_TURLENDANA DRUNK_
The last glass had been drunk, and two o’clock in the morning was about
to strike from the tower clock of the City Hall.
Said Biagio Quaglia, his voice thick with wine, as the strokes sounded
through the silence of the night filled with clear moonlight:
“Well! Isn’t it about time for us to go?”
Ciavola, stretched half under the bench, moved his long runner’s legs
from time to time, mumbling about clandestine hunts-in the forbidden
grounds of the Marquis of Pescara, as the taste of wild hare came up in
his throat, and the wind brought to his nostrils the resinous odour of
the pines of the sea grove.
Said Biagio Quaglia, giving the blond hunter a kick, and making a
motion to rise:
“Let us go.”
Ciavola with an effort rose, swaying uncertainly, thin and slender like
a hunting hound.
“Let us go, as they are pursuing us,” he answered, raising his hand
high in a motion of assent, thinking perhaps of the passage of birds
through the air.
Turlendana also moved, and seeing behind him the wine woman,
Zarricante, with her flushed raw cheeks and her protruding chest, he
tried to embrace her. But Zarricante fled from his embrace, hurling at
him words of abuse.
On the doorsill, Turlendana asked his friends for their company and
support through a part of the road. But Biagio Quaglia and Ciavola, who
were indeed a fine pair, turned their backs on him jestingly, and went
away in the luminous moonlight.
Then Turlendana stopped to look at the moon, which was round and red
as the face of a friar. Everything around was silent and the rows of
houses reflected the white light of the moon. A cat was mewing this May
night upon a door step. The man, in his intoxicated state, feeling a
peculiarly tender inclination, put out his hand slowly and uncertainly
to caress the animal, but the beast, being somewhat wild, took a jump
and disappeared.
Seeing a stray dog approaching, he attempted to pour out upon it the
wealth of his loving impulses; the dog, however, paid no attention to
his calls, and disappeared around the corner of a cross street, gnawing
a bone. The noise of his teeth could be heard plainly through the
silence of the night.
Soon after, the door of the inn was closed and Turlendana was
left-standing alone under the full moon, obscured by the shadows of
rolling clouds. His attention was struck by the rapid moving of all
surrounding objects. Everything fled away from him. What had he done
that they should fly away?
With unsteady steps, he moved towards the river. The thought of that
universal flight as he moved along, occupied profoundly his brain,
changed as it was by the fumes of the wine. He met two other street
dogs, and as an experiment, approached them, but they too slunk away
with their tails between their legs, keeping close to the wall and when
they had gone some little distance, they began to bark. Suddenly, from
every direction, from Bagno da Sant’ Agostino, from Arsenale, from
Pescheria, from all the lurid and obscure places around, the roving
dogs ran up, as though in answer to a trumpet call to battle and the
aggressive chorus of the famishing tribe ascended to the moon.
Turlendana was stupefied, while a sort of vague uneasiness awoke in his
soul and he went on his way a little more quickly, stumbling over the
rough places in the ground. When he reached the corner of the coopers,
where the large barrels of Zazetta were piled in whitish heaps like
monuments, he heard the heavy, regular breathing of a beast. As the
impression of the hostility of all beasts had taken a hold on him, with
the obstinacy of a drunken man, he moved in the direction of the sound,
that he might make another experiment.
Within a low barn the three old horses of Michelangelo were breathing
with difficulty above their manger. They were decrepit beasts who had
worn out their lives dragging through the road of Chieti, twice every
day, a huge stage-coach filled with merchants and merchandise. Under
their brown hair, worn off in places by the rubbing of the harness,
their ribs protruded like so many dried shingles through a ruined
roof. Their front legs were so bent that their knees were scarcely
perceptible, their backs were ragged like the teeth of a saw, and their
skinny necks, upon which scarcely a vestige of mane was left, drooped
towards the ground.
A wooden railing inside barred the door.
Turlendana began encouragingly:
“Ush, ush, ush! Ush, ush, ush!”
The horses did not move, but breathed together in a human way. The
outlines of their bodies appeared dim and confused through the bluish
shadow within the barn, and the exhalations of their breath blent with
that of the manure.
“Ush, ush, ush!” pursued Turlendana in a lamenting tone, as when he
used to urge Barbara to drink. Again the horses did not stir, and
again:
“Ush, ush, ush! Ush, ush, ush!” One of the horses turned and placed his
big deformed head upon the railing, looking with eyes which seemed in
the moonlight as though filled with troubled water. The lower skin of
the jaw hung flaccid, disclosing the gums. At every breath the nostrils
palpitated, emitting moist breath, the nostrils closing at times, and
opening again to give forth a little cloud of air bubbles like yeast in
a state of fermentation.
At the sight of that senile head, the drunken man came to his senses.
Why had he filled himself with wine, he, usually so sober? For a
moment, in the midst of his forgetful drowsiness, the shape of his
dying camel reappeared before his eyes, lying on the ground with his
long inert neck stretched out on the straw, his whole body shaken from
time to time by coughing, while with every moan the bloated stomach
produced a sound such as issues from a barrel half filled with water.
A wave of pity and compassion swept over the man, as before him rose
this vision of the agony of the camel, shaken by strange, hoarse sobs
which brought forth a moan from the enormous dying carcass, the painful
movements of the neck, rising for an instant to fall back again heavily
upon the straw with a deep, indistinct sound, the legs moving as if
trying to run, the tense tremor of the ears, and the fixity of the
eyeballs, from which the sight seemed to have departed before the rest
of the faculties. All this suffering came back clearly to his memory,
vivid in its almost human misery.
He leaned against the railing and opened his mouth mechanically to
again speak to Michelangelo’s horse:
“Ush, ush, ush! Ush, ush, ush!” Then Michelangelo, who from his bed had
heard the disturbance, jumped to the window above and began to swear
violently at the troublesome disturber of his night’s rest.
“You damned rascal! Go and drown yourself in the Pescara River! Go away
from here. Go, or I will get a gun! You rascal, to come and wake up
sleeping people! You drunkard, go on; go away!”
Turlendana, staggering, started again towards the river. When at the
cross-roads by the fruit market, he saw a group of dogs in a loving
assembly. As the man approached, the group of canines dispersed,
running towards Bagno. From the alley of Gesidio came out another horde
of dogs, who set off in the direction of Bastioni.
All of the country of Pescara, bathed in the sweet light of the full
moon of the springtime, was the scene of the fights of amorous canines.
The mastiff of Madrigale, chained to watch over a slaughtered ox,
occasionally made his deep voice heard, and was answered by a chorus of
other voices. Occasionally a solitary dog would pass on the run to the
scene of a fight. From within the houses, the howls of the imprisoned
dogs could be heard.
Now a still stranger trouble took hold upon the brain of the drunken
man. In front of him, behind him, around him, the imaginary flight
of things began to take place again more rapidly than before. He
moved forward, and everything moved away from him, the clouds, the
trees, the stones, the river banks, the poles of the boats, the very
houses,—all retreated at his approach. This evident repulsion and
universal reprobation filled him with terror. He halted. His spirit
grew depressed. Through his disordered brain a sudden thought ran.
“The fox!” Even that fox of a Ciavola did not wish to remain with him
longer! His terror increased. His limbs trembled violently. However,
impelled by this thought, he descended among the tender willow trees
and the high grass of the shore.
The bright moon scattered over all things a snowy serenity. The trees
bent peacefully over the bank, as though contemplating the running
water. Almost it seemed as though a soft, melancholy breath emanated
from the somnolence of the river beneath the moon. The croaking of
frogs sounded clearly. Turlendana crouched among the plants, almost
hidden. His hands trembled on his knees. Suddenly he felt something
alive and moving under him; a frog! He uttered a cry. He rose and began
to run, staggering, amongst the willow trees impeding his way. In his
uneasiness of spirit, he felt terrified as though by some supernatural
occurrence.
Stumbling over a rough place in the ground, he fell on his stomach,
his face pressed into the grass. He got up with much difficulty, and
stood looking around him at the trees. The silvery silhouette of the
poplars rose motionless through the silent air, making their tops seem
unusually tall. The shores of the river would vanish endlessly, as if
they were something unreal, like shadows of things seen in dreams. Upon
the right side, the rocks shone resplendently, like crystals of salt,
shadowed at times by the moving clouds passing softly overhead like
azure veils. Further on the wood broke the horizon line. The scent of
the wood and the soft breath of the sea were blended.
“Oh, Turlendana! Ooooh!” a clear voice cried out.
Turlendana turned in amazement.
“Oh, Turlendana, Turlendanaaaaa!”
It was Binchi-Banche, who came up, accompanied by a customs officer,
through the path used by the sailors through the willow-tree thicket.
“Where are you going at this time of night? To weep over your camel?”
asked Binchi-Banche as he approached.
Turlendana did not answer at once. He was grasping his trousers
with one hand; his knees were bent forward and his face wore a
strange expression of stupidity, while he stammered so pitifully
that Binchi-Banche and the customs officer broke out into boisterous
laughter.
“Go on! Go on!” exclaimed the wrinkled little man, grasping the drunken
man by the shoulders and pushing him towards the seashore. Turlendana
moved forward. Binchi-Banche and the customs officer followed him at a
little distance, laughing and speaking in low voices.
He reached the place where the verdure terminated and the sand began.
The grumbling of the sea at the mouth of the Pescara could be heard. On
a level stretch of sand, stretched out between the dunes, Turlendana
ran against the corpse of Barbara, which had not yet been buried. The
large body was skinned and bleeding, the plump parts of the back, which
were uncovered, appeared of a yellowish colour; upon his legs the skin
was still hanging with all the hair; there were two enormous callous
spots; within his mouth his angular teeth were visible, curving over
the upper jaw and the white tongue; for some unknown reason the under
lip was cut, while the neck resembled the body of a serpent.
At the appearance of this ghastly sight, Turlendana burst into tears,
shaking his head, and moaning in a strange unhuman way:
“Oho! Oho! Oho!”
In the act of lying down upon the camel, he fell. He attempted to
rise, but the stupor caused by the wine overcame him, and he lost
consciousness.
Seeing Turlendana fall, Binchi-Banche and the customs officer came over
to him. Taking him, one by the head and the other by the feet, they
lifted him up and laid him full length upon the body of Barbara, in the
position of a loving embrace. Laughing at their deed, they departed.
And thus Turlendana lay upon the camel until the sun rose.
V
_THE GOLD PIECES_
Passacantando entered, rattling the hanging glass doors violently,
roughly shook the rain-drops from his shoulders, took his pipe from his
mouth, and with disdainful unconcern looked around the room.
In the tavern the smoke of the tobacco was like a bluish cloud, through
which one could discern the faces of those who were drinking: women of
bad repute; Pachio, the invalided soldier, whose right eye, affected
with some repulsive disease, was covered by a greasy greenish band;
Binchi-Banche, the domestic of the customs officers, a small, sturdy
man with a surly, yellow-hued face like a lemon without juice, with
a bent back and his thin legs thrust into boots which reached to his
knees; Magnasangue, the go-between of the soldiers, the friend of
comedians, of jugglers, of mountebanks, of fortune-tellers, of tamers
of bears,—of all that ravenous and rapacious rabble which passes
through the towns to snatch from the idle and curious people a few
pennies.
Then, too, there were the belles of the Fiorentino Hall, three or four
women faded from dissipation, their cheeks painted brick colour, their
eyes voluptuous, their mouths flaccid and almost bluish in colour like
over-ripe figs.
Passacantando crossed the room, and seated himself between the women
Pica and Peppuccia on a bench against the wall, which was covered with
indecent figures and writing. He was a slender young fellow, rather
effeminate, with a very pale face from which protruded a nose thick,
rapacious, bent greatly to one side; his ears sprang from his head
like two inflated paper bags, one larger than the other; his curved,
protruding lips were very red, and always had a small ball of whitish
saliva at the corners. Over his carefully combed hair he wore a soft
cap, flattened through long use. A tuft of his hair, turned up like
a hook, curled down over his forehead to the roots of his nose, while
another curled over his temple. A certain licentiousness was expressed
in every gesture, every move, and in the tones of his voice and his
glances.
“Ohe,” he cried, “Woman Africana, a goblet of wine!” beating the table
with his clay pipe, which broke from the force of the blow.
The woman Africana, the mistress of the inn, left the bar and came
forward towards the table, waddling because of her extreme corpulence,
and placed in front of Passacantando a glass filled to the brim
with wine. She looked at him as she did so with eyes full of loving
entreaty.
Passacantando suddenly flung his arm around the neck of Peppuccia,
forced her to drink from the goblet, and then thrust his lips against
hers. Peppuccia laughed, disentangling herself from the arms of
Passacantando, her laughter causing the unswallowed wine to spurt from
her mouth into his face.
The woman Africana grew livid. She withdrew behind the bar, where the
sharp words of Peppuccia and Pica reached her ears. The glass door
opened, and Fiorentino appeared on the threshold, all bundled up in a
cloak, like the villain of a cheap novel.
“Well, girls,” he cried out in a hoarse voice, “it is time for you to
go.” Peppuccia, Pica, and the others rose from their seats beside the
men and followed their master.
It was raining hard, and the Square of Bagno was transformed into a
muddy lake. Pachio, Magnasangue, and the others left one after another
until only Binche-Banche, stretched under the table in the stupor of
intoxication, remained. The smoke in the room gradually grew less,
while a half-plucked dove pecked from the floor the scattered crumbs.
As Passacantando was about to rise, Africana moved slowly towards
him, her unshapely figure undulating as she walked, her full-moon face
wrinkled into a grotesque and affectionate grimace. Upon her face were
several moles with small bunches of hair growing out from them, a thick
shadow covered her upper lip and her cheeks. Her short, coarse, and
curling hair formed a sort of helmet on her head; her thick eyebrows
met at the top of her flat nose, so that she looked like a creature
affected with dropsy and elephantiasis.
When she reached Passacantando, she grasped his hands in order to
detain him.
“Oh, Giuva! What do you want? What have I done to you?”
“You? Nothing.”
“Why then do you cause me such suffering and torment?”
“I? I am surprised!... Good night! I have no time to lose just now,”
and with a brutal gesture, he started to go. But Africana threw herself
upon him, pressing his arms, and putting her face against his, leaning
upon him with her full weight, with a passion so uncontrolled and
terrible that Passacantando was frightened.
“What do you want? What do you want? Tell me! What do you want? Why do
I do this? I hold you! Stay here! Stay with me! Don’t make me die of
longing; don’t drive me mad! What for? Come,—take everything you find
...”
She drew him towards the bar, opened the drawer, and with one gesture
offered him everything it contained. In the greasy till were scattered
some copper coins, and a few shining silver ones, the whole amounting
to perhaps five lire.
Passacantando, without saying a word, picked up the coins and began
to count them slowly upon the bar, his mouth showing an expression of
disgust. Africana looked at the coins and then at the face of the man,
breathing hard, like a tired beast. One heard the tinkling of the coins
as they fell upon the bar, the rough snoring of Binchi-Banche, the soft
pattering of the dove in the midst of the continuous sound of the rain
and the river down below the Bagno and through the Bandiera.
“Those are not enough,” Passacantando said at last. “I must have more
than those; bring out some more, or I will go.”
He had crushed his cap down over his head, and from beneath his
forehead with its curling tuft of hair, his whitish eyes, greedy and
impudent, looked at Africana attentively, fascinating her.
“I have no more; you have seen all there is. Take all that you find
...” stammered Africana in a caressing and supplicating voice, her
double chin quivering and her lips trembling, while the tears poured
from her piggish eyes.
“Well,” said Passacantando softly, bending over her, “well, do you
think I don’t know that your husband has some gold pieces?”
“Oh, Giovanni! ... how can I get them?”
“Go and take them, at once. I will wait for you here. Your husband is
asleep, now is the time. Go, or you’ll not see me any more, in the name
of Saint Antony!”
“Oh, Giovanni!... I am afraid!”
“What? Fear or no fear, I am going; let us go.”
Africana trembled; she pointed to Binchi-Banche still stretched under
the table in a heavy sleep.
“Close the door first,” she said submissively.
Passacantando roused Binchi-Banche with a kick, and dragged him,
howling and shaking with terror, out into the mud and slush. He came
back and closed the door. The red lantern that hung on one of the
shutters threw a rosy light into the tavern, leaving the heavy arches
in deep shadow, and giving the stairway in the angle a mysterious look.
“Come! Let us go!” said Passacantando again to the still trembling
Africana.
They slowly ascended the dark stairway in the corner of the room,
the woman going first, the man following close behind. At the top of
the stairway they emerged into a low room, planked with beams. In a
small niche in the wall was a blue Majolica Madonna, in front of which
burned, for a vow, a light in a glass filled with water and oil. The
other walls were covered with a number of torn paper pictures, of as
many colours as leprosy. A distressing odour filled the room.
The two thieves advanced cautiously towards the marital bed, upon which
lay the old man, buried in slumber, breathing with a sort of hoarse
hiss through his toothless gums and his dilated nose, damp from the
use of tobacco, his head turned upon one cheek, resting on a striped
cotton pillow. Above his open mouth, which looked like a cut made in a
rotten pumpkin, rose his stiff moustache; one of his eyes, half opened,
resembled the turned over ear of a dog, filled with hair, covered with
blisters; the veins stood out boldly upon his bare emaciated arm which
lay outside the coverlet; his crooked fingers, habitually grasping,
clutched the counterpane.
Now, this old fellow had for a long time possessed two twenty-franc
pieces, which had been left him by some miserly relative; these he
guarded jealously, keeping them in the tobacco in his horn snuff-box,
as some people do musk incense. There lay the shining pieces of gold,
and the old man would take them out, look at them fondly, feel of them
lovingly between his fingers, as the passion of avarice and the lust of
possession grew within him.
Africana approached slowly, with bated breath, while Passacantando,
with commanding gestures, urged her to the theft. There was a noise
below; both stopped. The half-plucked dove, limping, fluttered to its
nest in an old slipper at the foot of the bed, but in settling itself,
it made some noise. The man, with a quick, brutal motion, snatched up
the bird and choked it in his fist.
“Is it there?” he asked of Africana.
“Yes, it is there, under the pillow,” she answered, sliding her hand
carefully under the pillow as she spoke. The old man moved in his
sleep, sighing involuntarily, while between his eyelids appeared a
little rim of the whites of his eyes. Then he fell back in the heavy
stupor of senile drowsiness.
Africana, in this crisis, suddenly became audacious, pushed her hand
quickly forward, grasped the tobacco box and rushed towards the stairs,
descending with Passacantando just behind her.
“Lord! Lord! See what I have done for you!” she exclaimed, throwing
herself upon him. With shaking hands, they started together to open the
snuff-box and look among the tobacco for the gold pieces. The pungent
odour of the tobacco arose to their nostrils, and both, as they felt
the desire to sneeze, were seized with a strong impulse to laugh.
In endeavouring to repress their sneezes, they staggered against one
another, pushing and wavering. But suddenly an indistinct growling was
heard, then hoarse shouts broke forth from the room above, and the old
man appeared at the top of the stairs. His face was livid in the red
light of the lantern, his form thin and emaciated, his legs bare, his
shirt in rags. He looked down at the thieving couple, and, waving his
arms like a damned soul, cried:
“The gold pieces! The gold pieces! The gold pieces!”