Maria is a forty-year-old woman. She moves in a crowded market. Her gaze is lost. A short distance away is the Tiber river, where the woman stops to catch her breath. A man trips and falls over her. They recognise each other. Maria, under the shower, smiles because of a shiver running down her back. Then a table set for dinner, his gaze, those soft sheets, and that laughter on the couch; then her body moving to shift and the dream so suddenly interrupted.