He went to work anxiously awaiting the exercise hour, when he could speak to the King of Spades. The fat, yellow man, for whom he had no respect, was, nevertheless, indispensable to him. He was Costantino’s only close friend. He alone understood, sympathized, helped. He demanded payment, it was true, but that in no way affected the position he occupied with many of the prisoners, especially his fellow countryman, who, in selfish despair, was already dreading the day when the King of Spades, having served his sentence, would have gone.

That morning a new prisoner made his appearance in the workshop. He was a northerner, tall and willowy with a wrinkled grey face and small pale eyes. It was hard to tell how old he was, but the others laughed when he said he was twenty-two. He at once complained of the heat and the smell of wax that thickened the air. He was no cobbler. He was the only son of a rich wholesale shoe merchant, a gentleman, in short. He told them he had killed a rival in a love affair. Just that. The woman over whom he had committed the crime was dying of consumption and grief. She was dying. Just that. The trouble was that the prisoner had a son by the sick woman. If she died, the child would be an orphan, a waif.

Costantino trembled, not because the prisoner’s story moved him but because the baby and the woman reminded him of his Giovanna and little Martino.

The newcomer, who had begun to work quickly and skilfully, now stopped talking and sat with bent head, intent on his work, his lower lip trembling like a child about to cry. Costantino watched him but just as the others ignored his grief, so he was now unable to share in the grief of another. The thought made him even sadder, even more desperate to get out.

As soon as he saw the King of Spades, Costantino drew him aside to a shady corner against the hot wall, but he found he could not speak of his suffering. Instead he told the man about the new prisoner.

The King of Spades shrugged his shoulders, then turned, spat against the wall, and said, ‘If he wants to write tell him to be careful. There’s someone sniffing around.’

‘What are we going to do when you’ve gone?’ asked Costantino sadly.

‘You want me to stay here for ever, you rascal?’

‘Good God, no! I wish you could get out tomorrow.’