The events of today signalled some type of shift in her attitude to him and made him acutely aware that, for the last three years, it had not just been himself who had changed. Josef knew the reasons for his own withdrawal, but he had supposed that Evangelina was much as she had always been for the past forty years—since her laughing, loving eyes had been cast from him to the children, since the trials of family life and the demands of the taverna had created a rhythmic tedium to their days. He had supposed that she had not noticed this, and how much it hurt him, that her attention was constantly directed towards everyone and everything else but him, that she had not suspected for a moment that he could betray her.
The ordeal over, Josef returned to the garden. He longed to disappear into
