I Malavoglia

by Giovanni Verga

  ‘Yes,’ replied ’Ntoni.

  ‘But where?’ asked Alessi.

  ‘I don’t know. I came to see you. But since I’ve been here the soup has turned to ashes in my mouth. Anyhow, I can’t stay here, because everyone knows me, and that’s why I came at night. I’ll go a long way off, where I can find a way to earn a living, and no one knows who I am.’ The others didn’t dare breathe, because they felt their hearts gripped as if in a vice, and they understood that he was doing right to speak like that. ’Ntoni continued to look all around, and stood at the doorway, and couldn’t make up his mind to go.

  ‘I’ll let you know where I am,’ he said at last, and when he was in the courtyard, under the medlar tree, and it was dark, he also said:

  ‘And grandfather?’

  Alessi didn’t answer; ’Ntoni too fell silent, and said after a while:

  ‘And Lia, I didn’t see her?’

  And since he waited in vain for the answer, he added with a shaking voice, as though he were cold: ‘Is she dead too?’

  Alessi didn’t even answer; then ’Ntoni, who was under the medlar tree with his bundle in his hand, made as if to sit down, because his legs were trembling, but he straightened up suddenly, stammering: ‘Goodbye, all of you. You see that I must go?’

  Before going he wanted to take a turn round the house, to see if everything was as before; but now ’Ntoni, who had had the courage to leave the house and pull a knife on don Michele, and to be in all kinds of trouble, had not the courage to walk from one room to another without prompting. Seeing the desire in his eyes, Alessi had him go into the stable, with the excuse of the calf Nunziata had bought, and which was fat and glossy; then he took him into the kitchen, where they had made a new hearth, and into the next room, where Mena slept with Nunziata’s children, as though they were her own.

  ‘Grandfather would have liked to put the calf here; the hens sat in here, and the girls slept here, when she was here too…’ But then he said no more, and fell silent, looking around, with his eyes bright. At that moment the Mangiacarrubbe girl passed by, scolding Brasi Cipolla down the street, and ’Ntoni said: ‘She’s found a husband; and now, when they’ve finished their quarrel, they’ll go to sleep in their own home.’

  The others were quiet, and there was a great quietness throughout the whole village, and all you could hear was the occasional door banging; and at those words Alessi found the courage to say: ‘If you wanted, you too could have a home of your own. There’s a bed for you, in there.’

  ‘No,’ answered ’Ntoni, ‘I must leave. That’s where mother’s bed was, which she soaked with tears when I wanted to leave. Do you remember the chats we used to have of an evening, when we were salting the anchovies, with Nunziata explaining the riddles? and mother, and Lia, all there, in the moonlight, and you could hear the whole village chattering, as if we were one big family. I didn’t know anything then, either, and I didn’t want to stay here; but now that I know everything, I have to go.’

  At that moment he was speaking with his gaze on the ground, and his head sunk into his shoulders. Then Alessi threw his arms around his neck.

  ‘Goodbye,’ repeated ’Ntoni. ‘You see I was right to leave! I can’t stay here. Goodbye, and forgive me, all of you!’

  And he went off with his bundle under his arm; then, when he was some way off, in the middle of the square which was dark and empty because all the doorways were closed, he stopped to hear whether they were closing the door to the house by the medlar tree, while the dog barked after him, telling him with his bark that he was alone in the village. Only the sea grumbled its usual tale down below, amid the sharp rocks, because the sea is a wanderer too, and it belongs to everyone who pauses to listen to it, here and there where the sun rises and sets, and indeed at Aci Trezza it has a way of grumbling all of its own, and can immediately be recognised by its gurglings among those rocks on which it breaks, and it sounds like the voice of a friend.

  Then ’Ntoni stopped in the middle of the road to look at the village, all black as it was, as though he hadn’t the heart to leave it, now that he knew everything, and he sat down on the wall of massaro Filippo’s vineyard.

  He stayed there a long time thinking of many things, looking at the dark village, and listening to the sea rumbling to him down below. And he stayed there until he began to hear certain familiar noises, and voices calling from behind closed doors, and a banging of shutters, and steps down the dark streets. On the sea shore, at the end of the square, lights began to proliferate. He lifted his head to look at the Three Kings twinkling, and the Pleiades which meant dawn, as he had seen it so many times. Then he hung his head, and began to think of his whole story. Gradually the sea began to whiten, and the Three Kings to pale, and the houses emerged one by one in the dark streets, and he knew each one of them, and the only one with a light outside it was Pizzuto’s shop, and there was Rocco Spatu with his hands in his pockets, coughing and spitting.

  ‘Soon zio Santoro will open the door,’ thought ’Ntoni, ‘and will squat down at the doorway to begin his day too.’ Then he looked back at the sea, which had become amaranth, all dotted with boats which had begun their day too, and he picked up his bundle and said: ‘Now it’s time to go, because soon people will be going by. But the first person to start his day is Rocco Spatu.’

  The rocks at Aci Treeza.

  The House by the Medlar Tree museum in Aci Trezza.

  A view of the rocks at Aci Trezza.

  IN SEARCH OF VERGA

  It is now more than thirty years ago since I first read Giovanni Verga’s I Malavoglia. I found it strange, with Italian distorted to resemble Sicilian and the constant use of proverbs or sayings to provide a received wisdom from the past. Some of these sayings have never left my mind, such as, ‘The sea is bitter and the sailor dies in the sea.’ I had never read a book like I Malavoglia before. Above all it was the emotional content of the book, which over-whelmed me. It is one of the few books, which touched my heart in the days when I was still young and cynical. Verga made me care about the lives of a family of fishermen in Aci Trezza in the 1860s. He succeeded in turning their lives into a Greek tragedy and I believe I Malavoglia (first published in 1881) is the greatest novel in the Italian language.

  I read I Malavoglia several times as a student and was amazed that it was not available in English, when lesser works of Verga, were available as Penguin classics. I rang up the editor at Penguin and he politely listened to me while I made the case for Verga’s I Malavoglia. He told me there were no plans to commission a translation and he doubted whether the other Verga titles would remain in print for much longer. What I didn’t realise then was that some Verga titles were available as Penguin Classics not because of Verga but because of the translator D. H. Lawrence, who was very much in vogue in the 1970s. He had translated the novel Mastro Don Gesualdo, Verga’s short stories and the play Cavalleria Rusticana.

  In the 1970s I had a strong desire to visit Sicily and the places mentioned in I Malavoglia. Despite hitchhiking around Southern Italy I never quite got to Sicily, instead I wandered around the places, including the caves at Matera, mentioned in Christ Stopped at Eboli by Carlo Levi. The Sicily of Verga grew in my mind and became more real than any actual place. I made up for not visiting Verga’s Sicily by becoming Verga’s publisher in England.

  I founded Dedalus in 1983 with the help of a few hardy souls and the forbearance of my wife, Marie. We began publishing on 30th November 1983 with 3 first novels, two of which are still in print: Robert Irwin’s The Arabian Nightmare and Geoffrey Farrington’s The Revenants. In February 1984 we began Dedalus European Classics with D. H. Lawrence’s translations of Mastro Don Gesualdo and The Short Sicilian Novels, long since abandoned by Penguin who we paid to offset from their editions.

  I spent my time at The British Museum Reading Room looking at old translations of I Malavoglia, of which there were several, though none were very good. Unfortunately D. H. Lawrence found I Malavoglia intentionally over-
wrought and did not translate it. I tried translating it myself and struggled through the first few pages before it was clear that whatever gifts I possessed they certainly didn’t include translating.

  I found a translator, Judith Landry, who agreed to translate I Malavoglia and she produced a wonderful translation, which Dedalus published in 1985. If I had found it hard selling copies of 3 first novels I found it even more difficult selling copies of Verga in English, despite their smart burgundy covers. Verga became very close to bankrupting this fledgling publisher. I used to tour the London bookshops counting the unsold copies of the Dedalus books on the shelves which invariably were the same as the last time I had counted them. I created my own Vergaesque proverb, ‘A watched book doesn’t sell.’

  Dedalus, named after James Joyce’s hero Stephen Dedalus, was nicknamed ‘The Deadloss Publishing Company’, and I was the rep from Deadloss. I used to stand outside bookshops psyching myself up to go in and offer the buyer more Dedalus books, ready to exchange one unsaleable title for another one. The bookshops used to enjoy my visits always able to find time in their schedule for the rep from Deadloss. Dedalus was technically bankrupt but there was no point in stopping so we kept managing to do one more book. In 1985 Penguin paid us £21,000 for the rights to Robert Irwin’s The Arabian Nightmare changing our fortunes dramatically. Dedalus managed finally to lose its Deadloss nickname. As the 1980s went on even Verga began to sell as we added two further books by him to the Dedalus list. To get our European Classics to sell we had to abandon our simple burgundy covers for more colourful ones. Burgundy had failed to do for us what green had done for Virago Modern Classics but the early burgundy books are now collectors’ items.

  In 2006 the current edition of I Malavoglia was going out of print and I saw it as a good opportunity to finally visit Verga’s Sicily. It was now or never I felt, so I agonised about making the correct preparations for the journey. I had lived with Verga in my mind for so long I couldn’t bare the idea of destroying the imaginary world which still touched my heart. I was pleased when I realised it would be possible to stay in a hotel in Aci Trezza but then I found out there were lots of hotels in Aci Trezza and the once small fishing village was now part of Aci Reale, a bustling seaside resort. So in search of something approaching a small village we found a small house on the harbour of Pozzillo Inferiore, up the coast from Aci Trezza.

  Pozzillo Inferiore had a small harbour and two main streets leading up from it. It was only walking round it that you noticed the high walls and gated entrances of new apartment complexes which were already empty in the middle of September as the owners had now abandoned their holiday home for the season. Without the holiday-makers Pozzillo Inferiore was both quiet, picturesque and what I wanted: a small fishing village. I say quiet but that was until 3 am when the fishermen went out to sea in their small, very noisy motorboats, yelling at each other and often playing their radios. For two hours every night there was non-stop noise, and as some of the boats were moored against the walls of the house in which we were staying, we felt like we were on the set of a very noisy film. I am sure in Verga’s day fishermen were equally loud and indifferent to the sleep of others but at least they did not possess motor boats and transistor radios. Between 5 am and 6 am as the fishermen finally made it out to sea, the noise would subside and it would become quiet again. It was necessary to develop a new sleeping regime sleeping up to 3 am and then from 5 am to 10 am.

  Pozzillo Inferiore’s one restaurant was already closed when we arrived but there were two pizzerie in the village, one in the harbour with its widescreen tv set up outside under a canopy, which made it look rather uninviting and the second one, a short walk up the hill which led to the church. On the first night I ordered a takeaway pizza from it and the host mentioned he would do lunch for us if we ordered in advance. So rather bleary-eyed at midday my family, minus my wife who had a migraine after the night’s entertainment, trooped up the hill to what became our pizzeria. We had an aperitif, some nibbles, then spaghetti alle vongole with the vegetarian option, for my son Anthony, of spaghetti with tomato sauce, followed by squid, swordfish and king prawns, salad and for Anthony, the vegetarian option, a large plate of mediterranean vegetables with the salad. Unlimited wine washed it down with various home-made Sicilian drinks produced to sample before fruit, amaro and coffee. Three hours later, we as the only guests, feeling rather happy and content with the world, tottered home, carefully carrying the dishes where my wife’s lunch was contained, ready for a siesta to make-up for our lost sleep. Our feast had cost 30 euros each and whatever else we could eat would have been included in the price. Either for lunch or takeaway pizza we ate at the pizzeria in via del Sonino almost every day.

  The next day it was time for our visit to Aci Trezza and after months of very hot and humid weather often over 40 degrees, the skies opened and we arrived in Aci Trezza in the pouring rain. Despite the heavy rain we clambered over the black volcanic rocks in the harbour, immortalised by I Malavoglia, and I stared out to sea imagining the storm which led to the loss of the family’s boat and the death of Bastianazzo, the family’s anchor. Without his presence, not even the wisdom of the grandfather, retailed in proverbs and saying, could stop this tightly-knit family from falling apart.

  Walking around Aci Trezza, which is a very pleasant and bustling seaside town, it was gratifying to see so many of the hotels and restaurants were named after scenes or characters in Verga’s novel. I felt happy here and even happier after a good lunch, dry and contented inside while it was wet and furious outside. After lunch we went to visit the Museum of ‘The House by the Medlar Tree’. The museum is in a 19th century fisherman’s house at Via Arc De Maria 15, with two rooms and a small courtyard with a medlar tree. Verga is not specific enough in the book for it to be possible to say with any certainty whether this was the house where the Malavoglia family lived but it would have certainly resembled it closely.

  I strongly recommend this visit, because of the quality of the explanation the guide gave in Italian and English to our small group. For anyone interested in the novel the visit puts into context the life of a family of fishermen in Aci Trezza in the 1860s: from what they ate, and what they had to do to eke out a living, to how they went to the toilet! After the visit I felt I knew something of the domestic details of the Malavoglia family’s life. There is still a small fishing industry in Aci Trezza today. The guide commented that modern fishermen do not fare much better than their 19th century predecessors, with any profit going to the wholesaler and all the fishermen getting for their efforts is arthritis. I had to admit that when I heard that, I wished for an acute outbreak of arthritis to immediately strike the fishermen of Pozzillo Inferiore, so I could get a good night’s sleep.

  In Verga’s novels and novelle he uses actual place names, so I got excited by driving through Vizzini, Tre Castelli and other towns and villages Verga has brought alive in my imagination. I Malavoglia is in essence a Greek tragedy, the family destroyed by its own hubris, not accepting the simple life of Sicilian fishermen, which was their lot, but always wanting more. The speculation in the cargo of lupins brings about the destruction of the family and its values rather than increased prosperity. Although it was seen as unusual at the time to elevate the lives of simple Sicilian fishermen to the stuff of a Greek tragedy Verga was never very far away from reminders of Greek culture in his native Sicily.

  A short drive north from Catania, made even shorter by the splendid new motorway which is the only motorway I have ever used which is not congested and said to be a gift to Sicily brought about by Mafia corruption, one comes to Taorminia. The beauties of the ruined Greek amphitheatre, with its stunning views, and the beautiful small town with its picturesque small streets, just about survive the overwhelming numbers of visitors they get today. Our visit was made more pleasant by torrential rain which swept most of the visitors off the previously crowded streets leaving them free to British visitors who do not mind putting up with the rain. For me so
aked again and sitting in a restaurant, eating pasta and drinking red wine I happily speculated on the influence these Greek remains made on Verga and his writing. There is not much rain in Verga. His is a landscape of searing heat and parched land but I felt at home in the torrential Sicilian rain.

  If the views were magnificent from Taorminia the drive South from Pozzillo Inferiore to Siracusa brings you to the most magnificent Greek remains in the whole of Sicily. After a week in Pozzillo Inferiore, our stay made even more pleasant in the last few days by very heavy seas, which kept the fishermen at home and prolonged our sleep, we headed off for the Venice of the South. It is truly one of the most beautiful places in Italy, still unspoilt by tourism, with great food, wonderful Greek remains and the breathtaking beauty of the historic quarter, Ortigia, an 18th century delight which really does deserve to be seen as a southern Venice. We stayed at the Domus Mariae, which is a three star hotel in Ortigia run by a group of Ursuline nuns. It was a real find with big air-conditioned rooms and a charming roof garden. For a small hotel it had everything. As the nuns did not wear their habit and did not act like nuns the hotel did not have a religious feel about it. Everything was in walking distance and it was a pleasure just to amble around the streets, visit the sights and think of Verga.

  Catania too has classical remains from both the Greeks and the Romans. It was the last stopping point in our Sicilian odyssey and for me the most important as it was where Verga was brought up and died. Today, Catania is a bustling, sprawling, typical Southern Italian city which reminded me of Naples. It has the same energy and anarchy of its larger southern cousin. The city centre where Verga grew up is both elegant and cultured with its splendid cathedral and medieval castle a short walk from Verga’s house in Via Sant’Anna. We stayed very close to Verga’s house in one of the main shopping streets, Via Vittorio Emanuele, now a one-way street, which led to us doing a big loop round the city to arrive outside our hotel. To get our luggage out of the car we had to double park.