The only thing that disturbed him was that Giovanna sometimes worked for the Dejas. He knew of Brontu’s passion for her, of the rejected suit, and he felt a vague sense of apprehension. Giovanna sent him three lire hidden among the sheets of writing paper. Thinking that the money probably came from the Dejas he hated to touch it. Two lire of it he offered to the King of Spades, expecting his fellow Sardinian to refuse them. The man took them, however, saying they would be useful for paying the person who looked after the clandestine correspondence.

In other circumstances, Costantino would have been furious, but just then he felt such a need to write to Giovanna, to keep in touch with his far-off little world, that he would have given half his life to secure the good offices of the King of Spades.

He read and reread the letter until he knew it by heart. During the day he kept it hidden in the sole of his shoe, ripping it open each night and then stitching it up again the following morning. As he worked in silence, he thought continually of the life and the people in the faraway little village. He became so enmeshed in his dreams that he forgot reality. He imagined the old shepherd creeping carefully up to the hives, his face and hands wrapped in rags. The place was sunny and deserted. Spangled with dog-roses, honeysuckle, and sweet peas, the green fields stretched as far as the eye could see. In the vast silence, surrounded by the intoxicating scent of wild pennyroyal and other aromatic plants, the bees buzzed.

Anxiously Costantino followed the movements of the old thief. He saw him pull the little cork hives from the flat stones on which they stood, tie them together with a piece of rope, put them in a sack, and carry them off. As he was daydreaming in this way, a nasal voice broke in, calling, ‘Costanti! Costanti!’

Arousing himself from his dream Costantino saw the fat, round magpie hopping slowly about the yard, fluttering its blue-black wings.

At night, with the letter under his cheek, he again took up the thread of his dreams. He heard the deep voice of his fisherman friend singing the hymn, and sometimes he wondered if on the river bank, among the swaying oleanders, with their sweet heavy bunches of pink flowers, Isidoro had not really seen the face of an old man, dressed in white, with a long white beard like the fleece of a new-born lamb.

Saint Costantino his guardian angel! Costantino imagined him old and white-haired like a patriarch, even if the statue of the saint in the village church showed him as a warrior with a dark face. It was he who had come to Isidoro to tell him that he had not forgotten the unjustly condemned. The aged saint would soon grant him freedom. Blessed Saint Costantino!