Paying no attention, Grazia went on eating. The lawyer too was eating greedily, watching his nephew who had a cherubic smile.

‘They’re growing up,’ the lawyer said. ‘Soon they’ll spread their wings.’

Grazia shrugged her shoulders and neither replied nor raised her eyes. She could no longer stand her young uncle. He’d been her first love – really just a crush. Now she found him ridiculous.

While they all chatted, Porredda kept getting up from the table, leaving the room, and then coming back in again. Now and then the conversation would die away and an almost embarrassed silence ensued. As on that earlier occasion, everyone tried to avoid the subject that most concerned the guests who, did not, in fact, mind it being mentioned. In the end it was Bachisia herself who unintentionally brought up the topic when she asked whether it were true, as people were saying, that the lawyer was to marry his niece.

The Porrus looked at each other and laughed softly. Paolo looked at the girl and said with not the most cheerful irony, ‘What? Certainly not. She’s to marry our eminent sub-prefect.’

Grazia raised and then quickly lowered her face. Her eyes smouldered and she blushed.

‘He’s old,’ said Minnia. ‘I’ve seen him. He often walks by the station. Ugh! He has a long red beard. And a top hat.’

‘A top hat, too?’

‘Yes, a top hat. He’s a widower.’

‘Shut up,’ Grazia snapped, turning on her sister.

‘I won’t shut up. He’s a Freemason. He won’t baptize the children. He won’t get married in church. It’s true, isn’t it? He refuses to marry in the church.’

‘The young lady is well-informed,’ Efes Maria remarked. At the word ‘Freemason’, his wife, who had been listening closely, had to struggle to hold back a scream. She threw up her hands in despair. ‘Yes, he’s a Mason,’ she broke in. ‘One of those people who pray to the devil. My niece wants to marry him because he’s rich. We’re all damned. Grazia reads bad books and filthy newspapers and doesn’t want to go to confession. Oh, those censored books! I can’t sleep thinking about them. Then there’s Paolo, who has studied on the mainland, where they don’t believe in God any more. It’s not right, but it’s understandable because neither of them any longer believe in God. We, here, know nothing about books. We’ve never been on a train, that devil’s horse. Why don’t we all believe in God, our good Lord who died for us on the cross? Why, I ask, why? Because you, Giovanna Era, are marrying another man, when you already have a husband.’