|Ntoni Malavoglia did meet Don Michele, and “gave him his change,” and a
very ugly business it was. It was by night, when it rained in torrents,
and so dark that even a cat could have seen nothing at the turn on the
down which leads to the Rotolo, whence those boats put out so quietly,
making believe to be fishing for cod at midnight, and where ’Ntoni and
Rocco Spatu, and Cinghialenta and other good-for-nothing fellows
well known to the coast-guard, used to hang about with pipes in their
mouths--the guards knew those pipes well, and could distinguish them
perfectly one from another as they moved about among the rocks where
they lay hidden with their guns in their hands.
“Cousin Mena,” said Don Michele, passing once more down the black
street--“Cousin Mena, tell your brother not to go to the Rotolo of
nights with Cinghialenta and Rocco Spatu.”
But ’Ntoni would not listen, for “the empty stomach has no ears”; and
he no longer feared Don Michele since he had rolled over with him hand
to hand on the floor of the tavern, and he had sworn, too, to “give him
the rest of it,” and he would give him the rest of it whenever he met
him; and he wasn’t going to pass for a coward in the eyes of Santuzza
and the rest who had been present when he threatened him. “I said I’d
give him the rest when I met him next, and so I will; and if he chooses
to meet me at the Rotolo, I’ll meet him at the Rotolo!” he repeated to
his companions, who had also brought with them the son of La Locca. They
had passed the evening at the tavern drinking and roaring, for a tavern
is like a free port, and no one can be sent out of it as long as they
have money to pay their score and to rattle in their pockets. Don
Michele had gone by on his rounds, but Rocco Spatu, who knew the law,
said, spitting and leaning against the wall the better to balance
himself, that as long as the lamp at the door was lighted they could not
turn them out. “We have a right to stay so long!” he repeated. ’Ntoni
Malavoglia also enjoyed keeping Santuzza from going to bed, as she sat
behind her glasses yawning and dozing. In the mean time Uncle Santoro,
feeling his way about with his hands, had put the lamp out and shut the
door.
“Now be off!” said Santuzza, “I don’t choose to be fined, for your sake,
for keeping my door open at this hour.”
“Who’ll fine you? That spy Don Michele? Let him come here, and I’ll
pay him his fine! Tell him he’ll find ’Ntoni Malavoglia here, by Our
Lady’s blood.”
Meanwhile the Santuzza had taken him by the shoulders and put him out
of the door: “Go and tell him yourself, and get into scrapes somewhere
else. I don’t mean to get into trouble with the police for love of your
bright eyes.”
’Ntoni, finding himself in the street in this unceremonious fashion,
pulled out a long knife, and swore that he would stab both Santuzza and
Don Michele. Cinghialenta was the only one who had his senses, and
he pulled him by the coat, saying: “Leave them alone now! Have you
forgotten what we have to do to-night?”
La Locca’s son felt greatly inclined to cry.
“He’s drunk,” observed Spatu, standing under the rain-pipe. “Bring him
here under the pipe; it will do him good.”
’Ntoni, quieted a little by the drenching he got from the rain-pipe,
let himself be drawn along by Cinghialenta, scolding all the while,
swearing that as sure as he met Don Michele he’d give him what he had
promised him. All of a sudden he found himself face to face with Don
Michele who was also prowling in the vicinity, with his pistols at his
belt and his trousers thrust into his boots. ’Ntoni became quite calm
all of a sudden, and they all stole off silently in the direction of
Vanni Pizzuti’s shop. When they reached the door, now that Don Michele
was no longer near them, ’Ntoni insisted that they should stop and
listen to what he had to say.
“Did you see where Don Michele was going? and Santuzza said she was
sleepy!”
“Leave Don Michele alone, can’t you?” said Cin-ghialenta; “that way he
won’t interfere with us.”
“You’re all a lot of cowards,” said ’Ntoni.
“You’re afraid of Don Michele.”
“To-night you’re drunk,” said Cinghialenta, “but I’ll show you whether
I’m afraid of Don Michele. Now that I’ve told my uncle, I don’t mean
to have anybody coming bothering after me, finding out how I earn my
bread.”
Then they began to talk under their breath, drawn up against the wall,
while the noise of the rain drowned their voices. Suddenly the clock
struck, and they all stood silent, counting the strokes.
“Let’s go into Cousin Pizzuti’s,” said Cinghialenta. “He can keep his
door open as late as he likes, and doesn’t need to have a light.”
“It’s dark, I can’t see,” said La Locca’s son.
“We ought to take something to drink,” said Rocco Spatu, “or we shall
break our noses on the rocks.”
Cinghialenta growled: “As if we were just out for our pleasure! Now
you’ll be wanting Master Vanni to give you a lemonade.”
“I have no need of lemonade,” said ’Ntoni. “You’ll see when I get to
work if I can’t manage as well as any of you.”
Cousin Pizzuti didn’t want to open the door at that hour, and replied
that he had gone to bed; but as they wouldn’t leave off knocking, and
threatened to wake up the whole place and bring the guards into the
affair, he consented to get up, and opened the door, in his drawers.
“Are you mad, to knock in that way?” he exclaimed. “I saw Don Michele
pass just now.”
“Yes; we saw him too.”
“Do you know where he came from?” asked Pizzuti, looking sharply at him.
’Ntoni shrugged his shoulders; and Vanni, as he stood out of the way
to let them pass, winked to Rocco and Cinghialenta. “He’s been at the
Malavoglia’s,” he whispered. “I saw him come out.”
“Much good may it do him!” answered Cinghialenta; “but ’Ntoni ought to
tell his sister to keep him when we have anything to do.”
“What do you want of me?” said ’Ntoni, thickly.
“Nothing to-night. Never mind. To-night we can do nothing.”
“If we can do nothing to-night, why did you bring me away from the
tavern?” said Rocco Spatu. “I’m wet through.”
“It was something else that we were speaking of;” and Vanni continued:
“Yes, the man has come from town, and he says the goods are there, but
it will be no joke trying to land them in such weather as this.”
“So much the better; no one will be looking out for us.”
“Yes, but the guards have sharp ears, and mind you, it seems to me that
I heard some one prowling about just now, and trying to look into the
shop.”
A moment’s silence ensued, and Vanni, to put an end to it, brought out
three glasses and filled them with bitters.
“I don’t care about the guard!” cried Rocco Spatu, after he had drunk.
“So much the worse for them if they meddle in my business. I’ve got a
little knife here that is better than all their pistols, and makes no
noise, either.”
“We earn our bread the best way we can,” said Cinghialenta, “and don’t
want to do anybody harm. Isn’t one to get one’s goods on shore where one
likes?”
“They go swaggering about, a lot of thieves, making us pay double for
every handkerchief that we want to land, and nobody shoots them,” added
’Ntoni Malavoglia. “Do you know what Don Giammaria said? That to rob
thieves was not stealing. And the worst of thieves are those fellows in
uniform, who eat us up alive.”
“I’ll mash them into pulp!” concluded Rocco Spatu, with his eyes shining
like a cat’s.
But this conversation did not please La Locca’s son at all, and he set
his glass down again without drinking, white as a corpse.
“Are you drunk already?” asked Cinghialenta.
“No,” he replied, “I did not drink.”
“Come into the open air; it will do us all good. Good-night.”
“One moment,” cried Pizzuti, with the door in his hand. “I don’t mean
for the money for the bitters; that I have given you freely, because
you are my friends; but listen, between ourselves, eh? If you are
successful, mind, I am here, and my house. You know I’ve a room at the
back, big enough to hold a ship-load of goods, and nobody likely to
think of it, for Don Michele and his guards are hand-and-glove with me.
I don’t trust Cousin Goosefoot; the last time he threw me over, and put
everything into Don Silvestro’s house. Don Silvestro is never contented
with a reasonable profit, but asks an awful price, on the ground that
he risks his place; but I have no such motive, and I ask no more than
is reasonable. And I never refused Goosefoot his percentage, either, and
give him his drinks free, and shave him for nothing. But, the devil take
him! if he plays me such a trick again I’ll show him that I am not to be
fooled in that way. I’ll go to Don Michele and blow the whole business.”
“How it rains!” said Spatu. “Isn’t it going to leave off to-night?”
“With this weather there’ll be no one at the Rotolo,” said La Locca’s
son. “Wouldn’t it be better to go home?”
’Ntoni, Rocco, and Cinghialenta, who stood on the door-step listening
in silence to the rain, which hissed like fish in the frying-pan,
stopped a moment, looking into the darkness.
“Be still, you fool!” cried Cinghialenta, and Vanni Pizzuti closed the
door softly, after adding, in an undertone:
“Listen. If anything happens, you did not see me this evening. The
bitters I gave you out of good-will, but you haven’t been in my house.
Don’t betray me; I am alone in the world.”
The others went off surlily, close to the wall, in the rain. “And that
one, too!” muttered Cinghialenta. “And he’s to get off because he has
nobody in the world, and abuses Goosefoot. At least Goosefoot has a
wife. And I have a wife, too. But the balls are good enough for me.”
Just then they passed, very softly, before Cousin Anna’s closed door,
and Rocco Spatu murmured that he had his mother, too, who was at that
moment fast asleep, luckily for her. “Whoever can stay between the
sheets in this weather isn’t likely to be about, certainly,” concluded
Cousin Cinghialenta.
’Ntoni signed to them to be quiet, and to turn down by the alley, so
as not to pass before his own door, where Mena or his grandfather might
be watching for him, and might hear them.
Mena was, in truth, watching for her brother behind the door, with her
rosary in her hand; and Lia, too, without saying why she was there, but
pale as the dead. And better would it have been for them all if ’Ntoni
had passed by the black street, instead of going round by the alley. Don
Michele had really been there a little after sunset, and had knocked at
the door.
“Who comes at this hour?” said Lia, who was hemming on the sly a certain
silk kerchief which Don Michele had at last succeeded in inducing her to
accept.
“It is I, Don Michele. Open the door; I must speak to you; it is most
important.”
“I can’t open the door. They are all in bed but my sister, who is
watching for my brother ’Ntoni.”
“If your sister does hear you open the door it is no matter. It is
precisely of ’Ntoni I wish to speak, and it is most important. I don’t
want your brother to go to the galleys. But open the door; if they see
me here I shall lose my place.”
“O blessed Virgin!” cried the girl. “O blessed Virgin Mary!”
“Lock him into the house to-night when he comes back. But don’t tell him
I told you to. Tell him he must not go out. He must not!”
“O Virgin Mary! O blessed Mary!” repeated Lia, with folded hands.
“He is at the tavern now, but he must pass this way. Wait for him at the
door, or it will be the worse for him.”
Lia wept silently, lest her sister should hear her, with her face hidden
in her hands, and Don Michele watched her, with his pistols in his belt,
and his trousers thrust into his boots.
“There is no one who weeps for me or watches for me this night, Cousin
Lia, but I, too, am in danger, like your brother; and if any misfortune
should happen to me, think how I came to-night to warn you, and how I
have risked my bread for you more than once.”
Then Lia lifted up her face, and looked at Don Michele with her large
tearful eyes. “God reward you for your charity, Don Michele!”
“I haven’t done it for reward, Cousin Lia; I have done it for you, and
for the love I bear to you.”
“Now go, for they are all asleep. Go, for the love of God, Don Michele!”
And Don Michele went, and she stayed by the door, weeping and praying
that God would send her brother that way. But the Lord did not send him
that way. All four of them--’Ntoni, Cinghialenta, Rocco Spatu, and
the son of La Locca--went softly along the wall of the alley; and when
they came out upon the down they took off their shoes and carried them
in their hands, and stood still to listen.
“I hear nothing,” said Cinghialenta.
The rain continued to fall, and from the top of the cliff nothing could
be heard save the moaning of the sea below.
“One can’t even see to swear,” said Rocco Spatu. “How will they manage
to climb the cliff in this darkness?”
“They all know the coast, foot by foot, with their eyes shut. They are
old hands,” replied Cinghialenta.
“But I hear nothing,” observed ’Ntoni.
“It’s a fact, we can hear nothing,” said Cinghialenta, “but they must
have been there below for some time.”
“Then we had better go home,” said the son of La Locca.
“Since you’ve eaten and drunk, you think of nothing but getting home
again, but if you don’t be quiet I’ll kick you into the sea,” said
Cinghialenta to him.
“The fact is,” said Rocco, “that I find it a bore to spend the night
here doing nothing. Now we will try if they are here or not.” And he
began to hoot like an owl.
“If Don Michele’s guard hears that they will be down on us directly, for
on these wet nights the owls don’t fly.”
“Then we had better go,” whined La Locca’s son, but nobody answered him.
All four looked in each other’s faces though they could see nothing, and
thought of what Padron ’Ntoni’s ’Ntoni had just said.
“What shall we do?” asked La Locca’s son.
“Let’s go down to the road; if they are not there we may be sure they
have not come,” suggested Cinghialenta.
’Ntoni, while they were climbing down, said, “Goosefoot is capable of
selling the lot of us for a glass of wine.”
“Now you haven’t the glass before you, you’re afraid,” said
Cinghialenta.
“Come on! the devil take you! I’ll show whether I’m afraid.”
While they were feeling their way cautiously down, very slowly, for fear
of breaking their necks in the dark, Spatu observed:
“At this moment Vanni Pizzuti is safe in bed, and he complained of
Goosefoot for getting his percentage for nothing.”
“Well,” said Cinghialenta, “if you don’t want to risk your lives, stay
at home and go to bed.”
’Ntoni, reaching down with his hands to feel where he should set his
foot, could not help thinking that Master Cinghialenta would have done
better not to say that, because it brought to each the image of his
house, and his bed, and Mena dozing behind the door. That big tipsy
brute, Rocco Spatu, said at last, “Our lives are not worth a copper.”
“Who goes there?” they heard some one call out, all at once, behind the
wall of the high-road. “Stop! stop! all of you!”
“Treachery! treachery!” they began to cry out, rushing off over the
cliffs without heeding where they went.
But ’Ntoni, who had already climbed over the wall, found himself face
to face with Don Michele, who had his pistol in his hand.
“Blood of Our Lady!” cried Malavoglia, pulling out his knife. “I’ll show
you whether I’m afraid of your pistol!”
Don Michele’s pistol went off in the air, but he himself fell like a
bull, stabbed in the chest. ’Ntoni tried to escape, leaping from rock
to rock like a goat, but the guards caught up with him, while the balls
rattled about like hail, and threw him on the ground.
“Now what will become of my mother?” whined La Locca’s son, while they
tied him up like a trussed chicken.
“Don’t pull so tight!” shouted ’Ntoni. “Don’t you see I can’t move?”
“Go on, go on, Malavoglia; your hash is settled once for all,” they
answered, driving him before them with the butts of their muskets.
While they led him up to the barracks tied up like Our Lord himself, and
worse, and carried Don Michele too, on their shoulders, he looked here
and there for Rocco Spatu and Cinghialenta. “They have got off!” he said
to himself. “They have nothing more to dread, but are as safe as Vanni
Pizzuti and Goosefoot are, between their sheets. Only at my house no one
will sleep, now they have heard the shots.”
In fact, those poor things did not sleep, but stood at the door and
watched in the rain, as if their hearts had told them what had happened;
while the neighbors, hearing the shots, turned sleepily over in their
beds and muttered, yawning, “We shall know to-morrow what has happened.”
Very late when the day was breaking, a crowd gathered in front of
Vanni Pizzuti’s shop, where the light was burning and there was a great
chattering.
“They have caught the smuggled goods and the smugglers too,” recounted
Pizzuti, “and Don Michele has been stabbed.”
People looked at the Malavoglia’s door, and pointed with their fingers.
At last came their cousin Anna, with her hair loose, white as a sheet,
and knew not what to say. Padron ’Ntoni, as if he knew what was
coming, asked, “’Ntoni, where’s ’Ntoni?”
“He’s been caught smuggling; he was arrested last night with La Locca’s
son,” replied poor Cousin Anna, who had fairly lost her head. “And they
have killed Don Michele.”
“Holy Mother!” cried the old man, with his hands to his head; and Lia,
too, was tearing her hair. Padron ’Ntoni, holding his head with both
hands, went on repeating, “Ah, Mother! Ah, Mother, Mother!”
Later on Goosefoot came, with a face full of trouble, smiting his
forehead. “Oh, Padron ’Ntoni, have you heard? What a misfortune! I
felt like a wet rag when I heard it.”
Cousin Grace, his wife, really cried, poor woman, for her heart ached to
see how misfortunes rained upon those poor Malavoglia.
“What are you doing here?” asked her husband, under his breath, drawing
her away from the window. “It is no business of yours. Now it isn’t safe
to come to this house; one might get mixed up in some scrape with the
police.”
For which reason nobody came near the Malavoglia’s door. Only Nunziata,
as soon as she heard of their trouble, had confided the little ones to
their eldest brother, and her house door to her next neighbor, and went
off to her friend Mena to weep with her; but then she was still such a
child! The others stood afar off in the street staring, or went to the
barracks, crowding like flies, to see how Padron ’Ntoni’s ’Ntoni
looked behind the grating, after having stabbed Don Michele; or else
they filled Pizzuti’s shop, where he sold bitters, and was always
shaving somebody, while he told the whole story of the night before,
word for word.
“The fools!” cried the druggist, “the fools, to let themselves be
taken.”
“It will be an ugly business for them,” added Don Silvestro; “the razor
itself couldn’t save them from the galleys.”
And Don Giammaria went up close to him and said under his nose:
“Everybody that ought to be at the galleys doesn’t go there!”
“By no means everybody,” answered Don Silvestro, turning red with fury.
“Nowadays,” said Padron Cipolla, yellow with bile, “the real thieves
rob one of one’s goods at noonday and in the middle of the piazza. They
thrust themselves into one’s house by force, but they break open neither
doors nor windows.”
“Just as ’Ntoni Malavoglia wanted to do in my house,” added La
Zuppidda, sitting down on the wall with her distaff to spin hemp.
“What I always said to you, peace of the angels!” said her husband.
“You hold your tongue, you know nothing about it! Just think what a day
this would have been for my daughter Barbara if I hadn’t looked out for
her!”
Her daughter Barbara stood at the window to see how Padron ’Ntoni’s
’Ntoni looked in the middle of the police when they carried him to
town.
“He’ll never get out,” they all said. “Do you know what there is written
on the prison at Palermo? ‘Do what you will, here you’ll come at last,’
and ‘As you make your bed, you must lie down.’ Poor devils!”
“Good people don’t get into such scrapes,” screamed Vespa. “Evil
comes to those who go to seek it. Look at the people who take to that
trade--always some scamp like La Locca’s son or Malavoglia, who won’t do
any honest work.” And they all said yes, that if any one had such a son
as that it was better that the house should fall on him. Only La Locca
went in search of her son, and stood screaming in front of the barracks
of the guards, saying that she would have him, and not listening to
reason; and when she went off to plague her brother Dumb-bell, and
planted herself on the steps of his house, for hours at a time, with her
white hair streaming in the wind, Uncle Crucifix only answered her: “I
have the galleys at home here! I wish I were in your son’s place! What
do you come to me for? And he didn’t give you bread to eat either.”
“La Locca will gain by it,” said Don Silvestro; “now that she has no one
to work for her, they will take her in at the poor-house, and she will
be well fed every day in the week. If not, she will be left to the
chanty of the commune.”
And as they wound up by saying, “Who sows the wind will reap the
whirlwind,” Padron Fortunato added: “And it is a good thing for Padron
’Ntoni too. Do you think that good-for-nothing grandson of his did not
cost him a lot of money? I know what it is to have a son like that. Now
the King must maintain him.”
But Padron ’Ntoni, instead of thinking of saving those soldi, now
that his grandson was no longer likely to spend them for him, kept
on flinging them after him, with lawyers and notaries and the rest of
it--those soldi which had cost so much labor, and had been destined for
the house by the medlar-tree.
“Now we do not need the house nor anything else,” said he, with a face
as pale as ’Ntoni’s own when they had taken him away to town, with his
hands tied, and under his arm the little bundle of shirts which Mena
had brought to him with so many tears at night when no one saw her.
The whole town went to see him go in the middle of the police. His
grandfather had gone off to the advocate--the one who talked so
much--for since he had seen Don Michele, also, pass by in the carriage
on his way to the hospital, as yellow as a guinea, and with his uniform
unbuttoned, he was frightened, poor old man, and did not stop to find
fault with the lawyer’s chatter as long as he would promise to untie his
grandson’s hands and let him come home again; for it seemed to him that
after this earthquake ’Ntoni would come home again, and stay with them
always, as he had done when he was a child.
Don Silvestro had done him the kindness to go with him to the lawyer,
because, he said, that when such a misfortune as had happened to the
Malavoglia happened to any Christian, one should aid one’s neighbor with
hands, and feet too, even if it were a wretch fit only for the galleys,
and do one’s best to take him out of the hands of justice, for that was
why we were Christians, that we should help our neighbors when they need
it. The advocate, when he had heard the story, and it had been explained
to him by Don Silvestro, said that it was a very good case, “a case for
the galleys certainly”--and he rubbed his hands--“if they hadn’t come to
him.”
Padron ’Ntoni turned as white as a sheet when he heard of the galleys,
but the advocate clapped him on the shoulder and told him not to be
frightened, that he was no lawyer if he couldn’t get him off with four
or five years’ imprisonment.
“What did the advocate say?” asked Mena, as she saw her grandfather
return with that pale face, and began to cry before she could hear the
answer.
The old man walked up and down the house like a madman, saying, “Ah, why
did we not all die first?” Lia, white as her smock, looked from one to
the other with wide dry eyes, unable to speak a word.
A little while after came the summonses as witnesses to Barbara Zuppidda
and Grazia Goosefoot and Don Franco, the druggist, and all those who
were wont to stand chattering in his shop and in that of Vanni Pizzuti,
the barber; so that the whole place was upset by them, and the people
crowded the piazza with the stamped papers in their hands, and swore
that they knew nothing about it, as true as God was in heaven, because
they did not want to get mixed up with the tribunals. Cursed be ’Ntoni
and all the Malavoglia, who pulled them by the hair into their scrapes.
The Zuppidda screamed as if she had been possessed. “I know nothing
about it; at the Ave Maria I shut myself into my house, and I am not
like those who go wandering about after such work as we know of, or who
stand at the doors to talk with spies.”
“Beware of the Government,” added Don Franco. “They know that I am a
republican, and they would be very glad to get a chance to sweep me off
the face of the earth.”
Everybody beat their brains to find out what the Zuppidda and Cousin
Grace and the rest of them could have to say as witnesses on the trial,
for they had seen nothing, and had only heard the shots when they were
in bed, between sleeping and waking. But Don Silvestro rubbed his hands
like the lawyer, and said that he knew because he had pointed them out
to the lawyer, and that it was much better for the lawyer that he had.
Every time that the lawyer went to talk with ’Ntoni Malavoglia Don
Silvestro went with him to the prison if he had nothing else to do; and
nobody went at that time to the Council, and the olives were gathered.
Padron ’Ntoni had also tried to go two or three times, but whenever he
got in front of those barred windows and the soldiers who were on guard
before them, he turned sick and faint, and stayed waiting for them
outside, sitting on the pavement among the people who sold chestnuts
and Indian figs; it did not seem possible to him that his ’Ntoni could
really be there behind those grated windows, with the soldiers guarding
him. The lawyer came back from talking with ’Ntoni, fresh as a rose,
rubbing his hands, and saying that his grandson was quite well, indeed
that he was growing fat. Then it seemed to the poor old man that his
grandson was with the soldiers.
“Why don’t they let him go?” he asked over and over again, like a parrot
or like a child, and kept on asking, too, if his hands were always tied.
“Leave him where he is,” said Doctor Scipione. “In these cases it is
better to let some time pass first. Meanwhile he wants for nothing, as
I told you, and is growing quite fat. Things are going very well. Don
Michele has nearly recovered from his wound, and that also is a very
good thing for us. Go back to your boat, I tell you; this is my affair.”
“But I can’t go back to the boat, now ’Ntoni is in prison--I can’t
go back! Everybody looks at me when I pass, and besides, my head isn’t
right, with ’Ntoni in prison.”
And he went on repeating the same thing, while the money ran away like
water, and all his people stayed in the house as if they were hiding,
and never opened the door.
At last the day of trial arrived, and those who had been summoned
as witnesses had to go--on their own feet if they did not wish to be
carried by force by the carbineers. Even Don Franco went, and changed
his ugly hat, to appear before the majesty of justice to better
advantage, but he was as pale as ’Ntoni Malavoglia himself, who stood
inside the bars like a wild beast, with the carbineers on each side of
him. Don Franco had never before had anything to do with the law, and
he trembled all over at the idea of going into the midst of all those
judges and spies and policemen, who would catch a man and put him in
there behind the bars like ’Ntoni Malavoglia before he could wink.
The whole village had gone out to see what kind of a figure Padron
’Ntoni’s ’Ntoni would make behind the bars in the middle of the
carbineers, yellow as a tallow-candle, not daring to look up for fear
of seeing all those eyes of friends and acquaintances fixed upon him,
turning his cap over and over in his hands while the president, in his
long black robe and with napkin under his chin, went on reading a long
list of the iniquities which he had committed from the paper where they
were written down in black and white. Don Michele was there too, also
looking yellow and ill, sitting in a chair opposite to the “Jews” (as
they would call the jury), who kept on yawning and fanning themselves
with their handkerchiefs. Meanwhile the advocate kept on chatting with
his next neighbor as if the affair were no concern of his.
“This time,” murmured the Zuppidda in the ear of the person next
her, listening to all those awful things that ’Ntoni had done, “he
certainly won’t get off the galleys.”
Santuzza was there too, to say where ’Ntoni had been, and how he had
passed that evening.
“Now I wonder what they’ll ask Santuzza,” murmured the Zuppidda.
“I can’t think how she’ll answer so as not to bring out all her own
villanies.”
“But what is it they want of us?” asked Cousin Grazia.
“They want to know if it is true that Don Michele had an understanding
with Lia, and if ’Ntoni did not stab him because of that; the advocate
told me.”
“Confound you!” whispered the druggist, furiously, “do you all want to
go to the galleys? Don’t you know that before the law you must always
say no, and that we know nothing at all?”
Cousin Venera wrapped herself in her mantle, but went on muttering: “It
is the truth. I saw them with my own eyes, and all the town knows it.”
That morning at the Malavoglia’s house there had been a terrible scene
when the grandfather, seeing the whole place go off to see ’Ntoni
tried, started to go after them.
Lia, with tumbled hair, wild eyes, and her chin trembling like a baby’s,
wanted to go too, and went about the house looking for her mantle
without speaking, but with pale face and trembling hands.
Mena caught her by those hands, saying, pale as death herself, “No! you
must not go--you must not go!” and nothing else. The grandfather added
that they must stay at home and pray to the Madonna; and they wept so
that they were heard all the length of the black street. The poor old
man had hardly reached the town when, hidden at a corner, he saw his
grandson pass among the carbineers, and with trembling limbs went to sit
on the steps of the court-house, where every one passed him going up and
down on his business. Then it came over him that all those people were
going to hear his grandson condemned, and it seemed to him as if he were
leaving him alone in the piazza surrounded by enemies, or out at sea
in a hurricane, and so he, too, amid the crowd, went up the stairs, and
strove, by rising on his tiptoes, to see through the grating and past
the shining bayonets of the carbineers. ’Ntoni, however, he could not
see, surrounded as he was by such a crowd of people; and more than ever
it seemed to the poor old man that his grandson was one of the soldiers.
Meanwhile the advocate talked and talked and talked, until it seemed
that his flood of words ran like the pulley of a well, up and down,
up and down, without ceasing. No, he said; no, it was not true that
’Ntoni Malavoglia had been guilty of all those crimes. The president
had gone about raking up all sorts of stories--that was his business,
and he had nothing to do but to get poor helpless fellows into scrapes.
But, after all, what did the president know about it? Had he been there,
that rainy night, in the pitch darkness, to see what ’Ntoni Malavoglia
was about? “In the poor man’s house he alone is in the wrong, and the
gallows is for the unlucky.” The president went on looking at him calmly
with his eye-glasses, leaning his elbows on his papers. Doctor Scipione
went on asking where were the goods, who had seen the goods that was
what he wanted to know; and since how long had honest men been forbidden
to walk about at whatever hour they liked, especially when they had a
little too much wine in their heads to get rid of.
Padron ’Ntoni nodded his head at this, or said, “Yes, yes,” with tears
in his eyes, and would have liked to hug the advocate, who had called
’Ntoni a blockhead. Suddenly he lifted his head. That was good; what
the lawyer had just said was worth of itself fifty francs. He said that
since they wanted to drive them to the wall, and to prove plain as two
and two make four that they had caught ’Ntoni Malavoglia in the act,
with the knife in his hand, and had brought Don Michele there before
them with his stupid face, well, then, “How are you to prove that it was
’Ntoni Malavoglia who stabbed him? Who knows that it was he? Who can
tell that Don Michele didn’t stab himself on purpose to send ’Ntoni
Malavoglia to the galleys? Do you really want to know the truth?
Smuggled goods had nothing to do with it. Between ’Ntoni Malavoglia
and Don Michele there was an old quarrel--a quarrel about a woman.” And
Padron ’Ntoni nodded again in assent, for didn’t everybody know, and
wasn’t he ready to swear before the crucifix, too, that Don Michele was
furious with jealousy of ’Ntoni since Santuzza had taken a fancy to
him, and then meeting Don Michele by night, and after the boy had been
drinking, too? One knows how it is when one’s eyes are clouded with
drink. The advocate continued:
“You may ask the Zuppidda, and Dame Grazia, and a dozen more witnesses,
if it is not true that Don Michele had an understanding with Lia,
’Ntoni Malavoglia’s sister, and he was always prowling about the black
street in the evening after the girl. They saw him there the very night
on which he was stabbed.”
Padron ’Ntoni heard no more, for his ears began to ring, and at that
moment he caught sight of ’Ntoni, who had sprung up behind the bars,
tearing his cap like a madman, and shaking his head violently, with
flashing eyes, and trying to make himself heard. The by-standers took
the old man out, supposing that he had had a stroke, and the guards
laid him on a bench in the witnesses’ room and threw water in his face.
Later, while they were taking him down-stairs tottering and clinging
to their arms, the crowd came pouring out like a torrent, and they were
heard to say, “They have condemned him to five years in irons.” At that
moment ’Ntoni came out himself, deadly pale, handcuffed, in the midst
of the carbineers.
Cousin Grazia went off home, running, and reached there sooner than the
others, panting with speed, for ill news always comes on wings. Hardly
had she caught sight of Lia, who stood waiting at the door like a soul
in purgatory, than she caught her by both hands, exclaiming: “Wretched
girl! what have you done? They have told the judge that you had an
understanding with Don Michele, and your grandfather had a stroke when
he heard it.” Lia answered not a word any more than if she had not heard
or did not care. She only stared with wide eyes and open mouth. At last
she sank slowly down upon a chair, as if she had lost the use of her
limbs. So she remained for many minutes without motion or speech, while
Cousin Grazia threw water in her face until she began to stammer, “I
can’t stay here! I must go--I must go away!” Her sister followed her
about the room, weeping and trying to catch her by the hands, while she
went on saying to the cupboard and to the chairs, like a mad creature,
“I must go!”
In the evening, when her grandfather was brought home on a cart, and
Mena, careless now whether she were seen or not, went out to meet him,
Lia went first into the court and then into the street, and then went
away altogether, and nobody ever saw her any more.