The four women lived in the centre of the village, on Piazza Garibaldi to be precise, in an apartment with two small rooms and a kitchen, with a little balcony overlooking the square. The rooms were decorated with those tapestries peddled at fairs by travelling salesmen, depicting the Madonna of the Chair, or the Discovery of America, or the Landing of the Thousand in Sicily. In addition to this the walls were adorned with cuttings from magazines, with old photographs and postcards. On the beds were covers of fake scarlet damask. There were no maids, and they lunched in the kitchen, beneath a beaded paper lampshade, at a table covered with oilcloth.

When I first met the Donato women, Concetta’s hand in marriage had been asked for by the son of the most important hotelier in the city; and this offer, coming from such a suitor as this, in every way so very flattering, had electrified Angela. She could already see Concetta installed in the entrance of the hotel, in a velvet wedding dress, with a brooch of rubies, welcoming the guests with sovereign affability; and herself wearing a fur stole, feathers and bracelets, visiting her daughter, fanning herself in the drawing room

But instead Concetta rejected the offer made by the hotelier’s son. And she repudiated that offer as if it were obviously out of the question – with a promptness so offensive that the young man had sworn eternal enmity towards the Donatos. If he crossed paths with the widow in the street he would ostentatiously overtake her with a martial gait, without acknowledging her, while she in turn would snub him with a disdain worthy of an empress. Soon this suitor was engaged to another young lady, and would deliberately parade with her beneath the windows of the Donato household, showing them how elegantly turned out his new fiancée was, and what heels and what necklaces she sported. Her eyes darkened with envy, an indifferent smile on her lips, the widow Donato would peer at him from behind the windowpanes. ‘Well, it’s something rather better than him that my daughter deserves!’ she would tell me, with supreme disdain: ‘My daughter was born to live in style – to drive around in a luxury car, with a chauffeur, a nanny and a pram!’