|One day ’Ntoni Malavoglia, lounging about as usual, had seen two
young men who had embarked some years before at Riposto in search of
fortune, and had returned from Trieste, or from Alexandria, in short,
from afar off, and were spending and swaggering at the tavern--grander
than Cousin Naso the butcher, or than Padron Cipolla. They sat astride
of the benches joking with the girls and pulling innumerable silk
handkerchiefs out of their pockets, turning the place upsidedown.
’Ntoni, when he came home at night, found nobody there but the women,
who were changing the brine on the anchovies and chatting with the
neighbors, sitting in a circle on the stones, and passing away the
time by telling stories and guessing riddles, which amused greatly the
children, who stood around rubbing their sleepy eyes. Padron ’Ntoni
listened too, and watched the strainer with the fresh brine, nodding
his head in approval when the stories pleased him, or when the boys were
clever at guessing the riddles.
“The best story of all,” said ’Ntoni, “is that of those two fellows
who arrived here to-day with silk kerchiefs that one can hardly believe
one’s eyes to look at, and such a lot of money that they hardly look at
it when they take it out of their pockets. They’ve seen half the world,
they say. 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. ‘Blest is the bird that builds his
nest at home!’”
“Brava, Sant’Agata!” said her grandfather; “that is what I call talking
sense.”
“Yes,” growled ’Ntoni, “and when we have sweated and steamed to build
our nest we haven’t anything left to eat; and when we have managed to
get back the house by the medlar we shall just have to go on wearing out
our lives from Monday to Saturday, and never do anything else.”
“And don’t you mean to work any more? What do you mean to do--turn
lawyer?”
“I don’t mean to turn lawyer,” said ’Ntoni, and went off to bed in
high dudgeon.
But from that time forth he thought of nothing but the easy, wandering
life other fellows led; and in the evening, not to hear all that idle
chatter, he stood by the door with his shoulders against the wall,
watching the people pass, and meditating on his hard fate; at least one
was resting against the fatigues of to-morrow, when must begin again
over and over the same thing, like Cousin Mosca’s ass, that when they
brought the collar reached out his neck to have it put on. “We’re all
asses!” he muttered; “that’s what we are--asses! beasts of burden.” And
it was plainly enough to be seen that he was tired of that hard life,
and longed to leave it, and go out into the world to make his fortune,
like those others; so that his mother, poor woman, was always stroking
him on the shoulder, and speaking to him in tones that were each like a
caress, looking at him with eyes full of tears, as if she would read
his very soul. But he told her there was no cause to grieve, that it was
better he should go, for himself and for the rest of them, and when he
came back they would all be happy together.
The poor mother never closed her eyes that night, and steeped her pillow
with tears. At last the grandfather himself perceived it, and called his
grandson outside the door, under the shrine, to ask him what ailed him.
“What is it, my boy?” he said. “Tell your grandpapa; do, that’s a good
boy.”
’Ntoni shrugged his shoulders; but the old man went on nodding his
head, and seeking for words to make himself understood properly.
“Yes, yes! you’ve got some notion in your head, boy! some new notion or
other. ‘Who goes with lame men limps himself before long.’”
“I’m a poor miserable devil, that’s what it is.”
“Well, is that all? You knew that before. And what am I, and what was
your father? ‘He is the richest who has the fewest wants. Better content
than complaint.’”
“Fine consolation, that is!”
This time the old man found words, for they were in his heart, and so
came straight to his lips.
“At least, don’t say it to your mother.”
“My mother! She would have done better not to have brought me into the
world, my mother!”
“Yes,” assented Padron ’Ntoni, “it would have been better she had not
borne you, if you are to begin to talk in this way.”
For a minute ’Ntoni didn’t know what to say, then he began: “Well, I
mean it for your good, too--for you, for my mother, for us all. 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?” ’Ntoni scratched his
head, and began to wonder himself what he should do in such a case. “We
should do what other people do,” he said--“go and live in town, and do
nothing, and eat meat.”
“In town! go and live in town by yourself. I choose to die where I was
born;” and thinking of the house where he was born, which was no longer
his, he let his head drop on his breast. “You are but a boy; you don’t
know what it is,” he said; “you don’t know, you don’t know! When you can
no longer sleep in your own bed, or see the light come in through your
own window, you’ll see what it is. I am old, and I know!” The poor old
man coughed as if he would suffocate, with bent shoulders, shaking
his head sadly. “‘His own nest every bird likes best.’ Look at those
swallows; do you see them? They have always made their nest there, and
they still return to make it there, and never go away.”
“But I am not a swallow,” said ’Ntoni. “I am neither a bird nor
a beast. 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 good pilot is known in the storm.’ You are afraid
of having to work for your bread, that is what ails you! When my father,
rest his soul, left me the _Provvidenza_ and five mouths to feed, I was
younger than you are now, and I was not afraid; and I have done my duty
without grumbling; and I do it still, and I pray God to help me to do it
as long as I live, as your father did, and your brother Luca, blessed
be their souls! who feared not to go and die where duty led them. Your
mother, too, has done hers, poor little woman, hidden inside four walls;
and you know not the tears she has shed, nor how many she sheds now,
because you want to go and leave her; nor how in the morning your sister
finds her sheets wet with tears. And nevertheless she is silent, and
does not talk of you nor of the hard things you say to her; and she
works, and puts together her provision, poor busy little ant that she
is; and she has never done anything else all her life long--before she
had so many tears to shed, and when she suckled you at her breast, and
before you could go alone, or the temptation had come over you to go
wandering like a gypsy about the world.”
The end of it was that ’Ntoni began to cry like a child, for at bottom
the boy had a good heart; but the next day it began all over again. In
the morning he took the tackle unwillingly on his shoulder, and went off
to sea growling, “Just like Cousin Alfio’s ass: at daybreak I have to
stretch out my neck to see if they are coming to load me.” After they
had thrown the net he left Alessio to move the oars slowly, so as to
keep the boat in its place; and folding his arms, looked out into the
distance to where the sea ended, towards those great cities where people
did nothing but walk about and amuse themselves; or thought of the two
sailors who had come back thence, and had now for some time been gone
away from the place; but it seemed to him that they had nothing to do
but to wander about the world from one town to another, spending the
money they had in their pockets. In the evening, when all the tackle was
put away, they let him wander about as he liked, like a houseless dog,
without a soldo to bless himself with, sooner than see him sit there as
sulky as a bear.
“What ails you, ’Ntoni?” said La Longa, looking timidly into his face,
with her eyes shining with tears, for she knew well enough, poor woman,
what it was that ailed him. “Tell me, tell your mother.” He did not
answer, or answered that nothing ailed him. But at last he did tell her
that his grandfather and the rest of them wanted to work him to death,
and he could bear it no longer. He wanted to go away and seek his
fortune like other people.
His mother listened, with her eyes full of tears, and could not speak in
reply to him, as he went on weeping and stamping and tearing his hair.
The poor creature longed to answer him, and to throw her arms round his
neck, and beg him not to go away from her, but her lips trembled so that
she could not utter a word.
“Listen,” she said at last; “you may go, if you will do it, but you
won’t find me here when you come back, for I am old now and weak, and I
cannot bear this new sorrow.”
’Ntoni tried to comfort her, saying he would soon come back with
plenty of money, and that they would all be happy together. Maruzza
shook her head sadly, saying that no, no, he would not find her when he
came back.
“I feel that I am growing old,” she said. “I am growing old. Look at me.
I have no strength now to weep as I did when your father died, and your
brother. If I go to the washing I come back so tired that I can hardly
move; it was never so before. No, my son, I am not what I was. Once,
when I had your father and your brother, I was young and strong. The
heart gets tired too, you see; it wears away little by little, like old
linen that has been too often washed. I have no courage now; everything
frightens me. I feel as one does when the waves come over his head when
he is out at sea. Go away if you will, but wait until I am at rest.”
She was weeping, but she did not know it; she seemed to have before her
eyes once more her husband and her son Luca as she had seen them when
they left her to return no more.
“So you will go, and I shall see you no more,” she said to him. “The
house grows more empty every day; and when that poor old man, your
grandfather, is gone, too, in whose hands shall I leave those orphan
children? Ah, Mother of Sorrows!”
She clung to him, with her head against his breast, as if her boy were
going to leave her then and there, and stroked his shoulder and his
cheeks with her trembling hands. Then ’Ntoni could resist her no
longer, and began to kiss her and to whisper gently in her ear:
“No, no! I won’t go if you say I must not. Look at me! Don’t talk so,
don’t. Well, I’ll go on working like Cousin Mosca’s ass, that will be
thrown into a ditch to die when he’s too old to work any more. Are you
contented now? Don’t cry, don’t cry any more. Look at my grandfather how
he has struggled all his life, and is struggling still to get out of the
mud, and he will go on so. It is our fate.”
“And do you think that everybody hasn’t troubles of their own? ‘Every
hole has its nail; new or old, they never fail.’ Look at Padron Cipolla
how he has to run here and to watch there, not to have his son Brasi
throwing all the money he has saved and scraped into Vespa’s lap! And
Master Filippo, rich as he is, trembling for his vineyard every time it
rains. And Uncle Crucifix, starving himself to put soldo upon soldo,
and always at law with this one or with that. And do you think those two
foreign sailors that you saw here, and that put all this in your head
with their talk of strange countries, do you think they haven’t their
own troubles too? 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. But then you won’t
want to go, I can tell you; for then you will begin to know what we feel
when we see you so obstinate and so determined to leave us all, even
when we do not speak, but go on in our usual way. Then you will not find
it in your heart to leave the place where you were born, where the very
stones know you well, where your own dead will lie together under the
marble in the church, which is worn smooth by the knees of those who
have prayed so long before Our Mother of Sorrows.”
’Ntoni, from that day forth, said no more of going away, or of growing
rich; and his mother watched him tenderly, as a bird watches her young,
when she saw him looking sad or sitting silently on the door-step, with
his elbows on his knees. And the poor woman was truly a sad sight to
see, so pale was she, so thin and worn; and when her work was over
she too sat down, with folded hands, and her back bent as badly as
her father-in-law’s. But she knew not that she herself was going for
a journey--that journey which leads to the long rest below the smooth
marble in the church--and that she must leave behind her all those she
loved so well, who had so grown into her heart that they had worn it all
away, piece by piece, now one and now another.
At Catania there was the cholera, and everybody that could manage it ran
away into the country here and there among the villages and towns in the
neighborhood. And at Ognino, and at Trezza, too, these strangers, who
spent so much money, were a real providence. But the merchants pulled a
long face, and said that it was almost impossible to sell even a dozen
barrels of anchovies, and that all the money had disappeared on account
of the cholera. “And don’t people eat anchovies any more?” asked
Goosefoot. But to Padron ’Ntoni, who had them to sell, they said that
now there was the cholera, people were afraid to eat anchovies, and all
that kind of stuff, but must eat macaroni and meat; and so it was best
to let things go at the best price one could get. That hadn’t been
counted in the Malavoglia’s reckoning. Hence, not to go backward, crab
fashion, needs must that La Longa should go about from house to house
among the foreigners, selling eggs and fresh bread, and so on, while
the men were out at sea, and so put together a little money. But it
was needful to be very careful, and not take even so much as a pinch of
snuff from a person one did not know. Walking on the road, one must go
exactly in the middle--as far away as possible from the walls, where one
ran the risk of coming across all sorts of horrors; and one must never
sit down on the stones or on the wall. La Longa, once, coming back from
Aci Gastello, with her basket on her arm, felt so tired that her legs
were like lead under her, and she could hardly move, so she yielded
to temptation, and rested a few minutes on the smooth stones under the
shade of the fig-tree, just by the shrine at the entrance of the town;
and she remembered afterwards, though she did not notice it at the time,
that a person unknown to her--a poor man, who seemed also very weary and
ill--had been sitting there a moment before she came up. In short, she
fell ill, took the cholera, and returned home pale and tottering, as
yellow as a gilded heart among the votive offerings, and with deep black
lines under her eyes; so that when Mena, who was alone at home, saw her,
she began to cry, and Lia ran off to gather rosemary and marshmallow
leaves. Mena trembled like a leaf while she was making up the bed, and
the sick woman, sitting on a chair, with pallid face and sunken eyes,
kept on saying, “It is nothing, don’t be frightened; as soon as I have
got into bed it will pass off,” and tried to help them herself; but
every minute she grew faint, and had to sit down again. “Holy Virgin!”
stammered Mena. “Holy Virgin, and the men out at sea! Holy Virgin, help
us!” and Lia cried with all her might.
When Padron ’Ntoni came back with his grandsons, and they saw the
door half shut, and the light inside the shutters, they tore their hair.
Maruzza was already in bed, and her eyes, seen in that way in the dusk,
looked hollow and dim, as if death had already dimmed their light;
and her lips were black as charcoal. At that time neither doctor nor
apothecary went out after sunset, and even the neighbors barred their
doors, and stuck pictures of saints over all the cracks, for fear of the
cholera. So Cousin Maruzza had no help except from her own poor people,
who rushed about the house as if they had been crazy, watching her
fading away before their eyes, in her bed, and beat their heads against
the wall in their despair. Then La Longa, seeing that all hope was gone,
begged them to lay upon her breast the lock of cotton dipped in holy oil
which she had bought at Easter, and said that they must keep the light
burning, as they had done when Padron ’Ntoni had been so ill that they
thought him dying, and wanted them all to stay beside her bed, that she
might look at them until the last moment with those wide eyes that no
longer seemed to see. Lia cried in a heart-breaking way, and the others,
white as the wall, looked in each other’s faces, as if asking for help,
where no help was; and held their hands tight over their breasts, that
they might not break out into loud wailing before the dying woman, who,
none the less, knew all that they felt, though by this time she saw them
no longer, and even at the last felt the pain of leaving them behind.
She called them one by one by name, in a weak and broken voice, and
tried to lift her hand to bless them, knowing that she was leaving them
a treasure beyond price.
“’Ntoni,” she repeated, “’Ntoni, to you, who are the eldest, I leave
these orphans!” And hearing her speak thus while she was still alive,
they could not help bursting out into cries and sobs.
So they passed the night beside the bed, where Maruzza now lay without
moving, until the candle burned down in the socket and went out. And the
dawn came in through the window, pale like the corpse, which lay with
features sharpened like a knife, and black, parched lips. But Mena never
wearied of kissing those cold lips, and speaking as if the dead could
hear. ’Ntoni beat his breast and cried, “O mother! O mother! and you
have gone before me, and I wanted to leave you!” And Alessio never will
forget that last look of his mother, with her white hair and pinched
features; no, not even when his hair has grown as white as hers.
At dusk they came to take La Longa in a hurry, and no one thought of
making any visits; for every one feared for their life. And even Don
Giammaria came no farther than the threshold, whence he dispensed the
holy water, holding his tunic about his knees tight, lest it should
touch anything in the house--“Like a selfish monk as he was,” said the
apothecary. He, on the contrary, had they brought him a prescription
from the doctor, would have given it them, would even have opened the
shop at night for the purpose, for he was not afraid of the cholera;
and said, besides, that it was all stuff and nonsense to say that the
cholera could be thrown about the streets or behind the doors.
“A sign that he spreads the cholera himself,” whispered the priest. For
that reason the people of the place wanted to kill the apothecary;
but he laughed at them, with the cackling laugh he had learned of Don
Silvestro, saying, “Kill me! I’m a republican! If it were one of those
fellows in the Government, now, I might find some use in doing it, but
what good would it do me to spread the cholera?” But the Malavoglia were
left alone with the bed whence the mother had been carried away.
For some time they did not open the door after La Longa had been taken
away. It was a blessing that they had plenty to eat in the house--beans
and oil--and charcoal too, for Padron ’Ntoni, like the ants, had made
his provision in time of plenty; else they might have died of hunger,
for no one came to see whether they were alive or dead. Then, little by
little, they began to put their black neckerchiefs on and to go out into
the street, like snails after a storm, still pale and dazed-looking. The
gossips, remaining aloof, called out to them to ask how it had happened;
for Cousin Maruzza had been one of the first to go. And when Don
Michele, or some other personage who took the King’s pay, and wore a
gold-bordered cap, came their way, they looked at him with scared eyes,
and ran into the house. There was great misery, and no one was seen in
the street, not even a hen; and Don Cirino was never seen anywhere, and
had left off ringing at noon and at the Ave Maria, for he too ate the
bread of the commune, and had five francs a month as parish beadle, and
feared for his life, for was not he a Government official? And now Don
Michele was lord of the whole place, for Pizzuti and Don Silvestro and
the rest hid in their burrows like rabbits, and only he walked up and
down before the Zuppidda’s closed door. It was a pity that nobody saw
him except the Malavoglia, who had no longer anything to lose, and so
sat watching whoever passed by, sitting on the door-step, with their
elbows on their knees. Don Michele, not to take his walk for nothing,
looked at Sant’Agata, now that all the other doors were shut; and did it
all the more to show that great hulking ’Ntoni that he wasn’t afraid
of anybody, not he. And besides, Mena, pale as she was, looked a real
Sant’Agata; and the little sister, with her black neckerchief, was
growing up a very pretty girl.
It seemed to poor Mena that twenty years had fallen suddenly on her
shoulders. She watched Lia now, as La Longa had watched her, and kept
her always close at her side, and had all the cares of the house on her
mind. She had grown into a habit of remaining alone in the house with
her sister while the men were at sea, looking from time to time at that
empty bed. When she had nothing to do she sat, with her hands in her
lap, looking at the empty bed, and then she felt, indeed, that her
mother had left her; and when she heard them say in the street such an
one is dead, or such another, she thought so they heard “La Longa is
dead”--La Longa, who had left her alone with that poor little orphan,
with her black neckerchief.
Nunziata or their Cousin Anna came now and then, stepping softly, and
with sad looks, and saying nothing, would sit down with her on the
door-step, with hands under their aprons. The men coming back from the
fishing stepped quickly along, looking carefully from side to side, with
the nets on their shoulders. And no one stopped anywhere, not even the
carts at the tavern.
Who could tell where Cousin Alfio’s cart was now? or if at this moment
he might not lie dying of cholera behind a hedge, that poor fellow, who
had no one belonging to him. Sometimes Goosefoot passed, looking half
starved, glanced about him, as if he were afraid of his shadow; or Uncle
Crucifix, whose riches were scattered here and there, and who went to
see if his debtors were likely to die and to cheat him out of his money.
The sacrament went by, too, quickly, in the hands of Don Giammaria, with
his tunic fastened up, and a barefooted boy ringing the bell before
him, for Don Cirino was nowhere to be seen. That bell, in the deserted
streets, where no one passed, not a dog, and even Don Franco kept his
door half shut, was heart-rending. The only person to be seen, day or
night, was La Locca, with her tangled white hair, who went to sit before
the house by the medlar-tree, or watched for the boats on the shore. Even
the cholera would have none of her, poor old thing.
The strangers had flown as birds do at the approach of winter, and no
one came to buy the fish. So that every one said, “After the cholera
comes the famine.” Padron ’Ntoni had once more to dip into the money
put away for the house, and day by day it melted before his eyes. But he
thought of nothing, save that Maruzza had died away from her own house;
he could not get that out of his head. ’Ntoni, too, shook his head
every time it was necessary to use up the money. Finally, when the
cholera was at an end, and there only remained about half of the money
put together with such pains and trouble, he began to complain that such
a life as that he could not bear--eternally saving and sparing, and then
having to spend for bare life; that it was better to risk something,
once for all, to get out of this eternal worry, and that there, at
least, where his mother had died in the midst of that hideous misery, he
would stay no longer.
“Don’t you remember that your mother recommended Mena to you?” said
Padron ’Ntoni.
“What good can I do to Mena by staying here?--tell me that.”
Mena looked at him timidly, but with eyes like her mother’s, where one
could read her heart, but she dared not speak. Only once, clinging to
the jamb of the door, she found courage to say: “I don’t ask for help,
if only you’ll stay with us. Now that I haven’t my mother, I feel like
a fish out of water; I don’t care about anything. But I can’t bear the
idea of that orphan, Lia, who will be left without anybody if you go
away; like Nunziata when her father left her.”
“No,” said ’Ntoni, “no, I can do nothing for you if I stay here; the
proverb says ‘Help yourself and you’ll be helped.’ When I have made
something worth while I’ll come back, and we’ll all be happy together.”
Lia and Alessio opened their large round eyes, and seemed quite dazzled
by this prospect, but the old man let his head fall on his breast. “Now
you have neither father nor mother, and can do as it seems best to you,”
he said at last. “While I live I will care for these children, and when
I die the Lord must do the rest.”
Mena, seeing that ’Ntoni would go, whether or not, put his clothes in
order, as his mother would have done, and thought how “over there,” in
strange lands, her brother would be like Alfio Mosca, with no one to
look after him. And while she sewed at his shirts, and pieced his coats,
her head ran upon days gone by, and she thought of all that had passed
away with them with a swelling heart.
“I cannot pass the house by the medlar now,” she said, as she sat by her
grandfather; “I feel such a lump in my throat that I am almost choking,
thinking of all that has happened since we left it.”
And while she was preparing for her brother’s departure she wept as if
she were to see him no more. At last, when everything was ready, the
grandpapa called his boy to give him a last solemn sermon, and much good
advice as to what he was to do when he was alone and dependent only
on his own discretion, without his family about him to consult or to
condole with him if things, went wrong; and gave him some money too, in
case of need, and his own pouch lined with leather, since now he was old
he should not need it any more.
The children, seeing their brother preparing for departure, followed him
silently about the house, hardly daring to speak to him, feeling as if
he had already become a stranger.
“Just so my father went away,” said Nunziata, who had come to say
good-bye to ’Ntoni, and stood with the others at the door. After that
no one spoke.
The neighbors came one by one to take leave of Cousin ’Ntoni, and
then stood waiting in the street to see him start. He lingered, with
his bundle on his shoulder and his shoes in his hand, as if at the
last moment his heart had failed him. He looked about him as if to fix
everything in his memory, and his face was as deeply moved as any there.
His grandfather took his stick to accompany him to the city, and Mena
went off into a corner, where she cried silently.
“Come, come, now,” said ’Ntoni. “I’m not going away forever. We’ll say
I’m going for a soldier again.” Then, after kissing Mena and Lia, and
taking leave of the gossips, he started to go, and Mena ran after him.
with open arms, weeping aloud, and crying out, “What will mamma say?
What will mamma say?” as if her mother were alive and could know what
was taking place. But she only said the thing which dwelt most strongly
in her memory when ’Ntoni had spoken of going away before; and she
had seen her mother weep, and used to find her pillow in the morning wet
with tears.
“Adieu, ’Ntoni!” Alessio called after him, taking courage now he was
gone, and Lia began to scream.
“Just so my father went,” said Nunziata, who had stayed behind the
others at the door.
’Ntoni turned at the corner of the black street, with his eyes full of
tears, and waved his hand to them in token of farewell. Mena then closed
the door and went to sit down in a corner with Lia, who continued to sob
and cry aloud. “Now another one is gone away from the house,” she
repeated. “If we had been in the house by the medlar it would seem as
empty as a church.”
Mena, seeing her dear ones go away, one after the other, felt, indeed,
like a fish out of water. And Nunziata, lingering there beside her, with
the little one in her arms, still went on saying, “Just so my father
went away, just so!”