"Ah, I should say they were, a downright nuisance," said the other mildly. "No, don't lean over like that, my daughter, you'll hurt yourself; let me do it," and leaving her spindle she stooped down and began to pick up the grains one at a time, while a hen seized the opportunity to pull at the bunch of flax on her distaff. "Ah! ah, you! I'll wring your neck for you!" shrieked Aunt Martina, suddenly turning and espying it, and as she drove it off, the others all instantly fell to gobbling up the grain. The younger woman went on with her task, bending over the sieve, silent and abstracted. From the portico could be seen the deserted common, Aunt Bachissia's bare little cottage in the sultry noontide glare, a burning stretch of road, yellow, deserted fields, and a horizon like metal. The clouds, banked high one upon another, seemed to rain heat, and the stillness was almost oppressive. A tall, barefooted boy passed by, leading a couple of small black cows; then came a young woman, likewise barefoot, who stared at Giovanna with two round eyes, then a fat white dog with its nose to the ground; but that was all; no other incident broke the monotony of the sultry noontide. Giovanna sifted and stirred ever more and more languidly. She was weary; she was hungry, but not for food; she was thirsty, but not for drink; through her whole physical nature she was conscious of a need of something hopelessly lost. Her task finished, she leaned over and began pouring the grain back from one basket to another. "Let it be, let it be," said Aunt Martina solicitously. "You will do yourself some harm." Giovanna, starting presently to carry the grain to the "mill" (a grind-stone turned by a small donkey, which grinds a hundred litres of grain in four days), her mother-in-law prevented her and took it herself. Left alone, Giovanna went into the kitchen, looked cautiously around, and then began to search through the cupboards. Nothing anywhere; not a piece of fruit, no wine, not so much as a drop of liquor wherewith to quench the intolerable thirst that tormented her. She did, at last, find a little coffee, which she heated, and sweetened with a bit of sugar from her pocket, carefully re-covering the fire when she had done. The mouthful of warm liquid seemed, however, the rather to augment her thirst. Giovanna felt that what she wanted was some soft, delicious drink, something that she had never tasted in all her life and--never would. A dull anger took possession of her, and her eyes grew bitter. Walking over to the door of the storeroom, she shook it, although knowing perfectly well that it was locked; her lips grew white, and she murmured a curse below her breath. Then, barefoot as she was, she went out, noiselessly crossed the common, and called her mother. "Come in," answered the latter from the kitchen. "I can't; there's no one in the house."