È piccerella

Naples, suffocated by sun-bleached laundry and the salt-sting of the bay, watches Tore—shoeshine boy turned midnight marauder—rifle through his mother’s trousseau like a grave-robber unearthing heirlooms. Gold filigree rosaries clink against garnet brooches as he stuffs them into a kerchief, each bauble a blood-bet in the roulette of love. Margaretella, streetlight siren, sells oranges by day and dreams by dusk; her laughter ricochets off vespas and Vico alle Scale, luring Tore toward ruin. He barters the jewels for a fountain-pen, a gramophone, a pair of French kid gloves—gifts laid at her feet like votive offerings. Yet her gaze slides past him, magnetized to Don Alfonso’s silk-lined coupé, its polished hood reflecting the moon like a blade. Tore’s heart, once brimming with baroque promises, collapses into a single, corrosive note: betrayal. In the final reel, dawn bleaches the alleyways; Tore limps toward the harbor, pockets empty, while Margaretella’s silhouette recedes inside the velvet cabin of wealth, her laughter now tinny, mechanical, swallowed by the roar of a motor that costs more than the boy’s entire life.