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It was harder still to live in a battleship with strangers instead of in a little white cottage among the vines; and when he was ashore, to walk in noisy, friendless cities with streets so crowded that he was frightened to cross them, when he had been used to silent paths and the mountains and the sea.

Salvatore's deployment away from Capri opens his eyes to how much he truly loves the island where he was raised. He sees everything new as a pale comparison of what he knew before, comparing the huge metal battleship to his small comfortable home surrounded by nature, and bustling cities to silent dirt paths. While Salvatore easily climbed rocky cliffs as a child, he fears crossing the street when visiting a city. Leaving home gave Salvatore a chance to learn more about the rest of the world, but instead he learned how much he belonged at home.

[I]t had never struck him that Ischia . . . or  Vesuvius, pearly in the dawn, had anything to do with him at all; but when he ceased to have them before his eyes he realized in some dim fashion that they were as much part of him as his hands and his feet.

Once Salvatore has left the island where he was raised, his mind recollects it as a perfect utopia compared to the new places he visits. Nothing can come close to the idyllic vision in his mind. By comparing the view from his home to a part of his physical body, Salvatore shows that places can become so important to us that they feel like they've become a part of ourselves. The narrator explains that Salvatore made these realizations "in some dim fashion," implying a sort of instinctual knowing.

In the evening when the moon was shining over the placid sea and the lights of Naples twinkled in the distance he walked down to the Grande Marina to her house. She was sitting on the doorstep with her mother. He was a little shy because he had not seen her for so long.

At just about the midpoint of the story, Salvatore walks to the home of his fiancée. The romantic description of the peaceful sea and landscape symbolizes the moment of calm before the storm. Everything is still as it should be for Salvatore despite his new illness. While serving in the military challenged Salvatore, having his heart broken by his first love will devastate him and send his life in a new direction.

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