I Malavoglia Page 8

  ‘All to make him think that the boat couldn’t move without him,’ added Barabba. ‘Copper’s nark.’

  ‘Now he’ll say that it was his skill that caught us the fish, with this rough sea. Look how the nets are sinking, you can’t see the corks any more.’

  ‘Hey boys,’ shouted zio Cola, ‘shall we pull in the nets? When the swell gets here it will pull them out of our hands.’

  ‘Ohi. Oohi,’ the crew men began to shout, passing the rope to one another.

  ‘Saint Francis help us,’ exclaimed zio Cola, ‘I can hardly believe we’ve taken this many fish with this swell.’

  The nets were swarming and sparkling in the sun as they emerged from the water, and the whole of the bottom of the boat seemed full of quicksilver. ‘Padron Fortunato will be pleased,’ murmered Barabba, red and sweating, ‘and he won’t resent the three carlini he gives us for our day’s work.’

  ‘Just our luck,’ added ’Ntoni, ‘to break our backs for other people; and then when we’ve put a bit of money together, the devil comes and takes it.’

  ‘What are you complaining about?’ asked his grandfather, ‘doesn’t compare Fortunato pay you a day’s wages?’

  The Malavoglia were working desperately to make money in all sorts of ways. La Longa took in the odd rotolo of cloth to weave, and also did people’s washing at the wash place; padron ’Ntoni and his grandsons hired themselves out by the day, helped one another as best they could, and when the sciatica bent the old man like a nail, he stayed in the courtyard mending the nets and the fish traps and tidying up the tackle, because he knew every aspect of his trade. Luca went to work on the railway bridge for fifty centesimi a day, although his brother ’Ntoni said that it wasn’t worth the shirts he ruined carrying stones in a basket, but Luca didn’t care about his shoulders, let alone shirts, and Alessi went collecting crayfish along the rocks, or worms for bait, which were sold at ten soldi a rotolo, and sometimes he went as far as Ognina and the Capo dei Mulini, and came back with his feet in shreds. But compare Zuppiddo took good money every Saturday, for patching up the Provvidenza, and it took all those mended fish traps, all those stones from the railway, that ten soldi of bait and the cloth for bleaching, with water up to one’s knees and the sun beating down overhead, to make the forty onze needed! All Souls’Day had come and gone, and zio Crocifisso did nothing but walk up and down the little street with his hands behind his back, looking for all the world like the basilisk.

  ‘This business is going to end up with the bailiffs,’ zio Crocifisso would say to don Silvestro and don Giammaria the parish priest.

  ‘There won’t be any need of a bailiff, zio Crocifisso,’ padron ’Ntoni told him when he came to hear what Dumb bell was saying. ‘The Malavoglia have always been decent folk, and they don’t need any bailiffs.’

  ‘That’s neither here nor there,’ replied zio Crocifisso with his shoulders against the wall, beneath the roof of the courtyard, while they were piling up his vine shoots, ‘All I know is, I must be paid.’

  At last, through the good offices of the parish priest, Dumb bell agreed to wait until Christmas to be paid, accepting as interest the seventy-five lire which Maruzza had put together soldo by soldo in the stocking hidden under the mattress.

  ‘That’s how things go,’ grumbled padron ’Ntoni’s ’Ntoni; ‘we work day and night for zio Crocifisso, and then when we’ve put a few lire together, Dumb Bell comes and takes it from us.’

  Padron ’Ntoni and Maruzza comforted themselves by building castles in the air for the summer, when there would be anchovies to be salted, and prickly pears at ten a grano, and they made great plans to go fishing for tuna and swordfish, where you could get a good day’s pay, and by then mastro Turi would have set the Provvidenza to rights. Chins cupped in their hands, the boys listened attentively to those discussions, which took place on the balcony, or after supper at table; but ’Ntoni, who had been away and knew the world better than the others, got bored listening to that babbling, and preferred to go and hang around the wine shop, where there were so many people doing nothing, and zio Santoro among them, who was as badly off as you could be, did the light job of stretching out his hand to whoever passed by, mumbling Hail Maries the while; or he went to compare Zuppiddo’s, with the excuse of seeing how the Provvidenza was getting on, to have a chat with Barbara, who came to put kindling under the cauldron, when compare ’Ntoni was there. ‘You’re always busy, comare Barbara,’ ’Ntoni said to her, ‘and you’re the mainstay of the family; that’s why your father doesn’t want to marry you off.’

  ‘He doesn’t want to marry me off to unsuitable parties,’ answered Barbara. ‘Birds of a feather flock together, and people should stick to their own kind.’

  ‘I’d stick to your kind, by the holy Virgin, if you wanted, comare Barbara…’

  ‘What are you saying, compare ’Ntoni? Mother is spinning in the courtyard, she can hear every word.’

  ‘I was talking about those green sticks, which won’t burn. You leave it to me.’

  ‘Is it true that you come here to see the Mangiacarrubbe girl, when she comes to the window?’

  ‘I come here on quite different business, comare Barbara. I come here to see how the Provvidenza is coming along.’

  ‘She’s coming along well, and my father said that you will have her in the water by Christmas Eve.’

  During the nine days before Christmas, the Malavoglia spent all their time coming and going from mastro Zuppiddo’s courtyard. Meanwhile the whole village was preparing for the celebrations; each house decorated its images of the saints with branches and oranges, and the children trooped after the bagpipes which were played in front of the niches with their lit-up saints, outside the doorways. Only in the house by the medlar tree did the statue of the Good Shepherd remain unlit, while padron ’Ntoni’s ’Ntoni strutted here and there, and Barbara Zuppidda said to him:

  ‘I hope at least that you’ll remember that it was I who melted down the pitch for the Provvidenza, when you’re at sea?’

  Piedipapera maintained that all the girls were wild about ’Ntoni.

  ‘I’m the person who’s wild,’ whinged zio Crocifisso. ‘I’d like to know where they are going to get the money for the lupins from, if ’Ntoni gets married, let alone having to give Mena a dowry, with the rates to be paid on the house, and all those complications of the mortgage which cropped up at the last minute. Christmas is here, but I still haven’t seen the Malavoglia.’

  Padron ’Ntoni went back into the square, or under the shelter, to look for him, and said: ‘What do you expect me to do if I haven’t got the money? You can’t get blood out of a stone! Wait until June, if you’re willing to do me that favour, or take the Provvidenza and the house by the medlar tree. I haven’t anything else.’

  ‘I want my money,’ repeated Dumb bell, his back to the wall. ‘You said that you were decent folk, and that you wouldn’t make me idle offers about the Provvidenza and the house by the medlar tree.’

  He had put body and soul into the whole business, and lost sleep and appetitite over it, and couldn’t even let off steam by saying that the whole matter would end with the bailiffs, because padron ’Ntoni would immediately send don Giammaria or the town clerk to ask for mercy, and they wouldn’t let him back on to the square, for his own affairs, without trailing after him, so that everyone in the village said that the money involved was devil’s money. He couldn’t let off steam with Piedipapera because Piedipapera immediately piped up that the lupins had been rotten, and that he had merely been the broker. ‘But he could do that much for me,’ Dumb bell suddenly said to himself and couldn’t sleep any longer that night, so pleased was he with his brain wave, and he went to find Piedipapera as soon as it was light, and indeed Piedipapera was still stretching and yawning in his doorway. ‘What you must do is pretend you’re taking over my credit,’ he told him, ‘that way we can send the bailiff to the Malavoglia and they won’t tell you you’re acting the usurer, nor that it’s devil’s m
oney.’ ‘Did you have that bright idea last night?’ sniggered Piedipapera, ‘that you should wake me at dawn to tell me about it?’

  ‘I also came to tell you about those vine shoots; if you want them, you can come and get them.’ Then you can send for the bailiff,’ replied Piedipapera, ‘but you’re responsible for the expenses.’ Comare Grazia, good woman that she was, had come out specially in her nightdress to ask her husband what zio Crocifisso had come to chat with him about: ‘You leave those poor Malavoglia alone, they’ve got enough problems as it is.’ ‘You get on with your spinning,’ said compare Tino. ‘Women are long of hair and short of judgment,’ and he hobbled away to drink absinthe with compare Pizzuto.

  ‘They want to give that family a bad Christmas,’ murmered comare Grazia with hands folded.

  In front of each house every little shrine was decorated with branches, and oranges, and in the evenings the candles were lit, when they came to play the bagpipes, and they sang the litany in such a way that the festive spirit seemed to be abroad everywhere. The children played at their Christmas version of fivestones, using hazel nuts, and if Alessi paused to watch them in a business-like fashion, they said to him: ‘You go away, if you haven’t any hazelnuts to play with. Now they’re taking your house away, too.’

  And indeed on Christmas Eve the bailiff came specially for the Malavoglia, in a carriage, so that the whole village was in uproar; and he deposited an official document on the chest of drawers, by the statue of the Good Shepherd.

  ‘Did you see, the bailiff has come for the Malavoglia?’ said comare Venera. ‘Now they’re in a pretty pickle.’

  Then her husband, who could hardly believe he had been right, began to clamour tumultuously.

  ‘Ye holy saints in Paradise, I said I didn’t want ’Ntoni hanging around the house.’

  ‘You be quiet, you know nothing,’ snapped la Zuppidda. ‘This is women’s business. This is how girls get married, otherwise they are left hanging around for you to trip over, like old saucepans.’

  ‘This is some time to talk of marriage! when the bailiff has called.’

  ‘Did you know that the bailiff was going to come? You’re always yapping about things after they’ve happened, but you don’t lift a finger to stop them happening. Anyhow, the bailiff doesn’t eat people’.

  It is true that the bailiff doesn’t eat people, but the Malavoglia reacted as if disaster had suddenly struck, and they were in the courtyard, sitting in a circle, looking at each other, and the day the bailiff called, there were no meals at all in the Malavoglia household.

  ‘Damn it,’ exclaimed ’Ntoni. ‘We’re sitting ducks, and now they’ve sent in the bailiff to wring our necks.’

  ‘What shall we do?’ asked la Longa.

  Padron ’Ntoni didn’t know, but at last he forced himself to take up that horrible official document and went to look for zio Crocifisso with his two older grandsons, to tell him to take the Provvidenza, which mastro Bastiano had just patched up, and the poor fellow’s voice trembled as it had done when his son Bastianazzo died. ‘I know nothing about it,’ Dumb bell replied. ‘It’s nothing to do with me any more. I’ve sold my credit to Piedipapera, and from now on you’ll have to deal with him.’

  As soon as Piedipapera saw the little procession, he began to scratch his head. ‘What do you expect me to do?’ he said. ‘I’m a poor devil and I need that money, and I wouldn’t know what to do with the Provvidenza because that’s not my trade; but if zio Crocifisso wants, I’ll help you to sell her. I’ll be right back.’

  Those poor creatures sat waiting there on the wall, and they hadn’t the heart to look one another in the eye; but they cast long glances on to the road where they expected Piedipapera to appear, and finally he did, walking very slowly — though when he wanted to, he could hobble along pretty speedily on that twisted leg of his. ‘He says she’s useless as an old shoe, and he wouldn’t know what to do with her,’ he shouted from a distance. ‘I’m sorry, but I couldn’t do anything.’

  So the Malavoglia went home clutching the official document.

  But something had to be done, because they had heard that if that paper lay around on the chest of drawers, it would devour the chest of drawers, the house and the lot of them.

  ‘Here’s where we need advice from don Silvestro the town clerk,’ Maruzza suggested. ‘Take him these two hens, and he will have something to tell you.’

  Don Silvestro said that there was no time to lose, and he sent them to a good lawyer, doctor Scipioni, who lived on via degli Ammalati in Catania opposite zio Crispino’s stables, and he was young, but he had enough patter in him to make mincemeat of all old lawyers who wanted five onze just to open their mouths, whereas he made do with twenty five lire.

  The lawyer, Scipioni, was busy making cigarettes, and he had them come and go two or three times before he gave them a hearing; the best part was that they made up quite a little procession, one behind the other, and la Longa went there too, with her child in her arms, to help state the case, and they wasted the whole day like that. Then when the lawyer had read the papers, and had managed to glean something from the garbled answers which he had painfully to extract from padron ’Ntoni, while the others were perched on their chairs without daring to breath, he began to laugh with all his might, and the others laughed with him, without knowing why, just to get their breath back. ‘Nothing,’ replied the lawyer, ‘there’s nothing you need do’; and as padron ’Ntoni was about to repeat that the bailiff had come, ‘Let the bailiff come once a day if he wants, the creditor will soon get tired of paying for him. They can’t take anything from you, because the house is part of the dowry, and we’ll make a claim for the boat in mastro Turi Zuppiddo’s name. Your daughter-in-law has nothing to do with the purchase of the lupins.’

  The lawyer carried on talking without so much as spitting, or scratching his head, for more than twenty five lire worth, so that padron ’Ntoni and his grandchildren felt their mouths watering with eagerness to get a word in too, to blurt out that fine defence which they felt swelling within them; and they went off stunned, overwhelmed by all those reasons they now had, mulling over the lawyer’s jabber and gesticulating to it all along the street. Maruzza hadn’t gone this time, and when she saw them arriving red-faced and bright-eyed, she felt a great weight lifting from her too, and her face cleared as she waited for them to tell her what the lawyer had said. But no one said a word and they just stood there looking at each other.

  ‘Well?’ asked Maruzza at last, dying of impatience.

  ‘Nothing! There’s nothing to be afraid of,’ padron ’Ntoni replied calmly.

  ‘And the lawyer?’

  ‘Yes, the lawyer said there was nothing to be afraid of.’

  ‘But what exactly did he say?’ insisted Maruzza.

  ‘Well, he knows how to put things. A most impressive man. Those twenty five lire were well spent.’

  ‘But what did he say?’

  Grandfather looked at grandson, grandson at grandfather and back again.

  ‘Nothing,’ said padron ’Ntoni at last. ‘He said we should do nothing.’

  ‘We don’t pay him anything,’ added ’Ntoni more boldly, ‘because they can’t take either the house or the Provvidenza from us. We don’t owe him anything.’

  ‘And the lupins?’

  ‘That’s true! What about the lupins?’ repeated padron ’Ntoni.

  ‘The lupins? … we didn’t steal his lupins … we haven’t got them in our pockets; and zio Crocifisso can’t take anything from us; the lawyer said so, and that zio Crocifisso will pay the expenses.’

  A moment of silence followed; meanwhile Maruzza did not seem convinced.

  ‘So he said not to pay?’

  ’Ntoni scratched his head, and his grandfather added:

  ‘It’s true, he gave us the lupins, and we must pay for them.’

  There was no more to be said. Now that the lawyer wasn’t there, they had to be paid for. Shaking his head, padron ’Ntoni murmured:


  ‘We’ve always paid what we owe. Zio Crocifisso can take the house, and the boat, and everything — we’ve always paid our debts.’

  The poor old man was confused; but his daughter-in-law was crying in silence into her apron.

  ‘Then we must go to don Silvestro,’ concluded padron

  ’Ntoni.

  And with one accord grandfather, daughter-in-law and grandsons trooped once more to the town clerk, to ask him what they ought to do to pay the debt, without zio Crocifisso sending more official documents, which devoured house, boat and the lot of them along with it. Don Silvestro, who knew about the law, was passing his time constructing a cagetrap which he wanted to give to the Signora’s children. He didn’t behave like the lawyer, and he let them talk and talk, while he carried on with his cage. At last he came up with what was needed: ‘Well now, if gnà Maruzza would set her mind to it, everything could be sorted out.’ The poor woman could not imagine what she should set her mind to. ‘You must set your mind to a sale,’ don Silvestro told her, ‘and give up the dowry mortgage, even though it wasn’t you who bought the lupins.’ ‘We all bought the lupins,’ murmured la Longa, ‘and the Lord has punished us all together by taking away my husband.’

  Seated motionless on their chairs, those poor ignorant things looked at one another, and meanwhile don Silvestro was laughing at them behind their backs. Then he sent for zio Crocifisso, who came chewing on a dry chestnut because he had just finished eating, and his little eyes were even brighter than usual. At first he didn’t want to listen at all, and said that it wasn’t his business any more. ‘I’m like a handy wall, everyone leans on me and uses me as they choose, because I can’t talk like a lawyer, and state my case; somehow my property seems like stolen property, but what they are doing to me is tantamount to what they did to Christ on the cross;’ and he went on grumbling and complaining with his shoulders to the wall and hands stuffed into his pockets; and you couldn’t even understand what he was saying, because of the chestnut he had in his mouth. Don Silvestro sweated through a whole shirt to get it into zio Crocifisso’s head that when all was said and done the Malavoglia could not be said to be swindlers, if they wanted to pay the debt, and the widow was giving up her right to the mortgage. ‘The Malavoglia are quite happy to pay all they can in order to avoid a quarrel; but if you put them with their backs to the wall, they too will begin sending official documents, and that’s that. In short you have to have a bit of charity, in Christ’s name. What’s the betting that if you carry on digging in you heels like a mule, you’ll get nothing at all?’