Baldassare Mulas advanced across the green plain wearing a cap and sporting a great white beard, as short in stature as a woodland gnome. In response to his call the lovely fat cows and still wild red bullocks approached docilely, letting him touch their flanks and open their mouths, and the fierce-looking mastiff wagged its tail as if recognizing a friend in the cattle dealer.

A deal, however, could not be concluded. For although the servant Malafazza – a filthy scoundrel, as dark as a Bedouin – had portrayed his master as a fool, the latter proved to be well enough equipped to handle his own business affairs, not budging from the high price he’d originally quoted to the dealer, and obliging him to leave empty-handed.

The servant, who was heading back to town as he did every evening, kept the dealer company for some of the way, and the master saw from a distance how he was gesturing and laughing – having some fun at his expense, perhaps – but he was past caring about what others thought of him. Left alone, he headed back to the hut, placed a bowl of milk on the grass in the clearing, and, sitting on a rock, began to cut strips from the skin of a pine marten.

All around the vast plain, green with the new grass of autumn, there was a biblical calm; the sun was setting rose-coloured above the violet line of the plateau of Goceano; the rose-coloured moon was rising from the violet woods of the lands of Nuoro. The herd was grazing tranquilly, and the hides of the heifers were lit by the sunset, as if dyed red. The silence was such that if some distant voice reverberated, it seemed as if it were coming from underground. A man of aristocratic appearance passed in front of the hut, wearing a moleskin suit, but with a Sardinian beret, leading two reddish oxen dragging an ancient plough with its silvery shares turned upwards. He was an impoverished gentleman farmer who was not above ploughing and planting the land himself. Without stopping, he greeted old Baldassare.

‘So, have you seen your sweetheart today?’

‘It’s still too early: if she isn’t hungry that little she-devil won’t put in an appearance.’

‘What are you doing with that pelt?’

‘Making laces for my shoes. I’ve discovered that the skin of a marten is more durable than dogskin.’

‘It can take more rain, you’ll see! Well, God be with you.’

‘And Mary with you.’

Once the man with his plough shining like a silver cross had vanished, everything was silent again; but as the sun was going down the old man gazed a little anxiously towards the line of scrub at the far end of the plain, and finally stopped what he was doing and remained motionless. The cows were retreating into their herds, turning first to look at the sun suspended above the line of the horizon: red and blue mists were rising, and everything, lightly veiled in them, seemed to give a shudder of sadness; the grass blades that moved despite there being no wind resembled eyelids blinking over eyes that were on the verge of tears.