Darkness has fallen, and a golden halo of light surrounds the single lamp on a little table. A man is seated in an armchair just where the light fades into shadow, holding a crying infant. She has been fed and changed, and the man is rocking her gently, but she continues to cry. With an anxious look at the door, the man begins to sing to her, haltingly at first but then more confidently, humming the words he can't recall. The child quiets and sleeps at last, drifting away on the half-remembered strains of an old Italian lullaby.