My Brilliant Friend

Lila is so altered by what she has seen on New Year’s Eve that she loses any desire to return to the shoe shop. Rino is angry with her and, on the day of Befana (an old woman who according to Italian folklore delivers gifts to children on that day, the day of the Epiphany), he gives Lila a stocking full of coal. Meanwhile, their father announces that he has received his own gift from Befana: the shoes Rino and Lila made. (Rino has presented the shoes to their father without telling Lila.) Lila cringes, knowing that the shoes are as yet imperfect. Fernando is angry and punishes Rino with a kick in the rear. Lila and Rino are no longer so close, and she takes the shoes, puts them in a little room, and visits them, every now and then, when she wants to lament over “how much wasted work” (182). 

Elena breaks up with Gino because he embarrasses her when he laughs at Alfonso Carracci for bursting into tears following a Greek interrogation. Meanwhile, Lila has received two marriage proposals, one from Pasquale Peluso and the other from