I Malavoglia

by Giovanni Verga

  Much of this went over the little girl’s head; but what little she did answer annoyed la Zuppidda, and led her to say that it was her mother Maruzza who put her up to it and sent her round there on purpose to annoy her, so that finally the little girl stopped going there, and gna Venera said it was better like that, then they wouldn’t come to the house snooping, still afraid of being robbed of that precious nincompoop of theirs.

  Things reached a point where comare Venera and la Longa no longer talked to one another, and if they saw each other in church they turned their backs on one another.

  ‘Soon they’ll be getting out the brooms,’ said the Mangiacarrubbe girl gleefully, ‘or my name isn’t Mangiacarrubbe. That business of la Zuppidda and the Booby is a fine carry on.’

  Usually the men don’t meddle in such women’s quarrels, otherwise matters would go from bad to worse and might end up with knives; but after they have put the brooms out, and given vent to their fury by swearing, and tearing each other’s hair, neighbourhood women are immediately reconciled, and hug and kiss each other, and stand at their doorways talking just like before. And ’Ntoni, bewitched by Barbara’s eyes, had gone back on the sly to stand under her window, to make up, but gnà Venera felt like throwing the bean water over his head, sometimes, and even her daughter shrugged her shoulders, now that the Malavoglia had neither king nor kingdom.

  And she said as much to his face, finally, to rid herself of the whole matter, because the lad was always standing outside her door like a puppy dog, and would make her lose such chances as she had, if ever anyone else might have the intention of passing that way with her in mind.

  ‘Come now, compare ’Ntoni, the fish in the sea are for those who can eat them; let’s just resign ourselves and think no more about it.’

  ‘You may be able to resign yourself, comare Barbara, but as for me, ‘love cannot be compelled.”

  ‘Just you try — you’ll find you can do it as well as the next man. You loose nothing by trying. I wish you well and all good luck, but now leave me to my own affairs, because I’m already twenty two.’

  ‘I knew you were bound to say that to me when they took the house away from us, now that everyone is against us.’

  ‘Listen, compare ’Ntoni, my mother may come in from one moment to the next, and it wouldn’t be right for her to find you with me.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true; now that they’ve taken away the house by the medlar tree, it’s not right.’ He felt heavy at heart, poor ’Ntoni, and didn’t want to leave her like that. But she had to go and fill the jug at the fountain, and said goodbye to him, running off swiftly and swinging her hips bravely — she was called Zuppidda, the lame, because her father’s grandfather had broken his leg in a cart accident at the feast of Trecastagni, but Barbara had two fine legs of her own and no mistake about it.

  ‘Goodbye, comare Barbara,’ the poor fellow answered, and thus they let bygones be bygones and he went back to rowing like a galley slave, from Monday to Saturday, and he was tired of being driven mad for nothing, because when you have nothing it is pointless to slave away from morning to night, and not find even a dog who welcomes you, and that was why he had had a belly full of that life; he would have preferred really to do nothing, to stay in bed malingering, like when he was fed up of military service, and his grandfather didn’t examine him as carefully as the doctor on the frigate. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked him.

  ‘Nothing, that’s what. The matter is that I’m a poor devil.

  ‘And what can you do about that? We have to live as we were born.’

  Unwillingly he allowed himself to be loaded up with tackle worse than some poor donkey, and the whole day long he didn’t open his mouth except to grumble or to swear: ‘People who fall in the water are bound to get wet.’ If his brother happened to sing, while they were under sail, ‘yes, yes, sing on. When you’re old, you’ll bark like grandfather, too,’ he would snap.

  ‘Well, you won’t gain anything by barking now,’ the boy replied.

  ‘You’re right — since life is so good.’

  ‘Good or not, it’s our own doing,’ said his grandfather.

  In the evening he ate his soup in a sulk, and on Sundays he went to hang around the wine shop, where all people had to do was laugh and enjoy themselves and forget about the next day when they would have to go back to doing what they had done the whole week; or he would stay for hours on end sitting on the church steps, with his chin cupped in his hand, watching people go by, musing about those trades where you have nothing to do.

  At least on Sundays he enjoyed those things in life which are free — the sun, standing with your hands tucked beneath your armpits doing nothing, and then he was irritated even by the effort of thinking about his condition, by wanting those things he’d seen as a soldier and with whose memory he used to wile away the time on working days. He liked to stretch out like a lizard in the sun and do nothing more. And when he met carters who were sitting on their shafts, he would mutter that theirs was a fine trade, going around in a carriage all day, and if he saw some poor old woman pass by, coming back from town, bent under her load like a tired donkey and complaining as she went, as old people do:

  ‘I wish I could be doing what you’re doing, my sister,’ he would say to comfort her. ‘When all’s said and done, it’s really like taking a stroll.’

  CHAPTER X

  ’Ntoni’s fate was to take a stroll on the sea every blessed day, a back-breaking stroll with oars. But when the sea was rough, and threatened to swallow them up in a single gulp — then, the Provividenza, and everything else besides — then the boy had a courage that was bigger than the sea itself.

  ‘It’s the Malavoglia blood,’ said his grandfather; and he was a sight to see, on the rigging, with his hair whistling in the wind, while the boat leapt over the breakers like a lovesick mullet.

  Old and patched up as she was, the Provvidenza often ventured out to sea, lured by the prospect of that bit of a catch, now that there were so many boats scouring the sea. Even on those days when the clouds were low, towards Agnone, and the horizon bristling with black dots to the east, you could always see the Provvidenza’s sail like a pockethand-kerchief, far away on the leaden-looking sea, and everyone said that padron ’Ntoni’s family were troubling trouble. Padron ’Ntoni would reply that what he was looking for was bread, and when the corks disappeared one by one, in the open sea which was as green as grass, and the little houses of Trezza blurred into a white splodge, and all you could see was water, he could begin to chat with his grandsons out of sheer contentment, and then in the evening la Longa and all the others would be there waiting for them on the shore, when they saw the sail peeking out from between the tall rocks, and they too would be able to look at the catch leaping in the fish baskets and filling the bottom of the boat like so much silver; and before anyone could open their mouths, padron ’Ntoni would say, ‘a hundred kilos,’ and he wouldn’t be so much as a rotolo out; and they would talk about it all evening, while the women ground the salt between the stones, and they would count the barrels one by one, and zio Crocifisso came to see how they had done, to make his offer blind, and Piedipapera shouted and swore to get the right price, but in those circumstances Piedipapera’s shouts were a joy to hear, because you mustn’t bear people grudges in this world, and then la Longa would count out the money Piedipapera brought in a handkerchief penny by penny in front of her father-in-law, and say: ‘This is for the house! and this is for the household expenses.’ Mena too helped grind the salt, and arrange the barrels, and now she was once again wearing her dark blue dress and the coral necklace they had had to give to zio Crocifisso as a pledge; now the women could go to mass in the village again, so that it didn’t matter if the occasional young man cast looks in Mena’s direction, now that her dowry was being built up once again.

  ‘As far as I’m concerned,’ said ’Ntoni, wielding his oar gently, so that the current wouldn’t carry them out of the circle of nets, ‘so far as I’m
concerned, all I want is for that horror Barbara to have to gnaw her elbows when we’ve got things sorted out, and to have to regret having slammed her door in my face.’

  ‘The pilot in the dangerous seas is known’, answered the old man. ‘When we’re back to where we were, everyone will be pleased to see us, and will open their doors to us again.’

  ‘The people who haven’t slammed their doors in our faces,’ added Alessi, ‘are Nunziata, and cousin Anna.’

  ‘A friend in need is a friend indeed. That’s why the good Lord helps Nunziata and Anna, with all those mouths they have to feed.’

  ‘When Nunziata goes out to get wood on the sciara, or if her bundle of cloth is too heavy, I help her too, poor thing,’ said Alessi.

  ‘Now will you help by pulling on this side, because St Francis is being bounteous.’ The boy pulled and dug in his feet, and puffed and panted as though he were doing it all himself. Meanwhile ’Ntoni was singing, stretched out on the footrest with his arms beneath his head, watching the white seagulls flying against the boundless deep blue sky, and the Provvidenza bobbed on the green waves, which came from as far away as the eye could see.

  ‘How come the sea is sometimes green, sometimes dark blue, sometimes white and then black as the sciara, and not always the same colour like the water that it is?’ asked Alessi.

  ‘It’s the will of God,’ replied his grandfather. ‘That way the sailor knows when he can put to sea without fear, and when it’s better not to go.’

  ‘Those gulls have a fine life, flying about up there, and out of danger if the sea is rough.’

  ‘But they don’t get anything to eat either, poor things.’

  ‘So everyone needs good weather, just like Nunziata who can’t go to the fountain if it’s raining,’ concluded Alessi.

  ‘Good weather and bad weather, neither kind will last forever,’ observed the old man.

  But when the weather was bad, or the mistral was blowing, and the corks were dancing on the water all day long, as though they were listening to the violin, or the sea was as white as seething milk, or rippling as though it were boiling, then it was another kettle of fish altogether, and ’Ntoni had no desire to sing, with his greatcoat over his nose, and he had to bail the water out of the Provvidenza and it seemed endless, and his grandfather would calmly say: ‘when wind is in the east, it’s neither good for man or beast,’ or ‘rain comes scouth when the wind’s in the south’, as though they were there to have lessons in proverbs; and when he stood assessing the weather from the window with his nose in the air of an evening, he would use those same blessed proverbs to say that when the moon was red there would be a wind, and when it was bright, it would be calm; and when it was pale, it would rain.

  ‘If you know it will rain, why are we going to sea to-day?’ ’Ntoni would ask him. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to stay in bed for for another couple of hours?’

  ‘When the rain water from heaven, there are sardines in the nets,’ the old man would reply. ’Ntoni would rant and rave, knee deep in water.

  ‘This evening,’ his grandfather said to him, ‘Maruzza will have a fire ready for us, to dry us out.’

  And that evening at dusk, as the Provvidenza, with her belly full of God’s bounty, was returning home, with her sail billowing like donna Rosolina’s skirt, and the lights of the houses winking one by one behind the tall black rocks, so that it seemed as though they were calling one another, padron ’Ntoni pointed to the fine fire which was flaming in la Longa’s kitchen, at the back of the little courtyard in the stradduccia del Nero, because the wall was so low that you could see the whole house from the sea, with the little lean-to for the hens, and the oven to the other side of the door. ‘You see, la Longa has a fire waiting for us!’ he said jubilantly; and la Longa was waiting for them on the shore with the baskets ready, and when they had to take them back empty they didn’t feel like chatting, but if there actually weren’t enough baskets, and Alessi had to run home to fetch more, his grandfather would put his hands to his mouth to call: ‘Mena, oh Mena,’ and Mena knew what that meant, and they all trooped out, Mena, Lia and even Nunziata, with all her little ones behind her — then there was merriment, and no one took any notice of the cold, and the rain, and they would stand in front of the fire and chat until late about the blessed bounty sent by St Francis, and what they would do with the money.

  But they were risking their lives making that desperate play for the odd rotolo offish, and on one occasion the Malavoglia were a hair’s breadth from losing their lives for love of gain, like Bastianazzo, while they were off Agnone, towards evening, and the sky was so dark you couldn’t even see Etna, and the wind was blowing in gusts as though it could speak.

  ‘Foul weather,’ said padron ’Ntoni. ‘To-day the wind is swinging faster than a silly girl’s fancy, and the sea looks like Piedipapera when he’s cooking up some vile trick.’

  The sea was the colour of the sciara, although the sun had not yet gone down, and sometimes it boiled all round them like water in a saucepan.

  ‘Now the seagulls must all be asleep,’ observed Alessi.

  ‘They must already have lit the Catania lighthouse,’ said ’Ntoni, ‘but you can’t see anything.’

  ‘Keep the tiller to the north-east, Alessi,’ ordered his grandfather. ‘In half-an-hour’s time you won’t be able to see anything at all, it’ll be worse than being in an oven.’

  ‘We’d be better off in Santuzza’s wine shop on a filthy night like this.’

  ‘Or safely asleep in your bed, don’t you mean?’ answered his grandfather. ‘Then you ought to be a town clerk, like don Silvestro.’

  The poor old man had barked all day because of his pains. ‘There’s a change in the weather,’ he would say, ‘I can feel it in my bones.’

  Suddenly it had become so dark that you couln’t see even to swear. Only the waves, when they passed the Provvidenza, shone as if they had eyes and wanted to eat her up; and no one dared utter a word any longer, in the midst of that sea which was lowing on all sides.

  ‘I have a feeling’, ’Ntoni said suddenly, ‘that this evening’s catch is going to have to go to the devil.’

  ‘You hush,’ his grandfather said to him, and his voice made them feel as small as children, there on the seat where they sat.

  You could hear the wind hissing in the Provvidenza’s sails, and the rope singing like a guitar string. Suddenly the wind began to whistle like a steam engine when it comes out of the hole in the hill, above Trezza, and a wave came out of nowhere unexpectedly, and made the Provvidenza creak like a sack of walnuts, and threw her into the air.

  ‘The sail! Down with the sail,’ shouted padron ’Ntoni. ‘Cut it, quick!’

  With the knife between his teeth, ’Ntoni was clinging to the lateen yard like a cat and, standing on the edge to counter-balance the weight, he let himself dangle over the sea which was howling greedily beneath him.

  ‘Hold firm,’ his grandfather shouted to him amid the racket of the waves, which seemed to want to pluck him off, and which suddenly hurled the Provvidenza and everything else into the air, making the boat list heavily to one side, so that the water inside her was up to their knees. ‘Cut it, quick,’ his grandfather repeated.

  ‘Hell’s bells’, exclaimed ’Ntoni. ‘If I cut it, what shall we do when we need to sail?’

  ‘This is no moment for curses, we’re in God’s hands!’

  Alessi was clinging to the tiller, and on hearing his grandfather’s words he began to shriek for his mother.

  ‘Now stop that,’ his brother shouted at him with the knife between his teeth. ‘Stop that or I’ll give you a kick, and how!’

  ‘Now cross yourself, and be quiet,’ repeated his grandfather. So the boy no longer dared to breath a word.

  Suddenly the sail fell all of a piece, so taut had it been, and ’Ntoni gathered it instantly and tied it down tightly.

  ‘You know your trade like your father,’ his grandfather said to him, ‘and you’re as much
a Malavoglia as any of them.’

  The boat straightened up and took a great bound forward; then she proceeded to somersault through the waves.

  ‘This way with the tiller; you need a firm hand now,’ said padron ’Ntoni; and although the boy was clinging to it like a cat, some large waves banged the tiller up against both their chests.

  ‘The oar,’ shouted ’Ntoni, ‘use your oar, Alessi, you’re no baby. Now oars are more important than the tiller.’

  The boat creaked under the powerful effort of that pair of arms. And Alessi too, standing braced against the footrest, put all he had into pulling the oars, as best he could.

  ‘Hold steady,’ his grandfather shouted to him, though you could hardly hear from one end of the boat to the other, for the whistling of the wind. ‘Hold steady, Alessi!’

  ‘Yes, grandfather, yes,’ replied the boy.

  ‘Are you afraid?’ ’Ntoni asked him.

  ‘Of course not,’ his grandfather answered for him. ‘But we should commend our souls to God.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ exclaimed ’Ntoni, his chest heaving, ‘here you need arms made of iron like a steam engine. The sea is getting the better of us.’

  His grandfather was silent and they stopped to listen to the storm.

  ‘Mother is probably down on the shore watching out for us,’ Alessi then said.

  ‘Never mind mother,’ said his grandfather, ‘It’s best not to think of her.’

  ‘Where are we?’ asked ’Ntoni after another pause, wheezing with exhaustion.

  ‘In God’s hands,’ answered his grandfather.

  ‘Leave me to cry then,’ said Alessi, who couldn’t take any more. And he began to shriek and call for his mother aloud, in the midst of the noise of the wind and the sea; and no one dared to scold him any longer.