She was still awake at dawn. She got up, went out and looked up at the wall and the projecting roof over which Giovanna’s lover must have left. Then she saw Giovanna at the window. Martina sensed that the young woman had not slept either, that she too could pick out traces of the man who had fled through the window, and that she knew her mother-in-law suspected the truth. Across the space that divided them, the two women exchanged a look of bitterness and fear. Martina tried to allay Giovanna’s suspicions so as to be able to surprise her with her lover. Giovanna realized her mother-in-law’s suspicions, but pretended to have noticed nothing and discreetly continued her relationship with Costantino.

Although Costantino was now working and earning a living, at the bottom of his heart there was still an ineradicable sadness.

‘I will do everything I can to force Brontu to throw me out,’ Giovanna told him during their assignations. ‘I’ll make him suggest a divorce to get free of me. Then I’ll come back to you, my love, and we’ll never leave each other. I’ll be your servant. I’ll make you forget all your past sorrows.’

Costantino smiled bitterly. He loved Giovanna, but not as he had during their marriage. He loved her more ardently but less deeply. He needed her to make him live again, but he dared not tell her that if she were to be free and become his wife once more it would not make him happy. She was no longer his Giovanna. She was another woman, one who had deceived her first husband and was now deceiving her second. A woman who belonged to two living men and had deceived them both.

At times he wanted to kill someone, Brontu or Bachisia or Giovanna, to revenge himself for his suffering. But, knowing he was incapable of committing a violent act, he cursed himself for his weakness. His heart was poisoned, and he could no longer feel joy. Isidoro kept on advising him to find a wife, even though it was against the old man’s own principles.

‘I already have a wife,’ said Costantino. ‘What would I do with another one? She might deceive me too. All women are the same.’

Isidoro sighed. Daily he feared disaster. He knew, partly by intuition, partly because Costantino had allowed him to guess, that the young man and Giovanna were lovers. He feared another tragedy. Naively he thought that, if Costantino had another family, if he had an affectionate, virtuous wife who would give him children, perhaps he would forget and find peace.

But, whenever the old fisherman suggested marriage to him, Costantino smiled his usual bitter smile.

‘You’re afraid I’ll kill someone, or someone will kill me,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. Things are going too well for me to think of making new problems for myself.’