Instead of filling out, the ‘wife with two husbands’, as she was now called in the village, had grown thinner. Her nose was red and swollen, dark patches ringed her eyes and her lower lip pouted in disgust. A handful of bedraggled hens crowded round the basket, trying to thrust their beaks into it, sometimes fluttering into the air and leaving feathers on the ground. Giovanna shouted and swore at them, and they would run off and stand waiting, one claw raised, ready to return to the fray as soon as the young woman ceased paying attention to them.

She seemed distracted. Her eyes were sad or, rather, indifferent, as if her mind were obsessed with her own troubles. Nothing else interested her. She was barefoot and dirty, because Martina was stingy with the soap.

The two women did not talk, but Martina kept her eye on Giovanna. When the girl failed to scare off the hens in time, it was the old woman who screamed at them.

One of the creatures climbed onto the edge of the basket and pecked at the corn.

‘Get away!’ screamed Martina. Giovanna swung round, and the hen flapped its wings and flew off carrying a single grain. Afraid, as always, that her mother-in-law would shout at her, the girl reached out an arm to grab the grain, moaning, ‘Oh, they’re so tiresome.’

‘They are indeed tiresome,’ said Martina gently. ‘Don’t stretch like that, my dear, you’ll hurt yourself. I’ll do it.’

She left her spindle and, grain by grain, picked up the scattered corn, while a hen pecked the wool on the distaff.

‘I hope all your feathers drop out!’ screamed the old woman, rushing at it. The hen took advantage of the situation to help her pick up the grain.

Head bent, silent, absorbed, Giovanna sieved the corn. The view from the portico took in the empty yard and Bachisia’s little cottage, purple in the pale grey light of the hazy afternoon. A strip of the empty village could also be seen as could the empty yellow fields and the leaden horizon.

Cloud upon cloud hung in the sky, giving out a stifling heat and a silence that was too intense. A tall, barefoot man passed the portico, driving two little black oxen. A young girl followed, also barefoot. She stared at Giovanna with large clear eyes. After her came a fat white dog, its nose to the ground. Nothing else broke the quiet, heavy, threatening sultriness.

Giovanna sieved and winnowed ever more slowly. She was tired and hungry, but it was not food she craved. She was thirsty, but not for water. She felt an inexplicable physical need but for what, she did not know.

Finishing her work, she got up, shook her jacket and leaning down, began to tip the grain from one basket into the other. ‘Leave it,’ Martina said, solicitously. ‘That’s enough. You’ll hurt yourself.’