The Tuscan light, like an olive oil mist, illuminates the girl's features, presents her youth as polished marble limbs expressing supple lust, blank eyes reflections of her virgin soul. She is only a barmaid, but he is enthralled. He fumbles with the phrasebook, in the men's room no less, piecing together his desperation while his tourist wife sits in the front of the enoteca, bovine ankles crossed, quaffing a wine she can't pronounce and waiting for him so they can leave and she can buy more things. Isn't this fun, she will ask when he returns.

The girl is not even as old as his fidelity. He cannot bear his guilt in the mirror, so looks away, imagining his face younger, and practices his phrase in a low voice. Surely she expects it after the prelude of his lustful eye, his whispered compliments. He assures himself that his wife, in her neglect, pushed him to this passion.

So he obeys. He must proclaim himself to this Leda; only then will he be sated, restored to swan-like virility. Then he can go back to his wife for another twenty years. He repeats the words until they seem natural, as though he lived in this place.

A flush for appearances, and he steps out into the cool, dark hallway, a shadow along the mottled wall. The girl is in the back room, stretching to reach the top rack where the best bottles are stored.

She is all desire. En pointe, an arabesque, her blouse separating from her jeans to reveal a flash of midriff, a pale curve leading to perfect mystery, an artist’s inspiration. He rushes forward, a ballerino, to seize her waist and lift her to heaven. She turns to stare at him, eyes with no promise.

Words like doves, he lets them fly: Bella! Bella! You are the song in my heart! Yet to his ears, it is an empty, graceless lament.

She smiles at him, touches his forearm. His heart contracts in fright and he stands, immobile. Grazie, mister, she says, and leaves him in the darkened room.