V.It was the last lesson. August was dying; the lessons were all coming to an end. After the September and October holidays, the children were to return to school for the Feast of San Carlo. But the Tricolors, maidens of seventeen or eighteen, having finished their education, left in September, to return no more. On that day, at two o’clock, they attended the history lesson the last of all. After that lesson, their course of study was absolutely finished.
That was why there was something so abnormal in the girls themselves, and in the very atmosphere about them. That was why the curly, blonde hair of Carolina Pentasuglia was dressed more like a poodle’s than it had ever been before; a roguish cherub’s head, one mass of curls. Giovanna Casacalenda, divested of her apron, was in pure white,
