I put his silver in a tin cup I had and slowed to a walk and went along shaking his Judas coin in my old battered mug. Such a pretty ringing it made in the echoing canyons, on the stairs, in the night, high above Positano and the crash and sigh of the sea, as the tide consummated the desire of water to pound the earth into submission.

At last, pausing to catch my breath, I saw a candle flame leap up off in the darkness. It was in a handsome ruin, a place of high granite walls matted with wildflowers and ivy. A vast entryway looked into a room with a grass floor and a roof of stars, as if the place had been built, not to give shelter from the natural world, but to protect a virgin corner of wildness from the violation of man. Then again it seemed a pagan place, the natural setting for an orgy hosted by fauns with their goaty hooves, their flutes and their furred cocks. So the archway into that private courtyard of weeds and summer green seemed the entrance to a hall awaiting revelers for a private bacchanal.

He waited on spread blanket, with a bottle of the Don’s wine and some books and he smiled at the tinkling sound of my approach but stopped when I came into the light, a block of rough stone already in my free hand.

I killed him there.

I did not kill him out of family honor or jealousy, did not hit him with the stone because he had laid claim to Lithodora’s cool white body, which she would never offer me.

I hit him with the block of stone because I hated his black face.

After I stopped hitting him, I sat with him. I think I took his wrist to see if he had a pulse, but after I knew he was dead, I went on holding his hand listening to the hum of the crickets in the grass, as if he were a small child, my child, who had only drifted off after fighting sleep for a very long time.

What brought me out of my stupor was the sweet music of bells coming up the stairs toward us. I leapt up and ran but Dora was already there, coming through the doorway, and I nearly struck her on my way by. She reached out for me with one of her delicate white hands and said my name but I did not stop. I took the stairs three at a time, running without thought, but I was not fast enough and I heard her when she shouted his name, once and again.