The next morning Giovanna was the first to wake. Through a small pane of glass set in the door came the rosy glow of dawn, and the twittering swallows broke the early-morning silence. She remembered that this was the day that would decide her husband’s fate. She was sure Costantino would be found guilty, but she went on hoping against hope. As to whether or not he were guilty, she had never given it much thought. It was only the consequence, the thought of being parted perhaps for ever from the man she loved, that tortured her. As the full consciousness of this struck her she felt such anguish that she jumped from the bed and began to dress, saying breathlessly, ‘It’s late, it’s late.’

Bachisia opened her small firefly-like eyes and she too got up. She knew only too well what that day, and the day after and a year or two or ten years after that, would bring to let herself get worked up. She dressed, dipped her hands in the water and passed them across her face once. Then she dried her face and, with great care, arranged the folds of her scarf about her head.

‘It’s late,’ Giovanna kept on. ‘Oh God, it’s late.’

Her mother’s calm quietened the girl. She followed Bachisia down into the kitchen, where Bachisia prepared coffee and bread for Costantino, as they were allowed to take food to the prisoner. She put everything into a basket, and the two women set off for the prison.

The streets were deserted. The sun rose from behind Mount Orthobene, and the sky was so blue, the birds so joyous, the air so still and fragrant, that it was like a holiday morning. Giovanna crossed the street which led from the station, near where the Porru family lived, to the prison. Looking up at the distant purple mountains that hemmed in the great wild valley, she inhaled the air, scented with wild flowers, thought of her little house, of her baby, of her lost happiness, and felt as if she was dying.

Her mother strode on in front with the basket on her head. They reached the stark white bulk of the prison. In the silent early morning glow the sentry stood, rigid and mute as a statue. A single green shrub growing against the blank wall heightened the dreariness of the place. The prison’s outer door, which gaped and closed from time to time like the mouth of a sphinx, opened to engulf the two women. Everyone inside the grim cavern had come to know them, from the solemn, florid chief warder, who looked like a general, down to the pale young guard who, with his wide blond moustache, aped elegance.