Her reverie transports us to Venice during the war, where Livia falls in love with Remigio Ruz, a dashing young lieutenant in the Austrian army.
She lets him spend her money freely, cares nothing of what society thinks of her, and ignores her new lover's pathetic cowardice when he refuses to rescue a drowning child.
She heads to the apartment she had bought for Remigio, where she finds him, a drunken, ungrateful rogue, in the company of a prostitute who openly mocks Livia for accepting his abuse.
She distinctly describes her selfish lust, her sexual desire, and something akin to joy that she feels on the occasion of her lover's execution.
Unlike the authors of such similar characters as Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary, Camillo Boito presents his protagonist without sympathy.
Luchino Visconti very loosely adapted the novella in 1954 using the same title, but with heavy alterations to characters and introducing numerous new subplots, such as Livia's rebellious cousin Roberto, whose fight against the Austrian occupation troops is chronicled in a good deal of battles.
The story of the film is much more faithful to Camillo Boito's work than the earlier adaptation in terms of tone and story, but the action was transported from the Third Italian War of Independence to the end of World War II, with Remigio becoming a Nazi Lieutenant and Livia updated to being the wife of a high ranking Fascist official.
Unlike the 1954 version, Senso '45 did not romanticize the affair between Livia and Ruz (Helmut Schultz in the 2002 film), but showed it for what it was: a clinical study in vanity and lust.
However, it should be worth noting that both films significantly altered Livia's character, making her much older and sympathetic than she appeared in Boito's original novella.