A Life by Italo Svevo

Alfonso, a youthful and poetic bank clerk, has until now been able to maintain his artistic and intellectual sensibilities, undaunted either by the stifling conditions of his employment, or by his increasingly entangled domestic circumstances. However, everything changes when he finds himself falling in love with his employer's conceited daughter, Annetta. When Annetta miraculously begins to encourage Alfonso's advances, he realises the vanity of his infatuation - at the same time that the precarious balance of the life that he has struggled to create for himself is fatally threatened.