Part 6

The grandfather looked at the grandson, and ’Ntoni looked back at his grandfather. “Nothing,” answered Padron ’Ntoni; “he told us to do nothing.”

“We won’t pay anything,” cried ’Ntoni, boldly, “because they can’t take either the house or the Provvidenza. We don’t owe them anything.”

“And the lupins?”

“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 for nothing.” There was a moment’s silence, but Maruzza was still unconvinced.

“So he told you not to pay?”

’Ntoni scratched his head, and his grandfather added:

“It’s true, the lupins--we had them--we must pay for them.”

There was nothing to be said, now that the lawyer was no longer there; they must pay. Padron ’Ntoni shook his head, muttering:

“Not that, not that! the Malavoglia have never done that. Uncle Crucifix may take the house and the boat and everything, but we can’t do that.”

The poor old man was confused; but his daughter-in-law cried silently behind her apron.

“Then we must go to Don Silvestro,” concluded Padron ’Ntoni.

And with one accord, grandfather, grandchildren, and daughter-in-law, with the little girl, proceeded once more in procession to the house of the communal secretary, to ask him how they were to manage about paying the debt, and preventing Uncle Crucifix from sending any more stamped paper to eat up the house and the boat and the family.

Don Silvestro, who understood law, was amusing himself by constructing a trap-cage, intended as a present for the children of “her ladyship.”

He did not do as the lawyer did, he let them talk and talk, continuing silently to sharpen his reeds and fasten them into their places. At last he told them what was necessary. “Well, now, if Madam Maruzza is willing to put her hand to it, everything may be arranged.” The poor woman could not guess where she was to put her hand. “You must put it into the sale,” said Don Silvestro to her, “and give up your dotal mortgage, although you did not buy the lupins.”

“We all bought the lupins together,” murmured the poor Longa. “And the Lord has punished us all together by taking away my husband.”

The poor ignorant creatures, motionless on their chairs, looked at each other, and Don Silvestro laughed to himself. Then he sent for Uncle Crucifix, who came gnawing a dried chestnut, having just finished his dinner, and his eyes were even more glassy than usual. From the very first he would listen to nothing, declaring that he had nothing to do with it, that it was no longer his affair. “I am like the low wall that everybody sits and leans on as much as he pleases; because I can’t talk like an advocate, and give all my reasons properly, my property is treated as if I had stolen it.” And so he went on grumbling and muttering, with his back against the wall, and his hands thrust into his pockets; and nobody could understand a word he said, on account of the chestnut which he had in his mouth. Don Silvestro spoiled a shirt by sweating over the attempt to make him understand how the Malavoglia were not to be called cheats if they were willing to pay the debt, and if the widow gave up her dotal rights. The Malavoglia would be willing to give up everything but their shirts sooner than go to law; but if they were driven to the wall they might begin to send stamped paper as well as other people; such things have happened before now. “In short, a little charity one must have, by the holy devil! What will you bet that if you go on planting your feet like a mule in this you don’t lose the whole thing?”

And Uncle Crucifix replied, “If you take me on that side I haven’t any more to say.” And he promised to speak to old Goosefoot. “For friendship’s sake I would make any sacrifice.” Padron ’Ntoni could speak for him, how for friendship’s sake he had done as much as that and more; and he offered him his open snuffbox, and stroked the baby’s cheek, and gave her a chestnut. “Don Silvestro knows my weakness; I don’t know how to say no. This evening I’ll speak to Goosefoot, and tell him to wait until Easter, if Cousin Maruzza will put her hand to it.” Cousin Maruzza did not know where her hand was to be put, but said that she was ready to put it immediately.

“Then you can send for those beans that you said you wanted to sow,” said Uncle Crucifix to Don Silvestro before he went away.

“All right! all right!” replied Don Silvestro. “We all know that for your friends you have a heart as big as the sea.”

Goosefoot, while any one was by, wouldn’t hear of any delay, and screamed and tore his hair and swore they wanted to reduce him to his last shirt, and to leave him without bread for the winter, him and his wife Grace, since they had persuaded him to buy the debt of the Malavoglia, and that those were five hundred lire, one better than another, that they had coaxed him out of, to give them to Uncle Crucifix. His wife Grace, poor thing, opened her eyes very wide, because she couldn’t tell where all that money had come from, and put in a good word for the Malavoglia, who were all good people, and everybody in the vicinity had always known they Were honest. And Uncle Crucifix himself now began to take the part of the Malavoglia. “They have said they will pay; and if they don’t they will let you have the house; Madam Maruzza will put her hand to it. Don’t you know that in these days if you want your own you must do the best you can?” Then Goosefoot put on his jacket in a great hurry, and went off swearing and blaspheming, saying that his wife and old Crucifix might do as they pleased, since he was no longer master in his own house.

VII.

|That was a black Christmas for the Malavoglia. Just then Luca had to draw his number for the Conscription--a low number, too, like a poor devil as he was--and he went off without many tears; they were used to it by this time. This time, also, ‘’Ntoni accompanied his brother, with his cap over his ear, so that it seemed as if it were he who was going away, and he kept on saying that it was nothing, that he had been for a soldier himself. That day it rained, and the street was all one puddle.

“I don’t want you to come with me,” repeated Luca to his mother; “the station is a long way off.” And he stood at the door watching the rain come down on the medlar-tree, with his little bundle under his arm. Then he kissed the hands of his mother and his grandfather, and embraced Mena and the children.

So La Longa saw him go away, under the umbrella, accompanied by all his relations, jumping from stone to stone, in the little alley that was all one puddle; and the boy, who was as wise as his grandfather himself, turned up his trousers on the landing, although he wouldn’t have to wear them any more when he got his soldier-clothes. “This one won’t write home for money when he is down there,” thought the old man; “and if God grants him life he will bring up once more the house by the medlar-tree.” But God did not grant him life, just because he was that sort of a fellow; and when there came, later on, the news of his death, a thorn remained in his mother’s heart because she had let him go away in the rain, and had not accompanied him to the station.

“Mamma,” said Luca, turning back, because his heart bled to leave her so silent, on the landing, looking like Our Lady of Sorrows, “when I come back I’ll let you know first, and then you can come and meet me at the station.”

And these words Maruzza never forgot while she lived; and till her death she bore also that other thorn in her heart, that her boy had not been present at the festa that was made when the _Provvidenza_ was launched anew, while all the place was there, and Barbara Zuppidda came out with the broom to sweep away the shavings. “I do it for your sake,” she said to Padron ’Ntoni’s ’Ntoni; “because it is your Providence.”

“With the broom in your hand, you look like a queen,” replied ’Ntoni. “In all Trezza there is not so good a housewife as you.”

“Now you have taken away the _Provvidenza_, we shall not see you here any more, Cousin ’Ntoni.”

“Yes, you will. Besides, this is the shortest way to the beach.”

“You come to see the Mangiacarubbe, who always goes to the window when you pass.”

“I leave the Mangiacarubbe for Rocco Spatu. I have other things in my mind.”

“Who knows what you have in your mind--those pretty girls in foreign parts, perhaps?”

“There are pretty girls here, too, Cousin Barbara, and I know one very well.”

“Really?”

“By my soul!”

“What do you care?”

“I care! Yes, that I do; but she doesn’t care for me, because there are certain dandies who walk under her window with varnished boots.”

“I don’t even look at those varnished boots, by the Madonna of Ognino! Mamma says that varnished boots are only fit to devour the dowry and everything else; and some fine day I shall go out with my distaff, and make him a scene, that Don Silvestro, who won’t leave me in peace.”

“Do you mean that seriously, Cousin Barbara?”

“Yes, indeed I do!”

“That pleases me right well,” said ’Ntoni.

“Listen; let’s go down to the beach on Monday, when mamma goes to the fair.”

“On Mondays I never shall have a chance to breathe, now that the _Provvidenza_ has been launched.”

Scarcely had Master Turi said that the boat was in order, than Padron ’Ntoni went off to start her with his boys and all the neighbors; and the _Provvidenza_, when she was going down to the sea, rocked about on the stones as if she were sea-sick among the crowd.

“This way, here!” called out Cousin Zuppiddu, louder than anybody; but the others shouted and struggled to push her back on the ways as she rocked over on the stones. “Let me do it, or else I’ll just take the boat up in my arms like a baby, and put her in the water myself.”

“Master Turi is capable of doing it, with those arms of his,” said some one; or else, “Now the Malavoglia will be all right again.”

“That devil of a Cousin Zuppiddu has lucky fingers,” they exclaimed. “Look how he has put her straight again, when she was like an old shoe.” And in truth the _Provvidenza_ did seem quite another boat-shining with new pitch, and with a bright red line along her side, and on the prow San Francesco, with his beard that seemed to have been made of tow, so much so that even La Longa had made peace with the _Provvidenza_, whom she had never forgiven, for coming back to her without her husband; but she made peace for fright, now that the bailiff had been in the house.

“Viva San Francesco!” called out every one as the _Provvidenza_ passed; and La Locca’s son called out louder than anybody, in the hope that now Padron ’Ntoni would hire him by the day, instead of his brother Menico. Mena stood on the landing, and once more she cried for joy; and, at last, even La Locca got up like the rest, and followed the Malavoglia.

“O Cousin Mena, this is a fine day for all of you,” said Alfio Mosca to her from his window opposite. “It will be like this when I can buy my mule.”

“And will you sell your donkey?”

“How can I? I’m not rich, like Vanni Pizzuti; if I were, I swear I wouldn’t sell him, poor beast! If I had enough to keep another person, I’d take a wife, and not live here alone like a dog.”

Mena didn’t know what to say, and Alfio added: “Now that the _Provvidenza_ has put to sea again, you’ll be married to Brasi Cipolla.”

“Grandpapa has said nothing about it.”

“He will. There’s still time. Between now and your marriage who knows how many things may happen, or by what different roads I shall drive my cart? I have been told that in the plain, at the other side of the town, there is work for everybody on the railroad. Now that Santuzza has arranged with Master Philip for the new wine, there is nothing to be done here.”

Meanwhile the _Provvidenza_ had slipped into the sea like a duck, with her beak in the air, and danced on the green water, enjoying its coolness, while the sun glanced on her shining side. Padron ’Ntoni enjoyed it, too, with his hands behind his back, and his legs apart, drawing his brows together, as sailors do when they want to see clearly in the sunshine; for it was a fine winter’s day, and the fields were green and the sea shining and the deep blue sky had no end. So return the sunshine and the sweet winter mornings for the eyes that have wept, to whom the sky has seemed black as pitch; and so all things renew themselves like the _Provvidenza_, for which a few pounds of tar and a handful of boards sufficed to make her new once more; and the eyes that see not these things are those that are done with weeping and are closed in death.

“Bastianazzo is not here to see this holiday!” thought Maruzza, as she went to and fro, arranging things in the house and about the loom--where almost everything had been her husband’s work on Sundays or rainy days--and those hooks and shelves he had fixed in the wall with his own hands. Everything in the house was full of him, from his water-proof cape in the corner to his boots under the bed, that were almost new. Mena, setting up the warp, had a sad heart, too, for she was thinking of Alfio, who was going away, and would have sold his donkey, poor beast! for the young have short memories, and have only eyes for the rising sun; and no one looks westward save the old, who have seen the sun rise and set so many times.

“Now that the _Provvidenza_ has put to sea again,” said Maruzza at last, noticing that her daughter was still pensive, “your grandfather has begun to go with Master Cipolla again; I saw them this morning, from the landing, before Peppi Naso’s shed.”

“Padron Fortunato is rich, and has nothing to do, and stays all day in the piazza,” answered Mena.

“Yes, and his son Brasi has plenty of the gifts of God. Now that we have our boat, and our men no longer need to go out by the day to work for others, we shall get out of this tangle; and if the souls in Purgatory will help us to get rid of the debt for the lupins, we shall be able to think of other things. Your grandfather is wide-awake, don’t you fear, and he won’t let you feel that you have lost your father. He will be another father to you.”

Shortly after arrived Padron ’Ntoni, loaded with nets, so that he looked like a mountain, and you couldn’t see his face. “I’ve been to get them out of the bark,” he said, “and I must look over the meshes, for to-morrow we must rig the _Provvidenza_.”

“Why did you not get ’Ntoni to help you?” answered Maruzza, pulling at one end of the net, while the old man turned round in the middle of the court, like a winder, to unwind the nets, which seemed to have no end, and looked like a great serpent trailing along.

“I left him there at the barber’s shop; poor boy, he has to work all the week, and it is hot even in January with all this stuff on one’s shoulders.” Alessio laughed to see his grandfather so red, and bent round like a fish-hook, and the grandsire said to him, “Look outside there; there is that poor Locca; her son is in the piazza, with nothing to do, and they have nothing to eat.” Maruzza sent Alessio to La Locca with some beans, and the old man, drying his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt, added:

“Now that we have our boat, if we live till summer, with the help of God, we’ll pay the debt.”

He had no more to say, but sat under the medlar-tree looking at his nets, as if he saw them filled with fish.

“Now we must lay in the salt,” he said after a while, “before they raise the tax, if it is true it is to be raised. Cousin Zuppiddu must be paid with the first money we get, and he has promised that he will then furnish the barrels on credit.”

“In the chest of drawers there is Mena’s linen, which is worth five scudi,” added Maruzza.

“Bravo! With old Crucifix I won’t make any more debts, because I have had a warning in the affair of the lupins; but he will give us thirty francs for the first time we go out with the _Provvidenza_.”

“Let him alone!” cried La Longa. “Uncle Crucifix’s money brings ill luck. Just this last night I heard the black hen crowing.”

“Poor thing!” cried the old man, smiling as he watched the black hen crossing the court, with her tail in the air and her crest on one side, as if the whole affair were no business of hers. “She lays an egg every day, all the same.”

Then Mena spoke up, and coming to the door, said, “There is a basketful of eggs, and on Monday, if Cousin Alfio goes to Catania, you can send them to market.”

“Yes, they will help to pay the debt,” said Padron ’Ntoni; “but you can eat an egg yourselves now and then if you feel to want it.”

“No, we don’t need them,” said Maruzza, and Mena added, “If we eat them they won’t be sold in the market by Cousin Alfio; and now we will put duck’s eggs under the setting hen. The ducklings can be sold for forty centimes each.” Her grandfather looked her in the face, and said:

“You’re a real Malavoglia, my girl!”.

The hens scratched in the sand of the court, in the sun, and the setting hen, looking perfectly silly, with the feather over her beak, shook herself in a corner under the green boughs in the garden, along the wall, there was more linen bleaching, with a stone lying on it to keep it from blowing away. “All this is good to make money,” said Pa-dron ’Ntoni, “and, with the help of God, we shall stay in our house. ‘My house is my mother.’”

“Now the Malavoglia must pray to God and Saint Francis for a plentiful fishing,” said Goose-foot meanwhile.

“Yes, with the times we’re having,” exclaimed Padron Cipolla, “they must have sown the cholera for the fish in the sea, I should think.”

Mangiacarubbe nodded, and Uncle Cola began to talk of the tax that they wanted to put on salt, and how, if they did that, the anchovies might be quiet, and fear no longer the wheels of the steamers, for no one would find it worth his while to fish for them any more.

“And they have invented something else,” added Master Turi, the calker: “to put a duty on pitch.” Those to whom pitch was of no importance had nothing to say, but Zuppiddu went on shouting that he should shut up shop, and whoever wanted a boat mended might stuff the hole with his wife’s dress. Then they began to scold and to swear.

At this moment was heard the scream of the engine, and the big wagons of the railway came rushing out all of a sudden from the hole they had made in the hill, smoking and fuming as if the devil was in them. “There!” cried Padron Fortu-nato, “the railroad one side and the steamers the other, upon my word it’s impossible to live in peace at Trezza nowadays.”

In the village there was the devil to pay when they wanted to put the tax upon pitch. * La Zup-pidda, foaming at the mouth, mounted upon her balcony, and went on preaching that this was some new villany of Don Silvestro, who wanted to bring the whole place to ruin, because they (the Zup-piddus) wouldn’t have him for a husband for their daughter; they wouldn’t have him even for a companion in the procession, neither she nor her girl! When Madam Venera spoke of her daughter’s husband it always seemed as if she herself were the bride.

Master Turi Zuppiddu tramped about the landing, mallet in hand, brandishing his chisel as if he wanted to shed somebody’s blood, and wasn’t to be held even by chains. The bile ran high from door to door, like the waves of the sea in a storm. Don Franco rubbed his hands, with his great ugly hat on his head, saying that the people was raising its head; and seeing Don Michele pass with pistols hanging at his belt, laughed in his face. The men, too, one by one, allowed themselves to be worked up by their womankind, and began hunting each other up, to try and rouse each other to fury, losing the whole day standing about in the piazza, with arms akimbo and open mouths, listening to the apothecary, who went on speechifying, but under his breath, for fear of his wife up-stairs, how they ought to make a revolution if they weren’t fools, and not to mind the tax on salt or the tax on pitch, but to clear off the whole thing, for the king ought to be the people. Instead, some turned their backs, muttering, “He wants to be king himself; the druggist belongs to those of the revolution who want to starve the poor people.” And they went off to the inn to Santuzza, where there was good wine to heat one’s head, and Master Cinghialenta and Rocco Spatu made noise enough for ten.

* Dazio (French, octroi), tax on substances entering a town, levied by the town-council.

The good wine made them shout, and shouting made them thirsty (for the tax had not yet been raised on the wine), and such as had much shook their fists in the air, with shirt-sleeves rolled up, raging even at the flies.

Vanni Pizzuti had closed his shop door because no one came to be shaved, and went about with his razor in his pocket, calling out bad names from a distance, and spitting at those who went about their own business with oars on their backs, shrugging their shoulders at the noise.

Uncle Crucifix (who was one of those who attended to their own affairs, and when they drew his blood with taxes, held his tongue for fear of worse, and kept his bile inside of him) was never seen in the piazza now, leaning against the wall of the bell-tower, but kept inside his house, reciting Paternosters and Ave Marias to keep down his rage against those who were making all the row--a lot of fellows who wanted to put the place to sack, and to rob everybody who had twenty centimes in his pocket.

Whoever, like Padron Cipolla, or Master Filippo, the ortolano, had anything to lose stayed shut up at home with doors bolted, and didn’t put out even their noses; so that Brasi Cipolla got a rousing cuff from his father, who found him at the door of the court, staring into the piazza like a great stupid codfish. The big fish stayed under water while the waves ran high, and did not make their appearance, not even those who were, as Venera said, fish-heads, but left the syndic with his nose in the air, counting his papers.

“Don’t you see that they treat you like a pup-pet?” screamed his daughter Betta, with her hands on her hips. “Now that they have got you into a scrape, they turn their backs on you, and leave you alone wallowing in the mud; that’s what it means to let one’s self be led by the hose by that meddling Don Silvéstro.”

“I’m not led by the nose by anybody,” shouted the Silk-worm. “It is I who am syndic, not Don Silvestro.”

Don Silvestro, on the contrary, said the real syndic was his daughter Betta, and that Master Croce Calta wore the breeches by mistake. He still went about and about, with that red face of his, and Rocco Spatu and Cinghialenta, when they saw him, went into the tavern for fear of a mess, and Vanni Pizzuti swore loudly, tapping his razor in his breeches-pocket all the time. Don Silvestro, without noticing them, went to say a word or two to Uncle Santoro, and put two centimes into his hand.

“The Lord be praised!” cried the blind man. “This is Don Silvestro, the secretary; none of these others that come here roaring and thumping their stomachs ever give a centime in alms for the souls in Purgatory, and they go saying they mean to kill your syndic and the secretary; Vanni Pizzuti said it, and Rocco Spatu and Master Cinghialenta. Vanni Pizzuti has taken to going without shoes, not to be known; but I know his step all the same, for he drags his feet along the ground, and raises the dust like a flock of sheep passing by.”

“What is it to you?” cried his daughter, when Don Silvestro was gone. “These affairs are no business of ours. The inn is like a seaport--men come and go, and one must be friendly with all and faithful to none, for that each one has his own soul for himself, and each must look out for his own interests, and not make rash speeches about other people. Cousin Cinghialenta and Rocco Spatu spend money in our house. I don’t speak of Pizzuti, who sells absinthe, and tries to get away our customers.”