Senso (novel)

Italian novella by Camillo Boito

Senso is an Italian novella by Camillo Boito, an Italian author and architect. He wrote it around 1882. The novella develops a disturbing account of indiscriminate indulgence in selfish sensuality. The word "senso" is Italian for "sense," "feeling," or "lust." The title refers to the delight Livia experiences while reflecting on her affair with a handsome lieutenant. The novella is typical of Scapigliatura literature, which was at its peak at the time.

Senso is set in Venetia and Trentino about the time of Third Italian War of Independence in 1866. Its protagonist is Livia, a countess from Trento, who is married unhappily to a stuffy old aristocrat, and who willingly wanders in response to her yearnings. The story opens a few years after the war, with Livia reminiscing on her 39th birthday about her first truly passionate affair. Her reverie transports us to Venice during the war, where Livia falls in love with Remigio Ruz, a dashing young lieutenant in the Austrian army. Although he obviously is using her, her money, and her social status, Livia throws herself into an affair of complete sexual abandon with Remigio. She lets him spend her money freely, cares nothing of what society thinks of her, and ignores her new lover's pathetic cowardice when he refuses to rescue a drowning child. Though the war drives the lovers apart, Livia feels driven to revisit Remigio. When she joins him for a tryst, he asks for more money, to bribe the army doctors for a reprieve from the battlefield. Livia gladly gives him all her jewels and gold. Remigio flees to Verona, without bothering even to kiss her goodbye. Eventually her yearning for Remigio drives Livia nearly mad, but her spirits soar when a letter from him finally arrives. His letter says that he loves and misses her, and that her money and his bribery had allowed him to evade any combat. He asks Livia not to look for him. Still clutching his letter, she promptly boards a carriage and heads straight to Verona to find her loyal lover. She finds the city in ruins, with dead and wounded everywhere. Livia's undeterred. She heads to the apartment she had bought for Remigio, where she finds him, a drunken, ungrateful rogue, in the company of a prostitute who openly mocks Livia for accepting his abuse. Mortification drives Livia out into the night. Shame shapes her lingering lust into vengeance when Livia remembers she still has his letter. Livia finds the Austrian army headquarters, where she indicts Remigio by presenting his proof of desertion to a general. Her vengeance for Remigio's philandering infidelity is obvious to the general, yet her motives lend her lover no exemption. The very next morning, Remigio and the doctors he bribed face a firing squad while Livia attends the execution.