‘They’ve taken everything from me and now they want to take my life. But I’ll kill them. I heard of a case where a man killed in self-defence and was acquitted. They’ll acquit me too, if I defend myself. And if they don’t …’ He remembered his fellow convicts. The puffy yellow face of the King of Spades, smiling lugubriously at the end of the dismal prison yard. At least they were in some way my friends! Costantino thought. They were killers, but they made no attempt on my life.

On the third day that Costantino had been shut up in Isidoro’s hovel, a driving rain began. Gloom shrouded the dreary little cottage, and black clouds massed outside the tiny square of the window. Drops of water began to leak through the roof. One large cold drip fell ceaselessly on the unlit hearth beside the young man. He did not move until the hearth was almost flooded. Then he stretched out an arm and placed under the drips a saucepan that Isidoro used to cook the food in. The regular dismal drip, drip, drip sounded like the ticking of a clock. Night fell, cold and desolate. The rain pelted down. Costantino did not move. He had no wood to light the fire. He did not want to think about moving, going out, living. Held up, perhaps by the rain, in some nearby village, Isidoro did not return.

During the night Costantino became feverish. Dreams and sad, bitter memories seethed in his confused mind. How long he continued in this state he could not have said. He remembered only the noise of the rain, the wind that blew through the hovel, the water that dripped into the saucepan. From time to time he woke from a feverish drowse, feeling the same surge of anguish and exasperation that at one time he used to feel in prison when he awoke after a torrid night. Now a fierce desire sped through his blood. He wanted to take revenge on someone, to mutilate, to kill.

Another day passed, another night. The rain became heavier. The drops of water fell inexorably until the saucepan overflowed. Hunger and fever were wasting the sick man. One night, he dreamed that a mad dog had bitten him in the stomach. He awoke shivering, thinking wildly that he had rabies.

Towards evening the rain slackened off, but still did not stop. Someone knocked on the door and, thinking it was Isidoro, Costantino got up to open it.

Giovanna stood there. She was drenched and spattered with mud, her face hidden by the border of the skirt that she had wrapped round her head. Costantino did not recognize her until she spoke.

‘Costantino, are you there?’ she said.

‘What do you want?’ he asked.