Giacobbe’s slanted eyes gleamed. Looking pale and tragic, Giovanna got to her feet and poured out all the poison in her soul. She insulted her husband and her mother-in-law. She called them torturers, threatened to leave, to kill herself, cursed the hour she had come into that house, and in her fury she told of the debt to Giacobbe’s sister.

The shepherd began to chuckle softly. Half-playfully, he reproached his sister. Then he stopped and his face grew serious as the black figure of Bachisia appeared in the doorway. Hearing her daughter scream in the still of the night, Bachisia had come running.

‘It looks to me as if your daughter has lost her senses,’ remarked Martina calmly.

Brontu withdrew into himself and beckoned to his mother-in-law to come in and calm Giovanna down. Bachisia started forward, but Giacobbe jumped to his feet, his face contorted by a mask of hatred. ‘Get out of here!’ he yelled, pointing his finger towards the door.

‘Are you the master?’ demanded Bachisia.

‘Out of here,’ Giacobbe repeated, and because Bachisia still came on, he rushed at her.

She turned and ran. The shepherd followed her out and took a seat in Martina’s place under the portico, wanting to burst out laughing again. But instead of a laugh what came from him was convulsive tearless sobbing.

XIII

That winter Giovanna gave birth to a frail, sickly baby, and Dr Porru came from Nuoro to stand as godfather at the baptism.

He arrived in a carriage, wrapped up like a bundle and smiling at the villagers who ran out to see him. He also smiled at Brontu’s friends and greeted them cheerfully, saying he had seen them in Nuoro, which pleased them a lot. One, however, remarked that he had never been there.

‘Never mind,’ the fat little lawyer replied. ‘We’ll see you there too one day.’

It was an ugly omen. For the most part the men only went to Nuoro to attend the court of justice. But Brontu’s friend was pleased, all the same. Bachisia told Dr Porru that he had got fatter. ‘So what!’ he exclaimed, and they all laughed wildly.

The baptism took place with great pomp. For once in her life Martina had loosened her purse strings and ordered wines and pastries from Nuoro. As a result, she could not sleep at night and spent all day in fear and trembling in case someone stole her property.

On the day of the baptism Giovanna got up and helped her mother-in-law to make the macaroni for the feast. Then she went back to bed and sat there propped on pillows, with the covers drawn up to her waist and wearing her bridal blouse and bodice. In her brocade cap and marriage shawls, she looked drawn but beautiful, her eyes larger than usual.