Part 5

[12] _Facemu cuntu ca chioppi e scampau e la nostra amicizia finiu._

_Gnà_ Lola married the carter, and on Sundays used to go out on the balcony with her hands crossed on her stomach, to show off all the heavy gold rings that her husband gave to her. Turiddu kept up his habit of going back and forth through the street with his pipe in his mouth, his hands in his pockets, and an air of unconcern, and ogling the girls; but it gnawed his heart that Lola's husband had so much money, and that she pretended not to see him when he passed.

"I'll get even with her, under her very eyes; the vile beast," he muttered.

Opposite _compare_ Alfio lived _massaro_ Cola, the vinedresser, who was as rich as a pig, and had one daughter at home. Turiddu said and did all he could to become _massaro_ Cola's workman, and he began to frequent the house, and make sweet speeches to the girl.

"Why don't you go and say sweet things to _gnà_ Lola?" asked Santa.

"_Gnà_ Lola is a fine lady. _Gnà_ Lola has married a crowned king now!"

"I don't deserve crowned kings!"

"You are worth a hundred Lolas, and I know some one who wouldn't look at _la gnà_ Lola or her saint when you are by, for _gnà_ Lola isn't worthy to wear your shoes, no, she isn't!"

"The fox when he couldn't get at the grapes said, 'How beautiful you are, _racinedda mia_,' my little grape!"

"Ohè! hands off, _compare_ Turiddu!"

"Are you afraid that I will eat you?"

"I'm not afraid of you or of your God."

"Eh! your mother was from Licodia, we all know that! You have quarrelsome blood. Uh! How I could eat you with my eyes!"

"Eat me then with your eyes, for we should not have a crumb left, but meantime help me up with this bundle."

"I would lift up the whole house for you, yes, I would!"

She, so as not to blush, threw at him a stick of wood which was within reach, and by a miracle didn't hit him.

"Let's have done, for chattering never picked grapes."

"If I were rich I should try to get a wife like you, _gnà_ Santa."

"I shall never marry a crowned king like _gnà_ Lola, but I have my dowry as well as she, whenever the Lord shall send me anyone."

"We know you are rich, we know it."

"If you know it, say no more, for father is coming, and I shouldn't like to have him find me in the court-yard."

The old father began to turn up his nose, but the girl pretended not to notice it, because the tassel of the bersegliere's cap had set her heart to fluttering, and was constantly dancing before her eyes. When the _babbo_ put Turiddu out of the house, his daughter opened the window for him, and stood chatting with him all the evening long, so that the whole neighborhood talked of nothing else.

"I'm madly in love with you," said Turiddu, "and I am losing my sleep and my appetite."

"How absurd!"

"I wish I were Victor Emmanuel's son, so as to marry you."

"How absurd!"

"By the Madonna, I would eat you like bread!"

"How absurd!"

"Ah! on my honor!"

"Ah! _mamma mia!_"

Lola, who was listening every evening, hidden behind the vase of basil, and turning red and white, one day called Turiddu:--

"And so, _compare_ Turiddu, old friends don't speak to each other any more?"

"_Ma!_" sighed the young man, "blessed is he who can speak to you."

"If you have any desire to speak to me, you know where I live," replied Lola.

Turiddu went to see her so frequently that Santa noticed it, and shut the window in his face. The neighbors looked at him with a smile or with a shake of the head when the bersegliere passed. Lola's husband was making a round of the fairs with his mules.

"Sunday I am going to confession, for last night I dreamed of black grapes," said Lola.

"Put it off, put it off" begged Turiddu.

"No, Easter is coming, and my husband will want to know why I haven't been to confession."

"Ah," murmured _massaro_ Cola's Santa, as she was waiting on her knees before the confessional for her turn, while Lola was making a clean breast of her sins. "On my soul, I will not send you to Rome for your punishment!"

_Compare_ Alfio came home with his mules; he was loaded with money, and he brought to his wife for a present, a handsome new dress for the holidays.

"You are right to bring her gifts," said his neighbor Santa, "because while you are away your wife adorns your house for you."

_Compare_ Alfio was one of those carters who wear their hats over one ear, and when he heard his wife spoken of in such a way he changed color as if he had been knifed.

"_Santo diavolone!_" he exclaimed, "if you haven't seen aright, I will not leave you eyes to weep with, you or your whole family."

"I am not used to weeping!" replied Santa, "I did not weep even when I saw with these eyes _gnà_ Nunzia's Turiddu going into your wife's house at night!"

"It is well," replied _compare_ Alfio, "many thanks!"

Turiddu, now that the cat was at home, no longer went out on the street by day, and he whiled away the tedium at the inn with his friends; and on Easter eve they had on the table a dish of sausages.

When _compare_ Alfio came in, Turiddu realized, merely by the way in which he fixed his eyes on him, that he had come to settle that affair, and he laid his fork on the plate.

"Have you any commands for me, _compare_ Alfio?" he asked.

"No favors to ask, _compare_ Turiddu; it's some time since I have seen you, and I wanted to speak concerning something you know about."

Turiddu at first had offered him a glass, but _compare_ Alfio refused it with a wave of his hand. Then Turiddu got up and said to him,--

"Here I am, _compare_ Alfio."

The carter threw his arms around his neck.

"If to-morrow morning you will come to the prickly pears of la Canziria, we can talk that matter over, _compare_."

"Wait for me on the street at daybreak, and we will go together."

With these words they exchanged the kiss of defiance. Turiddu bit the carter's ear, and thus made the solemn oath not to fail him.

The friends had silently left the sausages, and accompanied Turiddu to his home. _Gnà_ Nunzia, poor creature, waited for him till late every evening.

"Mamma," said Turiddu, "do you remember when I went as a soldier, that you thought I should never come back any more? Give me a good kiss as you did then, for to-morrow morning I am going far away."

Before daybreak he got his spring-knife, which he had hidden under the hay, when he had gone to serve his time in the army, and started for the prickly-pear trees of la Canziria.

"Oh, Gesummaria! where are you going in such haste!" cried Lola in great apprehension, while her husband was getting ready to go out.

"I am not going far," replied _compare_ Alfio. "But it would be better for you if I never came back."

Lola in her nightdress was praying at the foot of the bed, and pressing to her lips the rosary which Fra Bernardino had brought to her from the Holy places, and reciting all the Ave Marias that she could say.

"_Compare_ Alfio," began Turiddu, after he had gone a little distance by the side of his companion, who walked in silence with his cap down over his eyes, "as God is true I know that I have done wrong, and I should let myself be killed. But before I came out, I saw my old mother, who got up to see me off, under the pretence of tending the hens. Her heart had a presentiment, and as the Lord is true, I will kill you like a dog, so that my poor old mother may not weep."

"All right," replied _compare_ Alfio, stripping off his waistcoat. "Then we will both of us hit hard."

Both of them were skilful fencers. Turiddu was first struck, and was quick enough to receive it in the arm. When he returned it, he returned it well, and wounded the other in the groin.

"Ah, _compare_ Turiddu! so you really intend to kill me, do you?"

"Yes, I gave you fair warning; since I saw my old mother in the hen-yard, it seems to me I have her all the time before my eyes."

"Keep them well open, those eyes of yours," cried _compare_ Alfio, "for I am going to give you back good measure."

As he stood on guard, all doubled up, so as to keep his left hand on his wound, which pained him, and almost trailing his elbow on the ground, he swiftly picked up a handful of dust, and flung it into his adversary's eyes.

"Ah!" screamed Turiddu, blinded, "I am dead."

He tried to save himself, by making desperate leaps backwards, but _compare_ Alfio overtook him with another thrust in the stomach, and a third in the throat.

"And that makes three! that is for the house which you have adorned for me! Now your mother will let the hens alone."

Turiddu staggered a short distance among the prickly pears, and then fell like a stone. The blood foaming, gurgled in his throat, and he could not even cry, "_Ah! mamma mia!_"

LA LUPA.

She was tall and lean; but she had a firm, full bust, and yet she was no longer young; her complexion was brunette, but pallid as if she had always suffered from malaria, and this pallor set forth two big eyes and fresh rosy lips that seemed to eat you.

In the village she was called _la Lupa_--the She-Wolf--because she was never satisfied. Women made the sign of the cross when they saw her pass, always alone like a big ugly hound, with the vagabond and suspicious gait of a famished wolf; she would bewitch their sons and their husbands in the twinkling of an eye with her red lips and she made them fall in love with her merely by looking at them out of those big Satanic eyes of hers, even if they were before Santa Agrippina's altar.

Fortunately _la Lupa_ never came to church at Easter or at Christmas, nor to hear Mass or to make confession. _Padre_ Angiolino of Santa Maria di Gesù, a true servant of God, had lost his soul on her account.

Maricchia,--poor girl, pretty and clever she was,--secretly wept because she was _la Lupa's_ daughter, and no one had offered to marry her though she had nice clothes in her bureau, and her own little piece of land in the sun, like every other girl of the village.

One time _la Lupa_ fell in love with a handsome youth who had just served out his time in the army, and had come home and was helping to reap the notary's harvest with her; for surely it means to be in love when she felt the flesh burn under the fustian shift, and on looking at him to experience the thirst that one has in hot June days down in the low-lands.

But he went on with his work, undisturbed, with his nose on his sheaves, and he said to her, "Oh, what's the matter, _gnà_ Pina?"

In the immense fields where the only sound was the rustle of the grasshoppers flying up, while the sun was pouring down his hottest beams perpendicularly, _la Lupa_ was heaping up sheaf on sheaf, and pile on pile, without ever showing any signs of fatigue, without one moment straightening herself up, without once touching her lips to the water jug, so as to stick close to Nanni's heels as he reaped and reaped; and now and again he would ask,--

"What do you want, _gnà_ Pina?"

One evening she told him, it was while the men were sleeping in the threshing-floor, weary of the long day's work and the dogs were howling through the vast black campagna,--

"I want you! you are as handsome as the sun and as sweet as honey; I want you!"

"But I want your daughter--I want the young calf," said Nanni, laughing at his own joke.

_La Lupa_ thrust her hands into the masses of her hair, scratching her temples, without saying a word, and went off and was not seen again in the harvest field. But the following October she saw Nanni again at the time when they were pressing the oil, because he worked near her house, and the rattle of the press kept her awake all night.

"Take a bag of olives," she said to her daughter, "and come with me."

Nanni was shoveling the olives into the hopper and shouting "Ohi" to the mule to keep it going.

"Do you want my daughter Maricchia?" demanded _gnà_ Pina.

"What dowry will you give with your daughter Maricchia?" replied Nanni.

"She has her father's things, and besides I will give her my house; it will be enough for me if you'll let me have a corner in the kitchen to spread out a mattress in."

"If that is so, we can talk about it at Christmas," said Nanni. Nanni was all grease and dirt from the olives put to fermenting, and Maricchia would not have him on any account; but her mother grabbed her by the hair as they stood in front of the hearth and hissed through her set teeth,--

"If you don't take him, I'll kill you."

_La Lupa_ looked ill, and the people remarked: "When the devil was old the devil a monk would be." She no longer went wandering about; she stood no more at her doorway looking out with those eyes as of one possessed.

Her son-in-law, when she fixed those eyes on his face, always began to laugh, and would pull out his cloth talisman, with its effigy of the Madonna, to cross himself with.

Maricchia stayed at home to nurse her children, and her mother went out to work in the fields with the men, just like a man,--to weed, to dig, to guide the animals, to dress the vines, whether it were during the Greek-Levant winds[13] of January, or during the August sirocco, when mules let their heads droop, and men sleep prone on their bellies under the shadow of the North wall.

[13] North-east.

In that time between vespers and nones, when, according to the saying, no good woman is seen going about, _gnà_ Pina was the only living creature to be seen wandering across the campagna, over the fiery hot stones of the narrow streets, among the parched stubble of the wide, wide fields that stretched away into the burning haze toward cloudy Etna, where the sky hangs heavy on the horizon.

"Wake up!" said _la Lupa_ to Nanni, who was asleep in the ditch next the dusty harvest-field, with his head on his arms. "Wake up, for I've brought you some wine to cool your throat."

Nanni opened his eyes, half awake, and saw her sitting up straight and pale before him, with her swelling breast, and her eyes as black as coal, and drew back waving his arms,--

"No! a good woman does not go about between vespers and nones," groaned Nanni, thrusting his face in amongst the dried weeds of the ditch as far as he could, and putting his fingers into his hair. "Go away! Get you gone! And don't you come to the threshing-floor any more."

She turned and went away,--_la Lupa_,--knotting up her splendid tresses again, looking down steadily as she made her way among the hot stubble, with her eyes black as coal.

But she did go back to the threshing-floor, and Nanni no longer reproached her; and when she failed to come, in that hour between vespers and nones, he went, and with perspiration on his brow, waited for her at the top of the white deserted footpath, but afterwards he would thrust his hands through his hair, and every time he would say, "Go away! Go away! Don't come to the threshing-floor again."

Maricchia wept night and day, and she looked into her mother's face with eyes blazing with tears and jealousy, like a _lupachiotta_, a young wolf herself, every time that she saw her coming back from the fields, silent and pale.

"Vile! _scellerata!_" she would say, "Vile mamma."

"Hold your tongue!"

"Thief! thief!"

"Hold your tongue!"

"I'll go to the _brigadiere_!"[14]

[14] Brigadiere is the station or the Commandant of the detachment of the Carabaneers in a small town.

And she actually went with her infants in her arms, without a sign of fear, and without shedding a tear, like a crazy woman, because now she passionately loved that husband whom she had been forced to marry, greasy and dirty as he was from the olives set to fermenting.

The _brigadiere_ summoned Nanni, and threatened him with the galleys and the gallows. Nanni began to weep, and pull his hair; he denied nothing, did not try to justify himself.

"The temptation was too much," said he, "'twas the temptation of hell." He flung himself at the _brigadiere's_ feet, begging him to send him to the galleys.

"For mercy's sake, _Signor brigadiere_, take me out of this hell! Have me shot! Send me to prison! Don't let me see her ever again! never again!"

"No," replied _la Lupa_, to the _brigadiere's_ question. "I kept a corner of the kitchen to sleep in when I gave him my house as my daughter's dowry. The house is mine. I do not intend to go away."

Shortly after, Nanni was kicked in the chest by a mule, and was like to die; but the priest refused to bring him the Holy Unction unless _la Lupa_ was out of the house.

_La Lupa_ went away, and her son-in-law was then permitted to pass away like a good Christian; he confessed and partook of the Sacrament with such signs of penitence and contrition that all the neighbors and inquisitive visitors wept as they surrounded the dying man's bed.

And it would have been better for him if he had died then and there, before the devil had a chance to return to tempt him, and take possession of him, mind and body, when he got well again.

"Let me be!" he said to _la Lupa_; "for mercy's sake, leave me in peace! I have seen death with my own eyes! Poor Maricchia is in despair. Now the whole region knows about it! If I don't see you, it's better for you and better for me."

And he would rather have put his eyes out, than see _la Lupa's_, for when hers were fastened on him, they made him lose soul and body. He did not know what to do to overcome the enchantment. He paid for Masses to be sung for the souls in Purgatory, and he went for aid to the priest and the _brigadiere_. At Easter he went to confession, and as a penance, publicly stood on the flint stones of the holy ground in front of the church, putting out six handbreadths of tongue, and then, when _la Lupa_ returned to tempt him,--

"See here," said he, "don't you come on the threshing-floor again, because if you do come to seek me again, as sure as God exists, I'll kill you."

"All right, kill me!" replied _la Lupa_. "It makes no difference to me; but I can not live without you."

When he saw her afar off coming through the green corn field, he left off pruning the vines, and went and got his axe from the elm.

_La Lupa_ saw him coming to meet her, with his face pale and his eyes rolling wildly, with the axe shining in the sun; but she did not hesitate an instant, did not look away. She went straight forward with her hands full of bunches of red poppies, and devouring him with those black eyes of hers.

"Ah! a curse on your soul!" stammered Nanni.

THE STORY OF THE ST. JOSEPH'S ASS.

THE STORY OF THE ST. JOSEPH'S ASS.

They had bought it at the Fair of Buccheri when it was still a young colt, and if it caught sight of a she ass, it would run to it and try to nurse; for this reason, it had got blows and kicks on its rump, and it was all in vain for them to shout "_arricca_"--get up--to it.

_Compare_ Neli, when he saw how lively and obstinate it was, and how it licked its nostrils when the blows fell, and how it kept wagging its ears, said,--

"That's the one for me."

And he went straight up to the proprietor, with his hand in his pocket on thirty-five _lire_.

"The colt is handsome," said the proprietor, "and is worth more than thirty-five _lire_. No matter if it has a white and black skin like a magpie. There, I'll show you its mother; we keep her over yonder in that little grove, because the colt's all the time wanting to nurse. You shall see what a pretty dark hide it's got! Why, she does more work for me than a mule would, and has given me more colts than she has hairs on her back. My conscience! I don't know where this colt got its magpie coat. But it is well built, I tell you. Even men aren't judged by their moustaches. Look, what a chest! and what thick, solid legs! See how it holds its ears. An ass that holds its ears up like that can be put in a cart or to a plow as you please, and it will carry four bushels of corn better than a mule, I swear it will--by all the saints. Just feel that tail--strong enough to hold up you and all your kith and kin."

_Compare_ Neli knew that as well as the other, but he wasn't dunce enough to say so, and he stood with his hand in his pocket, shrugging his shoulders and making grimaces while the proprietor of the colt made it turn round before them.

"Huh!" grunted _compare_ Neli, "with a skin like that, it looks like Saint Joseph's ass. Animals of that color are always _vigliacche_,[15] and when you ride them about, people laugh in your face. Am I going to be made a laughing stock for a Saint Joseph's ass?"

[15] Cowardly, ridiculous, vile.

It was the _padrone's_ turn to turn his back on him in a passion, screaming that some people didn't know a good animal when they saw one, and if they hadn't any money to buy with, they'd better not come to the fair, and waste good Christian's time--on a saint's day, too.

_Compare_ Neli let him fume away, and he went off with his brother, who pulled the sleeve of his jacket, and whispered in his ear, that if he was going to throw away his money on that good-for-nothing animal he would deserve to be kicked.

While the _padrone_ pretended to be shelling some young beans, holding the halter between his legs, _compare_ Neli, not really losing sight of the Saint Joseph's ass, went off on a tour of inspection among the mules and horses, now and again stopping to criticise or even haggle over the price of this one or of that among the better animals; but he did not open his hand, which still clasped safely in his pocket the thirty-five _lire_ as if it were going to buy half the fair. But his brother kept telling him in a whisper, pointing to the ass, which they called Saint Joseph's,--

"That's the one for us."

The ass's mistress, every once in a while, came over to her husband to see how business was progressing, and when she saw him sitting with the halter in his hand, she said,--

"Isn't the Madonna going to send a purchaser for the foal, to-day?"

And the husband would always reply in these terms,--

"None yet! One's been here bargaining, and he liked it. But he objected to the price, and went off again with the money in his pocket. There he is, over yonder with the white cap, beyond that flock of sheep. He hasn't bought anything yet; that means, he'll be back again."

The woman was about to squat down on a couple of stones near her foal, to see whether it would be sold or not. But her husband said to her,--

"Off with you. If they see you are waiting, they won't finish the bargain."

Meantime the foal was nosing about between the legs of several she-asses that were passing by. It wanted to nurse, for it was half starved. It was just opening its mouth to bray when the _padrone_ reduced it to silence by a shower of blows because they had not wanted it.

"It's still there," said _compare_ Neli in his brother's ear, pretending to turn round and look for something. "If we wait till the Ave Maria, we may be able to get it for five _lire_ cheaper than the price that we offered."

The May sunshine was warm so that gradually amid all the noise and bustle of the fair a great silence followed throughout the whole field, as if no one were there: then it was that the mistress of the young ass came to her husband again and said:

"I wouldn't hold out for five _lire_ more or less, for to-night we have not enough to buy our supper and you know well that the foal will eat his head off in a month if he remains on our hands."

"If you don't go off," replied her husband, "I'll give you a kick that you'll remember."

* * * * *

Thus passed the hours at the fair; but of all those who passed in front of the Saint Joseph's ass not one stopped to look at it, and that, too, though the _padrone_ had chosen the most humble place near the animals of small value, so that with its magpie skin it might not be compared with the beautiful bay mules and the sleek horses! Some one like _compare_ Neli was wanted to buy his Saint Joseph's ass, at the sight of which every one at the fair was laughing.