But she wanted to know if the dead, when they reach the other side, learned of everything that had happened back here during their lifetime.

For a moment the question actually did distract me. It had been asked, moreover, in a much softer tone because, to avoid being overheard, Giovanna had lowered her voice.

“So,” I said, “you were unfaithful to your husband.”

She begged me not to shout, then confessed that she had been unfaithful to him, but only during the first months of their marriage. Then she had grown accustomed to his blows and had loved her man.

To keep up the conversation, I asked: “So your older daughter owes her life to this other man?”

Again in a low voice, she admitted to believing as much, also because of a certain resemblance. She was very sorry she had betrayed her husband. She said this, but was still laughing because these are things you laugh about even when they hurt. But that was only after his death, because, before, since he didn’t know about it, the matter couldn’t have any importance.

Impelled by a certain fraternal friendliness, I tried to allay her sorrow; I told her I believed the dead do know everything, but certain things they don’t give a damn about.

“Only the living suffer over them!” I cried, banging my fist on the table.

I bruised my hand, and there is nothing better than physical pain to provoke new ideas. It occurred to me that while I was here tormenting myself with the thought of my wife’s taking advantage of my confinement in order to betray me, perhaps the doctor was still in the clinic, in which case I could recover my peace of mind. I asked Giovanna to go and see, saying that I felt a need to tell the doctor something, and promising her the whole bottle as a reward. Protesting that she wasn’t all that fond of drinking, she still complied at once and I heard her climb unsteadily up the wooden steps to the upper floor, to emerge from our cloister. Then she came down again, but she slipped, making a great racket and screaming.

“The devil take you,” I murmured fervently. Had she broken her neck, my position would have been greatly simplified.

Instead, she joined me, smiling, because she was in that state where pains aren’t so painful. She told me she had spoken with the attendant, who was just going to bed; though, even there, he remained at her disposal, in the event that I turned nasty. She raised her hand, index finger pointed, but she tempered those words and that threatening gesture with a smile. Then, more sharply, she added that the doctor had not returned after seeing my wife out. Not a sign! Indeed, for some hours, the attendant had hoped the doctor would return, because a patient needed to be looked at. Now the attendant had given up hope.

I looked at her, studying the smile that contorted her face, to see if it was habitual or if it was totally new, inspired by the fact that the doctor was with my wife rather than with me, his patient. I was seized by a fury that made my head spin. I must confess that, as always, in my spirit two persons were combating, one of whom, the more reasonable, was saying to me: “Idiot! What makes you think your wife is unfaithful? She wouldn’t have to get you locked up to create the opportunity.” The other, and this was surely the one who wanted to smoke, also called me an idiot, but shouted: “Don’t you recall how easy things are when the husband is away? And with the doctor you are paying money to!”

Giovanna, taking another drink, said: “I forgot to lock the door upstairs. But I don’t want to climb those steps again. Anyway, there are always people up there, and you’d look really foolish if you tried to run away.”

“Yes,” I said, with that modicum of hypocrisy now necessary to deceive the poor creature. Then I, too, gulped down some cognac, and declared that with all this liquor now at my disposal, I didn’t give a damn about cigarettes. She believed me at once, and then I told her I actually wasn’t the one who wanted me to break the smoking habit. It was my wife. Because when I smoked as many as ten cigarettes a day, I became something terrible. Any woman who came within reach of me then was in danger.

Giovanna began to laugh loudly, sinking back in the chair: “So it’s your wife who prevents you from smoking the ten cigarettes you need?”

“That’s exactly how it was! At least she used to keep me from smoking.”

Giovanna was no fool once she had all that cognac inside her. She was seized by a fit of laughter that almost made her fall out of the chair, but when she had recovered enough breath to gasp out a few words, she painted a magnificent scene suggested to her by my illness. “Ten cigarettes… half an hour… you set the alarm… then …”

I corrected her. “For ten cigarettes I’d need an hour, more or less. Then, for the full effect, about another hour, give or take ten minutes…”

Suddenly Giovanna became serious and rose almost effortlessly from her chair. She said she would go and lie down because she was feeling a slight headache.