‘If she pays you, you shouldn’t criticize her,’ said a deep voice.

‘Oh, so you’re here, Isidoro,’ said Giacobbe, scornfully. ‘How are things with you? How are your legs these days?’

Isidoro looked at his legs, which were wrapped in rags. To trap leeches he had to stand in stagnant water until the leeches fastened on to him, piercing his skin.

‘Never mind them,’ he said. ‘You have no business to curse the woman whose bread you eat.’

‘I eat my own bread, not hers. But that’s enough about us. Bear up, Giovanna. Remember the story I told you on the way back from Nuoro? Be sensible, keep going for the sake of this brat. Costantino won’t die in prison, I assure you. Give me the baby.’ He leaned down, but seeing the baby was asleep, he straightened up and put a finger to his lips. ‘Bachisia, please send your daughter to bed. She’s exhausted. Friends,’ he said to the others who were standing around, ‘let’s all do something to help. Let’s be off now.’

One by one they all went. Then Bachisia picked up the stool on which Isidoro had sat, carried it outside and wiped it. When she came in she had to shake Giovanna, who had dozed off. The girl opened her reddened, tear-filled eyes and got up, the baby in her arms.

‘Go to bed,’ ordered her mother.

The girl looked at the door, murmuring, ‘He won’t come back. He’ll never come back. For a moment I felt I was waiting for him to come home.’

‘Go to bed, go to bed!’ her mother said in her harsh voice. She gave Giovanna a push, took down the old brass lamp, and opened the door. The cottage consisted of a kitchen with a stone hearth in the centre and an oven in one corner and two poorly furnished rooms. Giovanna’s bed was a wooden board, high and hard, with a pink cotton bedspread. Bachisia took little Martino, who whimpered in his sleep, and put him down on the bed, cradling him in her hands while Giovanna got ready. When Giovanna was lying down, bare-headed, her lovely hair flowing loose, her mother covered her carefully and went out.

As soon as Bachisia left the room, the girl pushed back the covers and began to cry. She was exhausted by grief and fatigue, and her eyes were heavy with sleep, but she could not rest. Confused images passed through her mind. As if her anguish were not enough, stabs of pain shot through her teeth and temples. At times it seemed as if boiling water were being poured over her, and she was filled with an inexplicable dread.