‘And where will he take her?’ Lia asked.
‘Far away, to his kingdom beyond the sea; the kingdom from which you never return.’
‘Your daughter hasn’t a ha’porth of dowry, and that’s why the king’s son won’t come and marry her,’ said ’Ntoni; ‘in fact they’ll turn their backs on her, as they do with people who have nothing.’
‘That’s why my daughter is working here now, after having spent all day at the wash place, to earn her dowry. Isn’t it, Mara? At least if the king’s son doesn’t come, someone else will. Even I know that that is how the world goes, and we have no right to complain. Why didn’t you fall in love with my daughter, instead of with Barbara, who is as yellow as saffron? It was because of her smallholding, wasn’t it? and when misfortune caused you to lose your own possessions, it was only natural that Barbara should drop you.’
‘You put up with everything,’ replied ’Ntoni sulkily, ‘and they’re right to call you a ‘happy soul.’
‘And if I weren’t, what good would that do? When you haven’t got anything, the best thing is to go off, like compare Alfio Mosca did.’
‘That’s what I say,’ exclaimed ’Ntoni.
‘The worst thing,’ said Mena at last, ‘is to leave your own village, where even the stones know you, and it must be a heartbreaking thing to leave them all behind you on the road. ‘East, west, home’s best.”
‘Good for you, St. Agatha,’ said her grandfather firmly. ‘That’s sensible talk.’
‘Yes,’ snarled ’Ntoni, ‘and in the meantime, when we’ve sweated and strained to make our nest, we’ll be short of things to put on our bread; and when we’ve managed to get back the house by the medlar tree, we’ll have to carry on working our guts out from Monday to Saturday; and it will never end.’
‘So you want to stop working? What would you rather do? play the lawyer?’
‘I don’t want to play the lawyer,’ grumbled ’Ntoni, and went off to bed in a bad temper.
But from then on he thought of nothing except that trouble-free existence which other people led; and of an evening, to avoid their insipid chatter, he sat himself on the doorstep with his shoulders to the wall, watching people pass by, and digesting his hard lot; at least like that he was resting, ready for the next day, when he would go back to doing the same old thing, just like Mosca’s donkey, which would draw its breath as soon as it saw its owner reaching for the pack saddle, waiting to be harnassed.
‘Donkey flesh,’ he would grumble; ‘that’s what we are: labouring flesh.’ And it was quite clear that he was tired of that dreary life, and wanted to go off and make his fortune, like the others; so that his mother, poor thing, stroked his shoulders and caressed him with the tone of her voice, and with her tear-filled eyes, peering at him fixedly so as to read what was written inside his head and to touch his heart. But he said no, it would be better for him and for them; and when he came back they would all be happy. The poor woman didn’t close an eye all night, and soaked her pillow with tears. Finally padron ’Ntoni noticed, and called his grandson outside, beside the little shrine, to ask him what was wrong.
‘Come on, what’s brewing? Tell your grandfather now.’
’Ntoni shrugged; but the old man kept on nodding his head, and spitting, and scratching his head as he searched for words.
‘Oh, you’ve got something cooking, my boy! Something new.’
‘What’s cooking is that I’m a poor devil, that’s what’s cooking!’
‘What’s new about that? Didn’t you know? That’s what your father was, and your grandfather before him.’ ‘He who is content in his poverty is wonderfully rich’ ‘Better to be content than to lament.”
‘Some comfort that is!’
This time the old man found words quickly, because he felt his heart on his lips:
‘At least don’t say as much in front of your mother.’
‘My mother… would have done better never to have borne me.’
‘Yes,’ agreed padron ’Ntoni, ‘yes, she would, if it means that you’re talking like this today.’
For a moment ’Ntoni didn’t know what to say.
‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘I’m doing it for you, for her, for all of us. I want to make my mother rich, that’s what I want to do. Now we’re leaving no stone unturned for the house and Mena’s dowry; and then Lia will be growing up, and if by chance we have a bad year, we’ll still be in dire poverty. I don’t want to carry on like this. I want to change my life, for myself and all of you. I want us to be rich, mother, you, Mena, Alessi and everyone.’
Padron ’Ntoni eyes widened, and he chewed over those words, as if he couldn’t quite swallow them.
‘Rich,’ he said,’rich. And what will we do when we’re rich?’
’Ntoni scratched his head, and he too started to think what they would do.
‘We’ll do what other people do… nothing, that’s what we’ll do… we’ll go and live in the town, and eat pasta and meat every day.’
‘You go and live in the town if you want to. I want to die where I was born;’ and thinking of the house where he had been born, and which was no longer his, he let his head droop on to his chest.
‘You are a boy, and you know nothing… you know nothing! You’ll see what it’s like when you can no longer sleep in your own bed; when the sun no longer comes in through your window. You’ll see! You listen to an old man’ The poor fellow was coughing fit to choke, with his back all bent, and shaking his head sadly:
“East, west, home’s best.’ Do you see those sparrows? They’ve always made their nests there, and they’ll carry on doing so — and they don’t want to go away.’
‘I’m not a sparrow. I’m not a creature like them,’ answered ’Ntoni. ‘I don’t want to live like a dog on a chain, like compare Alfio’s donkey, or mule on a chain pump, always keeping the wheel turning, I don’t want to die of hunger in a corner, or be swallowed up by sharks.’
‘You should rather thank God, who caused you to be born here; and think twice before going off to die far from the stones which know you. ‘Better the devil you know.’ You’re afraid of work, you’re afraid of poverty; and I have neither your strength nor your health, but I’m not afraid, you’ll see. ‘The pilot in the dangerous seas is known’. You’re afraid of having to earn the bread you eat, that’s what it is! Your great grandfather, God rest his soul, left me the Provvidenza and five mouths to feed, I was younger than you are and I wasn’t afraid; and I did my duty without complaining; and I still do; and I pray God to help me carry on doing it as long as I’ve got breath in my body, as your father did, and your brother Luca, God rest his soul — he wasn’t afraid to go and do his duty; and as your mother did, too, poor woman, locked away amidst these four walls; you’ve no idea of the tears she has shed, the tears she’s shedding now because you want to leave; and in the morning your sister finds the sheets all wet. But she holds her tongue and doesn’t come out with any of these things that come into your head; and she too has worked away like some poor ant; she’d done nothing else all her life, until it fell to her lot to cry too much, right from when she was giving you the breast, and you couldn’t even button up your trousers; because then the temptation of exercising your legs one in front of the other and going about the world like a gypsy hadn’t even entered your head.’
In the end ’Ntoni began to cry like a child, because basically the boy had a heart as good as bread; but the next day he started off again. In the morning he unwillingly let himself be loaded up with tackle, and went off to the sea grumbling:
‘Just like compare Alfio’s donkey! at first light I crane my neck to see if they’re coming to saddle me up.’ After they had cast the nets, he left Alessi to move the oar gently so as to keep the boat steady, and put his hands under his armpits to gaze into the distance, to where the sea ended, and there were those big cities where you didn’t do anything except walk up and down and do nothing; or he would think of the two sailors who had come back from so
far, and who had now been gone for some time; but it seemed to him that they had nothing else to do except wander the world, from one wine shop to another, spending the money they had in their pockets. In the evening, after having tidied up the boat and tackle, his family left him to wander around like a stray dog, so as not to have to look at that long face of his.
‘What’s wrong, ’Ntoni?’ la Longa asked him, gazing timidly into his face, with her eyes bright with tears, because the poor creature guessed what was wrong. ‘Tell your own mother.’ He wouldn’t answer; or he answered that nothing was wrong. But at last he did tell her what was wrong, that his grandfather and the others had it in for him, and he had had enough. He wanted to go and seek his fortune, like all the others.
His mother listened to him, and she didn’t dare open her mouth, with her eyes full of tears, so much did what he was saying hurt her, and he cried and shuffled his feet and tugged at his hair. The poor thing would have liked to speak, and throw her arms around him and cry too, so as not to let him go; but whenever she started to say anything, her lips would tremble and she couldn’t utter a word.
‘Listen,’ she said at last, ‘You go, if you want to go, but you won’t find me here when you come back, because now I feel old and tired, and I don’t think I’m going to be able to take this last blow.’
’Ntoni tried to reassure her, said that he would come back loaded with money and they would all be happy. Maruzza shook her head sadly, still looking into his eyes, and said no, no, he wouldn’t find her there when he came back.
‘I feel old,’ she repeated, ‘I feel old, look at me! Now I no longer have the strength to cry as much as when they brought me the news of your father and your brother. If I go to the wash place, in the evening I come home so tired I can do nothing; and it didn’t used to be like that. No, my son, I’m no longer the woman I was. Then, when your father and brother died, I was younger and stronger. Your heart gets tired too, you see; and wears away piece by piece, as old dresses fall apart in the wash. Now my courage is failing me, and everything fills me with dread; I feel I’m sinking, as when a wave goes over your head, if you’re at sea. Go, if you want to; but let me close my eyes first.’
Her face was all wet; but she didn’t realize she was crying, and she felt as though she had her son Luca and her husband before her eyes, when they had gone away and never been seen again.
‘So I’ll never see you again,’ she said to him. ‘Now the house is gradually emptying; and when your poor old grandfather has gone too, who will look after those poor little orphans? Ah, our Lady of Sorrows!’
She held him in her arms, with his head on her breast, as though her boy wanted to run off then and there; and he couldn’t bear it any longer, and began to kiss her and talk to her with his mouth against hers.
‘No. No, I won’t go if you don’t want me to. Look! Don’t talk to me like that! All right, I’ll carry on like compare Mosca’s donkey, to be thrown in a ditch to die when it can no longer pull his cart. Now are you satisfied? Stop crying like that. You can see how grandfather slaved away all his life? and now that he’s old he’s still slaving away as though it were his first day, to get himself out of the wood. That’s our fate!’ ‘And do you think everyone doesn’t have their troubles? Look at padron Cipolla running after Brasi, to see that he doesn’t throw all that property into la Vespa’s lap, that property he’s sweated and slaved for all his life. And massaro Filippo, who gazes up to heaven and says Hail Maries for his vines with every cloud that passes. And zio Crocifisso who has half-starved himself to set money aside, and is always quarrelling with one person or another! And do you think those foreign sailors don’t have their troubles too? Who knows if they’ll find their mothers at home when they get back? And if we manage to buy back the house by the medlar tree, when we’ve got grain in the bins and beans for the winter, and when we’ve married off Mena, what will we need? When I’m underground, and that poor old man is dead too, and Alessi can earn the daily bread, then go off wherever you want. But then you won’t go, I’m telling you! because then you will understand what we all had within us, when we saw you stubbornly insisting that you wanted to leave your house, and yet we carried on with our usual business without saying anything to you! Then you won’t have the heart to leave the village where you were born, and where you grew up, and where your dead are buried under that slab, in front of the altar of Our Lady of Sorrows, which is all smooth from so many people kneeling in front of it, of a Sunday.’
From that day onward ’Ntoni stopped talking about getting rich, and gave up the idea of leaving, and his mother kept a watchful eye on him, when she saw him gloomily sitting on the front steps; and the poor woman really was so pale, tired and haggard, that as soon as she had a spare moment she too would sit down, with her hands folded and her back already bent like her father-in-law’s, so that she was a truly moving sight. But she didn’t know that she too was going to have to leave when she least expected it, on a journey after which you are at rest for ever, under that smooth marble in the church; and she was to leave them all in mid-journey, those she loved, those who were so dear to her that they seemed to tear her heart from her in little pieces, now one of them and now another.
There was cholera in Catania, so that everyone who was able, left to go wherever they might in the nearby villages and countryside. This was providential for Trezza and Ognina, with all those foreigners spending. But the retailers turned up their noses if you talked of selling a dozen barrels of anchovies, and said that money had vanished, because of the cholera.
‘So don’t people eat anchovies any more?’ Piedipapera then asked. But to padron ’Ntoni, and to anyone who had any to sell, he would say firmly that with cholera around people wouldn’t want to ruin their stomachs with anchovies and such like muck, they’d rather eat pasta and meat; so you had to close your eyes, and be flexible about the price. The Malavoglia hadn’t reckoned with that! and so, in order not to go sideways like crabs, la Longa went to take eggs and fresh bread here and there to the foreigners’ houses, while the men were at sea, and she made a few pennies. But you had to watch out for dubious types, and not accept so much as a pinch of snuff from anyone you didn’t know! Going along the street you had to walk right in the middle, well away from the walls, where you ran the risk of picking up all manner of nasty things, and not to sit down on the stones, or along the walls. Once, while she was coming back from Aci Castello, with her basket on her arm, la Longa felt so tired that her legs were shaking and seemed as if they were made of lead. So she let herself be overcome by the temptation to rest for a couple of minutes in the shade of the wild fig which is just near the little shrine, just before you enter the village; and she didn’t notice at the time, but she did remember afterwards, that a stranger who seemed tired too, poor thing, had been sitting there a few moments before, and had left drops of some nasty substance which looked like oil on those stones. Anyway, she slumped down there too; she caught cholera and when she got home she was exhausted, waxen as an ex-voto tablet to the Virgin, and with dark rings round her eyes; so that Mena, who was alone in the house, began to cry just at the sight of her, and Lia went to get costmary and mallow leaves. Mena was trembling like an aspen, while she made the bed; yet the sick woman, seated on a chair, dead tired, with her yellow face and dark-ringed eyes, insisted on saying:
‘It’s nothing, don’t be alarmed; as soon as I’m in bed, it will pass,’ and she even tried to help her, but her strength failed her at every move and she went and sat down again.
‘Holy Virgin,’ stammered Mena. ‘And the men out at sea.’
Lia took refuge in tears.
When padron ’Ntoni was coming home with his grandsons and saw the door half closed, and the light through the shutters, he dug his hands into his hair. Maruzza was already in bed, with those eyes of hers which, seen like that in the dark at that hour, looked as empty as though death had already sucked them dry, and her lips were black as coals. At that time neither doctor nor chemis
t were to be found about after sunset; and even the neighbourhood women had bolted their doors, for fear of the cholera, and stuck images of saints all over the cracks. For that reason Maruzza could expect help from no one except her own family, poor things, who were running through the house as though they were mad, seeing her sinking like that, in that little bed, and they were at their wits’ end, and beat their heads against the walls. Then la Longa, seeing that there was no more hope, wanted them to put that pennyworth of cotton wool soaked in holy oil that they had bought at Easter on her chest, and even said that they should leave the candle alight, as they had done when padron ’Ntoni was going to die, because she wanted to see them all around the bed, and feasted her eyes on them one by one, those staring eyes of hers which could no longer see. Lia was crying fit to break your heart; and all the others, white as rags, looked at each other hopelessly; and they gritted their teeth so as not to burst out sobbing in front of the dying woman, who was quite aware of what was going on, for all she could no longer see, and what she most regretted in going her way was leaving those poor creatures so bereft. She called them by name one by one, in a hoarse voice; and wanted to raise her hand, which she could no longer lift, to bless them, as though she knew she was leaving them a treasure. ‘’Ntoni’ she kept saying, almost inaudibly. ‘’Ntoni. To you, the eldest, I command these orphans.’ And hearing her talk like that, while she was still alive, the others could not help bursting out crying and sobbing.
So they spent all night around the bed where Maruzza now lay motionless, until the candle began to gutter and go out, too, and the dawn came in through the window, as pale as the dead woman, whose face was haggard and sharp as a knife, with blackened lips. But Mena wouldn’t stop kissing her on the mouth, and talking to her as if she could hear her. ’Ntoni beat his breast sobbing:
‘Oh mother! now you have gone before me, and I wanted to leave you!’ And that picture of his mother, with her white hair and face as yellow and sharp as a knife, remained in front of Alessi’s eyes until his own hair whitened.
I Malavoglia Page 19