L'Orco

A stormy evening gathers a small circle beneath a trellis, where rain‑soaked clouds and occasional lightning mute the usual chatter. Beppa sits quietly, fingers tracing melancholy notes on her guitar, while the abbé and his friends try in vain to lift her spirits. Their conversation turns to a shared memory, a magnetic sympathy that binds them through similar griefs and private reveries.

The focus shifts to the enigmatic lady who vanished on the night of a masked ball, a figure famed for her dazzling yet elusive presence. Stories of her ghost‑like gondola slipping through the canals circulate among townsfolk, each telling adds layers to her myth and fuels the narrator’s curiosity. As the gathering listens, the mystery of her sudden death and the lingering whispers of her return begin to stir a deeper investigation, hinting at secrets that may still haunt the city’s shadowed waterways.