Even though it was dark, Martina sat in the portico still spinning when Maria Chicca appeared with the horse. As Brontu and the farmhands were off at the sheepfolds and Martina had no house servants, the house was empty. She had other sons and married daughters with whom, owing to her meanness, she lived in a state of constant dissension. When there was a lot of work to do in the house she summoned neighbours, often Giovanna and her mother, and paid them with stale or damaged farm produce. The people she hired were so poor they were happy to get anything.

‘Well? How did it go?’ Martina asked, putting the spindle and the little distaff down on the portico bench. She had a reedy, nasal voice, round, black close-set eyes, a thin hooked nose, and a mouth that was still pink and fresh. ‘Have you been crying, Maria Chicca? I saw those two poor women arrive, but I didn’t dare go to them, because last night I dreamed that Costantino had been sentenced to hard labour.’

’You’ve already told me that, Martina. He got twenty-seven years.’

Martina seemed disappointed, not because she hated Costantino but because she thought her dreams infallible. Taking the horse by its bridle, she said, ‘If I can I’ll go and see them this evening – but I don’t know whether I’ll be able to because I’m waiting for a man who was one of Basilio Ledda’s labourers. He’s going to work for me. He was a witness at the trial, but he should be back from Nuoro by now.’

‘I think he is,’ said the other woman, turning away. As soon as she got back to the cottage she told Bachisia and Giovanna that Martina felt very sorry for them, that the old woman had dreamed Costantino had been sentenced to hard labour, and that she had also said that Giacobbe Dejas, a distant poor relation, was coming to work for her.

Giovanna was nursing the baby, her sorrowful eyes fixed on him, and she did not even raise her head. Bachisia, however, wanted to know all sorts of things. Was Signora Dejas alone, was she spinning – if so, was she spinning in the dark?

‘She might come by this evening,’ she told Giovanna.

Giovanna neither replied nor looked up.

‘Didn’t you hear me, my girl?’ her mother cried, angrily. ‘She’s going to come by this evening.’

‘Who?’ asked Giovanna, as if waking from a dream.

‘Martina Dejas.’

‘Her? To hell with her.’