Giovanni Verga

“ 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." ”

“ And at dusk when the Provvidenza, with her hull full of the gifts of God, turned towards home, with her sail puffing out like Donna Rosolina’s best petticoat, and the lights of the village came twinkling one by one from behind the dark rocks as if they were beckoning to each other, Padron ’Ntoni showed his boys the bright fire which burned in La Longa’s kitchen at the bottom of the tiny court in the narrow black street; for the wall was low, and from the sea the whole house was visible, with the tiles built into a shed for the hens, and the oven on the other side of the door. ”

“ If you are after money, I tell you you have made a mistake. I haven't any, mind you! For two days I haven't had even a morsel of bread."
"I can't go back home now," said she; "the place is all full of soldiers."
"Go away! What is that to me? Each for himself."
As she was turning away like a kicked dog, Gramigna called to her:
"Say, go and get me a jug of water, down yonder in the brook. If you want to stay with me, you must risk your skin."
Peppa went without saying a word, and when Gramigna heard the gunshots he began to laugh immoderately, and said to himself: "That was meant for me!" ”

“ Jeli kept saying to the boy, who was helping him drive the herd. "And in every place there is feasting and light, and throughout the whole campagna you can see fireworks."
The boy was half asleep as he forced one leg after the other, and he made no response; but Jeli, who felt his blood stir within him at the sound of that bell, could not keep quiet, as if each one of those rockets that left their silent shining trails on the darkness behind the mountains burst forth from his soul.
"Mara also must be going to the festa of Saint John," he said, "because she goes every year." ”

“ I don’t want to live like a dog on a chain, or like Cousin Alfio’s ass, or like a mule in a mill, that goes round and round, turning the same wheel forever. I don’t want to die of hunger in a corner, or to be eaten up by sharks.”
“Thank God, rather, that you were born here, and pray that you may not come to die far from the stones that you know. ‘Who changes the old for the new changes for the worse all through.’ You are afraid of work, are afraid of poverty; I, who have neither your youth nor your strength, fear them not. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ The poor "Candela di Sego" went and hid from sight, as if it behoved him to be ashamed, and Peppa was led off, handcuffed by soldiers, as if she also were a thief, she who had as much gold as Santa Margherita! Her poor mother was obliged to sell all the white linen stored in her trunk, and the gold earrings and the rings for the ten fingers, so as to pay the lawyers who defended her daughter and bring the girl home again,—poor, ill, in shame, ugly as Gramigna, and with Gramigna's child in her arms. ”

“ Comare Sidora interrupted him,—
"Think of those who are more unlucky than you are!"
"No one is, I tell you. I shall never find another wife like her, I shall never be able to forget her, even if I married ten times. And this poor little orphan will never forgot her, either."
"Calm yourself! You'll forget her fast enough. And the little girl will forget her, too. Didn't she forget her own mother? But just look at poor neighbor Angela, whose ass is dying, and she hasn't got anything else. She'll never be able to forget it." ”

“ 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. ”

“ During the winter time, Mara dared not put her nose out of doors, it was so cold. Sometimes toward evening could be seen the smoke of Jeli's fires of sumach wood, which he built on the Piano del lettighiere, or on the Poggio di Macca, so as not to perish of the cold, like the tomtits which he sometimes found in the morning behind some rock, or in the shelter of a clod. The horses also found pleasure in dangling their tails around the fire, and they would cuddle close together so as to be warmer. ”

“ The women and girls who had envied Peppa the prosperous farming, the bay mule and the handsome youth who could bear the standard of Santa Margherita without bending his back, went around telling all sorts of unkind stories: how Gramigna had been to visit her one night in the kitchen, and how he had been seen hiding under the bed. The poor mother burnt a lamp for the souls in purgatory and even the curato went to Peppa's house to touch her heart with his stole, so as to drive out that devil of a Gramigna, who had got possession of it. ”

“ After all, Cousin Tino wasn’t such a bad fellow. He went on talking to Padron ’Ntoni as if it hadn’t been his affair at all, passing his arm over his shoulder and saying to him, “Pardon me, brother, I am more sorry than you are; it goes to my heart to turn you out of your house, but what can I do? I’m only a poor devil; I’m not rich, like Uncle Crucifix. If those five hundred lire hadn’t come actually out of my very mouth, I would never have troubled you about them—upon my word I wouldn’t.” ”

“ At first Jeli called the young nobleman eccellenza—your excellence—as is the custom in Sicily, but after they had had one good quarrel their friendship was established on a solid basis. Jeli taught his friend how to climb up to the magpies' nests on the tiptop of the walnut-trees, higher than the campanile of Licodia, to knock down a sparrow on the wing with a stone, and to mount with one spring on the bare backs of his half-wild animals, seizing by the mane the first that came within reach, without being frightened by the wrathful whinnyings and the desperate leaps of the untrained colts. ”

“ Near by there lived a poor widow in a dilapidated hut, more tumble-down by far than the lime-furnace, and through its roof the stars penetrated like swords, as if it were no roof at all, and the wind fluttered the wretched rags of her covering, At first she took in washing, but that was meagre pay, for the people thereabouts do their own washing, when they wash at all, and now that her little boy had grown she went about peddling wooed in the village. ”