Die Witwe von Pisa

by Paul Heyse

"Die Witwe von Pisa" by Paul Heyse is a novella published in 1865. A German architect travels to Italy to study leaning towers and rents a room from Lucrezia, an attractive opera singer and young widow. While her uncle searches for her missing husband, allegedly killed by bandits, Lucrezia pursues her lodger with increasing intensity. The architect, hiding his own engagement back home, grows desperate to escape her advances before losing his sanity.