‘I’ve been writing and telling her and I’ll go on telling her.’

The King of Spades wanted to laugh, but he restrained himself and after a short space he said, as if answering some inner question, ‘It’s all nonsense anyway.’

‘Yes,’ Costantino replied. But he could not stop thinking of Brontu Dejas, of the house with the portico, of the man’s fields and flocks, and of Giovanna’s poverty.

That night he wrote to comfort her, repeating that he still hoped for divine mercy. ‘Perhaps God wanted to test us further, taking from us the fruit we conceived in sin. His will be done. Now, more than ever, I have a feeling that the day of my deliverance is near.’

For a long time he pondered, wondering whether to mention the horrible things hinted at by the ex-police inspector. But no. He thought by not stirring her interest he was being shrewd. When he had written the letter he grew calmer, but an inexorable jealousy began to devour his mind, and from that day forth the King of Spades, with brutal pity, continued to inject the terrible poison into his blood.

‘He has to get used to it,’ thought Burrai. ‘Otherwise the poor, simple fellow will die of a broken heart.’

‘Dear, dear fellow,’ he blustered one day in October. ‘You know nothing about women. Empty vessels, nothing else. I was engaged once. I suppose that seems impossible to you? She deceived me, even before we were married. But your wife’s in quite a different situation: she’s poor and she’s young. Has she blood in her veins or not? If Dejas wants to marry her, she’d be a goose not to take him.’

‘Who’s Dejas? Who told you about him?’ asked Costantino in surprise.

‘Didn’t you tell me yourself?’

Costantino was sure he had never mentioned the man. But his mind was sometimes so confused. Oh God, oh good Saint Costantino. How had he come to speak of it?

‘Well yes,’ he admitted. ‘I’m afraid of him. He courted her, he wanted to marry her. But he’s a drunkard and dull as mud. She’d never do a terrible thing like that. Please let’s talk about something else.’

They did, still speaking in dialect so that the other prisoners would not understand. They talked about the consumptive student who was growing ever closer to the gates of the other world; they talked about the Delegate, who spoke aloud to himself, praising his own work. They talked about the magpie, which had grown thin and, in old age, was shedding its plumage.

Gossip, hatred, resentment, loves, slander, united and incited the prisoners. Costantino remained immune to it. He, the student, and the Delegate seemed to exist apart from the others, talking only to the ex-police inspector, who was the focal point of almost every secret in the prison and who remained above the other inmates, indispensable to everyone.