Then don Franco gave vent to his anger by cackling like don Silvestro, rising up on to the tips of his toes, with the door wide open, because there was no danger of going to prison for that; and he said that as long as there were priests, it would always be the same story, and what was needed was a clean sweep, he understood these things, and he made a sweeping gesture with his arms.
‘I’d like them all burnt alive,’ answered don Giammaria, who also knew who he was talking about.
Now the chemist no longer held forth, and when don Silvestro came, he went to pound his unguents in the mortar, so as not to compromise himself. Anyhow all those who hob nob with the Government, and loaf around at the king’s expense, are people to watch out for. And he unburdened himself only to don Giammaria, and don Ciccio the doctor, when he left his little donkey at the chemist’s to go and feel padron ’Ntoni’s pulse, and he didn’t write out prescriptions, because he said they were pointless, for those poor people who didn’t have money to burn.
‘Then why don’t they send the old man to the hospital?’ the others kept saying, ‘and why do they keep him at home to be eaten by the fleas?’ So that time and again the doctor repeated that he was coming and going for nothing, casting water into the sea, and when the neighbourhood women were at the ill man’s bedside, comare Piedipapera, cousin Anna and Nunziata, he kept on declaring that the fleas were eating the old man alive. Padron ’Ntoni no longer dared even draw breath, with his face white and ravaged. And as the neighbourhood women were chattering among themselves and even Nunziata was downcast, one day when Alessi wasn’t there, he said at last: ‘Call compare Mosca, he’ll do me the kindness of taking me to the hospital on the cart.’
So padron ’Ntoni went to the hospital on Alfio Mosca’s cart, where he’d put the mattress and the pillows, but although he didn’t say anything, the poor ill fellow was looking all around him, while they were taking him outside holding him under the armpits, on the day when Alessi had gone to Riposto, and they had sent Mena away on some pretext, otherwise they would never have let him go. On the strada del Nero, as they passed in front of the house by the medlar tree, and as they crossed the square, padron ’Ntoni carried on looking this way and that, to impress everything on his mind. Alfio led the mule on one side, and Nunziata, who had left the calf and the turkeys and pullets in Turi’s charge, was on foot on the other, with the bundle of shirts under her arm. Seeing the cart go by, everyone came out on their doorsteps, and stood to stare; and don Silvestro said that they had done right, that was what the municipality paid its rates for to the hospital; and don Franco would have blurted out his offering, because he had it absolutely off pat, if don Silvestro hadn’t been there.
‘At least that poor devil will get a bit of peace,’ concluded zio Crocifisso.
‘Need lowers nobility,’ replied padron Cipolla; and Santuzza said a Hail Mary for the poor fellow. Only cousin Anna and comare Grazia Piedipapera dried their eyes on their aprons, as the cart went slowly by, jolting on the stones. But compare Tino said shortly to his wife:
‘Why are you making that wailing? have I died, maybe? What’s it to you?’
While he was leading the mule, Alfio Mosca was telling Nunziata how and where he had seen Lia, who looked just like St. Agatha, and he still couldn’t believe that he had seen her with his own eyes, so that his voice failed in his throat, while he talked about it to pass the time, along the dusty road.
‘Ah, Nunziata, who would have thought it, when we used to chat from one doorway to the next, and the moon was up, and the neighbours would be talking, and you could hear that loom of St. Agatha’s clattering all day long, and those chickens who knew her just from the sound the gate made when she opened it, and la Longa called her from the courtyard, because I could hear everything from my house just as if I were in there! Poor Longa! Now, you see, I’ve got my mule, and everything I wanted, and if an angel from heaven had come to tell me as much I’d never have believed him — now I’m always thinking of those evenings, when I heard your voices, while I was seeing to the donkey, and I could see the light in the house by the medlar tree, which is shut now, and when I came back I didn’t find anything I had left, and comare Mena seemed a changed person. When a person leaves their village, they’d do better not to return. You see, now I even think of that poor donkey which worked for me for so long, and always plodded on with its head down and its ears back, rain or shine. Who knows where they’re driving it now, and with what loads, and along what roads, with its ears even lower, because it goes along sniffing the earth which will receive it, when it gets old, poor creature!’
Stretched out on the mattress, padron ’Ntoni heard nothing, and they had put a cover with canes on the cart, so that it seemed as if they were carrying a corpse.
‘It’s just as well he shouldn’t hear anything any more,’ continued compare Alfio, ‘He knows about ’Ntoni’s situation and one day or the next he’s bound to hear about Lia.’
‘He often used to ask me, when we were alone,’ said Nunziata. ‘He wanted to know where she was.’ ‘She’s following her brother. We poor creatures are like sheep, and we always follow others with our eyes closed. Don’t tell him, nor anyone else in the village, where I saw Lia, because it would be a knife wound for St. Agatha. She certainly recognised me, while I was walking past the door, because she went all white and then red in the face, and I whipped the mule to go faster, and I’m sure that that poor creature would rather that the mule had walked over her stomach, and that they had carried her away as we are now carrying her grandfather. Now the Malavoglia family is destroyed, and you and Alessi must start it again from scratch.’
‘We’ve already got the money for our needs. On St. John’s Day we’ll sell the calf, too.’
‘Good. That way, when you’ve put the money aside there’s no danger that it will vanish away, as would happen if the calf died, God forbid. Here we are on the outskirts of town, and you can wait for me here, if you don’t want to come to the hospital.’
‘No, I want to come too; then at least I’ll see where they’re putting him, and he can see me till the last moment.’
Padron ’Ntoni was able to see her until the last moment, and while Nunziata was going off with Alfio Mosca, slowly, through the great room which made you think you were in church, it was so long in the walking of it, he followed them with his eyes; then he turned away and didn’t move. Compare Alfio and Nunziata climbed back on to the cart, rolled up the mattress and cover, and set off without a word, along the dusty road.
Alessi beat his head and tore his hair, when he found his grandfather no longer in his bed, and saw that they had brought the mattress back rolled up. And he took it out on Mena, as though it had been she who had sent him away. But compare Alfio said to him: ‘What could you do? Now the Malavoglia family is ruined, and you others must start it off again from scratch!’
He wanted to carry on talking about the money they’d saved and the calf, which he and Nunziata had been talking about along the way; but Alessi and Mena paid no heed, with their chins in their hands and their eyes fixed and bright with tears, sitting at the door of the house where they were now alone. Meanwhile compare Alfio tried to comfort them by reminding them what the house by the medlar tree used to be like, when they used to sit and chat from one doorway to another, in the moonlight, and all day long you could hear St. Agatha’s loom going, and the hens clucking, and the voice of la Longa who was always busy. Now everything was changed, and when someone leaves their village, they would do better never to return, because the very road seems to have altered, since people no longer passed by to see the Mangiacarrubbe girl and don Silvestro didn’t seem to be around either, waiting for Zuppidda to drop into his arms, and zio Crocifisso had locked himself into his house to keep an eye on his possessions, or to row with la Vespa, and there was no longer so much quarrelling in the chemist’s shop, since don Franco had come face to face with justice, and now he crept off quietly to read the paper, and found his relief by poundi
ng things in the mortar all day long to pass the time. Even padron Cipolla was no longer to be found wearing down the steps in front of the church, since he had lost his peace of mind.
One day the news went round that padron Fortunato was getting married, so that the Mangiacarrubbe girl couldn’t enjoy his possessions at his expense; that was why he no longer wore down the steps, and was taking on Barbara Zuppidda.
‘And he was telling me marriage was like a mouse trap,’ zio Crocifisso mumbled. ‘Trustworthy creatures, men.’
The envious girls said that Barbara was marrying her grandfather. But people of importance, like Peppi Naso, and Piedipapera, and even don Franco, murmured: ‘This is a victory for comare Venera over don Silvestro; and it’s a blow for don Silvestro, and he should leave the village. In any case foreigners should be drummed out of town, and they’ve never put down roots here. Don Silvestro won’t dare confront padron Cipolla face to face.’
‘What do you think?’ shrieked comare Venera with her hands on her hips, ‘that he could take my daughter all penniless as he was? This time I’m in charge! and I’ve let my husband know as much! The good dog eats in the trough; I don’t want foreigners about the house. We used to be much better off in this village, before people came from outside to note down the mouthfuls you eat, like don Silvestro, or to pound mallow flowers in the mortars, and get fat on the blood of the villagers. Then everyone knew everyone else, and what they were doing, and what their father and grandfather had always done, and even what they ate and when someone went by you knew where they were going, and the smallholdings belonged to those who were born here, and the fish were choosy about who caught them. Then people didn’t roam all over the place, and they didn’t go to hospital to die, either.’
Since everyone was getting married, Alfio Mosca would have liked to take comare Mena, because no one else wanted her now, since the collapse of the Malavoglia household, and compare Alfio could have been regarded as a good match for her, what with his mule; so on Sunday he pondered over all the reasons that might give him hope, while he sat beside her, in front of the house, with his shoulders to the wall, whittling away at twigs from the hedge to pass the time. She too watched the people go by, and thus they spent their Sunday: ‘If you still want me, comare Mena,’ he said at last, ‘I’m here for the taking.’
Poor Mena didn’t even blush, hearing that compare Alfio had guessed that she had wanted him, when they were about to give her away to Brasi Cipolla, so far away did that time seem, and she herself didn’t seem like the same person.
‘Now I’m old, compare Alfio,’ she replied, ‘and I shan’t be getting married.’
‘If you’re old, then I’m old too, because I was older than you when we used to chat from the window, though it feels to me as if it were yesterday, it’s still so alive in my heart. But more than eight years must have gone by. And when your brother Alessi gets married, you’ll be on your own.’
Mena shrugged and said she was used to doing God’s will, like cousin Anna; and seeing her like that, compare Alfio continued: ‘Then that means you don’t care about me any more, comare Mena, and please forgive me for having said I would marry you. I know that you are better born than me, and you’re the daughter of people with property; but now you have nothing, and if your brother Alessi marries, you’ll be left all alone. I have my mule and my cart, and I’d never leave you short of food, comare Mena. Forgive my boldness!’
‘You haven’t offended me, compare Alfio; and I would have said yes when we had the Provvidenza, and the house by the medlar tree, if my parents had been willing, because God knows how I felt when you went off to Bicocca with your donkey cart, and I can still see that light in the stable, and you putting all your things on the cart, in the courtyard; do you remember?’
‘Do I remember? So why are you saying no, now that you have nothing, and I have the mule instead of the donkey, and your parents couldn’t say no?’
‘Now I’m not marriageable,’ Mena repeated with her face lowered, whittling twigs as well. ‘I’m twenty seven, and the time for marriage has passed.’
‘No, that’s not the reason you’re saying no,’ repeated compare Alfio, his face lowered too. You’re not telling me the reason.’ And so they stayed in silence, whittling sticks without looking at each other. After he got up to leave, with his shoulders hunched, and his head down, Mena followed him with her gaze until she could see him no longer, and then she looked at the opposite wall, and sighed.
As Alfio Mosca had said, Alessi had taken Nunziata as his wife, and had bought back the house by the medlar tree.
‘I’m no longer marriageable,’ Mena repeated; ‘you get married, you’re still young enough;’ and so saying she had gone up into the attic of the house by the medlar tree, like the old saucepans, and she had resigned herself, waiting for Nunziata’s little ones so that she could play mother to them. Then there were hens in the hen-run, and the calf in the stable, and wood and feed under the shelter, and nets and all sorts of tackle hanging up, just as padron ’Ntoni had said; and Nunziata had planted broccoli and cauliflowers in the vegetable patch, with those delicate arms of hers, so that you could hardly imagine how so much linen for bleaching could have passed through them, and how she had brought up those fat, pink children whom Mena carried through the neighbourhood in her arms, when she played mother to them.
Compare Mosca shook his head, when he saw her pass, and turned the other way, shoulders hunched.
‘You didn’t think me worthy of that honour,’ he said to her at last, his heart heavier than his shoulders. ‘I wasn’t worthy of your acceptance.’
‘No, compare Alfio,’ replied Mena, who felt the tears rising. ‘I promise, by this pure creature I have in my arms, that that wasn’t the reason. But I’m no longer marriageable.’
‘Why are you no longer marriageable, comare Mena?’
‘No, no,’ repeated comare Mena, who was almost crying. ‘Don’t force me to speak, comare Alfio. Now if I married, people would start to talk about my sister Lia again, because no one would dare to take a Malavoglia, after what has happened. You’d be the first to regret it. Leave me be, I’m no longer marriageable — just resign yourself.’
‘You’re right, comare Mena!’ replied comare Mosca, ‘I’d never thought of that. But I can’t help cursing the fate which has brought us so many sorrows.’
In this way compare Alfio resigned himself, and Mena continued to carry her nephews in her arms as though she had resigned herself too, and to sweep the attic, for when the others would come back, because they had been born there too, ‘as though they were on a journey, and would be coming back,’ said Piedipapera.
Whereas padron ’Ntoni had made that long journey, further than Trieste or Alexandria in Egypt, from which no traveller returns; and when his name cropped up in conversation, while they were resting, working out the week’s accounts and making plans for the future, in the shadow of the medlar tree and with their bowls between their knees, the chatter would suddenly die down, because everyone felt as if the poor old man were there before their eyes, as they had seen him the last time they had gone to visit him in the great barracks of a room with its rows of beds, so that you had trouble finding him, and their grandfather was waiting for them like a soul in purgatory, with his eyes on the door, although he was almost blind, and he felt them all over, to make sure it was really them. And then he didn’t say anything, while you could tell from his face that he had so many things to say, and he was a heart-rending sight with that pain in his face which he couldn’t express. Then they told him that they had got back the house by the medlar tree, and wanted him to come back to Trezza again, and he said yes, yes, with his eyes, which started to shine again, and his mouth almost formed a smile, the sort of smile of people who no longer laugh, or are laughing for the last time, and which stays planted in your heart like a knife. So it was with the Malavoglia when, on Monday, they went back with Alfio Mosca’s cart to fetch their grandfather, and found him gone.
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br /> Remembering all those things, they left their spoons in their bowls, and thought and thought about everything that had happened, which all seemed so dark, as though the shadow of the medlar tree had fallen upon it. Now, when cousin Anna came to spin for a while with the neighbourhood women, she had white hair, and said that she had lost the knack for laughter because she hadn’t time to be happy, with the family she had on her hands, and Rocco who had to be looked for all over the place, along the road or in the wine shop, and then driven homeward like a stray calf. In the Malavoglia family too there were two strays; and Alessi racked his brains wondering where they could be, along the roads parched with sun and white with dust, because they would never come home to the village, after so long.
One night, late, the dog began to bark behind the courtyard door, and Alessi himself who went to open it, did not recognise ’Ntoni coming back with his bundle under his arm, he was so changed, covered in dust, and with a long beard. When he came in and sat in a corner, they almost didn’t dare to greet him. He seemed so changed, and went peering round the walls, as though he had never seen them before; even the dog barked at him, because it had never known him. They gave him a bowl of soup because he was hungry and thirsty, and he ate as though he hadn’t had a bite to eat in a week, with his nose in the dish; but the others weren’t hungry, so stricken did they feel. Then when he had eaten and rested a bit, ’Ntoni took up his bundle and made as if to leave.
Alessi didn’t dare to say anything to him, so changed was his brother. But seeing him pick up the bundle, he felt his heart leap out of his breast, and Mena, all bewildered, asked: ‘Are you going?’
I Malavoglia Page 28