‘They told me the day before yesterday that you hadn’t been to the shop for two days. I realized that you’d been attacked the other night. When they told me that you hadn’t been seen I was terrified. I thought you’d been killed. How I suffered over those two days. Hell could not be worse. I couldn’t keep away any longer, so I came here. My mother is ill, my mother-in-law thinks I’m with her. Holy Mary, Mother of God, dear Lord, hear how my heart beats. Costantino, I think I’m dying. I’ve run and run, I’m soaked. Won’t you speak to me, Costantino?’
She stopped, shivering with cold and fear, terrified at what she had done. Costantino did not reply. For a moment, the only sounds to be heard in the darkness of the hovel were their breathing and the regular drip of water into the saucepan.
‘Why are you in the dark?’ asked Giovanna. ‘Why don’t you speak? Are you ill? Are you hurt?’
‘I’ve a slight fever,’ he replied. ‘I haven’t eaten for three days.’
‘Where’s Isidoro?’
‘I don’t know. He went to sell his ropes and he’s not back yet. He’ll soon be here. What’s the matter with your mother?’
‘A pain in the side, like Giacobbe Dejas. Do you remember? But you, you?’
‘I hope she dies!’ cried Costantino.
‘Costantino!’ Giovanna reproved him.
‘I hope she dies,’ he repeated, ‘like I’m dying here alone, kicked out like a dog, without help, without food, without warmth. I hope you all die, all of you who have killed me.’
He began to sob like a child, and Giovanna felt a helpless, an agonizing pity. She tried to put her arms round his neck to comfort him, to hug him and seek refuge in him from the dark cold that enclosed them both inside and out. But he pushed her away. ‘Go away,’ he said harshly. ‘I can’t answer for what I might do. I dreamed a mad dog had bitten me and now I’ve become like a mad dog. Go away. I’m going to vent my despair on someone soon. Go away!’
He pushed her, and she stared round frantically in the dark, confused and desperate, as she had not felt since the day Costantino was convicted. He opened the door that she had left slightly ajar. It was still raining, but the wind had dropped and in the west the clouds were parting. The distant moon appeared through a tear in the clouds, making the rainy night yet sadder and more tragic. Through the muddy light and the heavy curtain of rain, Costantino and Giovanna caught sight of a black figure moving away in the distance. Costantino did not recognize it, but Giovanna’s heart skipped a beat.