Transcription: A Novel

From two until three I sat in Willie’s room, reading, and between three and half-past I did what I could for Willie while he died.

Father had given them an odd look, as if he had come upon Frederick borrowing something of his without permission.

I also liked it because it allowed me to justify the impulse of tenderness roused in me by Michele’s manner, which has remained candid and ingenuous, even now that he’s almost fifty. When he calls me “mamma” I respond in a tone that’s severe yet loving, the same I used with Riccardo when he was a child. But now I see that it was a mistake; he was t