Ciavola, stretched half under the bench, moved his long runner’s legs from time to time, mumbling about clandestine hunts-in the forbidden grounds of the Marquis of Pescara, as the taste of wild hare came up in his throat, and the wind brought to his nostrils the resinous odour of the pines of the sea grove.
Said Biagio Quaglia, giving the blond hunter a kick, and making a motion to rise:
“Let us go.”
Ciavola with an effort rose, swaying uncertainly, thin and slender like a hunting hound.
“Let us go, as they are pursuing us,” he answered, raising his hand high in a motion of assent, thinking perhaps of the passage of birds through the air.
Turlendana also moved, and seeing behind him the wine woman, Zarricante, with her flushed raw cheeks and her protruding chest, he tried to embrace her. But Zarricante fled from his embrace, hurling at him words of abuse.
On the doorsill, Turlendana asked his friends for their company and support through a part of the road. But Biagio Quaglia and Ciavola, who were indeed a fine pair, turned their backs on him jestingly, and went away in the luminous moonlight.
Then Turlendana stopped to look at the moon, which was round and red as the face of a friar. Everything around was silent and the rows of houses reflected the white light of the moon. A cat was mewing this May night upon a door step. The man, in his intoxicated state, feeling a peculiarly tender inclination, put out his hand slowly and uncertainly to caress the animal, but the beast, being somewhat wild, took a jump and disappeared.
Seeing a stray dog approaching, he attempted to pour out upon it the wealth of his loving impulses; the dog, however, paid no attention to his calls, and disappeared around the corner of a cross street, gnawing a bone. The noise of his teeth could be heard plainly through the silence of the night.
Soon after, the door of the inn was closed and Turlendana was left-standing alone under the full moon, obscured by the shadows of rolling clouds. His attention was struck by the rapid moving of all surrounding objects. Everything fled away from him. What had he done that they should fly away?