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“You do well to bring her presents,” his neighbour Santa said to him.”She’s been adorning your house for you, while you’ve been away.”

Master Alfio was one of those carters who go swaggering beside their horse with their cap over their ear; so when he heard his wife spoken of in that way, he went white as if he’d been stabbed.

“By God, though!” he exclaimed.”If you’ve seen more than there was to see, I won’t leave you your eyes to cry with, neither you nor the rest of your folks.”

“I’m not the crying sort,” replied Santa.”I didn’t cry even when I saw with my own eyes Mother Nunzia’s Turiddu creeping into your wife’s house at night.”

“All right!” replied Alfio.”I’m much obliged!”

Now that the cat had come back, Turiddu no longer hung round the little street in the daytime, but whiled away his chagrin at the inn, with his friends; and on the Saturday evening before Easter they had a dish of sausages on the table. When Master Alfio came in, Turiddu knew in an instant, from the way he fixed his eyes on him, what he’d come for, and he put his fork down on his plate.

“Did you want me for anything, Alfio?” he said.

“Nothing particular, Turiddu. It’s quite a while since I’ve seen you, and I thought I’d have a word with you—you know what about.”

At first Turiddu had offered him his glass, but he put it aside with his hand. Then Turiddu rose, and said;

“Right you are, Alfio!”

The carter threw his arms round his neck.

“Shall you come to the cactus grove at Canziria to-morrow morning, and we can talk about that bit of business of ours, boy?”

“Wait for me on the high-road at sunrise, and we’ll go together.”

With these words, they exchanged the kiss of challenge; and Turiddu nipped the carter’s ear between his teeth, thus promising solemnly not to fail him.

His friends had all quietly abandoned the sausages, and they walked with Turiddu home. Mother Nunzia, poor thing, sat up waiting for him till late every evening.

“Mother,” Turiddu said to her, “you remember when I went for a soldier, you thought I should never come back? Now kiss me like you did then, because I’m going off in the morning, a long way.”

Before daybreak he took his clasp-knife, which he had hidden under the hay when he was taken off as a conscript to the army, and then he set out for the cactus grove at Canziria.

“Oh Jesu-Maria! where are you going in such a fury?” whimpered Lola in dismay, as her husband was getting ready to go out.

“I’m not going far,” replied Master Alfio.”And better for you if I never come back.”

Lola, in her night-dress, kneeled praying at the foot of the bed, pressing to her lips the rosary which Fra Bernardino had brought from the Holy Land, and repeating all the Ave Marias there were to repeat.

“You see, Alfio,” Turiddu began, after he had walked for some distance along the road beside his silent companion, who had his cap pulled down over his eyes, “as true as God’s above, I know I’m in the wrong, and I would let myself be killed. But my old mother got up before I started out, pretending she had to see to the fowls, and I could tell she knew. So as sure as God’s above, I’m going to kill you like a dog, so the poor old woman shan’t have to cry her eyes out.”

“All right, then,” replied Alfio, pulling off his sleeved waistcoat.”Now we shall strike hard, both of us.”

They were both good fighters with the knife. Alfio struck the first thrust, and Turiddu was quick enough to catch it on his arm. When he gave it back, he gave a good one, aiming at the groin.

“Ah! Turiddu. Do you really mean to kill me?”

“Yes, I told you! Since I saw my old woman with the fowls, I can’t get her out of my eyes.”

“Then open your eyes, then!” Alfio shouted at him; “I’ll give you more than you asked for.”

And as the carter stood on guard, doubled up so as to keep his left hand over his wound, which hurt him, his elbow almost brushing the ground, suddenly he seized a handful of dust and threw it full in his enemy’s eyes.

“Ah!” screamed Turiddu, blinded.”I’m done!”

He tried to save himself by jumping desperately backwards, but Alfio caught him up with another stab in the stomach, and a third in the throat.

“——and three! That’s for the house which you adorned for me! And now your mother can mind her fowls——”

Turiddu reeled about for a moment or two here and there among the cactuses, then fell like a stone. The blood gurgled frothing from his throat, he couldn’t even gasp: “Oh, Mother!”