The House by the Medlar-Tree

Mena, meanwhile, did not even put her nose at the window, for it was not seemly to do so now that her mother was dead and she had a black kerchief on her head; and, besides, she...

Meanwhile the advocate talked and talked and talked, until it seemed that his flood of words ran like the pulley of a well, up and down, up and down, without ceasing. No, he sai...

At Catania there was the cholera, and everybody that could manage it ran away into the country here and there among the villages and towns in the neighborhood. And at Ognino, an...

That evening Mena looked exactly like Sant’-Agata, with her new dress and her black kerchief on her head, so that Brasi never took his eyes off her, but sat staring at her all t...

’Ntoni Malavoglia raised his fist in the air, and swore that he was going to have done with it, once for all, if he went to the galleys for it--for the matter of that, he had no...

“Did I not tell you,” said Padron ’Ntoni, “that to pull a good oar all the five fingers must help each other? Now there is but little more needed.” And then he would go off into...

“The lupins! We didn’t eat them, his lupins; we haven’t got them in our pockets. And Uncle Crucifix can take nothing from us; the advocate said so, said he was spending money fo...

Cousin Mosca was among those who minded their own business, and passed tranquilly through the piazza with his cart, amid the crowd, who were shaking their fists in the air.

“She is right,” they said in the village. “Luca would have been back before long, and there would have been the thirty sous a day more to the good for the family. ‘To the sinkin...

“They’re going to put a tax on salt,” said Uncle Mangiacarubbe. “Don Franco saw it in the paper in print. Then they can’t salt the anchovies any more, and we may just use our bo...

In fact ’Ntoni had sent in his papers and obtained his leave--although Don Silvestro, the town-clerk, had assured him that if he would stay on six months longer as a soldier he...

“If they’d only make it worth his while he’d be a heretic too,” growled Don Giammaria, knocking at the door of his house. “All a lot of thieves,” he went on muttering, with the...

“One moment,” cried Pizzuti, with the door in his hand. “I don’t mean for the money for the bitters; that I have given you freely, because you are my friends; but listen, betwee...

“Oh, a regular golden business”! shouted Goose-foot, as he hitched along with his crooked leg behind Padron ’Ntoni, who went and sat down on the church-steps with Padron Fortuna...

’Ntoni cried like a weaned calf, and said he wished he could die, too; but afterwards he went back--slowly, indeed, and as if unwillingly, but still he did go back--to the taver...

|Any one who loves simplicity or respects sincerity, any one who feels the tie binding us all together in the helplessness of our common human life, and running from the lowlies...

The women began to cry bitterly, and to tear their hair, hearing him speak in that way. Even little Lia did the same, for women have no reason at such times, and did not notice...

He wanted to go on talking about the money and about the calf, of which he and the girl had been talking as they went to town; but Mena and Alessio would not listen to him, but...