Chapter 25 Summary and Analysis

Chapter 25

The final chapter opens with Carlo's travel back to Gagliano. Spring had arrived in Southern Italy. When he returns to Gagliano, it seems both smaller and more depressing than before. Giulia is not waiting for him and will no longer speak to him. Her lover, the albino, had become jealous of Carlo in Carlo's absence and threatened to kill her if she continued to care for Carlo. Donna Caterina sets off to find Carlo another helper. The woman she picks, Maria, is sixty years old and was the mistress of Don Luigi's eighty-two-year-old father. She was more witch-like than Giulia with "none of Giulia's animal dignity." But she was very competent.

The new priest, Don Pietro Liguari, had just come from Miglionico. Don Liguari is fairly zealous and looks to change the townspeople's religion, with much the same aims of...