After the Divorce

Costantino Ledda

Costantino returns to Orlei after prison to find his wife Giovanna married to another man, and his days dissolve into tavern generosity, sleepless nights, and a habit of concealment learned behind bars. He still loves Giovanna, yet knows the woman he loved no longer exists, and he drifts between secret meetings with her and a torpor he cannot shake. His quiet refusal to start over — or to strike back — makes him the still center around which the village's gossip and betrayals turn.

Giovanna Era

Giovanna lives as Brontu Dejas's wife while waging a silent war against her mother-in-law Martina, who hopes to catch her with Costantino. She tells Costantino she wants Brontu to divorce her so she can come back as his servant, but Costantino sees a woman changed by betrayal and no longer trusts her love. Her maneuvering between two husbands and two households drives the novel's central question of whether anything broken can be honestly repaired.

Giacobbe Dejas

Giacobbe moves through Orlei as a man of property and cutting talk, the one Brontu confides in and the one who laughs loudest at him. He urges Brontu to marry a fresh young girl instead of a divorced woman, and later joins the friends who abandon the Eras' house in disgust. His mockery and his shifting loyalties make him a barometer of the village's moral weather — and a quiet antagonist to Costantino's attempts to reclaim his name.

Brontu Dejas

Brontu pursued Giovanna from the beginning, praying Costantino would be convicted so he could have her, and now finds marriage to her hollow. He bullies and blusters when drunk, threatens old Isidoro in the road, and swings between maudlin need and violent temper. His jealousy and instability make him the fuse in a household already primed by Martina's scheming and Giovanna's coldness.

Aunt Bachissia

Aunt Bachissia runs her household with an iron will, outfitting Giovanna's remarriage in fine linen and kerchiefs even as the countryside gossips over the scandal. She drives Giacobbe Dejas from the house when he pleads against the divorce, and treats the ceremony as a point of family honor rather than shame. Her fierce, unapologetic management of appearances makes her both Giovanna's shield and the engine of the choices that will haunt her daughter.

Isidoro Pane

Uncle Isidoro shares his hut and his meager catch with Costantino, urging him to marry again and find peace, though he knows the young man still meets Giovanna in secret. He is mocked in the road by drunken Brontu and gently pitied by the priest, yet he keeps his quiet watch over the man he calls a sick child. His tenderness and his dread give the novel its moral counterweight to the village's gossip and vengeance.