The Garden of the Finzi-Continis

The narrator dreams about Micòl and is angry with an imaginary Perotti lurking outside the dream carriage. They cannot be alone in the dream. The dreams are obsessive but not romantic or sexual, and yet the narrator is paranoid in his sleep about being caught with her. When they fight in the dream, he imagines Micòl arguing that “the thing between us” began at the very start of their adulthood (91). Despite comforting him, dream Micòl refuses to leave the estate.

When awake, the narrator calls Micòl and speaks with Alberto. The narrator rambles to Alberto and shows off about his recent visit to Bologna. He brags about visiting the Via dell’Oca which he discretely calls “one of the most famous...rooming houses...in Italy” (93), referring to a brothel. Alberto is embarrassed and shares his own dry plans for Milan before revealing that Micòl isn’t home. She suddenly took a trip to Venice to graduate from university early. Alberto insists that Micòl will give up and return soon, and he invites the narrator to the house. Although the conversation goes on, the narrator is “attracted but also repelled” by the idea of returning to the inside of the house (95). He once visited the estate on his own to stare at Micòl’s window, and when caught by Alberto, the narrator fled and pretended not to hear his loud whistling. Even though Micòl won’t be there, Alberto’s offer to come to the house appeals to him. The narrator makes up his mind to visit when he is told that he missed a phone call from Micòl curtly explaining that she had to leave for Venice.

The narrator visits Alberto every day that winter while Micòl constantly delays returning home. On his first visit, the Professor greets him at the door and ushers him and his bicycle inside. The Professor insists that the bicycle should be locked and safe. He has an unsettled appearance; Perotti is also sick and Micòl is still away. The Professor insists that Micòl was vital to the running of the house. Steering the narrator through a lavishly furnished home, the narrator arrives at Alberto’s study. While they share tea and make conversation about music, Malnate calls to say that he won’t be joining them, leaving the two of them alone.

Micòl writes to the narrator a letter to convince him to return to the house and visit Alberto. Her concern for her brother quickly transitions into pages of writing on her thesis. She includes a translation of Emily Dickinson, but the narrator worries about her post-script and its meaning. He wonders if she is depressed in Venice but only addresses certain things in his reply. He promises to go back to the house and uses a dictionary to carefully go over every word of Micòl’s translation. He compliments her choices and offers a different translation of the ending. Taking his advice into consideration, Micòl writes back with new versions. Despite writing 10 pages in reply to her, he is self-conscious about their writing not matching the ease with which they talked on the phone, so the letters slowly stop. He starts regularly visiting with Alberto and by extension Malnate. They discuss current events and the future. Malnate changes when the conversation turns to the USSR or the war in Spain. He compares fascism to a disease, but he presumes that Alberto and the narrator see it as a sudden affliction. Malnate passionately explains the last decades of Italian history. Alberto chooses to side with Malnate instead of being the odd person out.

Alberto, Micòl, and the narrator face a strange and embarrassing dilemma with their respective theses. While all three need them to graduate, it is unclear whether Italy’s oppressive laws will let them finish. Alberto reacts by throwing himself into playing host for Malnate and the narrator. Eventually, Malnate’s positivity about Ferrara and the working conditions pushes the narrator into anger. He yells at him about being kicked out of the Municipal Library; even his friendships with the librarian and his years of coming there could not protect him. Finally, the narrator defends his father and the way they integrated their whole lives to fit the predominant Italian culture, and yet they are still rejected. His two younger siblings are being denied the educational opportunities that the narrator is now struggling to complete. It is Alberto’s conspiratorial glance that stops his ranting.

The narrator calls home to say that he’ll be staying at the Finzi-Contini home for dinner, and his father still assures him that he’ll be awake when the narrator comes home, since he has insomnia. At the dinner, a place is saved for Micòl (as it always is), and the Professor keeps the narrator at his end of the table. Besides tracking the beauty of the room, the narrator notes the happiness in the family. They are almost joyful instead of bitter. They invite the narrator to work on his thesis in the family library.

Within the library, there are an impressive number of books on the very subject the narrator studies. Micòl has completed her degree, but she delays returning from Venice. With winter lingering, it is hard to imagine the spring and graduation. The narrator’s work keeps him there so late that he no longer calls home to warn that he’ll miss dinner. Despite seeing Malnate and Alberto, no one visits him in the library except for Perotti. Perotti admires all the work Alberto and Micòl are doing to graduate, but Perotti believes that neither Alberto nor Micòl need to earn a living. Perotti echoes the Professor’s comments that Micòl is needed to run the house, but the narrator refuses to partake in complaining about the family. The pressure of the Professor’s belief in him tires him, but when the Professor hints about the Carducci letters again, the narrator promptly encourages him to show off. There are a lifetime of collections in the study, and the narrator is presented with the two small essays that make up the Professor’s scholarly works. One essay catalogs a Jewish cemetery, and the other details the life of an underrated poet. The Professor urges him to advocate for his specific interpretation of the poet Sara Enriquez, which has been dismissed by other scholars. They keep the door to their work areas open and exchange pleasantries. They mirror the same attitude and camaraderie that the narrator later had yelling to the cellmate down the hall in prison—this aside reveals that the narrator goes to prison for his antifascism in the period between World War 2 and the present day.

As the two families celebrate Passover, the narrator’s father decides to have a subdued celebration given that the whole family is not together. (The older narrator reveals that the extended relatives brought together for this holiday will later die in German crematory ovens.) The narrator’s brother, Ernesto, is studying abroad in France. The staff members of the two families are very different. The narrator’s family could not keep their two servants due to the new antisemitic laws and are resigned to keep an elderly woman, Signorina Cohen, working. In contrast, the Finzi-Contini family argued successfully that their maids were farm workers and were allowed to keep them on staff.

The narrator passes harsh judgment on “bourgeois” habits, calling them dull. He projects his misery onto Signorina Cohen; even this respectable older woman didn’t want to be there but would rather go back to her own house to die. By staying around the table, listening to talk of politics and antisemitism and complaints, the narrator feels trapped. He is rescued by a call from Alberto, inviting him to the house. Tempted by a surprise that is almost certainly Micòl, the narrator gives an excuse to Signorina Cohen and not his family and leaves.

Before arriving at the house, the narrator sees Jor standing at the bridge, proving that Micòl is home. The narrator descends from his bicycle and kisses her when he sees her. His apology is rejected when Micòl says that it was her fault for coming to meet him. She changes the subject, motioning to the snow, and the narrator catches her wrist to spot a ring on her left hand. She tricks him into thinking that she’s engaged and laughs at him. They go inside, and she tells the story of her thesis and how the German professor kept her from being awarded the honor of cum laude. The group is happy to see him as he takes his usual place at the Professor’s right. The narrator regrets not going to Venice to kiss Micòl sooner.