I Malavoglia Page 3

  CHAPTER II

  The whole village was talking of nothing but the lupin deal, and as La Longa came home with Lia in her arms, the neighbours stood on their doorsteps to watch her pass.

  ‘What a deal!’ bawled Piedipapera, clumping along with his twisted leg behind padron ’Ntoni, who had gone to sit down on the church steps, alongside padron Fortunato Cipolla and Menico della Locca’s brother, who were enjoying the cool of the evening. Old zio Crocifisso was squawking like a plucked fowl, but there was no need to worry, the old man had plenty of feathers to spare. ‘We had a hard time of it, didn’t we, padron ’Ntoni?’ — but he would have thrown himself off the top of those sharp rocks for padron ’Ntoni, as God lives, and zio Crocifisso paid heed to him, because he called the tune, and quite a tune it was, more than two hundred onze a year! Dumb-bell couldn’t blow his own nose without Piedipapera.

  La Locca’s son, overhearing mention of zio Crocifisso’s wealth — and zio Crocifisso really was his uncle, being la Locca’s brother — felt his heart swell with family feeling.

  ‘We’re related,’ he would say. ‘When I work for him by the day he gives me half-pay, and no wine, because we’re relatives.’

  Piedipapera snickered. ‘He does that for your good, so as not to get you drunk, and to leave you the richer when he dies.’

  Compare Piedipapera enjoyed speaking ill of people who cropped up in conversation; but he did it so warmly, and so unmaliciously, that there was no way you could take it amiss.

  ‘Massaro Filippo has walked past the wine shop twice,’ he would say, ‘and he’s waiting for Santuzza to signàl to him to go and join her in the stable, so they can tell their beads together.’

  Or he might say to La Locca’s son:

  ‘Your uncle Crocifisso is trying to steal that smallholding from your cousin la Vespa; he wants to pay her half of what it’s worth, by giving her to understand that he’s going to marry her. But if she manages to get something else taken from her too, you can say goodbye to any hope of that inheritance, along with the wine and the money that he never gave you.’

  Then they started to argue, because padron ’Ntoni maintained that when all was said and done, zio Crocifisso was a decent member of the human race, and had not thrown all judgment to the dogs, to consider going and marrying his brother’s daughter.

  ‘How does decency come into it?’ retored Piedipapera. ‘He’s mad, is what you mean. He’s swinish rich, while all la Vespa has is that pocket-handkerchief smallholding.’

  ‘That’s no news to me,’ said padron Cipolla, swelling like a turkey-cock, ‘it runs along the side of my vineyard.’

  ‘Do you call that couple of prickly pears a vineyard?’ countered Piedipapera.

  ‘There are vines among those prickly pears, and if St. Francis sends us rain, it will produce some fine grape must, you’ll see. The sun set behind the clouds to-day — that means wind or rain.’

  ‘When hidden by cloud the sun goes to rest, then you may hope for a wind from the west,’ specified padron ’Ntoni.

  Piedipapera couldn’t bear that pontificating pedant padron Cipolla, who thought he was always right just because he was rich, and felt that he could force those who were less well off than himself to swallow his rubbish wholesale.

  ‘One man’s meat is another man’s poison,’ he went on. ‘Padron Cipolla is hoping for rain for his vineyard, and you’re hoping for a west wind for the Provvidenza. A rippling sea means a fresh wind, as the proverb has it. The stars are all out to-night, and at midnight the wind will change; listen to it blowing.’

  You could hear carts passing slowly by on the road. ‘There are always people going about the world, day and night,’ compare Cipolla then observed.

  And now that you couldn’t see either land or sea any more, it seemed as if Trezza were the only place in the whole world and everyone wondered where those carts could be going at that hour.

  ‘Before midnight the Provvidenza will have rounded the Capo dei Mulini,’ said padron ’Ntoni, ‘and then this strong wind won’t be against her any more,’

  All padron ’Ntoni thought about was the Provvidenza, and when he wasn’t talking about his own affairs he made no more contribution to the conversation than a discarded broom handle.

  So Piedipapera said to him, ‘You ought to go and join the chemist’s lot, they’re discussing the pope and the king. You’d cut a fine figure there. Listen to them bellowing.’

  The chemist held forth at the door of his shop, in the cool, with the parish priest and one or two others. As he knew how to read, he would read the newspaper aloud to the rest, and he also owned the history of the French Revolution, which he kept to hand, under the glass mortar, and that was why he quarrelled all day long with don Giammaria, the parish priest, to pass the time, and this made them almost ill from bad temper; but they wouldn’t have lasted a day without seeing each other. Then on Saturdays, when the newspaper arrived, don Franco would actually run to half an hour’s candle, or even an hour, at the risk of being scolded by his wife, so as to parade his ideas and not just go to bed like a dumb beast, like compare Cipolla or compare Malavoglia. And during the summer there wasn’t even any need for the candle, because you could stay out at the front door under the lamp, when mastro Cirino lit it, and sometimes don Michele, the customs guard, would come along too; and so would don Silvestro, the town clerk, pausing for a moment or two on his way home from his vineyard.

  Then, rubbing his hands, don Franco would say that they were quite a little Parliament there, and he would go and settle in behind the counter, running his fingers through his bushy beard with a special sly smile as though he wanted to eat a man for breakfast, and at times he would let slip the odd brief phrase to the public, getting up on his short legs, so that you could tell he was shrewder than the others, and indeed he induced in don Giammaria a feeling of such intense gall that he found him quite unbearable, and would spit assorted Latin tags in his direction. Whereas don Silvestro relished the bad blood they generated, by trying fruitlessly to square the circle; at least he didn’t get riled, as they did, and that, as they said in the village, was why he owned the finest smallholding in Trezza — where he had arrived barefoot, as Piedipapera pointed out. He set them one against the other, and then cackled fit to burst, just like a hen.

  ‘There’s don Silvestro laying another egg,’ La Locca’s son observed.

  ‘And they’re golden eggs he lays down there at the Town Hall,’ said Piedipapera.

  ‘Hm,’ padron Cipolla said sharply, ‘not all that golden. Comare Zuppidda wouldn’t give him her daughter’s hand in marriage.’

  ‘That means that mastro Turi Zuppiddo prefers the eggs from his own hens,’ replied padron ’Ntoni. And padron Cipolla nodded in agreement.

  ‘Birds of a feather flock together,’ added padron Malavoglia.

  Then Piedipapera retorted that if don Silvestro had been content to flock together with birds of his own sort, he would be holding a spade instead of a pen to this day.

  ‘Would you give your grand-daughter Mena to him?’ padron Cipolla asked finally, turning to padron ’Ntoni.

  ‘What’s bred in the bone will not out in the flesh.’

  Padron Cipolla carried on nodding, because in fact there had been some talk between him and padron ’Ntoni of marrying Mena to his son Brasi, and if the lupin deal went well, Mena would have her dowry in ready cash, and the matter could be promptly wrapped up.

  ‘A girl’s worth lies in her upbringing, and the quality of the hemp lies in the spinning,’ said padron Malavoglia after a bit, and padron Cipolla confirmed that everyone in the village felt that la Longa had known how to bring up her daughter, and everyone who passed down the little street at that hour, hearing the clicking of Saint Agatha’s loom, agreed that comare Maruzza hadn’t wasted her efforts in that direction.

  When she arrived back home, la Longa had lit the lamp and had sat down on the balcony with her winder, filling up the spools she would be needing for her week�
��s weaving.

  ‘You can’t see comare Mena, but you can here her at her loom day and night, like Saint Agatha,’ the neighbours would say.

  ‘That’s what girls should be brought up to do,’ Maruzza would reply, ‘instead of standing at the window. A woman at the window is a woman to be shunned.’

  ‘But you do sometimes catch a husband that way, with all those men passing by,’ observed cousin Anna from the door-step opposite.

  Cousin Anna was in a position to know about such things; because her son Rocco, that great dolt, had let himself be ensnared by the Mangiacurrubbe girl, a brazen-faced starer out of windows if every there was one.

  Hearing conversation in the street, comare Grazia Piedipapera came out on to her doorstep as well, with her apron full of the beans she was shelling, and started complaining about the mice which had riddled her sack as full of holes as a sieve, and seemed to have done it on purpose, as though they were blessed with human judgment; and at that the conversation became general, because Maruzza too had suffered a lot of damage from those dratted little beasts! Cousin Anna’s house was teeming with them since her cat had died, an animal which had been worth its weight in gold and which had been killed by a kick from compare Tino. Grey cats were the best mousers, and as elusive as the eye of your needle. Nor should you open the door to cats at night, because an old woman from Aci Sant’Antonio had been killed that way, as the thieves had stolen her cat three days earlier and then brought it back to her half dead with hunger, mewing piteously in front of her door; and the poor woman didn’t have the heart to leave the dumb creature out on the street at that hour, and had opened the door, and that was how the thieves had got into her house.

  Nowadays mischief-makers got up to all kinds of tricks; and at Trezza you saw faces which had never been seen there before, on the cliffs, people claiming to be going fishing, and they even stole the sheets put out to dry, if there happened to be any. Poor Nunziata had had a new sheet stolen that way. Poor girl! Imagine robbing her, a girl who had worked her fingers to the bone to provide bread for all those little brothers her father had left on her hands when he had upped and gone to seek his fortune in Alexandria in Egypt. Nunziata was like cousin Anna, when her husband had died and left her with that brood of children, and Rocco, the largest of the little ones, not even knee-high. Then cousin Anna had had to bring up that great shirker, just to see him stolen from her by the Mangiacarrubbe girl.

  Then into the midst of this chatter walked la Zuppidda, the wife of Turi the caulker, who had been at the end of the alley; she always appeared to put her oar in, like the devil in the litany, so that no one ever knew where she had popped up from.

  ‘Anyhow,’ she now muttered, ‘your son Rocco didn’t help you, and if he did earn a penny he’d go straight to the wine shop and spend it on drink.’

  La Zuppidda knew everything that went on in the village and that was why people said she went around barefoot all day, acting the informer with the excuse of her spindle, which she always held up in the air so that it wouldn’t whirr on the cobbles. She always spoke the gospel truth, this indeed was her mistake, and that was why her comments were far from welcome, people said that she had the devil’s own tongue in her mouth, the kind of tongue that leaves a track of spittle. ‘A sour mouth spits forth gall,’ and her mouth tasted bitter indeed because of her Barbara whom she had not managed to marry of, and she wanted to give her to the son of King Victor Emanuel himself, for all that.

  ‘A fine piece, the Mangiacarrubbe girl,’ she continued, ‘a brazen-faced minx, who has had the whole village passing under her window.’ A woman at a window is a woman to be shunned, and Vanni Pizzuto used to take her prickly pears stolen from massaro Filippo’s the greengrocer, and they ate them together in the vineyard, among the vines, under the almond tree, she herself had seen them. And Peppi Naso, the butcher, after a sudden pang of jealousy brought on by compare Mariano Cinghialenta, the carter, had had the bright idea of dumping the horns of all the animals he’d slaughtered into her doorway, since people had said that he used to go and preen under the Mangiacarrubbe girl’s window.

  But cousin Anna, that happy soul, smiled through it all.

  ‘Don Giammaria says you’re committing a mortal sin by speaking ill of your neighbour!’

  ‘Don Giammaria would do better to preach to his sister donna Rosolina,’ retorted la Zuppidda, ‘and not let her carry on with don Silvestro when he happens to pass by, or with don Michele the sergeant, thirsting for a husband as she is, and so old and fat, poor thing!’

  ‘God’s will be done,’ concluded cousin Anna. ‘When my husband died, Rocco was no taller than this distaff and his little sisters were all smaller than he was. But did I lose heart for that? Problems are something you get used to, they help you get down to work. My daughters will do as I have done, and as long as there are slabs in the wash-place, we won’t lack for the bare essentials. Look at Nunziata, she has more sense than many an old woman, and manages to bring up those little ones as though she’d given birth to them.’

  ‘By the way, where is Nunziata?’ asked la Longa of a crowd of tattered urchins who were whimpering on the doorstep of the little house opposite; they set up a chorus of wailing at mention of their sister’s name.

  ‘I saw her going out on the sciara, the lava field, gathering broom, and your Alessi was there too, walking with her,’ said cousin Anna. The children were quiet for a moment, and then all began to grizzle in unison, and the least tiny of them, who was perched on a large stone, said after a bit.

  ‘I don’t know where she is.’

  The neighbourhood women had come out, like slugs after the rain, and you could hear a continuous chattering from one doorway to the next, all along the lane. Even Alfio Mosca’s window was open, Alfio Mosca, that is, who had the donkey cart, and from it came a strong smell of broom. Mena had left her loom and come out on the balcony as well.

  ‘Oh, Saint Agatha,’ exclaimed the neighbours; and everyone was glad to see her.

  ‘Aren’t you thinking of marrying off your Mena?’ la Zuppidda asked comare Maruzza in a low voice. ‘She’ll be eighteen at Easter; I know because she was born the year of the earthquake, like my Barbara. Anyone who is interested in my Barbara must first suit me.’

  At that point a rustle of branches was heard down the street, and Alessi and Nunziata arrived, barely visible under the bundles of broom, they were so small.

  ‘Oh Nunziata!’ called the neighbours. ‘Weren’t you afraid out on the sciara at this hour?’

  ‘I was there too,’ said Alessi.

  ‘I stayed out late with comare Anna at the wash-place, and I didn’t have any wood for the fire.’

  The young girl lit the lamp and moved quickly about, preparing things for supper, while her little brothers trailed after her up and down the room, so that she looked for all the world like a hen with her chicks. Alessi had removed his load, and was gazing gravely from the doorway, with his hands in his pockets.

  ‘Oh Nunziata,’ called Mena from the balcony, ‘when you’ve put the water on to boil, come over here for a bit.’

  Nunziata left Alessi to keep an eye on the fire, and ran to perch on the balcony alongside Saint Agatha, so that she too could have a moment of well-earned, rest.

  ‘Compare Alfio Mosca is cooking his beans,’ observed Nunziata after a pause.

  ‘You’re two of a pair, neither of you has anyone at home of an evening to make your soup for you when you come home tired.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true; and he even know how to sew and wash, and he mends his own shirts’ — Nunziata knew everything about her neighbour Alfio, and she knew his house like the back of her hand. ‘Now,’ she would say, ‘he’s going to get wood; now he’s seeing to his donkey’ — and you could see the light in the courtyard, or in the shed. Saint Agatha would laugh, and Nunziata would say that all he lacked to be a thorough-going woman was a skirt.

  ‘Anyway,’ concluded Mena, ‘when he marries, his wife will go around with th
e donkey cart, and he will stay at home and mind the children.’

  In a huddle in the street, the mothers too were talking about Alfio Mosca, and even la Vespa swore she wouldn’t have wanted him for a husband, according to la Zuppidda, because la Vespa had her own precious smallholding, and if she decided to marry, she certainly wouldn’t want someone whose only possession was a donkey cart: ‘your cart is your bier,’ says the proverb. She had set her sights on her zio Crocifisso, her uncle, the cunning little piece.

  Privately, the girls took Mosca’s part agains that vicious Vespa; and personally Nunziata flinched at the scorn they heaped upon compare Alfio, just because he was poor, and had no one in the world, and suddenly she said to Mena; ‘If I were grown up I would have him, if I were told to.’

  Mena had been about to say something; but she suddenly changed the subject.

  ‘Will you be going into town for the All Souls’ Day fair?’

  ‘No, I can’t leave the house empty.’

  ‘We’ll being going, if the lupin deal goes well; grandfather said so.’

  Then she thought for a moment, and added:

  ‘Compare Alfio Mosca usually goes too, to sell his walnuts.’

  And they both fell silent, thinking of the All Souls’ Day fair, where Alfio went to sell his walnuts.

  ‘Zio Crocifisso, all meek and mild as he is, is going to get his hands on la Vespa,’ said cousin Anna.

  ‘That’s just what she’d like,’ la Zuppidda promptly retorted, ‘that’s just what she’d like, to have him get his hands on her. As it is she’s always hanging around the house, like the cat, with the excuse of bringing him choice morsels, and the old man doesn’t refuse, after all he’s got nothing to lose. She’s fattening him up like a pig, with all that coming and going. I’m telling you, la Vespa wants him to get his hands on her!’