No, he wasn’t hungry or thirsty or sleepy. Neither lying down, sitting nor standing could he find peace. To distract himself a little he began to yawn widely and to babble senselessly. He could not tear his mind away from that thought. It was horrible, horrible! Would it be possible to find a priest so lacking in conscience as to marry a woman already married? Anything could be done if you had money. What if Costantino came back? Even if the prisoner did not return, there was still his son. What would happen when the boy reached the age of reason? He would know his mother had two husbands. The newspapers were now reporting the imminent arrival of the new law on divorce. But what did the newspapers and the law count before God and a person’s conscience?

Giacobbe rose and grasped the bottle of grappa. ‘If Brontu asks who’s been drinking his grappa, too bad. I’ll tell him the moles drank it.’ He laughed, drank, and lay down again. He went back to sleep and dreamed that one of his sisters had arrived, and he told her his dream about the dog, Costantino, and the chains.

When he awoke the sun had already risen over the edge of the high plain behind a line of bluish mist. The morning was somewhat cold and hazy. In the slanting rays of the sun, the heath, the scrub, the stubble, the moist green grass glinted with dew. The birds rustled and sang so loudly in the bushes that it sounded like a shower of crystal rain. The cawing of a crow rasped out against the background of that shimmering chorus. Then all sound died away into the intense silence of the plain.

Giacobbe went outside, stretching and yawning. He yawned so widely that his jaws creaked. His face crinkled up round his open mouth, and his slanted eyes, yellow in the sun, watered like a dog’s.

He pressed his hands to his stomach. ‘I’ve got a pain here,’ he said. ‘What was I doing last night?’

He went over to the sheepfold and opened it up. The rams, with their twisted horns, came out sniffing the ground, and a group of dirty sheep followed, butting each other. More came out. The sheepfold emptied, but Giacobbe remained beside the hedge, still and thoughtful.