Weak in character, with more heart than intellect, she knew only how to love and to weep.

Her husband was a god and her sons were his angels, so he, knowing to what point he was loved and feared, conducted himself like all false gods: daily he became more cruel, more inhuman, more wilful.

Once when he had appeared with his countenance gloomier than ever before, Sisa had consulted him about the plan of making a sacristan of Basilio, and he had merely continued to stroke his game-cock, saying neither yes nor no, only asking whether the boy would earn much money.

She had not dared to insist, but her needy situation and her desire that the boys should learn to read and write in the town school forced her to carry out the plan.

Still her husband had said nothing.
That night, between ten and eleven o'clock, when the stars were glittering in a sky now cleared of all signs of the storm of the early evening, Sisa sat on a wooden bench watching some fagots that smouldered upon the fireplace fashioned of rough pieces of natural rock.