This is Alberto Moravia’s short, psychologically-acute novel of sex, art, and obsession in an entirely new English translation. Silvio is an Italian dilettante and would-be novelist whose ambitions considerably outweigh his talent. He and his wife Leda move to the country so he can devote himself to his first book - they even decide to abstain from sex, temporarily, to conserve his creative energies. Perhaps predictably, the strain on their young marriage quickly begins to show, and when the local barber makes a pass at Leda, he sets up a standoff that will expose, for a moment, all of the self-deception, hollowness, and redemptive power in Silvio’s life and love.