The Garden of the Finzi-Continis

The narrator’s memories jump ahead to 1938 when he finally makes it onto the estate. He, Alberto, and Micòl are now university students; the narrator and Micòl study literature. Two months after the passing of the so-called “Racial Laws” which restrict Italian Jews’ lives, Alberto calls the narrator to discuss the local news. After years of not speaking to each other, Alberto now informs him that Marchese Barbacinti, who has not been named in the novel up until this point, was kicked out of the Eleonora D’Este Tennis Club. Alberto invites the narrator to play tennis at his home. School starting again in the fall doesn’t add any stress or worry to Alberto or Micòl. While the narrator lingers on the offer without making any promises, he recalls a time when he watched a man he hadn’t recognized as Alberto hurry past him on a train platform.

The contrast between these two encounters is interrupted by the narrator’s father’s angry outburst at what he views as the Finzi-Contini “condescension.” Rather than restart his father’s political diatribe, the narrator interrupts and tries to distract his father with a shared article. The political changes that they discuss have not fully reached Ferrara, as all the Racial Laws that have passed have not been fully realized.