Morning after morning the two women went to don Graziano’s. After a week of that torture the mother-in-law asked: “But is the medicine really helping? To me it seems it’s doing more harm than good.”

“I’ve wanted to say something, too,” sighed her daughter-in-law. “I’ve never had anything wrong with my eyes, and now they feel like someone’s sticking a hundred pins in them.”

What to do? Maybe the best thing was to stop the medication and get advice from another doctor. So Mamma Vita went alone to thank the pharmacist, bringing him a pair of red hens chosen from among the best in the chicken coop, and then she went with her daughter-in-law to don Pidduzzu Saitta, the oldest doctor in the village.

He observed Catena, who was looking at him dismayed, and then delicately lifted her aching eyelids just a little.

“Who treated your eyes?” he asked

“Don Graziano.”

“The pharmacist?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You poor peasants!” murmured the doctor. “And you want to travel to La Mèrica?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let’s hope so. Come back tomorrow at nine. We’ll try to cauterize them.”

Catena followed her mother-in-law out with death in her heart, and as soon as she was home she threw her cape on the bed and with her face buried in the rolled mattresses began to cry uncontrollably, just as she had done on the night she’d returned from Palermo.

Mamma Vita, still standing with the sleeping child in her arms, didn’t know what to say to calm those sobs.

“Listen,” she then said resolutely. “Saitta is a bird of bad omen. He always sees things worse than they are. I wouldn’t go back there. There’s Panebianco, you know. He’s the doctor for the poor!”

Catena raised her face, wet with tears, and looked at her mother-in-law with a ray of hope.

“We’ll go after lunch,” asserted the old woman. “Courage, my dear, do you think I don’t understand you?”

And she looked at her with those small, clear, dark eyes so full of sadness because she loved her, loved her just like a daughter.

“Look what a rosebud he is,” she said, bowing her head over the sleeping baby, “and how much he resembles him! And you, why all this crying?” she said, comforting her with a sigh. “You have your little one, and you’ll see your husband again. I’m old, you know, and I’ve been separated from that son of mine, whom I’ll never see again. And I always thought I’d have him with me, and I wove at the loom for his family. Now, it’s over. Don’t you see what’s become of ssù ‘Ntoni? How desolate the beautiful land of Baronia has become?”