"You know where I live," answered Lola. And now Turiddu visited Lola so often that Santa shut her window in his face and the villagers began to smile knowingly when he passed by. Alfio was making a round of the fairs with his mules. "Next Sunday I must go to confession," said Lola one day, "for last night I dreamt that I saw black grapes." "Never mind the dream," pleaded Turiddu. "But Easter is coming, and my husband will want to know why I have not confessed." Santa was before the confessional waiting her turn when Lola was receiving absolution. "I wouldn't send you to Rome for absolution," she said. Alfio came home with his mules, and money and a rich holiday dress for his wife. "You do well to bring presents to her," said Santa to him, "for when you are away your wife adorns your head for you." "Holy Devil!" screamed Alfio. "Be sure of what you are saying, or I'll not leave you an eye to cry with!" "I am not in the habit of crying. I haven't wept even when I have seen Turiddu going into your wife's house at night." "Enough!" said Alfio. "I thank you very much." The cat having come back home, Turiddu kept off the streets by day, but in the evenings consoled himself with his friends at the tavern. They were enjoying a dish of sausages there on Easter eve. When Alfio came in Turiddu understood what he wanted by the way he fixed his eyes on him. "You know what I want to speak to you about," said Alfio when Turiddu asked him if he had any commands to give him. He offered Alfio a glass of wine, but it was refused with a wave of the hand. "Here I am," said Turiddu. Alfio put his arms around his neck. "We'll talk this thing over if you will meet me to-morrow morning." "You may look for me on the highway at sunrise, and we will go on together." They exchanged the kiss of challenge, and Turiddu, as an earnest that he would be on hand, bit Alfio's ear. His companions left their sausages uneaten and went home with Turiddu. There his mother was sitting up for him. "Mamma," Turiddu said to her, "do you remember that when I went away to be a soldier you thought I would never come back? Kiss me as you did then, mamma, for to-morrow I am going away again." Before daybreak he took his knife from the place in the haymow where he had hidden it when he went soldiering, and went out to meet Alfio. "Holy Mother of Jesus!" grumbled Lola when her husband prepared to go out; "where are you going in such a hurry?" "I am going far away," answered Alfio, "and it will be better for you if I never come back!" The two men met on the highway and for a while walked on in silence. Turiddu kept his cap pulled down over his face. "Neighbor Alfio," he said after a space, "as true as I live I know that I have wronged you, and I would let myself be killed if I had not seen my old mother when she got up on the pretext of looking after the hens. And now, as true as I live, I will kill you like a dog so that my dear old mother may not have cause to weep."