hen I thought I was going to see something
of the mala vita. On the cliff at Castellinaria are some remains of
polygonal buildings which have been made a national monument. The
custode's cabin is just below, in a sheltered place where Peppino and I
sometimes go and sit after supper. One moonlight evening, it was rather
late, but the lamp was still shining in the cabin and the custode was
still hanging about, I heard someone approaching and, looking up, saw,
against the sky, a sinewy, slight woman in a long black dress with a
black shawl over her head. She was coming rapidly along the edge of the
cliff with a shuffling, swaying motion, and as she came she was
continually rearranging the shawl over her head and chattering volubly to
herself in a hoarse, coarse, raucous voice. The custode glanced at her
as she drew near and I thought he flinched. I do not know how I knew it,
but I was sure she was his wife. She was beside herself with passion.
She must have found out something--something about some other woman. I
felt as I have felt at an Ibsen play--as though I were looking through
the keyhole into a room where dirty linen was about to be washed. She
shook and trembled all over like an express train approaching a country
station. Reason told me that Peppino and I were safe, we were on the
platform; nevertheless accidents do happen and there was the poor custode
on the line. She drew up in front of us, and her draperies swirled round
her with the suddenness of her stopping. She became silent and still,
while she looked at me as though fixing my appearance on her brain for
this life and the next; she looked at Peppino in the same way and at the
custode. Then the chattering began again and the restless rearranging of
her shawl over her head. Suddenly she turned, poured herself into the
cabin and exploded. It was not as with an earthquake, for the walls were
left standing and the roof and foundations were unshaken, and an
earthquake, they say, seems to last for an eternity, whereas this woman
seemed to take but a moment to complete her work of desolation. She
pounced upon something among the debris and laughed hysterically as she
hid it in her bosom.

The storm was over. She was transformed into a rather beautiful and
extremely graceful woman of about thirty. She exchanged a few words of
friendly chaff with her husband, smiled at Peppino and bowed to me as she
passed out, went up the path against the moonlit