to borrow a book. Elena gives her a book of Samuel Beckett’s plays, which she has not yet read. 

The group establishes a beach routine. Bruno and Pinuccia go for coconut, and Nino, Elena, and Lila stay behind to talk. Elena wishes that Nino would be more spontaneous with her, but finds the prospect unlikely now that they are surrounded by a crowd. Lila at first stays quiet, listening intently in the discussions, but then in a cultivated Italian, begins to disagree with some of Nino’s opinions. For example, when Nino speaks disparagingly of the neighborhood elementary school, which they all attended, Lila defends the place, saying it has been extremely important for her. There is some tension between Nino and Lila, because most of the time, they seem “embarrassed” by each other and do not address each other directly (209). Both Pinuccia and Lila are irritated as the weekend approaches and their husbands return.

Pinuccia’s mood begins to darken “for no reason” (211). Lila, to Elena’s annoyance, brings her insights on Samuel Beckett’s plays into her conversations with Nino and he is intrigued. He immediately asks to borrow the book and says he will come back the next day to discuss it with Lila. Lila says the next day she will be with her husband. Nino is annoyed and says he can no longer come anyway because he must go to Barano.

Pinuccia is unusually moody. Uncharacteristically, she repulses her husband’s advances. She says that she does not know what is bothering her. Elena realizes that she is missing a book and is convinced that Lila has taken it. This proves to be true when she finds the book on a chair in Lila’s room.

Pinuccia does not want her husband to leave and claims that he does not love her. Elena is sure that there is something else bothering Pinuccia, but she does not say. Meanwhile, Lila is uncharacteristically exuberant around Stefano. When the two men leave, Pinuccia is happy, saying she needs to wash her hair. Lila reads Elena’s book. When Elena asks Lila why she has started reading again, Lila tells her it is none of her business.

On Monday, Nino appears at the beach and begins to talk insultingly about his father. He goes from an intellectual discussion about Beckett to frolicking with the girls at the beach. A convivial atmosphere arises among Pinuccia, Bruno, Nino, Elena, and Lila, and they have fun playing games. Elena notices that when Lila speaks, Nino “listened attentively and seemed to lack the words for a response” (223). 

As Friday approaches and the return of the husbands is on the horizon, Pinuccia begins to cry out in despair.

Pinuccia sleeps with Elena and as a result, the two do not get any sleep at all. Elena is forced to open the window and becomes covered in mosquito bites. At the beach, Nino jokes about the husbands arriving and makes plans with Elena to go up a mountain. 

Elena, Lila, and Nino go swimming. When they dive and break apart, Elena sees that Lila and Nino have swum off without her. Meanwhile, there is no sign of Pinuccia. Bruno says that she has gone home to pack her bags because there is no way she can leave her husband for so long. 

Pinuccia is packing her bags and Nuzia tries to quiet her and persuade her to unpack her bags. Eventually, Lila returns. Changing her clothes, she prepares for the imminent arrival of the husbands. Lila orders Pinuccia to do the same and Pinuccia obeys because, following an exchange of looks, the two married young women “understood” each other (232). 

When the husbands arrive, Rino and Pinuccia have a discussion in their room, which leaves her even more unhinged and him so furious that he smashes a plate of his mother’s spaghetti on the floor. Stefano offers to take Lila to a restaurant, while Elena helps Nunzia clean up. When Lila returns, late at night, she comes into Elena’s room and confesses that Nino kissed her, “but I kept my lips closed” (235).

Lila tells Elena that the kiss happened after their long swim. When Nino kissed her hard on the mouth and confessed that he had loved her since childhood, she pushed him away and told him she was married. Elena says nothing about her own feelings for Nino or how she weeps until dawn. Reflecting on herself in that moment, Elena, the first-person narrator, says that “I wasn’t able to tell myself what my desires were with any clarity” and she certainly keeps her feelings “muted” from others (236). 

Elena goes out to meet Nino and they rent a boat. Nino only wants to talk about himself and Lila. He interrogates Elena about whether Lila truly loves her husband, about whether he himself might have a chance of making her love him. Elena positions herself as “wise counselor,” telling Nino that while Lila has found it difficult to adjust to the marriage, things are getting better (241). Elena loses her objectivity on the way home, realizing that she cannot endure the thought of watching Nino and Lila fall in love.

When she returns home, Lila says she has been looking for Elena. Pinuccia has said that if Rino does not take her home, she will die—along with the child she was carrying. Rino has relented and taken her back to Naples.

Lila tells Elena that Pinuccia had to leave because she was tormented by her feelings for Bruno. Bruno apparently has no idea. In Pinuccia’s absence, his interest in Elena becomes obvious.

At the beach, Nino and Lila continually pair off, while Bruno tries to impress Elena. Nino asks them to meet in the evening and Lila says they might be able to get an ice cream while she telephones her husband. Afterwards, Lila blames Elena for leaving her alone with “that guy” Nino (246).