‘Alessi, or Nunziata, or Lia,’ and then asked: ‘Have you seen don Michele? Does he go down the strada del Nero?’
As long as it had been necessary, ’Ntoni, poor lad, had run hither and thither eagerly, and he too had torn his hair. Now that his grandfather was better, he wandered round the village, with his hands under his armpits, waiting to be able to take the Provvidenza to mastro Zuppiddo again to have her patched up; and he went to the wine shop to have a chat, since he hadn’t a penny to his name, and told people how he had looked death in the eye, and that was how he passed his time, chatting and hawking. And when he had been offered the odd glass of wine, he expressed anger towards don Michele, who had stolen his beloved, because he had asked Nunziata if don Michele ever went down the strada del Nero.
‘By the blood of Judas, if I can’t get my revenge for this dishonour, my name isn’t ’Ntoni Malavoglia!’
People enjoyed making him full of gall, and so they offered him drinks. While she rinsed out the glasses, Santuzza turned away so as not to hear the curses and swear words they uttered; but hearing talk of don Michele, she steeled herself and stood listening wide-eyed. She too had become curious, and was all ears when they talked, and she would give presents of apples and green almonds to Nunziata’s little brother, or Alessi, when they came for wine, to find out who had been seen in the strada del Nero. Don Michele swore black and blue it wasn’t true, and often of an evening, when the wine shop was already shut, you could hear all hell breaking loose behind closed doors.
‘Liar,’ shouted Santuzza. ‘Murderer! Thief! Unbeliever!’
The result was that don Michele no longer went to the wine shop, and had to make do with buying wine and drinking it in Pizzuto’s shop, alone with his bottle, in order to avoid trouble.
Instead of being pleased that another dog had thus been removed from that bone that was Santuzza, massaro Filippo proferred mild words and tried to get them to make up, so that the whole thing became hopelessly confused. But it was a waste of time.
‘Can’t you see that he’s lying low and not showing his face here any more?’ exclaimed Santuzza. ‘That is a sign that the thing is absolutely true! No! I don’t want to hear any more about it, even if I have to shut the wine shop and start to do knitting!’
Then massaro Filippo looked sour with anger and he went to beg and beseech don Michele, in the guard’s room, or in Pizzuto’s shop, to make up that quarrel with Santuzza, after all they had been friends; and now people would talk — and he embraced him and tugged him by the sleeve. But don Michele dug his feet in like a mule, and said no. And those who were present, savouring the scene, observed that massaro Filippo cut a fine figure, as sure as God exists!
‘Massaro Filippo needs help,’ said Pizzuto. ‘That Santuzza would devour the Cross itself!’
Then one fine day Santuzza put on her shawl and went to confession, although it was Monday, and the wine shop was full of people. Santuzza went to confession every Sunday and stayed for an hour with her nose to the grille of the confessional, rinsing out her conscience, which she liked to keep cleaner than her glasses. But that time donna Rosolina, who kept a jealous eye on her the brother the priest, and who also confessed often in order to see what he was up to, was left astounded, there where she was, waiting on her knees, that Santuzza should have such a lot on her mind, and she noticed that her brother the priest blew his nose more than five times.
‘What was up with Santuzza to-day for her to take so long?’ she asked don Giammaria when they were at table.
‘Nothing, nothing,’ replied her brother, stretching his hand out towards the plate. But she knew his weak point, leaving the lid on the tureen, and tormented him with questions, so that at last the poor fellow had to say that his lips were sealed, and as long as he was at table he sat with his nose in his plate, and gobbled the maccheroni as if he hadn’t seen food for two days, so that it almost choked him, and he grumbled to himself because people would simply never leave him alone. After the meal he took his hat and his cloak, and went to pay a visit to Zuppidda.
‘There must be something behind all this,’ donna Rosolina muttered. ‘There must be some very dirty business between Mariangela and Zuppidda, something he can’t talk about because of the seal of confession.’ And she went to the window to see how long her brother would stay in comare Venera’s house.
Zuppidda was incensed on hearing what suor Mariangela was telling her through don Giammaria, and she went out on to the balcony and yelled that she didn’t want other people’s second-hand goods, and Santuzza would do well to heed that! And if she saw don Michele going down her road she would gouge out his eyes with the distaff she had ready to hand, despite the pistol he wore across his stomach, because she wasn’t afraid of pistols or of anyone, and she wouldn’t give her daughter to anyone who ate the king’s bread and played the policeman, and he was in mortal sin with Santuzza into the bargain, don Giammaria had told her so under the seal of the confessional but she turned a blind eye to the seal of the confessional when her Barbara was involved—and she swore so much that la Longa and cousin Anna had to close the door so that the little girls shouldn’t hear; and her husband mastro Turi too, not to be outdone, bawled:
‘If they involve me, I’ll do something I’ll regret, by God! I’m not afraid of don Michele, or massaro Filippo, or all Santuzza’s mob!’
‘Be quiet,’ comare Venera contradicted him promptly. ‘Haven’t you heard that massaro Filippo isn’t involved with Santuzza any more?’
The others carried on saying that Santuzza had massaro Filippo to help her say her prayers, Piedipapera had seen him.
‘Nice work! Massaro Filippo needs help too,’ repeated Pizzuto.
‘Haven’t you seen him coming to beg and beseech don Michele to help him?’
In the chemist’s shop don Franco called people in just so he could cackle about the matter.
‘I told you so, didn’t I? They’re all the same, those pious folk! With the devil under their skirts! Now that they’re giving don Michele a medal, they can hang it up along with the Daughter of Mary medal that Santuzza’s got.’ And he poked his head out of the doorway to see if his wife was at the window upstairs. ‘Eh! Church and barracks! Throne and altar! Always the same story, you mark my words!’
He wasn’t afraid of the sabre and the holy water sprinkler; and he didn’t give a hang about don Michele, and indeed he read him a lecture about his behaviour when the Signora wasn’t at the window and couldn’t hear what was being said in the chemist’s shop; but donna Rosolina gave her brother a good ticking off, as soon as she came to hear that he had got himself into that scrape, because sabre-bearers have to be kept sweet.
‘Sweet my eye,’ replied don Giammaria. ‘The people who are taking the bread from our very mouths? I’ve done my duty. I don’t need them. If anything, it’s they who need us.’
‘At least you ought to say that Santuzza sent you, under the seal of the confessional,’ maintained donna Rosolina, ‘then you wouldn’t have to arouse bad feelings.’
But she went round mysteriously telling all the neighbourhood women and men that it was under the seal of the confessional, when they came buzzing round her wanting to know how the business had come out into the open. Ever since he had heard don Silvestro say that he wanted to have Barbara fall for him like a ripe pear, Piedipapera had gone round whispering:
‘This is all don Silvestro’s doing, because he wants Barbara to fall for him.’
And he said it so often that it reached the ear of donna Rosolina, while she was making the tomato preserve, with her sleeves tucked up, and she exerted herself defending don Michele to people, so that it should be known that they personally didn’t wish don Michele ill, although he was a government man; and she said that man is a hunter, and Zuppidda ought to think about looking after her daughter herself, and if don Michele had other involvements this concerned him and his conscience alone.
‘This is don Silvestro’s doing, because he wants Zuppidda for himself, and he�
��s bet twelve tari that he can make her fall for him,’ la Vespa told her, while she was helping donna Rosolina to make the tomato preserve; she had come to beg don Giammaria to drum some scruples into the head of that scoundrel zio Crocifisso, because it was harder than a mule’s. ‘Doesn’t he see that he has one foot in the grave?’ she said. ‘Does he want to die with this on his conscience too?’
But hearing this story about don Silvestro, donna Rosolina suddenly changed her tune, and began to hold forth with her ladle in the air, as red as her tomato preserve, against men who flatter marriageable girls, and those gossips who stand at windows to hoodwink such men. Everyone knew what sort of a flirt Barbara was; but it was surprising that even someone like don Silvestro should fall for it, because he seemed a man of judgement, and no one would have expected such a betrayal from him; whereas in fact he was looking for trouble with Zuppidda and don Michele, while he had good luck within his grasp, and was letting it go. In this day and age, to know a man you have to eat through a full seven salme of salt.
But don Silvestro was seen around arm in arm with don Michele, and no one dared to say a word to their faces about the rumours which were going around. Now donna Rosolina slammed the window in his face, when the town clerk stood gazing upwards from the door of the chemist’s shop, and didn’t even turn her head when she put the tomato preserve in the sun on the little terrace; then once she went to confess at Aci Castello, because there was something she couldn’t confess to her brother, and as it happened she met don Silvestro by chance, just as he was coming back from the vineyard.
‘Fancy seeing you,’ she began to say, pausing to draw breath, because she was all red and flustered. ‘You must have weighty matters on your mind, not to remember old friends.’
‘I have nothing on my mind, donna Rosolina.’
‘I have been told that you have, and such nonsense it is that it would really weigh you down, if it were true.’
‘Who says so?’
‘The whole village is talking about it.’
‘Let them talk. Anyway, as it happens, I do just as I wish; and if I’m weighed down, as you put it, that’s my affair.’
‘Much good may it do you,’ said donna Rosolina all red in the face. ‘It seems to me that these worries are starting to affect you right now, if you answer me in this fashion, and indeed I didn’t expect it, because I always thought you were a man of judgement; forgive me if I was mistaken. This is tantamount to saying that ‘water afar quenches not the fire,’ and ‘good weather and bad weather, neither weather lasts for ever.’ But don’t forget that the proverb says: ‘Better the devil you know’ and ‘handsome is as handsome does.’ Enjoy Zuppidda in peace, because it doesn’t mean a thing to me. And for all the gold in the world I wouldn’t want people to say of me the things they say of your Zuppidda.’
‘Don’t you worry, donna Rosolina — by now there’s nothing anyone could say about you.’
‘At least people don’t say that I wolf up half the village; do you understand me, don Silvestro?’
‘Let them say what they wish, donna Rosolina. ‘He who has a mouth may eat, and he who doesn’t may die.’ ’
‘And they don’t say of me what they say of you, either, that you’re a defrauder!’ continued donna Rosolina, green as garlic. ‘Do you understand me, don Silvestro? and one can’t say as much of everyone. When you can spare them, I’d be glad of those twenty five onze I lent you. I don’t steal money, as some people do.’
‘Don’t you worry, donna Rosolina, I didn’t say that you stole your twenty five onze, and I shan’t go telling your brother, don Giammaria. It doesn’t matter to me whether you got them out of the household expenses or not; all I know is, I don’t owe you them. You told me to invest them for your dowry, if anyone were to take you in marriage, and I put diem in a Bank on your account, in my name, so that the matter shouldn’t be discovered by your brother, who would ask where the money came from. Now the Bank has gone bankrupt. What fault is it of mine?’
‘You swindler!’ Donna Rosolina spat in his face, foaming at the mouth. ‘You trickster! I didn’t give you that money to put in a bank that would go bankrupt. I gave it to you to cherish as if it were your own!’
‘But I did, I did,’ answered the town clerk, so brazenly that donna Rosolina turned her back to him so as not to explode with rage, and she went back to Trezza dripping like a sponge, in the heat of the day, with her shawl on her back. Don Silvestro stood there sneering, in front of the wall of massaro Filippo’s vegetable patch, until she had rounded the corner, muttering to himself:
‘I don’t care what they say.’
And he was right not to care what they said. They said that if don Silvestro had got it into his head to get Barbara to drop into his arms, then drop she would, such an arrant rascal was he! But they doffed their caps to him, and his friends nodded in his direction, when he went to chat in the chemist’s shop.
‘You’re a masterful fellow!’ don Franco said to him, patting his shoulder. ‘A real feudal lord! You’re the man of destiny, sent down to earth to prove once and for all that the old society must be flushed out!’ And when ’Ntoni came to get his grandfather’s medicines he would say:
‘You’re the people. As long as you behave like patient donkeys, you’ll get beaten.’
To change the subject, the Signora, who was knitting behind the counter, asked how his grandfather was getting on. ’Ntoni didn’t dare open his mouth in front of the Signora, and went off mumbling, with the glass in his hands.
His grandfather was better now, and they put him in the doorway, in the sun, wrapped up in a cloak, with a handkerchief on his head, so that he looked like someone who had returned from the dead, and people used to go and look at him out of curiosity; and the poor old man nodded to this person and that, and smiled, he was so pleased to be there, in his cloak, at the doorway, with Maruzza spinning at his side, the sound of Mena’s loom behind him inside, and the hens scratching in the street. Now that he had nothing else to do, he learned to know the hens one by one, and watched what they were doing, and spent the time listening to the neighbour’s voices, saying:
‘That’s comare Venera scolding her husband,’ or ‘That’s cousin Anna coming back from the washplace.’ Then he would watch the shadow of the houses lengthening, and when the sun had gone from the doorway, they put him against the wall opposite, so that he was like mastro Turi’s dog, who always followed the sun to stretch out in.
At last, he began to be on his feet again, and they took him down to the seashore, because he liked to doze among the stones, nears the boats, and he said that the smell of the salt water did him good; and he passed the time watching the boats, and hearing how other people’s days had gone. The men, while they were busy about their own affairs, proferred him the odd word, saying, to comfort him:
‘This means there’s oil in the old lamp yet, eh, padron ’Ntoni?’
In the evening, when the whole family was at home, with the door closed, while la Longa told her beads, he liked seeing them all there, and gazed at each one of them in turn, and looked at the walls of the house, and the chest with the statuette of the Good Shepherd, and the little table with the light on it;
‘I can’t believe I’m still here, with all of you,’ he would say.
La Longa said that fear had caused a great mix up in her blood and in her head, and that now she didn’t seem to have those two poor dead souls before her eyes any longer; whereas until that day they had been like two thorns in her breast, so that she had gone to confess the matter to don Giammaria. But the confessor had given her absolution, because with misfortunes this is what happens, one thorn drives out another, and our Lord doesn’t choose to thrust them all in at the same time, because you would die of heartbreak. Her son and husband were dead; she had been driven from her home; but now she was glad that she had managed to pay the doctor and the chemist, and didn’t owe anyone anything any more.
Gradually their grandfather began to ask for somet
hing to do, saying he couldn’t sit like that without doing anything. He mended nets; and wove fish traps; then, leaning on his stick, he began to go as far as mastro Turi’s courtyard to see the Provvidenza, and stayed there enjoying the sun. Finally he actually went in the boat with his grandsons.
‘Just like a cat,’ said Zuppidda, ‘with nine lives.’ La Longa had even put a little bench at the door, and sold oranges, nuts, hard-boiled eggs and black olives.
‘Soon she’ll be selling wine, too,’ said Santuzza. ‘I’m delighted, because they’re God-fearing people.’ And padron Cipolla shrugged his shoulders when he went down the strada del Nero, past the house of those Malavoglias, who now wanted to launch themselves as shopkeepers.
Trade was going well because the eggs were always fresh, so that now that ’Ntoni hung around the wine shop, Santuzza sent to Maruzza for olives, when there were good drinkers who weren’t thirsty. Thus penny by penny they paid mastro Turi Zuppiddo, and had the Provvidenza patched up once again, so that now she really did look like an old shoe; but at the same time they put the odd lira aside. They had purchased a good stock of barrels, and the salt for the anchovies, if St. Francis were to send good luck, the new sail for the Provvidenza, and they had put a bit of money aside in the chest of drawers.
‘We’re like ants,’ said padron ’Ntoni; and he counted the money every day, and then went to amble past the medlar tree, with his hands behind his back. The door was closed, the sparrows were twittering on the roof, and the vine swayed gently in the window. The old man climbed on to the wall of the vegetable garden, where they had sowed onions which were like a sea of white plumes, and then he would run after zio Crocifisso, saying a hundred times:
‘You know, zio Crocifisso, if we manage to get that money together for the house, you must sell it to us, because it has always belonged to the Malavoglia’.
“Home is home, though it be never so homely,’ and I want to die where I was born. ‘Happy is the man who dies in his own bed.” Zio Crocifisso said yes grudgingly, so as not to compromise himself; and he had a new tile put on the roof, or a trowel-full of lime on the courtyard wall, so that the price would rise. Zio Crocifisso would reassure him, telling him not to worry.
I Malavoglia Page 17