Gna’ Maria, that old woman with white hair ruffled like wool on a distaff, wailed in misery at her doorstep, not caring who heard her, crying out the names of her two sons with her raised hands, cursing La Mèrica with all her soul. La Varvarissa, so young and with a tiny creature at her breast, was left without a husband; and the only son of mastro Antonino was leaving, too; and Ciccio Spiga, and the husband of Maruzza, the blond…. Who could count them all? Everyone was leaving, and in the houses in mourning the women were left to weep. And yet each one of them owned something, a piece of land, a quota, a house, and still they were going. The best young men of the village were leaving to work in that enchanted land that enticed them like a seductress.

Now Mariano, too. And Mariano had a little farm that provided them with oil and bread, a bit of land hoed and tended like a garden, and a beautiful young wife, sweet as honey. What they’d done to keep him from leaving, to get the idea of La Mèrica out of his head, no one could even remember. He’d wanted a mule, and ssù ‘Ntoni bought him one; Mamma Vita had sewn him another velvet suit, and Catena simply hadn’t known what to say or do to keep him near.

But La Mèrica, said gna’ Maria, is a woodworm that eats away at things, a sickness that attacks, and when the time comes for a man to buy a suitcase, there’s nothing that can hold him back.

On that gray Saint Michael’s evening, the elderly parents knew that this moment had come for Mariano, too.

But Catena, her eyes staring straight ahead, wouldn’t hear of being left behind. With her small olive face darkened by passion and fear, she was thinking about following her husband. She was thinking, and it felt like the thought was a wound or a fever so much did her head and heart ache.

After that horrible evening and the days that followed, she kept on, begging with her eyes and threatening with her voice. “I’m coming. If you leave, I’m leaving, too. I’ll throw myself off the Castle….”

Mamma Vita couldn’t blame her. “It’s only right, it’s only right,” she would repeat in a resigned voice.

“But the baby!” shouted Mariano, becoming irritated because his mother was now contradicting him, too.

The baby! It was true. Couldn’t a long voyage like that kill a little one?

“Oh,” implored Catena. “Am I not a mother? I’ll keep him wrapped in my shawl, keep him close to my breast just like a little bird in a nest. There’s nothing to worry about.”