She stood up straight on the crest of the hill. Everything around her was calm. The landscape of Gargano rustled with the busy life of insects. She knew every inch of the surrounding countryside. She breathed in deeply, and knelt down to smell the odour of pines, then she undid her blouse. The fresh air caressed her breasts. She took a small knife from her pocket. She was as pale as a woman walking to the pyre. In the silence that surrounded her with indifference, she began to talk to the stones and this was Giuliana’s last curse:
‘I curse myself, me, Giuliana, the woman who did not know what she loved. I believed I could make myself deaf to the world. I banished my husband, my child and my city from my thoughts. I chased away my memories when I should have cherished them as the only vestiges saved from disaster. I curse myself, me, Giuliana the ugly. I miss Matteo. I miss Matteo, swallowed up in death. I miss Pippo. My men were killed and I did nothing. I did not help them. I did not go with them. I banished them from my life. I am Giuliana the coward, who wanted to save herself from pain. So I take this knife and I cut off my breasts. I cut off the first, which suckled my son, and leave it on the stones of the hills in memory of the mother I was. I cut off the second, which my husband licked, and I leave it on the stones of the hills in memory of the lover I was. I am Giuliana the ugly; I have no breasts. I deserve nothing. Now I have decided to become old. I will be hideous and senile. I want to be a worn-out, twisted body. I will be no age. I will deteriorate quickly. I want that. In the weeks and months and years to come, I will wither. Tomorrow my hair will be white. Soon my teeth will come loose and my hands will tremble. I ask for old age and shaking. I have amputated my breasts. I am no longer a woman. No one will ask anything of me ever again. I will not recognise anyone any more. I want to be left with my memories of the past, the disarray of my spirit. I want people not to know what to do with me and to take me to a hospital where I will end my days in the solitude of failed lives. I am Giuliana the madwoman. I have decided today that my skin will become wrinkled and my hair will fall out. I will talk to myself. I will shout out to chase away the shadows that haunt me. My nights will be long with insomnia and terror that nothing will be able to cure. I am Giuliana with no breasts. I am no longer part of this world.’