Summary

After the strange encounter with Juan the painter, Elena cannot sleep. At length Silvia’s baby, Mirko, begins to cry. Elena leaves her room to find Silvia and the baby. At first, Silvia is unhappy to see Elena. She makes some mentions of being a terrible mother and starts crying. Elena takes the baby and rocks him back to sleep. The two women start talking about marriage and motherhood. Silvia confides that she never meant to have the baby. In the sexual freedom of the university, the group of young people feels immortal and beyond the laws of science. The baby’s father, Silvia says, never paid any attention to him. His name, Silvia says, is Nino Sarratore.

In Chapter 20, Elena is overwhelmed with the knowledge that Nino fathered two children that he does not pay attention to. The next morning she and...