And when the neighbor women shut their doors, Brasi would go into Venera’s house. She was terrified of him. She served him as though he were her master, never even buying a skein of hemp without first asking his permission. Sometimes he beat her, but she didn’t fight back; she didn’t even miss her husband in those ugly moments. Brasi or Petrù, it was all the same. Petrù, who was always in a dark and violent mood, had beaten her like an animal in their two years of marriage. Brasi at least, even if he was rather sickly and moody, had his good days, and if he came across a bit of money, he’d buy wine and pasta, saying: “Let’s live it up a bit just to spite your husband.”

Husband! Eight years are eight years. She hardly ever thought anymore that he might be coming back.

And so when the letter came at the end of the month saying, “As I’m sending this letter off, I’m leaving,” Venera felt the earth give way beneath her feet.

“Scoundrel! He could be here tomorrow, even this evening. Suddenly, just like that … as though the house were an inn, always open.”

Did he think he was going to find a celebration in the house? You don’t just leave a woman for years and years alone with no means of support.

But little by little she settled down. A husband is the head of the house. She was his, and he could throw her out, just like that.

Her husband! She remembered him, strong, well-built, violent…. She was afraid of him now just the same as if she’d seen a living person rise up from an open tomb, a living being angry and threatening.

But if he’d gotten rich?

She went to confession. She felt the need to be calmed and pardoned. And Father Olivaro, raising his trembling hand behind the grate, absolved her: “It is God who pardons you, God who sees you, miserable creature made of mud.”

And Venera left there with her soul relieved. She set out the few household furnishings and cleaned the house as though it were Easter. A new life was beginning. Terrified, she warned Brasi: “For the love of God, Brasi…. It has to be like we never met! A man like that …”

And she shivered. But once she rolled up her sleeves to wash the hearth she felt tranquil and at peace again because she’d fulfilled all her duties and was beginning her new life as a married woman, the same as if she’d done nothing but waited for her husband. But she also thought: “He could come back rich. Rich, yes…. And then I’ll have no reason to envy massaro Nitto’s wife.”