The sky was just beginning to pale when Isidoro heard a knocking at his door. For two or three weeks, indeed for months and months, he had been waiting for that sound. Now he leaped to his feet, even before joy set his old heart dancing in his breast. The door opened. He saw a tall man with a long pale face wearing not the local costume but a coarse cotton suit as tough as leather. At first Isidoro did not know who it was.

Costantino burst out laughing, a harsh laugh that pained the fisherman. Then Isidoro recognized his young friend, and a cold shiver went through him. It was indeed Costantino, but not the Costantino of bygone days. All the same, he hugged the young man without kissing him, and emotion melted his heart.

‘You didn’t recognize me,’ said Costantino, slipping his bundle off his shoulders. ‘I recognized you.’

His voice and his accent had changed. Isidoro’s cold fear and pity changed to unease.

‘Why are you dressed like that? You could have waited in Nuoro. Did you come on foot? I’d have brought you clothes and a horse, too?’

‘St Francis lent me his horse. Well, what have you got, Isidoro? I don’t want coffee. Have you any grappa?’

The fisherman, who was stoking up the fire, turned round, upset at not being able to offer his friend a little coffee.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, spreading his hands, ‘but wait, I’ll go at once. I was expecting you and not expecting you, and I was about to go out.’

‘Where to?’ cried the other man, grabbing him. ‘I don’t want anything. I was joking. Sit down here.’

Isidoro sat down and glanced timidly at Costantino, then little by little he plucked up courage, patted the young man’s trousers and knees, and asked if he was going to stay dressed like that. Through the wide-open door the dawn light entered, and Costantino’s face looked grey and defeated.

‘I’ll stay dressed like this, yes,’ he said, and again gave his evil-sounding laugh. ‘I’ll soon be leaving.’

‘Must you? Where will you go?’

‘I’ve met so many people,’ Costantino began, as if reciting a lesson. ‘People who’ll help me. What am I going to do here?’

‘You could be a cobbler. Didn’t you write to me that you wanted to be a cobbler? You could make a lot of money.’

‘I know a police inspector called Burrai’ – for Costantino the King of Spades was always a police inspector – ‘who lives in Rome, and he’s written to me. He’s going to get me a post as a cobbler in the king’s palace.’