La Tempesta Summary

At the conclusion of the war, Alessandro takes a brief vacation at a rundown hotel on the Adriatic Sea. He site in a beach chair through a driving thunderstorm, surrounded by lightning, hoping for "a kind and quick stroke that would take him where the heart could not be broken." He meets and befriends an accountant named Arturo who only likes whole numbers and who does his accounting using only "rounded, even numbers." He says his method of accounting, which he calls the esthetic method, is the reason he is unsuccessful and must vacation with his family in the fall. Alessandro tells Arturo about his academic background and say he prefers to be a gardener instead. One night a terrific storm blows in from the sea, and as Alessandro listens in his room to the booming noises "he realize[s] that...