Summary

The next chapter in Part V: Feel Free is titled “The Shadow of Ideas” and is written in both the first and second person. She goes to the Piazza della Madonna dei Monti in Rome, where she takes photos like a tourist while her partner reads the financial pages like a local. They argue about whether to go see a performance of Vivaldi. They go to Venice and visit Piazza San Marco. They try to cross the crowded plaza so that they can attend a party. Next they are in Piazza Navona in Rome, where they watch the Guardia di Finanza “chase a group of African bag-sellers” (412). As one of the African men runs past her, Smith observes that he crosses the path of a Bernini statue of a Moor: “The African ran...