longer find the doll. Leda does not confess that she has her doll and while she talks about motherhood with Nina and Rosaria she admits to her own surprise that she abandoned her daughters for three years in infancy. Rosaria and Nina are disturbed by the news and hastily leave. Determined to return the doll, Leda calls the number on a flyer posted by Elena's family to find the toy and it is Nina who answers, whom the protagonist surprises in an intimate moment with Gino. In the following days, in which she still does not return the doll, Leda ends up understanding that her fascination for Nina arises above all from her recognizing herself in her. Like Nina, Leda too was a young and talented mother trapped in a claustrophobic and unnerving situation, from which she had then escaped when her daughters were still small to devote herself to an academic career and a relationship with an esteemed English professor. She had returned to her daughters only three years later and since then she had painstakingly rebuilt a relationship with them. Gino asks Leda if she can use her house for a secret rendez-vous with Nina and the woman replies to tell Nina to ask her directly. Nina gets in touch with Leda, who invites her to her house. Leda tries to urge her to go back to studying, to leave her husband and do like her, but for Nina, Leda's behavior is clearly that of an unnatural mother. However, Leda agrees to leave her the keys to the apartment and also returns her toy. Nina reacts violently to the discovery that Leda has kept the doll all this time despite knowing how much Elena suffered without her, insults her and pricks her with a hatpin that Leda herself had given her. Left alone, Leda packs her bags and decides to go back to Florence, but before leaving the house she receives a phone call from her daughters. Characters Leda: protagonist and narrator. Forty-eight-year-old English literature professor, divorced, mother of two daughters. Nina: young mother of twenty-two. Elena: also known as Lenù, Nina's daughter. Rosaria: Nina's sister-in-law, she is expecting her first child. Gino: lifeguard on the beach where Leda goes, in love with Nina. Giovanni: seventy-year-old factotum, manages the penthouse rented by Leda. Bianca: the eldest daughter of Leda and Gianni. Marta: the second daughter of Leda and