Since it was in the order of things, why should she not accept Giosuè, whose tin heart she wore at her side? What difference would it be to her, in the end, if it were Giosuè or any other young man from her village whom she married? A woman’s role was already set, the rhythm to which her life would march already programmed. Even if life was hard, there could be comfort in sharing it with a young man such as Giosuè, a man who had showed his admiration for her. The rest would be the life she already knew.

Then Beppino, to get even for the quarrel over the goat, accused her of meeting Giosuè secretly in the hills.

“Scemo,” she retorted.

“I saw you talking with him in the ruins,” he said accusingly. “You have been seeing him.”

“It is not true, but why should it concern you?” she said shortly, impatient of his tone, and infuriating him all the more.

“Women must not dishonor their families,” he shouted at her.

“I have caused no dishonor,” she said.

“It is not decent for femmine to go meeting men in the valley. I saw you the day you stopped at the stream and I went ahead.”

“It was by chance,” she started to explain, and then she was disgusted at herself for having to put things right with Beppino, whom she had always bettered and bossed. She shrugged her shoulders silently and walked away.

She was not sentimental; pleasure was not the first thought in her mind, and she knew that whatever pleasure she and Giosuè would eventually share would not be the kind that could be stored up like dried figs or flour in sacks to nourish them through bad times. Yet she resented what she understood in her brother’s outburst—that her wishes counted not at all. That she was bound by men’s notions of what women must be.

Up in the hills, she wondered what it could come to. Did she want to marry Giosuè? If she did marry him would her father be displeased and not give her a dote, those few household things a girl brought in marriage to her husband? In her world, she began to see, a woman could not afford the displeasure of any man—even the insignificant and sneaky Beppino.

Troubled by her thoughts, Umbertina’s sensitivity to her surroundings was lulled. She did not sense the ominous stillness and the heavy pressure in the air before it was too late. The clap of thunder took her by surprise and startled the goats she was herding. One scampered away, and in her haste, as she scrambled up the hillside toward the flock to get them together, she lost her footing and slipped on the mountainous terrain, dislodging rocks that pelted her as she fell and rolled down. The thud of rocks and her own cries fell on no ears except her own. God is punishing me, she thought to herself. When her fall was finally stopped, she was bruised and cut; the rain was falling hard and the goats were bleating in panic as she stumbled back to get them together.