Giacobbe noticed what the old woman was doing as he came in. He realized she was hiding the wine so as not to have to offer him a glass. But, as he said of himself, he was too worldly a man to be offended, and he entered the house, smiling and cheerful.

‘I bet you’re talking about me,’ he said.

‘No. We were talking about poor Costantino Ledda.’

‘Oh, yes, the poor fellow!’ Giacobbe became serious. ‘To think that he’s innocent. Innocent as the sun. No one knows it better than I.’

Brontu leaned back at his ease, legs crossed, and showed his teeth as he did when talking to a woman.

‘Opinions differ,’ he said in a nasal voice. ‘My mother, for example, dreamed they had sentenced him to death.’

‘You mean to hard labour!’

‘Same thing. But now we need to discuss our own business.’

They arranged Giacobbe’s contract and then the two men left together. Brontu led the way to the tavern. He was not mean. When someone called to see him, Brontu would not offer a glass of wine, as that would have angered his mother. Instead he would take his guest to the tavern and there would treat him very generously. That evening he made Giacobbe drink a lot and Brontu himself drank so much that they both became very drunk.

As they walked up the dark, quiet street to where it met the coarse scent of the fields, they began to discuss Costantino again. Brontu said cruelly that he was glad about the sentence.

‘Go to hell,’ cried Giacobbe. ‘You’re heartless.’

‘All right. I’m heartless.’

‘Because Giovanna didn’t want you, you’re happy to hear of the death, or worse than death, of a man like yourself.’

‘Costantino’s not dead, and he’s not like me. As for Giovanna Era, it was I who didn’t want her. If I had wanted her she would have licked the soles of my shoes.’

‘Hmm. Pride comes before a fall, my chicken. You lie like a serving-maid.’

‘I? I’m no serving-maid,’ cried Brontu, enunciating the words clearly. ‘If you say that to me again, I’ll bash your head in.’

‘I’ll say it again then. You’ll come to grief, my chicken.’

Their voices rang out in the night. Then they grew quiet, and silence fell again. In the distance, in the light of the stars that crowned the black profile of the mountains like garlands of golden flowers, the donkey answered the owl’s melancholy cry. All at once Brontu began to weep in a strange, drunken way without tears or sobbing.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ muttered the other man. ‘Are you drunk?’

‘Yes, I’m drunk. Drunk with poison. I hope you strangle yet, you gallows bird.’