"She was a kind woman, but, when necessary, she could be quite stern. In the end, they so confused the fellow and made him contradict himself so often that he lost his head—and confessed:
"'Nothing at all happened; I said it simply out of malice.'
"This did not surprise the old women.
"'It is what we thought,' they said; and, letting him go, they left the matter to the decision of the men.
"Two days later our Workers' Society met. Cirotta had to face them, having been accused of libelling a woman. Old Giacomo Fasca, a blacksmith, said in a way that did credit to him:
"'Citizens, comrades and good people! We demand that justice shall be done to us. We on our part must be just to everybody: let everybody understand that we know the high value of what we want, and that justice is not an empty word for us as it is for our masters. Here is a man who has libelled a woman, offended a comrade, disrupted one family and brought sorrow to another, who has made his wife suffer jealousy and shame. Our attitude to this man should be stern. What do you propose to do?'
"Sixty-seven tongues exclaimed in one voice:
"'Drive him out of the commune!'
"Fifteen of the men thought that this was too severe a punishment, and a dispute arose. And the dispute became a very noisy one, for the fate of a man hung on their decision, and not the fate of one man only: the man was married and had three children. What had his wife and children done? He had a house, a vineyard, a pair of horses, four donkeys for the use of foreigners. All these things had been acquired by his own labour and had cost him a deal of pains. Poor Giuseppe was skulking in a corner amongst the children and looked as gloomy as the very devil. He sat doubled up on a chair, his head bowed, fumbling his hat. He had pulled off the ribbon already, and now was slowly tearing off the brim. His fingers jerked as if he were playing the fiddle. When he was asked what he had to say he stood up slowly and, straightening his body, said:
"'I beg you to be lenient! There is no one without sin. To drive me off the land on which I have lived for more than thirty years, and where my ancestors have worked, would not be just.'