In the present, set in a café in Venice, a waiter tells the legend of a house where "two who loved each other wanted to die there together."

The "legend" is intertwined with the life of Vittoria Aganoor, who in Venice itself was planning to buy the "lovers' house" (Venice, March 1895) and in a recently found letter, where the house is finely drawn, extols the beauty of dying together for love. The mystery of thelast romantic tragedy of the Belle Epoque-which has Italy from Unification to the eve of the outbreak of the Great War (1855-1910) in the bac...