Race to the Sea Summary

This chapter begins with a flashback to Alessandro's teenage years. This is not a recollection that he tells his companion, Nicolo, but rather an actual time shift that presumably enables the author to proceed with a straightforward narrative, uninterrupted by the give-and-take and conversational tedium of dialogue.

As a teenager home from school in the north Alessandro, while dressing in the morning, notices a locked gate in the wall surrounding their beautiful garden. He asks his father, the attorney Giuliani, why the gate has been installed. His father tells him that he's sold the garden to his neighbor but has a 20-year lease on the land to continue gardening. Alessandro makes no secret of his disappointment, but soon realizes his father has sold the land to provide for his wife and children when he dies. In the...