This paper examines Montale’s position within the critical category of ‘modernism’ not only within the Italian context, but also within the European one. To this end, it aims to trace those presences at a textual level that suggest an affinity between Montale’s ‘occasions’ and Virginia Woolf’s ‘moments of being’: some tiny and rare ‘disguidi del possibile’ that allow to see beyond the cotton wool of everyday life.