Domenico Tempesta—Prosperine Tucci

Domenico Tempesta and Prosperine Tucci are bound by a fraught dependence: after Prosperine reveals a disturbing secret, Domenico recognizes that he can no longer treat her as an ignorant or harmless guest, yet he chooses family silence over disclosure. His response is not a clean break. He tries to control Prosperine’s conduct in his home, eventually arranges paid work and lodging for her elsewhere, and continues to resent her presence when she returns. The relationship exposes the tension between his fear of scandal and his insistence on authority within the household.

A Secret That Changes Their Balance

Before Prosperine’s confession, Domenico had regarded himself as her fool; afterward, he understands that what she knows makes her dangerous to him and to Ignazia. Her revelation concerns the past of Violetta D’Annunzio, whose fate Prosperine connects to the murder of a stained-glass artist. Domenico considers the possibility of going to the police, but he does not do so. He fears that investigation would bring public disgrace to the Tempesta name and make his home appear to be a refuge for women involved in murder.

His silence does not mean that he has reached certainty. He sometimes tries to tell himself that Ignazia is not Violetta, and that Violetta met the fate Prosperine described. But his conviction in that explanation lasts only briefly before his suspicion returns. Their relation is therefore marked by a secret that cannot be openly tested: Prosperine’s account makes Domenico doubt the identity and history of his wife, while his decision to keep quiet leaves him alone with those doubts. The secret gives Prosperine leverage without making her secure; Domenico regards her knowledge as a threat even as he declines to expose it.

Confession and Competing Accounts

When Domenico confesses to Father Guglielmo, Prosperine’s story becomes part of a wider catalogue of grievances. He recounts the claims about Violetta and the murdered artist, as well as Prosperine’s account of Ciccolina’s witchcraft and the transformation of one rabbit into two. He also recalls Prosperine’s threat against him if he continued to interfere with his wife. These details reach the priest through Domenico’s recollection: the passage establishes what Domenico says he was told, not independent confirmation that every allegation is true.

Domenico’s confession also shows how he frames the conflict. He presents Prosperine as a source of danger and wrongdoing, but his account is mixed with complaints about the injuries and humiliations he believes others have inflicted on him. Father Guglielmo repeatedly redirects him toward his own conduct rather than other people’s sins. In this setting, Domenico’s description of Prosperine reveals both the force of his grievance and the limits of his self-scrutiny: he can name her alleged threat, yet initially treats his own trespasses as only one part of a larger list of offenses against him.

Authority Inside the House

Domenico asserts that Ignazia is the household’s mistress and that Prosperine’s shelter depends on doing what Ignazia asks. When Ignazia objects to his intervention and says the matter belongs to the two women, Domenico rejects that boundary: he insists that whatever happens inside the house concerns him. He takes Prosperine by the arm, escorts her to the door, and orders her to go to the market for cheese, threatening to make her leave if she refuses. The exchange makes his relationship with Prosperine openly coercive: hospitality is presented as conditional, and he enforces that condition through intimidation rather than negotiation.

The confrontation also reveals a conflict between Domenico’s claim to household authority and Ignazia’s attempt to manage her own relationship with Prosperine. Ignazia asks him to let Prosperine go and asserts that their business is not his. Domenico answers by treating the entire home as his jurisdiction. Prosperine, in turn, responds from the sidewalk with a warning that harm returns to the person who sends it out. The scene does not resolve their distrust. Instead, it shows the three-way strain among Domenico, Ignazia, and Prosperine, with his intervention turning a disagreement between the women into a demonstration of his power over the home and its guest.

Lodging Elsewhere, Conflict at Home

Prosperine eventually leaves the house to work for Signora Siragusa, whose arthritis has made it difficult to run her boardinghouse without help. Domenico arranges an exchange: Prosperine will cook and clean in return for a bed in the attic and one dollar a day, paid directly to him on Saturday mornings. He says the arrangement will repay some of the money he has spent on Prosperine’s food and clothing and compensate him for tolerating her. He gives her one dollar a week for tobacco and other necessities and keeps the rest. The move thus changes the practical terms of their connection without ending Domenico’s control over money owed through the arrangement.

The separation is incomplete. Prosperine has Sundays off and uses the key to let herself back into the Tempesta home while Domenico, Ignazia, and the child attend Mass. She sits at the kitchen table, smokes her pipe, and drinks wine from the jug under the sink; Domenico complains that she does not help Ignazia prepare the afternoon meal. His account treats these visits as another affront, even though they follow a work arrangement he himself negotiated. Ignazia, meanwhile, says she is lonely without her friend. That response makes the cost of the arrangement visible: Domenico has reduced Prosperine’s daily presence in the home, but he has not severed the women’s attachment, and his attempt to manage their relationship leaves him resentful of the contact that remains.