I Malavoglia

by Giovanni Verga

  People said that Lia had gone to be with don Michele; by now the Malavoglia had nothing to lose, and don Michele at least would have seen that she didn’t starve. Padron ’Ntoni was virtually food for carrion by now, and did nothing but wander round, bent double, like a face on an old pipe, uttering meaningless proverbs; ‘Everyone calls for an axe to be taken to a fallen tree,’ ‘if you fall in the water you’re bound to get wet,’ and ‘to the lean horse, flies.’ And to anyone who asked him why he was always wandering around, he would say that ‘hunger drives the wolf from the wood,’ and ‘a starving dog fears not the stick.’ But people didn’t take any notice, now that he was reduced to that state. Everyone gave their own piece of advice, and asked him what he was waiting for with his back to the wall, there under the bell-tower, so that he looked like zio Crocifisso when he was waiting to lend money to people, sitting up against the boats pulled up on the beach, as if he had padron Cipolla’s fishing boat; and padron ’Ntoni would answer that he was waiting for death, which was slow in coming for him, because ‘a luckless man has long days.’ No one talked of Lia any more in the household, not even St. Agatha, and for comfort she would go off and cry in private, in front of her mother’s little bed, when there was no one in the house. Now the house seemed as vast as the sea, and they felt quite lost in it. The money had gone off with ’Ntoni; Alessi was still away, finding work here and there; and Nunziata did them the kindness of coming to light the fire, when Mena had to go and take her grandfather by the hand, towards dusk, like a child, because he was worse than a hen and couldn’t see in the dark any more.

  Don Silvestro and the other people in the village said that

  Alessi would have done better to send his grandfather to the poorhouse, now that he was good for nothing; and this was the only thing the poor old man was afraid of. Every time that Mena went to put him out in the sun, leading him by the hand, so that he could spend the whole day waiting for death, he thought they were taking him to the poorhouse, such an old dodderer had he become, and he mumbled that death was slow in coming, so that some people fell into the habit of asking him laughingly how far death had got on its road.

  Alessi came home on Saturdays, and counted out the week’s money for him, as though his grandfather still had all his wits about him. He carried on nodding his head; and then he had to go and hide the bundle under the mattress, and to please him, Alessi told him that they had nearly got together the money for the house by the medlar tree once again, and in a year or two they would have the whole sum.

  But the old man shook his head, stubbornly, and retorted that now they didn’t need the house any more; and it would have been better had there never been a Malavoglia family, now that the Malavoglia were scattered here and there.

  Once he called Nunziata aside, under the almond tree, when there was no one around, and it seemed as though he had something serious to say; but he moved his lips without talking, and was seeking the words looking this way and that.

  ‘Is it true what they say of Lia?’ he said at last.

  ‘No,’ said Nunziata, with her hands solemnly crossed. ‘No, by the Virgin of Ognina, it’s not true.’

  He began to nod, with his chin on his chest.

  ‘So why did she run away too?’ he asked, ‘why did she run away?’

  Arid he would look for her all through the house, pretending he’d lost his cap; he touched the bed and the chest of drawers, and seated himself at the loom, without a word. ‘Do you know?’ he asked at last. ‘Do you know why she left?’ But he said nothing to Mena.

  Nunziata did not know, in all conscience, nor did anyone else in the village.

  One night Alfio Mosca drew up in the strada del Nero, with his cart, which was now drawn by a mule, and that was why he had caught the fever at Bicocca, and had almost died, so that his face was all yellow and his stomach as swollen as a gourd; but the mule was fat and sleek.

  ‘Do you remember when I set out for Bicocca?’ he said, ‘when you were still at the house by the medlar tree? Now everything is changed, because ‘the world is round, and some boats sail well and some run aground.’ ’ This time they couldn’t even offer him a glass of wine, to welcome him back. Compare Alfio knew where Lia was; he had seen her with his own eyes, and it was as if he had seen comare Mena when they were chatting from one window to the other. That was why he moved his eyes hither and thither, from the furniture to the walls, heavy as if he had his own cart lying on his stomach, and he sat without a word, near the table which had nothing on it and where no one sat any more to eat of an evening.

  ‘I’m off now,’ he repeated, seeing that they had nothing to say to him. ‘When a person leaves their villages, they’d do better not to return, because everything changes when they’re away, even the expression on people’s faces when they look at him, and it’s as though he had become a stranger.’

  Mena kept silent. Meanwhile Alessi told him that he wanted to marry Nunziata, when they had got a bit of money together, and Alfio told him he was right to do so, if Nunziata had a little money herself, because she was a good girl, and everyone in the village knew her. So it seems that even their relatives forget people who are no longer there and everyone in this world has to pull their own cart, like compare Alfio’s donkey, though goodness knows what life that donkey was leading, now that it had passed into other hands.

  Nunziata too had her dowry, since her little brothers were beginning to earn the odd penny, and she hadn’t wanted to buy either gold or linen, because she said that such things were for the rich, and there was no point in getting linen while she was still growing.

  She had indeed grown into a tall girl, slight as a broomstick, with black hair, and kind eyes, and when she sat down at the doorway, with all those children swarming round her, she looked as though she were still thinking of her father on the day he had left them, and of the troubles amidst which she had picked her way ever since, with her little brothers clinging to her skirts. Seeing how she had pulled herself out of trouble, herself and her little brothers, weak and thin as a broomstick as she was, everyone greeted her and gladly stopped to have a word with her.

  ‘We’ve got the money,’ she said to compare Alfio, who was almost a relative, they had known him for so long. ‘At All Saints’ my brother is starting as apprentice with padron Cipolla. When I’ve settled Turi too, then I’ll marry; but I’ll have to wait until I’m of age, and for my father to give his consent.’

  ‘Your father has forgotten your existence,’ said Alfio. ‘If he were to come back now,’ replied Nunziata in her soft voice that was so calm, with her arms on her knees, ‘he wouldn’t go away again, because now we’ve got money.’

  Then compare Alfio repeated to Alessi that he was doing right to take Nunziata, if she had that bit of money.

  ‘We’ll buy the house by the medlar tree,’ added Alessi; ‘and grandfather can stay with us. When the others come back they can stay there too; and if Nunziata’s father comes back there’ll be room for him as. well.’

  They didn’t speak of Lia; but they were all three thinking about her, while they sat gazing at the lamp, with their elbows on their knees.

  At last compare Mosca got up to go, because his mule was shaking the bells on its collar, as though it too knew the person whom compare Alfio had met on the way, someone who was no longer expected back at the house by the medlar tree.

  Zio Crocifisso on the other hand had been expecting to hear from the Malavoglia for some time about that house, because no one wanted it, for all the world as though it brought bad luck, and it was still on his hands; so that as soon as he heard of the return of Alfio Mosca, whose bones he had wanted to have broken when he was jealous of la Vespa, he went to beseech him to play the go-between with the Malavoglia to conclude the deal. Now when he met him on the road he greeted him, and even tried sending la Vespa to talk to him about that business, after all perhaps they might remember their old love, at the same time, and compare Mosca might be able to relieve him of that cross w
hich he was bearing. But that bitch of a Vespa didn’t want any mention of compare Alfio, or of anyone else, now that she had a husband and was mistress in her own house, and she wouldn’t have exchanged zio Crocifisso for Victor Emanuel himself, not even if they dragged her by the hair.

  ‘I have to have all the bad luck,’ zio Crocifisso complained; and he went to unburden himself with compare Alfio, and beat his chest as though he were with his confessor, for having even thought of paying ten lire to get his bones broken.

  ‘Ah, compare Alfio! If you knew the disasters that have rained down upon my house, so that I can no longer eat or sleep, and I’m eaten up with rancour and I’m no longer master of a penny of my own, after having sweated all my life and deprived myself of my own bread, to pile it up penny by penny. Now I’m fated to see it in the hands of this serpent, to do as she pleases with! And I can’t even get rid of her legally, because she wouldn’t be tempted by Satan himself! and she loves me so much that I’ll never get her off my back before I croak, if I don’t die early from sheer desperation!’

  ‘That’s what I was saying to compare Alfio,’ continued zio Crocifisso seeing padron Cipolla come by, and he had been in the habit of sauntering round the square like a butcher’s dog, since that other wasp of a Mangiacarrubbe girl had entered his house.

  ‘We can’t even stay in our own houses for fear of exploding from ill-temper! They’ve driven us out of our own houses, those carrion! like ferrets do with rabbits. We’d be better off without them. Who would have believed it, eh, padron Fortunato? And to think we were living in blessed peace! That’s how the world goes! Some people are seeking marriage all over the place, while those who are married are looking for a way out.’

  Padron Fortunato stood for a bit rubbing his chin, and then said that marriage was a bit like a mouse trap, those who were caught in it were struggling to escape, while the others were prowling around trying to get in.

  ‘I think they’re mad! Look at don Silvestro, he lacks for nothing, and yet he’s got it into his head to try and get Zuppidda to drop into his arms, they say; and if comare Venera finds nothing better, she’ll have to let her drop.’

  Padron Cipolla continued rubbing his chin and said nothing more.

  ‘Listen, compare Alfio,’ continued Dumb bell, ‘get this deal with the Malavoglia’s house concluded, while they’ve got the money, and I’ll give you the wherewithal to buy some shoes, for your comings and goings.’

  Compare Alfio went back to talk to the Malavoglia; but padron ’Ntoni shook his head, and said no.

  ‘We wouldn’t know what to do with the house now, because Mena can’t get married, and there are no Malavoglias left! I’m still here because unlucky people have long lives; but when I’ve closed my eyes, Alessi will take Nunziata and leave the village.’

  He too was on the point of departure. He spent most of the time in bed, like a crab under the rocks, barking worse than a dog: ‘I’ve no place here,’ he would mutter; and he felt as though he were stealing the soup from their very mouths. In vain Alessi and Mena tried to convince him. He replied that he was robbing them of their time and soup, and wanted them to count out the money under the mattress for him, and if he saw it going down bit by bit, he would murmur: ‘At least if I weren’t here you wouldn’t spend so much. I’ve no place here.’

  Don Ciccio, who came to feel his pulse, confirmed that it would be better to take him to the hospital, because here he was eating his own meat and that of others, to no purpose. Meanwhile the poor man listened to what other people were saying, and was afraid they would send him to the poorhouse. Alessi wouldn’t hear of such a thing, and said that as long as there was bread, there was enough for everyone; and Mena, for her part, said so as well, and took him out into the sun, on fine days, and sat down beside him with her spindle, telling him fairy stories, as one does to children, and spinning, when she didn’t have work to do at the wash place. She even talked to him of what they would do when a bit of luck came their way, to cheer him up; she said that they would buy a young calf at the market on St. Sebastian’s Day, and she herself would get it grass and feed for the winter. In May they would sell it at a profit; and she also showed him the brood of chicks she had got, and which came cheeping round their feet in the sun, sneezing in the dusty roadway. With the money from the chickens they would buy a pig, so as not to waste the prickly pear skins, and the vegetable water, and by the end of the year it would be tantamount to having put money in the money box. The old man, with his hands on his stick, nodded his head, looking at the chicks. He was paying such close attention, poor fellow, that he even managed to say that if they had had the house by the medlar tree they would have been able to rear it in the courtyard, the pig that is, since they could definitely sell it at a profit to compare Naso. In the house by the medlar tree there was even a stable for the calf, and a shelter for the feed, and everything; he remembered it inch by inch, looking here and there with his dull eyes and his chin on his stick.

  Then he asked his granddaughter in a low voice what don Ciccio had said about the hospital. Then Mena would scold him as though he were a child, and ask him why he was thinking of such things. He was silent, and listened quietly to everything the girl said. But he would always go back to entreating her not to send him to the hospital, because he wasn’t used to it.

  At last he no longer even got out of bed, and don Ciccio said that it was all over, and there was no more need for a doctor, because padron ’Ntoni could stay in that bed for years, and Alessi and Mena and even Nunziata would have to waste their time keeping an eye on him; otherwise the pigs would eat him, if they found the door open.

  Padron ’Ntoni heard everything that was being said quite well, because he looked them in the eye one by one, and his expression hurt you to look back at him; and as soon as the doctor had gone, while he was still standing talking at the doorway to Mena who was crying, and Alessi who was saying no and stamping his feet, he gestured to Nunziata to come to the bed, and said to her quietly: ‘It would be better for you to to send me to the hospital; here I eat up all the money you make in the week. Send me away when Alessi and Mena aren’t at home. They’d refuse, because they are true good-hearted Malavoglias; but I’m using up the money for the house, and anyway the doctor said that I might be here for years like this. And I’ve no place here, though I wouldn’t want to hang on for years there at the hospital, either.’

  Nunziata too began to cry and said no, and now the whole neighbourhood was speaking ill of them, for wanting to act so haughty when they didn’t even have the bread for their supper. They were afraid to send their grandfather to the hospital, while the rest of the family were already scattered here and there, and in equally undesirable places too.

  And Santuzza kissed the medal she wore on her chest, to thank the Virgin for protecting her from the danger into which St. Agatha’s sister had fallen, like so many others.

  ‘They ought to send that poor old man to the hospital, so as not to put him through purgatory even before he dies,’ she said. At least she didn’t allow her father to lack for anything, now that he was an invalid, and she kept him conveniently manning the door.

  ‘Indeed, he’s actually a help to you,’ added Piedipapera. ‘That invalid is worth his weight in gold! You’d think he’d been made specially to hold open the door of the wine shop, all blind and wizened as he is! And you ought to pray to the Virgin to spare him for you for a hundred years. And anyway, what does he cost you?’

  Santuzza was right to kiss the medal; no one could make any comments about her affairs; since don Michele had gone, massaro Filippo had disappeared too, and people said he couldn’t manage without don Michele’s help. Now Cinghialenta’s wife sometimes came to raise hell outside the wine shop, with her hands on her hips, shrieking that Santuzza was stealing her husband, so that when he came home she got swiped with the halter reins, after Cinghialenta had sold the mule, and didn’t know what to do with the reins, so that the neighbours couldn’t sleep at night for
the din.

  ‘This isn’t right,’ said don Silvestro, ‘a halter is made for a mule. Compare Cinghialenta is uncouth.’ He would say such things in the presence of comarc Venera la Zuppidda, because after conscription had taken off the young men of the village, she had ended up being a bit friendlier towards him.

  ‘Everyone knows what goes on in their own house,’ answered Zuppidda; ‘if you’re saying that because of the rumour some gossips are spreading about, that I lay about my husband, I’m telling you that you know nothing about it, although you know all about book learning. Anyhow everyone can do what they want in their own house. My husband is the boss.’

  ‘You let them talk,’ replied her husband. ‘Anyhow, they know that if they came anywhere near me, I’d make mincemeat of them.’

  Zuppidda now asserted that her husband was the head of the household, and he could marry off Barbara with whomsoever he pleased, and if he wanted to give her to don Silvestro that meant he had promised her to him, and had bowed his head and given his assent; and when her husband bowed his head, he was worse than an ox.

  ‘Quite so,’ pronounced don Franco with his beard in the air, ‘he’s bowed his head because don Silvestro is someone to be reckoned with.’

  Since he had been in the law courts among all those policemen, don Franco was angrier than before, and swore he would not go back, even between two carabinieri. When don Giammaria raised his voice to argue, he flew at him, standing bolt upright on his little legs, red as a cockerel, and drove him to the back of the shop.

  ‘You do it on purpose to compromise me!’ he spat into his face, foaming at the mouth; and if two people were arguing on the square, he would run to close the door so that no one could call him to witness. Don Giammaria was triumphant; that gangling idiot had the courage of a lion, because he had a cassock on his shoulders, and spoke ill of the Government, calmly pocketting a lira a day, and said that they deserved the Government they had, since they had brought about the Revolution, and now foreigners came in to steal women and people’s money. He knew who he was talking about, because he’d got jaundice from the cholera, and donna Rosolina had lost weight from sheer gall, particularly after don Michele had gone off, and all his dark deeds had come to light. Now all she did was rush about after masses and confessors, this way and that, right to Ognina and Aci Castello, and she neglected her tomato preserve and tunny fish in oil, to devote herself to God.