The dog runs after the stone and brings it back to Falco. Falco throws it again. The dog takes the stone again, but now he runs away with it.
Falco remembers that it is the stone he picked up on Mongibello, and goes after the dog to get it back. He whistles to the dog, and it comes to him instantly. “Drop the stone!” The dog puts its head on one side and will not drop it. “Ah, give me the stone, rascal!” The dog shuts its mouth. It has no stone. “Let me see; let me see!” says Falco. He bends the dog’s head back and forces it to open its mouth. The stone lies far in under the gums, and Falco tries to force it out. Then the dog bites him, till the blood flows.
Falco is terrified. He goes in to Donna Silvia. “I hope your dog is healthy,” he says.
“My dog? I have no dog. It is dead.”—“But the one running outside?”—“I do not know which one you mean,” she says.
Falco says nothing more, nor does he do Donna Silvia any harm. He simply goes his way, frightened; he thinks that the dog is mad, and he fears hydrophobia.
One evening Donna Micaela sits alone in the music-room. She has put out the lamp and opened the balcony doors. She likes to listen to the street in the evening and at night. No more smiths and stone-cutters and criers are heard. There is song, laughter, whispering, and mandolins.
Suddenly she sees a dark hand laid on the balcony railing. The hand drags up after it an arm and a head; within a moment a whole human being swings himself into the balcony. She sees him plainly, for the street-lamps are still burning. He is a small, broad-shouldered, bearded fellow, dressed like a shepherd, with leather sandals, a slouch hat, and an umbrella tied to his back. As soon as he is on his feet he snatches his gun from his shoulder and comes into the room with it in his hands.
She sits still without giving a sign of life. There is no time either to summon help or to escape. She hopes that the man will take what he wishes to take, and go away without noticing her, sitting back in the dark room.
The man puts his gun down between his legs, and she hears him scratching with a match. She shuts her eyes. He will believe that she is asleep.