Hardly had he sunk into sleep when he saw his companions in the gaol and he seemed, in his dreams, to be working at the cobbler’s bench. He felt a childish pleasure at all the experiences he would relate to his friends in Orlei. He must get up, set off again, get there soon.

But he did not move. Confused images passed through his mind. The King of Spades, seated on a donkey, was riding along the Milky Way. He called to Costantino two or three times. Costantino opened one sleepy eye, closed it, and opened it again. ‘It’s a cuckoo, you fool,’ he told himself. ‘I’m going to get up now. I must get up.’ And he fell asleep.

When he woke the moon was high in the sky and the dew was falling in the bluish light. Thick shadows like black garments lay draped over the mountain flanks, but, wherever the moon shone down, every rock, every shrub, every flower stood out clearly on the ground. The cuckoo’s high metallic call pierced the night.

Costantino was cold, the dew had soaked him. He got up and gave a prolonged yawn that echoed in the great silence. Then he looked at the sky to guess the time. The morning star had not yet appeared above the horizon. Dawn, then, was a long way away. Costantino set off again, hoping to reach the village before anyone woke.

He did not want to expose himself to public curiosity and feared, above all, to be seen by Giovanna or her mother, wanting neither to set eyes on them nor pass by their house. Everything was over. After years of suffering, after a thousand schemes for revenge, he now felt he despised Giovanna, and he too wanted to begin a new life.

He clambered over hillocks lit up by the moon, where the rock-rose bushes and the asphodel bathed in dew, and the rocks themselves gave out a clammy scent. Threads of water trickled down among the flowering pennyroyal.

His mind was drowsy, but his limbs were agile and fresh. Sometimes he leapt from rock to rock, scrambling up steep shortcuts. High on the mountainside, he paused, panting, his heart thumping. The moon threw shimmering silver into his eyes.

The further he went, the more landmarks he picked out, and he smelled in the air the wild fragrance of his native land. He recognized the melancholy fields where barley and wheat shoots were still young and green and the mastic woodland where the sparse trees murmured at each gust of wind like old people talking in their sleep. Further on he glimpsed and remembered the blade of sea, that sea he felt proud to have sailed, no matter in what way. When he reached the church of St Francis he paused again, took off his hat, and prayed, and as he prayed, for the first time the keen joy of returning home swept over him.