Every letter gave rise to outbursts with Brasi, the cobbler, who lived in the house next to hers. She would spin, he would pound leather; she would sigh, he would comfort her. And yet it did her good to know that at least one of God’s creatures was aware of her worries. In the evening, too, when the little street was empty and the yellow lamplight flickered on the rough cobblestones and dark houses, Brasi would come to sit beside Venera on the step. He always brought his dinner: a piece of bread, a little cheese, or a head of garlic.

“Take some!” he’d say, breaking the bread.

“Thank you, mastro Brasi, but I’ve already eaten.”

“What are you talking about! Your lips are white!”

“It’s that I can’t pay you back, mastro Brasi,” said Venera, biting hungrily into the bread. “My house, you know … you could rummage through the whole thing with one sweep of the broom. There’s nothing but poverty in every corner!”

And they would have supper together, almost happy, though they felt themselves to be the poorest and most abandoned ones on the street, with every other door closed and every family gathered round a steaming pot. Sometimes the light would flash on the rough cobblestones, and sometimes it stayed in the streetlamp like it had been gathered up and made smaller. Only the stars could see them from the dark sky high above.

Venera went to confession often, always trying to persuade the priest to give her absolution as she trembled behind the grate. “Oh Father! I’m like a reed buffeted by the wind, like a hermit in the middle of temptations….”

And Father Olivaro, who was old and saintly, would reproach her severely, but then, seeing that she was sorry, would give her absolution. And Venera left with her soul relieved.

But little by little she stopped going to confession, and whenever she would meet Father Olivaro she’d wrap herself up in her cape so she wouldn’t have to say hello to him. And she no longer got so worked up when she received letters. She just accepted it. Time passed, and it passed; and there were moments when she even forgot she had a husband in La Mèrica. If the neighbor women would ask, “Oh! Venera! And your husband?”

“He’ll come back when God wants….” she’d reply. But it was only her lips that said it.

It seemed like she and Brasi were husband and wife. Brasi would give her what little money he had and tell her: “Find me some soup. Day-old bread isn’t going to do it for me this evening.”