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These doubts gripped him. He felt that the fear of losing Rosa was heavier than his own life.

He sensed his brothers’ quiet sleep floating in the dark, envied their age and blissful innocence.

He loved them so much that the thought that he would also go to war to ensure their peaceful future comforted him.

That night, Ture Pileri felt “atonement”: the recommendation, the nasty rumours of the other villagers, the jinx, the rejection given to Lia. Everything would be alright if he went off to war. The evil tongues would have been hushed up, the jinx would have been fulfilled, and even Lia would have breathed a sigh of relief for not having compromised herself with a soldier whose fate was completely uncertain.

But that didn’t seem to work out well because a family would lose, perhaps forever, the love and the arms of a son. Then a young lover would be left, frozen like a rosebud after a night frost.

There was no consolation in Ture’s soul, only the extreme desire to carry all these burdens upon himself, undeterred, and then, as he had told his mother, he mumbled, “As God wishes”.