The world is cruel and unfair and anyone who doesn't realize this is either an idiot or blind. Micheletto has no misconceptions about the nature of life. It is about the survival of the most powerful. Power comes in different forms – money, influence, physical strength, cunning, skill… He does not have only the first two. This is why he is still alive and thriving, comparatively, unlike many others. He has learned over the years how to balance his inner most self and his need to survive. He will not be trampled, but he will also never foolishly run into something that is bound to get him killed. Idiocy was never the answer.
He has never lost sight of why he left his home village. He has never lost sight of what he has gained by it. He has never lost sight of what it cost him. But it's harder to do so standing in the graveyard, waiting for Cesare to return, feeling the cold air on his face, looking into the face of a memory. "Only ghosts should walk here." Yes. Ghosts and them. Because when they are here they are like ghosts, invisible and ethereal, something that is not right in this world. But they still are, they still exist, even if they don't belong.
Augustino may blame Micheletto for the life he leads, but how is it any worse than Augustino's? Augustino is getting married, unwilling to allow their passions to continue because they are dangerous. All he is doing is surviving, just like Micheletto. But at least Micheletto fights for his survival, kills for it, instead of hiding and lying, which is what Augustino has chosen for his weapons.
That does not make things any less painful. This ghost is no less bittersweet and leaving will tear him apart just the same. It's almost better – he and Augustino were always too passionate, too intense, ready to rip each other apart at the merest suspicion of hurt or cruel intention. But it still hurts.
This is truly why he kills. Aside from survival and balance, he is punishing the world for not being as it should be, for keeping his passion a ghost, for being unfair and cruel and cold. Love is a silly world which, even if it exists, can be so easily torn apart by the smallest truths. Death is nothing compared to that, and the earth can take far more blood than has already been spilled. The more life he takes, the more the whole suffers, and if he chips away enough bits and peaces, perhaps it will bleed out in the end, lose its strength for cruelty and injustice.
Unlikely. But fighting is better than hiding. That's the one thing he and Augustino could never agree on at all.