I Malavoglia

by Giovanni Verga

  Mastro Turi Zuppiddo was stumping about on the balcony clutching his mighty implements, wanting to draw blood, and not even chains would have held him back. Fury was spreading from one doorstep to the next like the waves of the sea in a storm. Don Franco was rubbing his hands, with his awful great hat, and saying that the people were rearing their heads at last; and when he saw don Michele pass by, with his pistol slung over his stomach, he laughed right in his face. Gradually the men too had allowed themselves to become heated by their womenfolk, and were seeking each other out in order for their tempers to mount; and they wasted their day hanging around the square with their hands under their armpits and mouths agape, listening to the chemist who was holding forth in a low voice, so that his wife upstairs shouldn’t hear him, saying that the people should rise up in revolt, if they weren’t fools, and not take any notice of the tax on salt or the tax on pitch, but a clean sweep was needed, and the people should be king. But some people sneered and turned their backs on him, saying that he was the one who wanted to be king, and that he was involved in the revolution to reduce poor people to starvation. And they preferred to go off to Santuzza’s wine shop, where there was good wine which went to your head, and compare Cinghialenta and Rocco Spatu got angry enough for ten. Now that the business of the taxes was under discussion once again, there would be more talk of that next tax on ‘hair’, as they called the tax on beasts of burden, and of raising the tax on wine. By Christ! This time it would end badly, by the Virgin!

  The good wine loosened tongues, and loose tongues make you thirsty, and for the moment they hadn’t raised the tax on wine; and those who had drunk waved their fists in the air, with their shirt sleeves rolled up, and got worked up against the very flies as they flew.

  ‘This is a real windfall for Santuzza,’ they said. La Locca’s son, who had no money for drink, was there outside the doorway, shouting that he would prefer to die, now that zio Crocifisso didn’t want him even on half pay, because of his brother Menico who had been drowned along with the lupins. Vanni Pizzuto had shut up shop, because no one went to get shaved any more, and he carried his razor in his pocket, and poured out curses from a distance, and spat on people who were only going about their business, with their oars over their shoulders, shrugging.

  ‘They’re all swine, and they don’t give a fig about their country,’ bawled don Franco, puffing on his pipe as though he wanted to devour it. ‘People who wouldn’t lift a finger for their country.’

  ‘You let them talk away,’ said padron ’Ntoni to his grandson, who wanted to break his oar over the heads of anyone who called him a swine; ‘they don’t get us any bread with their chatter, nor do they reduce our debt by a single soldo.’

  Zio Crocifisso, who was the sort of person who minds his own business, and lets his wrath simmer within him, for fear of something worse, when they drew blood from him with their taxes, was now no longer to be seen on the square, leaning against the wall of the belltower, but stayed holed up in his house, reciting paternosters and Hail Maries to cool his anger at all those loudmouths, people who wanted the village put to fire and sword, and went around ransacking anyone who had two beans to rub together. ‘He’s quite right,’ they said in the village, ‘because he must have pots of money. Now he’s even got the five hundred lire from the lupins which Piedipapera gave him!’

  But la Vespa, whose wealth was all in land, so that she had no fear that it would be stolen from her, went round shouting on his behalf, waving her hands in the air, as black as a smoking coal and with her hair loose in the wind, saying that they ate her uncle alive every six months, with the land tax, and she would gouge out the collector’s eyes with her own hands, if he came back again. Now she was constantly buzzing round comare Grazia, cousin Anna and the Mangiacarrubbe girl, first with one excuse and then another, to see how compare Alfio was getting on with St Agatha, and she would have liked to wipe out St Agatha along with all the other Malavoglia; and that was why she went around saying that it wasn’t true that Piedipapera had acquired the credit on the lupins, because Piedipapera had never had five hundred lire in his life, and the Malavoglia still had zio Crocifisso’s foot on their necks, and he would crush them like ants, he was so rich, and she had been wrong to turn him down, for the love of someone who had only a donkey cart, while zio Crocifisso loved her as the apple of his eye, although at that moment he wouldn’t even open the door to her, for fear that people might force their way in to put the place to fire and the sword.

  Anyone who had anything to lose, like padron Cipolla or massaro Filippo the greengrocer, stayed holed up in their houses, with the doors well bolted, and didn’t so much as put their noses outside; this was how Brasi Cipolla earned himself a hefty swipe from his father, when he had found him at the courtyard door staring into the square like a codfish. The big-wigs lay low during the storm, and didn’t show themselves, not even the real blockheads, and left the mayor with his nose in the air looking for the mulberry leaf again.

  ‘Don’t you see that they are treating you as a puppet?’ his daughter Betta said to him, her hands on her hips. ‘Now that they’ve landed you in this trouble they’re turning their backs, and leaving you to splash through the mire; that’s what happens when you let yourself be led by the nose by a troublemaker like don Silvestro.’

  But don Silvestro said that it was his daughter Betta who played the mayor, whereas mastro Croce Callà just wore the trousers by mistake. In this way, what with the two of them, poor Silkworm was between hammer and anvil. Now that the squall had come, and everyone was leaving him to curry favour with that mad beast, the mob, he no longer knew which way to turn.

  ‘What does it matter to you?’ Betta shouted at him. ‘You do just as the others do; and if they won’t have a tax on pitch, don Silvestro will manage to find something else.’

  But don Silvestro was firmer; he carried on walking about, with that brazen face of his; and when they saw him, Rocco Spatu and Cinghialenta hurried back into the wine shop in order not to do something drastic, and Vanni Pizzuto swore hard, touching the razor inside his trouser pocket.

  Without taking a blind bit of notice, don Silvestro went off to have a chat with zio Santoro, and put two centesimi into his open hand!

  ‘Heaven be praised,’ exclaimed the blind man, ‘this must be don Silvestro the town clerk, because none of the others gives a centesimo of alms to the souls in Purgatory, they just come here to shout and hammer their fists on the benches and shriek that they want to kill the mayor and the town clerk and the whole lot of them; that’s what Vanni Pizzuto said, and Rocco Spatu and compare Cinghialenta. Vanni Pizzuto has started to go barefoot, so as not to be recognised; but I recognise him all the same, because he drags his feet, and raises the dust, like when the sheep go past.’

  ‘What’s all this to you?’ his daughter asked him, as soon as don Silvestro had gone off. ‘This doesn’t concern us. The wine shop is like a sea port, people come and go, and you have to be friendly with everyone and faithful to no one; that is why we have one soul apiece, and everyone has to look after their own interests, and not make rash judgments about their neighbour. Compare Cinghialenta and Spatu spend money with us. I’m not defending Pizzuto who sells absinthe and tries to take our customers from us.’

  Then don Silvestro went to call by to see the chemist, who stuck his beard in front of him and told him that it was time to call it a day, and turn everything upside down, and make a clean sweep.

  ‘What do you bet this time it will end badly?’ don Silvestro kept on, putting two fingers into the small pocket of his jerkin, to bring out the new twelve tari piece. ‘No taxes are enough taxes, and one day or another they really will have to scrap the lot. There’s got to be a change of tune with Silkworm, because he’s under the thumb of his daughter, who plays the mayor; massaro Filippo doesn’t give a hang, and padron Cipolla had the cheek not to want to be mayor even if they slaughtered him. They’re just a bunch of reactionaries; numbskulls who say white to-day and black
to-morrow, and the last one to speak is always right. It’s all very well for people to squeal about this government, which is sucking us dry worse than a leech; but the money has to come from somewhere, people have to produce it either out of conviction or by force. What we need is a thinking man, a liberal mayor like yourself.’

  Then the chemist began to say what he would do, and how he would sort everything out; and don Silvestro stood listening to him in silence, and so attentive you’d have thought it was a sermon he was listening to. They would also have to think about re-electing the Council; they didn’t want padron ’Ntoni, because he was queer in the head, and this was because of the death of his son Bastianazzo — there was a man of judgment, if he had been alive — and then he had got his daughter-in-law involved in debt with the business of the lupins, and had left her with next to nothing. If he were to run the town’s affairs in the same way!…

  But meanwhile the Signora had appeared at the window, so that don Franco changed the subject, and shouted: Fine weather we’re having eh?’ winking at don Silvestro, to let him know what he really wanted to say. ‘There’s no trusting the aims of a man who’s afraid of his wife,’ don Silvestro thought to himself. Padron ’Ntoni was among those who shrugged and went off with oars over their shoulders; and he told his grandson to mind his own business, because ’Ntoni wanted to rush out into the square too and see what was happening.

  ‘You mind your own business, because everyone of them is out for himself, and our main concern is with our debt.’

  Compare Mosca too was among those who minded their own business, and went his way quietly, with his cart, among the people who were shouting or brandishing their fists.

  ‘Will it matter to you if they put a tax on hair?’ asked Mena, when she saw him coming up, with the donkey all panting, its ears laid flat against its head. ‘It certainly will, but you just have to plod on to pay it; otherwise they’ll take the hair and the donkey along with it, and the cart into the bargain!’

  ‘People are saying that they want to kill the lot of them, heaven help us! Grandfather has told us to keep the door shut, and not open until he’s back. Will you still be going away to-morrow?’

  ‘I’ll be getting a cartload of lime for mastro Croce Callà.’

  ‘What are you going to do that for? You know he’s the mayor, and they’ll be after you too.’

  ‘He says he cannot help it; he’s a builder, and he’s got to see to that wall along the vineyard for massaro Filippo, and if they don’t put the tax on pitch, don Silvestro will think of something else.’

  ‘I told you that it was don Silvestro’s doing,’ exclaimed la Zuppidda who was still there with her distaff in her hand, blowing on the fire. ‘This is the work of thieves and people who have nothing to lose, and who don’t pay the tax on pitch, because they’ve never had so much as a chair leg at sea. It’s don Silvestro’s fault,’ she carried on bawling throughout the village, ‘and that trouble-maker Piedipapera, who hasn’t got any boats, and lives off his neighbour, and is just a cat’s paw for other people. And just listen to this: it’s not true that he’s bought the credit off zio Crocifisso. It’s a put-up job between the two of them, to screw those poor people. Piedipapera has never seen five hundred lire in his life.’

  To hear what was being said about him, don Silvestro often went to buy the odd cigar in the wine shop, and then Rocco Spatu and Vanni Pizzuto came out swearing; or he would stop to chat with zio Santoro, on his way home from the vineyard, and that was how he came to hear of the whole story of Piedipapera’s feigned taking over of the debt; but he was a Christian with a stomach as deep as a well, and he stowed everything away in it. He knew his business, and as Betta welcomed him with her mouth agape worse than a rabid dog, and mastro Croco Callà had let slip that he didn’t give a hang, he replied that they could bet on it that he would drop them, and he didn’t show his face in the mayor’s house again; that way they themselves could work out how to get out of that mess, and Betta would no longer have the opportunity to tell him openly that he wanted to ruin her father Callà, and that his advice was the advice of a Judas, who had bartered Christ for thirty pieces of silver, and that he wanted to bring down the mayor for his own ends, and act the cock of the roost in the village. So that on Sunday when the council was to meet, don Silvestro plonked himself in the main room of the town hall, where the National Guard used to be, and calmly started sharpening the pens, in front of the pine table, to pass the time, while la Zuppidda and the other women bawled in the street, spinning in the sunshine, and wanted to tear the eyes out of every man jack of them.

  When they ran to call him from the wall of massaro Filippo’s vineyard, Silkwork slipped on his new jacket, washed his hands, brushed himself down from the lime but wouldn’t budge unless they called on don Silvestro for him first. In vain Betta berated him and pushed him out of the door, telling him that he’d made his bed and now he had to lie on it, and that he should let other people take the action provided they left him to be mayor. This time mastro Callà had seen that crowd outside the town hall, with their distaffs in their hands, and he dug his feet in worse than a mule. ‘I’m not going unless don Silvestro comes,’ he repeated, eyes bulging. ‘Don Silvestro will find some way out!’

  ‘I’ll find you a way out,’ replied Betta. ‘So they don’t want a tax on pitch? Well then, leave things as they are.’

  ‘Wonderful! And where do I get the money from?’

  ‘Where from? Get the money from the people who’ve got it, zio Crocifisso, for instance, or padron Cipolla, or Peppi Naso.’

  ‘Wonderful! They’re the councillors!’

  ‘Then dismiss them and get some others; in any case they won’t be able to keep you on as mayor when no one else wants you. You have to satisfy the majority.’

  ‘That’s just how women think! As though it were they who keep me where I am. You know nothing. The councillors elect the mayor and they’re the people who have to be the councillors, them and no one else. What do you expect? Beggars from the streets?’

  ‘Then let the councillors be and dismiss the town clerk, that troublemaker don Silvestro.’

  ‘Wonderful, and then who will be town clerk? who knows the ropes? You or I, or padron Cipolla, even though he pours out opinions worse than a philosopher.’

  Then Betta was stumped at last, and she gave vent to her spleen by unleashing all manner of insults against don Silvestro, who was the boss of the village, and had them all in his pocket.

  ‘Wonderful,’ repeated Silkworm. ‘Look, if he’s not there I don’t know what to say. I’d like to see you in my shoes.’

  At last don Silvestro arrived, with a face harder than a wall, hands behind his back, and humming a little tune. ‘Come now, don’t lose heart, mastro Croce, the world won’t collapse for so little!’ Mastro Croce let himself be led away by don Silvestro, to be seated at the pine council table, with the inkwell in front of him; but the only councillors there were Peppi Naso the butcher, all greasy and red-faced, and afraid of no one in the whole world, and compare Tino Piedipapera. ‘He has nothing to lose!’ shouted la Zuppidda from the doorway, ‘and he comes here to suck the blood of us poor people worse than a leech, because he acts the cat’s paw for this person or that in their dirty deeds. What a pack of thieves and murderers!’

  Although he would have liked to play the cool customer because of the dignity of his office, Piedipapera finally lost patience and rose up on his crooked leg, shouting to mastro Cirino, the municipal attendant who was responsible for good order, and had a cap with red on it for that reason when he wasn’t being the sexton too: ‘Get that loudmouth there to shut up!’

  ‘Quite so — it would suit you if no one spoke, eh, compare Tino?’

  ‘As if everyone didn’t know what you’re up to, shutting your eyes when padron ’Ntoni’s ’Ntoni comes to talk to your daughter Barbara.’

  ‘You’re the one who shuts their eyes, you old cuckold! when your wife acts the go-between for la Vespa, who come
s to hang around your doorway every morning looking for Alfio Mosca, and you play gooseberry. A fine carry-on! But compare Alfio doesn’t want to know, I can tell you; he’s dreaming of padron ’Ntoni’s Mena, and you lot are wasting the oil in your lamps, whatever la Vespa may say.’

  ‘I’ll come and give you a good thrashing,’ threatened Piedipapera, and began hobbling around the pine table.

  ‘To-day things will end badly,’ muttered that parrot mastro Croce.

  ‘Come now, what sort of carry-on is this? Do you think you’re on the public square?’ shrieked don Silvestro. ‘I’ll throw all you women out if you’re not careful. I’ll soon sort this all out.’

  Zuppidda wanted to hear nothing of sorting things out, and she threw herself at don Silvestro, who pushed her out, pulling her by the hair, and then took her aside behind the gate of the smallholding.

  ‘Well then, what is it that you want?’ he asked her when they were alone, ‘what does it matter to you if they put a tax on pitch? do you or your husband pay it, maybe? or is it the people who have their boats mended, who pay it? You listen to me: your husband is a fool to turn against the town hall and make all this uproar. Now they will have to elect new councillors, instead of padron Cipolla and massaro Mariano, who are useless, and your husband could be put forward.’

  ‘I know nothing about that,’ replied la Zuppidda, suddenly calming down. ‘I don’t meddle in my husband’s affairs. I know he’s gnawing his hands with rage. I can’t do anything except go and tell him, if it’s certain.’