Giovanni Verga

“ That evening Mena looked exactly like Sant’-Agata, with her new dress and her black kerchief on her head, so that Brasi never took his eyes off her, but sat staring at her all the evening like a basilisk, sitting on the edge of his chair, with his hands between his knees, rubbing them now and then on the sly for very pleasure.
“He is come with his son Brasi, who is quite a big fellow now,” continued Padron ’Ntoni.
“Yes, the children grow and shoulder us into the ground,” answered Padron Fortunato. ”

“ Cousin Anna, poor dear, had left her linen and her girls to go and help Cousin Maruzza, who acted as if she were sick, and if they had left her alone she wouldn’t have, lighted the fire or anything, but would have left them all to starve. “Neighbors should be like the tiles on the roof that carry water for each other.” Meanwhile the poor children’s lips were pale for hunger. Nunziata came to help too, and Alessio—with his face black from crying at seeing his mother cry—looked after the little boys, crowding round him like a brood of chickens, that Nunziata might have her hands free. ”

“ People beside whom Don Franco and the town-clerk were themselves no better than beasts of burden, working, as they did, all day long, spoiling paper and beating dirty water in a mortar. At least he wanted to know why there should be people in the world who had nothing to do but to enjoy themselves, and were born with silver spoons in their mouths, and others who had nothing, and must drag a cart with their teeth all their lives. Besides which, that idea of going out by the day was not at all to his taste; he was born a master—his grandfather had said so himself. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Santuzza, not wishing to meet ’Ntoni, went to Aci Castello to mass early in the morning, not to be led into temptation. ’Ntoni watched the Mangia-carubbe, with her face wrapped in her mantle, not looking to the right or to the left, now she had caught a husband. Vespa, all over flounces, and with a very big rosary, went to besiege Heaven that she might be delivered from her scourge of a husband, and ’Ntoni snarled after them: “Now that they have caught husbands, they want nothing more. They’ve somebody to see that they have plenty to eat.” ”

“ Mena had often a heavy heart as she sat at the loom, for girls have quick senses. And now that her grandfather was always with Padron Fortunato, and she so often heard the name Cipolla mentioned in the house, it seemed as if she had the same sight forever before her, as if that blessed Christian Cousin Alfio were nailed to the beams of the loom like the pictures of the saints. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Don Franco came himself with it, holding the bottle with both hands; and Goose-foot, too, came running, and his wife and Dumbbell and the Zuppiddi and Padron Cipolla and all the neighborhood, for at such a time all differences are forgotten; there came even poor La Locca, who always went wherever there was a crowd or a bustle, by night or by day, as if she never slept, but was always seeking her lost Menico. So that the people were crowded in the little street before the Malavoglia’s house as if a corpse had been there, and their cousin Anna had to shut the door in their faces. ”

“ Daddy Tino Goosefoot, Mastro Cola Zuppiddu, Uncle Mangiacarubbe; Don Michele, the brigadier of the coast-guard, with his big boots and his pistols, as if he were going to look for smugglers in this sort of weather; and Mastro Mariano Cinghialenta. That great big elephant of a man, Mastro Cola Zuppiddu, went about giving people thumps in fun, heavy enough to knock down an ox, as if he had his calker’s mallet in his hand all the time, and then Uncle Cinghialenta, to show that he was a carrier, and a courageous man who knew the world, turned round upon him, swearing and blaspheming. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But in this desperate game men’s lives are risked for a few pounds of fish; and once the Malavoglia were within a hair’s-breadth of losing theirs all at once, as Bastianazzo had, for the sake of gain, when they were off Agnone as the day drew to a close, and the sky was so dark that they could not even see Etna, and the winds blew and swept up the waves so close about the boat that it seemed as if they had voices and could speak. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Master Croce let himself be led away by Don Silvestro, and placed before the pine council-table, with the glass inkstand in front of him; but there was no council, except Peppi Naso, the butcher, all greasy and red-faced, who feared nobody in the world, and Messer Tino Piedipassera (Goosefoot) .
“They have nothing to lose,” screamed La Zuppidda from the door, “and they come here to suck the blood of the poor, worse than so many leeches, because they live upon their neighbors, and hold the sack for this one and that one to commit all sorts of villanies. A lot of thieves and assassins.” ”

“ The old man wandered about from place to place, without knowing what he was going to do. But Maruzza never moved from the foot of the bed, as if she had nothing left that she could do. When she spoke she only repeated, with fixed eyes, as if she had no other idea in her head, “Now I’ve nothing more to do.”
“No!” replied Padron ’Ntoni. “No! we must pay the debt to old Dumb-bell; it won’t do to have people saying: Honest men when they grow poor become knaves.” And the thought of the lupins drove the thorn of Bastianazzo deeper into his heart. ”

“ I want to make her rich, my mother! that’s what I want. Now we’re tormenting ourselves for the house, and for Mena’s dowry; then Lia will grow up, and she’ll want a dowry too, and then a bad year will throw us all back into misery. I don’t want to lead this life any longer. I want to change my condition and to change yours. I want that we should be rich—mamma, Mena, you, Alessio, all of us.”
Padron ’Ntoni opened his eyes very wide and listened, pondering, to this discourse, which he found very hard to understand. “Rich!” he said, “rich! And what shall we do when we are rich?” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ You don’t know all the trouble I have, Cousin Tino! Everybody wants to suck my blood like so many leeches. Here’s Vanni Pizzuti running after Vespa, too; they’re like a pack of hunting-dogs.”
“Why don’t you marry her yourself? After all, is she not your own blood, she and her field? It will not be another mouth to feed, not at all! She has a clever pair of hands of her own, she is well worth the bread she eats, that woman. You’ll have a servant without wages, and the land will be yours. Listen, Uncle Crucifix: you’ll have another affair here as good as that of the lupins.” ”

“ Who knows if they found their mothers alive when they got home to their own houses? And as for us, when we have bought back the house by the medlar, and have our grain in the hutch and our beans for the winter, and when Mena is married, what more shall we want? When I am under the sod, and that poor old man is dead too, and Alessio is old enough to earn his bread, go wherever you like. ”

“ Whoever goes in search of fortune and does not find it is a fool. Everybody knows that. Don Silvestro, Uncle Crucifix, Padron Cipolla, Master Filippo, were not fools, and everybody did their best to please them, because poor people always stand with their mouths open staring at the rich and fortunate, and work for them like Cousin Mosca’s ass, instead of kicking the cart to pieces and running off to roll on the grass with heels in the air. ”

“ She could not forgive Don Michele the ugly trick he had played her with the Zuppidda, after all that time that he had lived like a fighting-cock at the tavern for love of his uniform; and ’Ntoni Malavoglia, with no uniform at all, was worth ten of Don Michele; whatever she gave to him she gave with all her heart. In this way ’Ntoni earned his living, and when his grandfather reproved him for doing nothing, or his sister looked gravely at him with her large melancholy eyes, he would reply:
“And do I ask you for anything? I don’t spend any money out of the house, and I earn my own bread.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ And the girls sat silent, thinking of the Feast of All Souls, and how Alfio was going there to sell his nuts.
“Old Uncle Crucifix, how quietly he puts Vespa in his pocket,” began Cousin Anna, all over again.
“That’s what she wants,” cried La Zuppidda, in her abrupt way, “to be pocketed. La Vespa wants just that, and nothing else. She’s always in his house on one pretext or another, slipping in like a cat, with something good for him to eat or drink, and the old man never refuses what costs him nothing. She fattens him up like a pig for Christmas. ”

“ Don Michele looked well at the door, with his cap with the gold braid. People like to drink their wine in peace when they have paid for it, and they like to see a man with a sabre at the door, and everybody took off their caps to him, and nobody was likely to deny a debt to you while he was about. Now that he doesn’t come, Master Filippo doesn’t come either. ”

“ Donna Rosolina meanwhile went on talking to Don Silvestro of the lot of work she had on her hands: thirty yards of warp on the loom, the beans to dry for winter, all the tomato-preserve to be made. She had a secret for making it, so that it kept fresh all winter; she always got the spices from town on purpose, and used the best quality of salt. A house without a woman never goes on well, but the woman must have brains, and know how to use her hands as she did, not one of those little geese that think of nothing but brushing their hair before the glass. ”

“ Are we honest men or not? By the holy big devil!”
La Zuppidda went straight off to her husband, who was crouching in the corner of the court carding tow, pale as a corpse, swearing that they’d end by driving him to do something mad. To open the sanhedrim and try if the fish would bite, there were still wanting Padron Fortunato Cipolla and Master Filippo, the market-gardener, who stayed away so long that the crowd began to get bored—so much so that the gossips began to spin, sitting on the low wall of the town-hall yard. ”

“ Trezza and Aci Castello put together are not to be compared to what they’ve seen. I’ve seen the world too, and how people in those parts don’t sit still salting anchovies, but go round amusing themselves all day long, and the women, with silk dresses and more rings and necklaces than the Madonna of Ognino, go about the streets vying with each other for the love of the handsome sailors.”
“The worst of all things,” said Mena, “is to leave one’s own home, where even the stones are one’s friends, and when one’s heart must break to leave them behind one on the road. ”

“ Look after him well, Cousin Mena, and listen to what I tell you tell him not to go so much with that meddling old wretch Goosefoot, in Vanni Pizzuti’s shop, for we know everything; and he will come to harm among them. The others are old foxes. And you had better tell your grandfather to stop him from walking so much up and down the beach, for the beach is not meant to walk about on; and the cliffs of the Rotolo have ears, tell him; and one can see very well, even without glasses, the boats that put out from there at dusk, as if they were going to fish for bats. ”

“ The boat righted and gave one leap, then began to leap about again among the waves.
“This way the rudder, this way; now it wants a strong arm,” said Padron ’Ntoni; and though the boy, too, clung to it like a cat, the boat still sprang about, and there came great waves sweeping over it that drove them against the helm, with force enough nearly to knock the breath out of them both.
“The oars!” cried ’Ntoni; “pull hard, Alessio; you’re strong enough when it comes to eating; just now the oars are worth more than the helm.” ”

“ They want to hide the sun with a net.”
The Provvidenza had been towed to shore, all smashed, just as she had been found beyond the Cape of the Mills, with her nose among the rocks and her keel in the air. In one moment the whole village was at the shore, men and women together, and Padron ’Ntoni, mixed up with the crowd, looked on like the rest. Some gave kicks to the poor Provvidenza to hear how she was cracked, as if she no longer belonged to anybody, and the poor old man felt those kicks in his own stomach. ”

“ Mena thought he came for Barbara, and said nothing. But to Lia Don Michele swore that he did not come there on account of Barbara, that he never had, that he never should, that he was thinking of quite a different person—did not Cousin Lia know that? And he rubbed his chin and twisted his mustaches and stared at her like a basilisk. The girl turned all sorts of colors, and got up to run into the house; but Don Michele caught her by the hand, and said:
“Do you wish to offend me, Cousin Malavoglia? Why do you treat me in this way? Stay where you are; nobody means to eat you.” ”