Farfallon

Farfallon is imprisoned for attempted murder and fixated on escaping to complete his crime. During a sea transfer after a prison riot, the Baron of Vistacorta, a fellow inmate, approaches him and instructs him to guard a precious cartridge case containing a large sum of money. This bargain seeds a web of manipulation that drives his subsequent actions.

Farfallon makes a failed escape attempt to Naples. He is sheltered by Trappistine nuns in exchange for teaching them Sicilian pastry secrets, but they betray him and hand him over to the Swiss Guards of the Vatican. The betrayal marks a turning point as his freedom plan continues to unravel.

During the transfer back toward prison, Farfallon uses the guards’ distraction to slip away again. He hides inside the refrigerated body of a meat truck and ends up among meat shipments en route to the prison. The dash back toward confinement reintroduces him to the Baron’s world.

On arrival, Farfallon is greeted by the Baron of Vistacorta, who has also been moved to the same facility. He notes a surprisingly permissive atmosphere inside the prison, with even male and female sections appearing to mingle. The baron’s presence hints at alliances that will shape Farfallon’s fate.

That night, Farfallon dreams of St. Peter who negotiates how he should repay his misdeeds. The dream reveals a hidden passage from his penalty cell to an exterior tunnel. The vision becomes a concrete plan that he pursues with the Baron's support.

With the Baron's help and a diversion engineered by the prison director, Farfallon makes progress toward the outside world. The escape is short-lived, as they are soon detected and recaptured, and are sent to the Criminal Agricultural Colony. The plan underscores how intertwined their fates have become.

The escape succeeds in part, but the two men are soon caught and detained again. They are transported to the Criminal Agricultural Colony, a harsh facility with a starkly different regime. The immediate consequences are a brutal adjustment to a new prison system.

Farfallon and the Baron endure eight years in a punishment-focused cell after a staged incident—an attempted rape by the director's wife and sister-in-law is used to justify the sentence. The men are reduced to hard labor and face demeaning humiliations in a stark, punitive environment.

Upon leaving the penalty cell, they encounter a strange inmate named Leonardo who fantasizes about reproducing the birds’ flight. He proposes testing wings he has built, inviting Farfallon and the Baron to join the experiment. The encounter introduces a bizarre science-fiction element to the escape narrative.

Farfallon is the first to attempt flight from a cliff using Leonardo’s wings and tumbles into the water. He survives the fall, revealing the invention’s flaws. The Baron chooses not to jump, preferring to avoid a fatal risk.

In the ending, it is revealed that Farfallon swam back to Sicily, killed his wife and the Baron's lover, and was arrested again. He spends the rest of his life in life imprisonment alongside the Baron. The circular arc completes the man’s pursuit of revenge.