The following morning, when Candia Marcanda had her hands in the
soap-suds, there appeared at her door-sill the town guard Biagio Pesce,
popularly known as “The Corporal.” He said to her, “You are wanted by
Signor Sindaco at the town-hall this very moment.”
“What did you say?” asked Candia, knitting her brows without
discontinuing her task.
“You are wanted by Signor Sindaco at the town-hall this very moment.”
“I am wanted? And why?” Candia asked in a brusque manner. She did not
know what was responsible for this unexpected summons and therefore
reared at it like a stubborn animal before a shadow.
“I cannot know the reason,” answered the Corporal. “I have received but
an order.”
“What order?”
The woman because of an obstinacy natural to her could not refrain from
questions. She was unable to realise the truth.
“I am wanted by Signor Sindaco? And why? And what have I done? I have
no wish to go there. I have done nothing unseemly.”
Then the Corporal cried impatiently, “Ah, you do not wish to go there?
You had better beware!” And he went away muttering, with his hand on
the hilt of his shabby sword.
Meanwhile several who had heard the dialogue came from their doorways
into the street and began to stare at the laundress, who was violently
attacking her wash. Since they knew of the silver spoon they laughed
at one another and made remarks that the laundress did not understand.
Their ridicule and ambiguous expressions filled the heart of the
woman with much uneasiness, which increased when the Corporal appeared
accompanied by another guard.
“Now move on!” he said resolutely.
Candia wiped her arms in silence and went. Throughout the square
everyone stopped to look. Rosa Panara, an enemy, from the threshold of
her shop, called with a fierce laugh, “Drop the bone thou hast picked
up!”
The laundress, bewildered, unable to imagine the cause of this
persecution, could not answer.
Before the town-hall stood a group of curious people who waited to see
her pass. Candia, suddenly seized with a wrathful spirit, mounted the
stairs quickly, came into the presence of Signor Sindaco out of breath,
and asked, “Now, what do you want with me?”
Don Silla, a man of peaceable temperament, remained for a moment
somewhat taken aback by the sharp voice of the laundress and turned a
beseeching look upon the faithful custodians of the communal dignity.
Then he took some tobacco from a horn-box and said, “Be seated, my
daughter.”
Candia remained upon her feet. Her hooked nose was inflated with
choler, and her cheeks, roughly seamed, trembled from the contraction
of her tightly compressed jaws.
“Speak quickly, Don Silla!” she cried.
“You were occupied yesterday in carrying back the clean linen to Donna
Cristina Lamonica?”
“Well, and what of it? Is she missing something? Everything was counted
piece by piece ... nothing was lacking. Now, what is it all about?”
“One moment, my daughter! The room had silver in it...!”
Candia, divining the truth, turned upon him like a viper about to
sting. At the same time her thin lips trembled.
“The room had silver in it,” he continued, “and now Donna Cristina
finds herself lacking one spoon. Do you understand, my daughter? Was it
taken by you ... through mistake?”
Candia jumped like a grasshopper at this undeserved accusation. In
truth she had stolen nothing. “Ah, I? I?” she cried. “Who says I took
it? Who has seen me in such an act? You fill me with amazement ... you
fill me with wonder! Don Silla! I a thief? I? I?...”
And her indignation had no limit. She was even more wounded by this
unjust accusation because she felt herself capable of the deed which
they had attributed to her.
“Then you have not taken it?” Don Silla interrupted, withdrawing
prudently into the depths of his large chair.
“You fill me with amazement!” Candia chided afresh, while she shook her
long hands as if they were two whips.
“Very well, you may go. We will see in time.” Without saying good-bye,
Candia made her exit, striking against the door-post as she did so.
She had become green in the face and was beside herself with rage.
On reaching the street and seeing the crowd assembled there, she
understood at length that popular opinion was against her, that no one
believed in her innocence. Nevertheless she began publicly to exculpate
herself. The people laughed and drifted away from her. In a wrathful
state of mind she returned home, sank into a condition of despair and
fell to weeping in her doorway.
Don Donato Brandimarte, who lived next door, said to her by way of a
joke:
“Cry aloud, Candia. Cry to the full extent of your strength, for the
people are about to pass now.”
As there were clothes lying in a heap waiting to be boiled clean she
finally grew quiet, bared her arms and set herself to work. While
working, she brooded on how to clear her character, constructed
a method of defence, sought in her cunning, feminine thoughts an
artificial means for proving her innocence; balancing her mind
subtly in mid-air, she had recourse to all of those expedients which
constitute an ignorant argument, in order to present a defence that
might persuade the incredulous.
Later, when she had finished her task, she went out and went first to
Donna Cristina.
Donna Cristina would not see her. Maria Bisaccia listened to Candia’s
prolific words and shook her head without reply and at length left her
in a dignified way.
Then Candia visited all of her customers. To each one she told her
story, to each one she laid bare her defence, always adding to it a new
argument, ever increasing the size of the words, becoming more heated
and finally despairing in the presence of incredulity and distrust as
all was useless. She felt at last that an explanation was no longer
possible. A kind of dark discouragement fastened upon her mind. What
more could she do! What more could she say!