MARIETTA

He screams in the night, such screams as I’ve never heard come out of the mouth of a man. He screams like a woman laboring over a breech birth, just before she gives up the ghost. Then during the day, he says nothing, Doctore, he goes into his study, scribbles a few words, and then…he wanders off. Towards the chickens.

ALPHONSO

This is not like Niccolo. The man could write a single sentence half a page long and barely stop to breathe.

MARIETTA

Just a few words, then he stops. Since he’s come back. From that place.

ALPHONSO

Do you want me to bleed him?

MARIETTA

I don’t think that will help.

ALPHONSO

Nothing better than a good bleeding!

MARIETTA

He won’t eat, or he eats too much. He can’t sleep, or he sleeps all day long.

ALPHONSO

I have seen this before, in men who have been