Part 3

“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 knocker in his hand, following with suspicious eye the form of the brigadier, who disappeared in the darkness towards the tavern, and wondering “what he was doing at the tavern, protecting honest men’s goods?”

All the same, Daddy Tino knew why Don Michele went in the direction of the tavern to protect the interests of honest people, for he had spent whole nights watching for him behind the big elm to find out; and he used to say:

“He goes to talk on the sly with Uncle Santoro, Santuzza’s father. Those fellows that the King feeds must all be spies, and know all about everybody’s business in Trezza and everywhere else; and old Uncle Santoro, blind as he is, blinking like a bat in the sunshine, at the tavern door, knows everything that goes on in the place, and could call us by name one after another only by the footsteps.” Maruzza, hearing the bell strike, went into the house quickly to spread the cloth on the table; the gossips, little by little, had disappeared, and as the village went to sleep the sea became audible once more at the foot of the little street, and every now and then it gave a great sigh like a sleepless man turning on his bed. Only down by the tavern, where the red light shone, the noise continued; and Rocco Spatu, who made festa every day in the week, was heard shouting.

“Cousin Rocco is in good spirits to-night,” said Alfio Mosca from his window, which looked quite dark and deserted.

“Oh, there you are, Cousin Alfio!” replied Mena, who had remained on the landing waiting for her grandfather.

“Yes, here I am, Coz Mena; I’m here eating my minestra, because when I see you all at table, with your light, I don’t lose my appetite for loneliness.”

“Are you not in good spirits?”

“Ah, one wants so many things to put one in good spirits!”

Mena did not answer, and after a little Cousin Alfio added:

“To-morrow I’m going to town for a load of salt.”

“Are you going for All Souls?” asked Mena.

“Heaven knows! this year my poor little nuts are all bad.”

“Cousin Alfio goes to the city to look for a wife,” said Nunziata, from the door opposite.

“Is that true?” asked Mena.

“Eh, Cousin Mena, if I had to look for one I could find girls to my mind without leaving home.”

“Look at those stars,” said Mena, after a silence. “They say they are the souls loosed from Purgatory going into Paradise.”

“Listen,” said Alfio, after having also taken a look at the stars, “you, who are Sant’Agata, if you dream of a good number in the lottery, tell it to me, and I’ll pawn my shirt to put in for it, and then, you know, I can begin to think about taking a wife.”

“Good-night!” said Mena.

The stars twinkled faster than ever, the “three kings” shone out over the Fariglione, with their arms out obliquely like Saint Andrew.

The sea moved at the foot of the street, softly, softly, and at long intervals was heard the rumbling of some cart passing in the dark, grinding on the stones, and going out into the wide world--so wide, so wide, that if one could walk forever one couldn’t get to the end of it; and there were people going up and down in this wide world that knew nothing of Cousin Alfio, nor of the _Provvidenza_ out at sea, nor of the Festa of All Souls.

So thought Mena, waiting on the landing for grandpapa.

Grandpapa himself came out once or twice on the landing, before closing the door, looking at the stars, which twinkled more than they need have done, and then muttered, “Ugly Sea!” Rocco Spatu howled a tipsy song under the red light at the tavern. “A careless heart can always sing,” concluded Padron ’Ntoni.

III.

|After midnight the wind began to howl as if all the cats in the place had been on the roof, and to shake the shutters. The sea roared round the Fariglione as if all the bulls of the Fair of Saint Alfio had been there, and the day opened as black as the soul of Judas. In short, an ugly September Sunday dawned--a Sunday in false September which lets loose a tempest on one between the cup and the lip, like a shot from behind a prickly-pear. The village boats were all drawn up on the beach, and well fastened to the great stones under the washing-tank; so the boys amused themselves by hissing and howling whenever there passed by some lonely sail far out at sea, tossed amid mist and foam, dancing up and down as if chased by the devil; the women, instead, made the sign of the cross, as if they could see with their eyes the poor fellows who were on board.

Maruzza la Longa was silent, as behooved her; but she could not stand still a minute, and went up and down and in and out without stopping, like a hen that is going to lay an egg. The men were at the tavern, or in Pizzuti’s shop, or under the butcher’s shed, watching the rain, sniffing the air with their heads up. On the shore there was only Padron ’Ntoni, looking out for that load of lupins and his son Bastianazzo and the _Provvidenza_, all out at sea there; and there was La Locca’s son too, who had nothing to lose, only his brother Menico was out at sea with Bastianazzo in the _Provvidenza_, with the lupins. Padron Fortunato Cipolla, getting shaved in Pizzuti’s shop, said that he wouldn’t give two baiocchi for Bastianazzo and La Locca’s Menico with the Provvidenza and the load of lupins.

“Now everybody wants to be a merchant and to get rich,” said he, shrugging his shoulders; “and then when the steed is stolen they shut the stable door.”

In Santuzza’s bar-room there was a crowd--that big drunken Rocco Spatu shouting and spitting enough for a dozen; Daddy Tino Goosefoot, Mastro Cola Zuppiddu, Uncle Mangiacarubbe; Don Michele, the brigadier of the coast-guard, with his big boots and his pistols, as if he were going to look for smugglers in this sort of weather; and Mastro Mariano Cinghialenta. That great big elephant of a man, Mastro Cola Zuppiddu, went about giving people thumps in fun, heavy enough to knock down an ox, as if he had his calker’s mallet in his hand all the time, and then Uncle Cinghialenta, to show that he was a carrier, and a courageous man who knew the world, turned round upon him, swearing and blaspheming.

Uncle Santoro, curled all up in the corner of the little porch, waited with out-stretched hand until some one should pass that he might ask for alms.

“Between the two, father and daughter, they must make a good sum on such a day as this,” said Zuppiddu, “when everybody comes to the tavern.”

“Bastianazzo Malavoglia is worse off than he is at this moment,” said Goosefoot. “Mastro Cirino may ring the bell as much as he likes, to-day the Malavoglia won’t go to church--they are angry with our Lord--because of that load of lupins they’ve got out at sea.”

The wind swept about the petticoats and the dry leaves, so that Vanni Pizzuti, with the razor in his hand, held on to the nose of the man he was shaving, and looked out over his shoulder to see what was going on; and when he had finished, stood with hand on hip in the door-way, with his curly hair shining like silk; and the druggist stood at his shop door, under that big ugly hat of his that looked as if he had an umbrella on his head, pretending to have high words with Don Silvestro, the town-clerk, because his wife didn’t force him to go to church in spite of himself, and laughed under his beard at the joke, winking at the boys who were tumbling in the gutters.

“To-day” Daddy Goosefoot went about saying, “Padroni ’Ntoni is a Protestant, like Don Franco the apothecary.”

“If I see you looking after that old wretch Don Silvestro, I’ll box your ears right here where we are,” shouted La Zuppidda, crossing the piazza, to her girl. “That one I don’t like.”

La Santuzza, at the last stroke of the bell, left her father to take care of the tavern, and went into church, with her customers behind her. Uncle Santoro, poor old fellow, was blind, and didn’t go to the mass, but he didn’t lose his time at the tavern, for though he couldn’t see who went to the bar, he knew them all by the step as one or another went to take a drink.

“The devils are out on the air,” said Santuzza, as she crossed herself with the holy water. “A day to commit a mortal sin!”

Close by, La Zuppidda muttered Ave Marias mechanically, sitting on her heels, shooting sharp glances hither and thither, as if she were on evil terms with the whole village, whispering to whoever would listen to her: “There’s Maruzza la Longa doesn’t come to church, and yet her husband is out at sea in this horrid weather! There’s no need to wonder why the Lord sends judgments on us. There’s even Menico’s mother comes to church, though she doesn’t do anything there but watch the flies.”

“One must pray also for sinners,” said Santuzza; “that is what good people are for.”

Uncle Crucifix was kneeling at the foot of the altar of the Sorrowing Mother of God, with a very big rosary in his hand, and intoned his prayers with a nasal twang which would have touched the heart of Satan himself. Between one Ave Maria and another he talked of the affair of the lupins, and of the _Provvidenza_, which was out at sea, and of La Longa, who would be left with five children.

“In these days,” said Padron Cipolla, shrugging his shoulders, “no one is content with his own estate; everybody wants the moon and stars for himself.”

“The fact is,” concluded Daddy Zuppiddu, “that this will be a black day for the Malavoglia.”

“For my part,” added Goosefoot, “I shouldn’t care to be in Cousin Bastianazzo’s shirt.”

The evening came on chill and sad; now and then there came a blast of north wind, bringing a shower of fine cold rain; it was one of those evenings when, if the bark lies high and safe, with her belly in the sand, one enjoys watching the simmering pot, with the baby between one’s knees, and listening to the housewife trotting to and fro behind one’s back. The lazy ones preferred going to the tavern to enjoy the Sunday, which seemed likely to last over Monday as well; and the cupboards shone in the firelight until even Uncle Santoro, sitting out there with his extended hand, moved his chair to warm his back a little.

“He’s better off than poor old Bastianazzo just now,” said Rocco Spatu, lighting his pipe at the door.

And without further reflection he put his hand in his pocket, and permitted himself to give two centimes in alms.

“You are throwing your alms away, thanking God for being in safety from the storm; there’s no danger of your dying like Bastianazzo.”

Everybody laughed at the joke, and then they all stood looking out at the sea, that was as black as the wet rocks.

Padron ’Ntoni had been going about all day, as if he had been bitten by the tarantula, and the apothecary asked him if he wanted a tonic, and then he said:

“Fine providence this, eh, Padron ’Ntoni?” But he was a Protestant and a Jew; all the world knew that.

La Locca’s son, who was out there with his hands in his empty pockets, began:

“Uncle Crucifix is gone with old Goosefoot to get Padron ’Ntoni to swear before witnesses that he took the cargo of lupins on credit.”

At dusk Maruzza, with her little ones, went out on the cliffs to watch the sea, which from that point could be seen quite well, and hearing the moaning waves, she felt faint and sick, but said nothing. The little girl cried, and these poor things, forgotten up there on the rocks, seemed like souls in Purgatory. The little one’s cries made the mother quite sick--it seemed like an evil omen; she couldn’t think what to do to keep the child quiet, and she sang to her song after song, with a trembling voice loaded with tears..

The men, on their way back from the tavern, with pot of oil or flask of wine, stopped to exchange a few words with La Longa, as if nothing had happened; and some of Bastianazzo’s special friends--Cipolla, for example, or Mangiacarubbe--walking out to the edge of the cliff, and giving a look out to see in what sort of a temper the old growler was going to sleep in, went up to Cousin Maruzza, asking about her husband, and staying a few minutes to keep her company, pipe in mouth, or talking softly among themselves. The poor little woman, frightened by these unusual attentions, looked at them with sad, scared eyes, and held her baby tight in her arms, as if they had tried to steal it from her. At last the hardest, or the most compassionate of them, took her by the arm and led her home. She let herself be led, only saying over and over again: “O Blessed Virgin! O Blessed Virgin Mary!” The children clung to her skirts, as if they had been afraid somebody was going to steal something from them too. When they passed before the tavern all the customers stopped talking, and came to the door in a cloud of smoke, gazing at her as if she were already a curiosity.

“_Requiem aeternam_,” mumbled old Santoro, under his breath: “that poor Bastianazzo always gave me something when his father let him have a soldo to spend for himself.”

The poor little thing, who did not even know she was a widow, went on crying: “O Blessed Virgin! O Blessed Virgin! O Virgin Mary!”

Before the steps of her house the neighbors were waiting for her, talking among themselves in a low voice. When they saw her coming, Mammy Goose-foot and her cousin Anna came towards her silently, with folded hands. Then she wound her hands wildly in her hair, and with a distracted screech rushed to hide herself in the house.

“What a misfortune!” they said among themselves in the street. “And the boat was loaded--forty scudi worth of lupins!”

IV.

|The worst part of it was that the lupins had been bought on credit, and Uncle Crucifix was not content with “fair words and rotten apples.” He was called Dumb-bell because he was deaf on one side, and turned that side when people wanted to pay him with talk, saying, “the payment can be arranged.” He lived by lending to his friends, having no other trade, and for this reason he stood about all day in the piazza, or with his back to the wall of the church, with his hands in the pockets of that ragged old jacket that nobody would have given him a soldo for; but he had as much money as you wanted, and if any one wanted ten francs he was ready to lend them right off, on pledge, of course--“He who lends money without security loses his friends, his goods, and his wits”--with the bargain that they should be paid back on Sunday, in silver, with the account signed, and a carlino more for interest, as was but right, for, in affairs, there’s no friendship that counts. He also bought a whole cargo of fish in the lump, with discount, if the poor fellow who had taken the fish wanted his money down, but they must be weighed with his scales, that were as false as Judas’s, so they said. To be sure, such fellows were never contented, and had one arm long and the other short, like Saint Francesco: and he would advance the money for the port taxes if they wanted it, and only took the money beforehand, and half a pound of bread per head and a little quarter flask of wine, and wanted no more, for he was a Christian, and one of those who knew that for what one does in this world one must answer to God. In short, he was a real Providence for all who were in tight places, and had invented a hundred ways of being useful to his neighbors; and without being a seaman, he had boats and tackle and everything for such as hadn’t them, and lent them, contenting himself with a third of the fish, and something for the boat--that counted as much as the wages of a man--and something more for the tackle, for he lent the tackle too; and the end was that the boat ate up all the profits, so that they called it the devil’s boat. And when they asked him why he didn’t go to sea, too, and risk his own skin instead of swallowing everything at other people’s expense, he would say, “Bravo! and if an accident happened, Lord avert it! and if I lost my life who would attend to my business?” He did attend to his business, and would have hired out his very shirt; but he wanted to be paid without so much talk, and there was no use arguing with him because he was deaf, and, more than that, wasn’t quite right in his head, and couldn’t say anything but “Bargaining’s no cheating;” or, “The honest man is known when pay-day comes.”

Now his enemies were laughing in their sleeves at him, on account of those blessed lupins that the devil had swallowed; and he must say a _De profundis_ for Bastianazzo too, when the funeral ceremony took place, along with the other Brothers of the Happy Death, with the bag over his head.

The windows of the little church flashed in the sunshine, and the sea was smooth and still, so that it no longer seemed the same that had robbed La Longa of her husband; wherefore the brothers were rather in a hurry, wanting to get away each to his own work, now that the weather had cleared up. This time the Malavoglia were all there on their knees before the bier, washing the pavement with their tears, as if the dead man had been really there, inside those four boards, with the lupins round his neck, that Uncle Crucifix had given him on credit, because he had always known Padron ’Ntoni for an honest man; but if they meant to cheat him out of his goods on the pretext that Bastianazzo was drowned, they might as well cheat our Lord Christ. By the holy devil himself, he would put Padron ’Ntoni in the hulks for it!--there was law, even at Trezza.

Meanwhile Don Giammaria flung two or three asperges of holy-water on the bier, and Mastro Cirino went round with an extinguisher putting out the candles. The brothers strode over the benches with arms over their heads, pulling off their habits; and Uncle Crucifix went and gave a pinch of snuff to Padron ’Ntoni by the way of consolation; for, after all, when one is an honest man one leaves a good name behind one and wins Paradise, and this is what he had said to those who asked him about his lupins:

“With the Malavoglia I’m safe, for they are honest people, and don’t mean to leave poor Bastianazzo in the claws of the devil.”

Padron ’Ntoni might see for himself that everything had been done without skimping in honor of the dead--so much for the mass, so much for the tapers, so much for the requiem--he counted it all off on his big fingers in their white cotton gloves; and the children looked with open mouths at all these things which cost so much and were for papa--the catafalque, the tapers, the paper-flowers; and the baby, seeing the lights, and hearing the organ, began to laugh and to dance.

The house by the medlar was full of people. “Sad is the house where there is the ‘visit’ for the husband.” Everybody passing and seeing the poor little orphaned Malavoglia at the door, with dirty faces, and hands in their pockets, shook their heads, saying:

“Poor Cousin Maruzza, now her hard times are beginning.”

The neighbors brought things, as the custom is--macaroni, eggs, wine, all the gifts of God that one could only finish if one was really happy--and Cousin Alfio Mosca came with a chicken in his hands, “Take this, Cousin Mena,” he said, “I only wish I’d been in your father’s place--I swear it--at least I should not have been missed, and there would have been none to mourn for me.”

Mena, leaning against the kitchen door, with her apron over her face, felt her heart beat as if it would fly out of her breast, like that of the poor frightened bird she held in her hand. The dowry of Sant’Agata had gone down, down in the _Provvidenza_, and the people who came to make the visit of condolence in the house by the medlar looked round at the things, as if they saw Uncle Crucifix’s claws already grasping at them; some sat perched on chairs, and went off, without having spoken a word, like regular stockfish as they were; but whoever had a tongue in their heads tried to keep up some sort of conversation to drive away melancholy, and to rouse those poor Malavoglia, who went on crying all day long, like four fountains. Uncle Cipolla related how there was a rise of a franc to a barrel in the price of anchovies, which might interest Padron ’Ntoni if he still had any anchovies on hand; he himself had reserved a hundred barrels, which now came in very well; and he talked of poor Cousin Bastianazzo, too, rest his soul; how no one could have expected it--a man like that, in the prime of life, and positively bursting with health and strength, poor fellow!

There was the sindaco, too, Master Croce Calta “Silk-worm”--called also Giufà--with Don Silvestro, the town-clerk, and he stood sniffing with nose in the air, so that people said he was waiting for the wind to see what way to turn--looking now at one who was speaking, now at another, as if he were watching the leaves in the wind, in real earnest, and if he spoke he mumbled so no one could hear him, and if Don Silvestro laughed he laughed too.

“No funeral without laughter, no marriage without tears.” The druggist’s wife twisted about on her chair with disgust at the trifling conversation, sitting with her hands in her lap and a long face, as is the custom in town under such circumstances, so that people became dumb at the sight of her, as if the corpse itself had been sitting there, and for this reason she was called the Lady. Don Silvestro strutted about among the women, and started forward every minute to offer a chair to some new-comer, that he might hear his new boots creak. “They ought to be burned alive, those tax-gatherers!” muttered La Zuppidda, yellow as a lemon; and she said it aloud, too, right in the face of Don Silvestro, just as if he had been one of the tax-gatherers. She knew very well what they were after, these bookworms, with their shiny boots without stockings; they were always trying to slip into people’s houses, to carry off the dowry and the daughters. ’Tis not you I want, my dear, ’tis your money. For that she had left her daughter Barbara at home. “Those faces I don’t like.”

“It’s a beastly shame!” cried Donna Rosolina, the priest’s sister, red as a turke, fanning herself with her handkerchief; and she railed at Garibaldi, who had brought in the taxes; and nowadays nobody could live and nobody got married any more.

“As if that mattered to Donna Rosolina now,” murmured Goosefoot.

Donna Rosolina meanwhile went on talking to Don Silvestro of the lot of work she had on her hands: thirty yards of warp on the loom, the beans to dry for winter, all the tomato-preserve to be made. She had a secret for making it, so that it kept fresh all winter; she always got the spices from town on purpose, and used the best quality of salt. A house without a woman never goes on well, but the woman must have brains, and know how to use her hands as she did, not one of those little geese that think of nothing but brushing their hair before the glass. “Long hair little wit,” says the proverb, specially when the husband goes under the water like poor Bastianazzo, rest his soul!

“Blessed that he is!” sighed Santuzza, “he died on a fortunate day, a day blessed by the Church--the eve of Our Lady of Sorrows--and now he’s praying for us sinners, like the angels and the saints. Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.’ He was a good man, one of those who mind their own business, and don’t go about speaking ill of their neighbors, as so many do, falling into mortal sin.”

Maruzza, sitting at the foot of the bed, pale and limp as a wet rag, looking like Our Lady of Sorrows herself, began to cry louder than ever at this; and Padron ’Ntoni, bowed and stooping, looking a hundred years older than he did three days before, went on looking and looking at her, shaking his head, not knowing what to say, with that big thorn Bastianazzo sticking in his breast as if a shark had been gnawing at him.

“Santuzza’s lips drop nothing but honey,” observed Cousin Grace Goosefoot.