"Don't you know? Mara is now so big that she must be taller than her
mother, and when I saw her last I couldn't believe that it was the
very same girl with whom I used to go after prickly pears and knock
off the nuts."
And he began to sing at the top of his voice all the songs that he
knew.
"Oh Alfio, why do you sleep?" he cried, when he was through with
them. "Look out that you keep _la bianca_ always behind you, look
out!"
"No, I am not asleep," replied Alfio, with a hoarse voice.
"Do you see _la puddara_[8] which stands winking down at us yonder, as
if they were firing up rockets also at Santa Domenica? It is almost
sunrise; we shall reach the fair in time to secure a good position.
Ah! _morellino bello_! you pretty little brownie! You shall have a new
halter, that you shall, with red cockades for the fair; and so shall
you, _stellato_!"[9]
[8] La puddara is the Sicilian name for Ursa Major,--the Big Bear.
[9] Stellato, starred, said of a horse with a white spot in his
forehead.
* * * * *
Thus he went on, talking to one and another of his colts so that they
might be encouraged hearing his voice in the darkness. But it grieved
him to think that the _stellato_ and the _morellino_ were going to the
fair to be sold.
"When they are sold, they'll go off with a new master, and we shan't
see them any more in the herd, just as it was with Mara after she went
to Marineo.
"Her father is well-to-do down there at Marineo, and when I was there,
found myself, poor fellow that I was, sitting down to bread and wine
and cheese, and everything good that God gives, and as if he were the
factor himself, and he has the keys to everything, and I could eat up
the whole place if I had wanted. Mara scarcely knew me, it had been so
long since we had seen each other, and she cried out,--'Oh, look!
there's Jeli the guardian of the horses, from Tebidi. He is like one
who comes home from abroad, who only at the sight of the distant
mountain-top is quick enough to recognize the country where he grew
up.' _Gna_ Lia didn't want me to speak to her daughter with the _thee_
and the _thou_, because Mara had grown to be so big, and the people
who don't know about things easily gossip. But Mara only laughed, and
looked as if she had only just that minute been baking the bread, so
rosy her face was; she was getting the dinner ready, and she was
unfolding the table-cloth, and she seemed different. 'Oh, have you
forgotten Tebidi?' I asked her as soon as _gna_ Lia went out to broach
a fresh cask of wine. 'No, no, I haven't forgotten' said she. 'At
Tebidi there was a bell with a campanile looking like the handle of a
salt-cellar, and there used to be two stone cats which stood at the
entrance of the garden.' I felt all through me those things that she
was saying. Mara looked at me from head to heels, with her eyes wide
open, and then she said,--'How tall you've grown!' and then she began
to laugh, and then she patted me on the head--here!"
In this way Jeli, the guardian of the horses, came to lose his place;
for just at that instant there suddenly appeared a coach, which had
given no sign of its approach, because it had been slowly climbing
the steep ascent, but started off at full speed as soon as it reached
the level ground at the top, with a great cracking of whips and
jingling of bells, as if it were carried by the devil himself. The
colts, in alarm, galloped off quicker than a flash, as if there had
been an earthquake, and all the shouts and cries and _ohi! ohi!
ohi's!_ of Jeli and the boy scarcely sufficed to collect them again
around _la bianca_, who in spite of her gravity had shied away
desperately with the bell around her neck.
When Jeli had counted over his animals he discovered that _stellato_
was missing, and he buried his hands in his hair, because at that
place the road ran along side a deep ravine, and it was down in that
ravine that _stellato_ broke his back--a colt worth a dozen _onze_,
like a dozen angels from Paradise! Weeping and shouting he went
calling the colt _ahu! ahu!_ It was too dark to see it. At last
_stellato_ replied from the bottom of the ravine with a melancholy
neigh, as if it had human speech, poor creature!
"Oh, mamma mia!" cried Jeli and the boy, as they went to it. "Oh, what
bad luck! mamma mia!"
The travellers on their way to the _festa_, hearing such a lamentation
in the darkness, asked what they had lost, and then when they learned
what had happened, went on their way.
The _stellato_ remained motionless where it had fallen, with its legs
in the air, and while Jeli was feeling it all over, weeping and
talking to it as if he could make it understand, the poor creature
stretched out its neck painfully and turned its head toward him, and
then could be heard its breathing, cut short by its agony.
"Something must be broken!" mourned Jeli in despair, because nothing
could be seen in the darkness; and the colt, inert as a rock, let its
head fall back. Alfio, who remained on the road above in charge of the
drove, had begun to view the matter more calmly, and had taken out his
bread from his bag.
The sky by this time was beginning to grow pale, and the mountains all
around seemed to be blossoming out, one after another, dark and high.
From the bend in the road the country round about began to stand out,
with _monte del Calvario_ and _monte del Mulino a vento_--the Windmill
Mountain--outlined against the dawn. They were still in shadow, but
the flocks of sheep made white blurs, and as the herds of cattle
grazing along the ridge of the mountains wandered hither and thither
against the azure sky, it seemed as if the profile of the mountain
itself were alive and full of motion.
The bell from the depths of the valley was no longer heard; travellers
were growing less numerous, and those who passed along were in haste
to reach the fair. Poor Jeli knew not what saint to call on in that
solitude. Alfio himself could not help him in any way; so the boy
continued breaking off the morsels of his loaf leisurely.
At last the factor was seen coming along mounted, cursing and swearing
as he came, at seeing his animals stopped on the road. When Alfio saw
him he ran off down the hill. But Jeli did not stir from the side of
the _stellato_. The factor left his mule by the roadside, and climbed
down into the ravine. He tried to help the colt to rise; he pulled him
by the tail.
"Let him be," said Jeli, as white in the face as if it were himself
whose back was broken. "Let him be! Don't you see that he can't move,
poor creature."
The _stellato_, in fact, at every movement and at every attempt made
to help him, set up a screech that seemed human. The factor fell on
Jeli tooth and nail, and gave him as many kicks as there are angels
and saints in Paradise. By this time Alfio had got his courage back,
and had returned to the road, so that the animals might not be without
a guardian, and he tried to excuse himself, saying, "'T wasn't my
fault. I was on ahead with the _bianca_."
"There's nothing more to be done," said the factor at last, having
persuaded himself that it was all time lost. "Nothing can be done with
this colt but to take his pelt; that's good for something."
Jeli began to tremble like a leaf when he saw the factor go and fetch
his gun from the mule's pack.
"Get off of him, good-for-nothing!" shouted the factor. "I don't know
what keeps me from laying you out beside this colt, which is worth
more than you, in spite of the swine's baptism which that thief of a
priest gave you!"
The _stellato_, unable to move, turned its head, with its big, steady
eyes, as if it understood every word, and its skin crisped in waves
along the back-bone as if a chill ran over it.
In that way, the factor killed the _stellato_ on the spot, so as at
least to save his pelt, and the dull noise which the gun held at short
range made, as the charge pierced the living flesh, Jeli thought he
felt in his own heart.
"Now if you want a piece of advice from me," said the factor, as he
left him there, "I'd not let the master lay eyes on you, in spite of
that bit of wages due you, for you may be sure, he'd give it to you
with a vengeance!"
The factor went off together with Alfio, taking along the other colts,
which did not once turn round to see what had become of the
_stellato_, but proceeded cropping the grass along the ridge. The poor
_stellato_ was left alone in the ravine waiting for the knacker to
flay him, its eyes were still wide open, and its four legs stretched
into the air, for to stretch them up was the only thing it could do.
Jeli, now that he had seen how the factor had been able to aim at the
colt, as it painfully lifted its head in fear, and had been courageous
enough to fire off the gun at it, no longer wept, but remained sitting
on a rock looking at the _stellato_ till the men came to take off the
pelt. Now he might go at his own pleasure and enjoy the _festa_, or
stand in the square all day long and see the gentlemen in the _cafe_,
as best pleased him, for now he no longer had bread or a shelter, and
it behooved him to find a new _padrone_, if any one would take him
after the misfortune of the _stellato_.
Thus go things in this world:--While Jeli was seeking a new employer,
walking about with his bag over his shoulder and his staff in his
hand, the band was playing gayly in the square, with plumes in their
caps, and surrounded by a merry throng of white hats thick as flies,
and the gentlemen were enjoying themselves as they sat at their
coffee. All the people were dressed in holiday attire like the animals
of the fair, and in one corner of the square was a lady, with a short
gown and flesh-colored stockings, making her appear bare-legged, and
she was pounding on a great box before a great painted sheet on which
appeared a slaughter of Christians with blood flowing in torrents,
and, there among the throng, gazing with open mouth, was _massaro_
Cola, whom he used to know when he was at Passanitello, and he told
him that he would find him an employer, because _compare_ Isidoro
Macca was in want of a herdsman for his hogs.
"But I wouldn't say anything about _stellato_," recommended _massaro_
Cola. "A misfortune like that might happen to any one in the world.
But it is best not to talk about it."
So they went in search of _compare_ Macca, who was at the ball, and
while _massaro_ Cola went to plead his cause, Jeli waited outside in
the street in the midst of the throng, who were gazing in at the door
of the hall. In the big room, there was a world of people jumping
about enjoying themselves, all flushed and perspiring, and making a
great trampling on the floor, while above all was heard the _ron ron_
of the double bass, and as soon as one piece of music, costing a
_grano_,[10] was finished they would all lift their fingers to
signify that they wanted another; and the man of the double bass
would make a cross with a piece of charcoal on the wall, to keep
account to the last, and then begin over again.
[10] A fraction of a soldo, or cent.
"Those in there spend without thought," said Jeli, to himself. "That
means that they have their pockets full and are not in trouble as I
am, for lack of an employer, and if they sweat and tire themselves out
in dancing, it is for their own pleasure, as if they were paid by the
day."
_Massaro_ Cola came back saying that _compare_ Macca needed no one.
Then Jeli turned away, and walked off gloomily, gloomily.
Mara's home was toward Sant'Antonio, where the houses climb up the
mountainside, facing the valley of la Canziria, all green with prickly
pears, and with the mill-wheels churning the water into foam in the
lowlands by the stream. But Jeli hadn't the courage to go in that
direction, now that they needed no one to watch the swine; and,
making his way amid the throng which jostled him and pushed him
without any thought of him, he seemed more alone than ever he had been
when he was with his colts in the plains of Passanitello, and he felt
like weeping.
At last _massaro_ Agrippino, wandering about with his arms swinging,
and enjoying the _festa_, fell in with him in the square, and shouted
to him,--
"Oh! Jeli! oh!" and took him home.
Mara was in gala dress, with such long ear-rings that they hung down
to her cheeks, and she was standing on the threshold with her hands
folded, loaded with rings, waiting till it should grow dark, so as to
go and see the fireworks.
"Oh!" said Mara to him, "so you have come also for the _festa_ of
Saint John!"
Jeli did not want to go in because he was shabbily dressed, but
_massaro_ Agrippino forced him in saying that it was not the first
time they had ever seen each other, and that he knew that he had come
to the fair with his employer's colts. _Gna_ Lia poured him out a good
generous glass of wine, and wanted to take him with them to see the
illuminations, together with the _comari_ and their other neighbors.
When they reached the square Jeli stood with open mouth, wondering at
the spectacle; the whole square seemed a sea of fire as when the
steppes are burning, and the reason was the great number of torches
which the devout lighted under the eyes of the saint, who stood
enjoying it all at the entrance of _il Rosario_--all black under his
silver baldachin. The acolytes were coming and going amid the flames
like so many demons, and there was, moreover, a woman in loose attire
and with dishevelled hair, and with her eyes staring out of her head,
also engaged in lighting the candles, and a priest in a black soutane
and without a hat, like one rendered crazy by religion.
"There's the son of _massaro_ Neri, the factor of Saloni, and he is
spending more than ten _lire_ for rockets," said _gna_ Lia, pointing
to a young man who was going round through the square holding two
rockets in each hand, just like candles, so that all the women
devoured him with their eyes, and cried to him: "_Viva San Giovanni!_"
"His father is rich and owns more than twenty head of cattle," added
_massaro_ Agrippino.
Mara also knew well that he had carried the great banner in the
procession, and held it as straight as a pillar--such a strong and
handsome youth was he.
_Massaro_ Neri's son seemed to have heard them, and he set off his
rockets for Mara, making the wheel of fire before her, and after this
part of the fireworks was over, he joined them, and took them to the
ball and to the cosmorama, where the new world and the old world were
to be seen depicted, and he paid for them all, even for Jeli, who
followed behind the others like a masterless cur, to see _massaro_
Neri's son dancing with Mara, who whirled round and crouched down
like a dove on a roof, and held daintily up the corner of her apron,
and _massaro_ Neri's son gamboling like a colt, so that _gna_ Lia wept
like a child at the consolation of the sight, and _massaro_ Agrippino
nodded with his head to signify that all was going to his mind.
At last when they were all tired, they went out where the people were
promenading, and they were carried away by the crowd as if they were
in the midst of a torrent, and there they saw the transparencies
lighted where the decapitation of Saint John was represented with such
faithfulness that it would have moved the heart of a Turk, and the
saint kicked out his legs like a goat under the hatchet. Near by the
band was playing under a great wooden umbrella, all lighted up, and in
the square there was such a crowd that one would have said never
before had so many Christians come to the fair.
Mara went holding _massaro_ Neri's son's arm, as if she were a fine
lady, and she whispered into his ear and laughed, as if she were
having a fine time. Jeli was utterly tired out, and actually went to
sleep sitting on the sidewalk till the first bombs of the fireworks
were sent up. At that moment Mara was still by the side of _massaro_
Neri's son, leaning against him with her hands clasped on his
shoulder, and in the different-colored lights from the fireworks she
seemed now all white and now all rosy. When the last sparks died away
in the darkness of the sky, _massaro_ Neri's son turned toward her,
with green light on his face, and gave her a kiss.
Jeli said nothing, but at that instant all that he had enjoyed till
then changed into poison, and he began once more to think of his
misfortunes, which he had for the moment forgotten--that he was
without an employer--and knew not what to do, nor where to go, that he
had no food or shelter; that the dogs might eat him as they were
eating the poor _stellato_ left down in the bottom of the ravine,
skinned to the hoofs!
Meantime, around him the people were still making merry in the
darkness that had ensued; Mara, with her companions, was dancing and
singing through the rock-paved streets as they turned homeward.
"Good-night! Good-night--_buona notte_!" shouted the people to one
another, as they were left at their own doors. Mara shouted
"good-night--_buona notte_!" in her musical voice, and it expressed
her happiness, and _massaro_ Neri's son did not see fit to leave her
while _massaro_ Agrippino and _gna_ Lia were disputing about the
opening of the house door. No one gave Jeli a thought, till at last
_massaro_ Agrippino remembered him, and said,--
"And where are you going?"
"I don't know," said Jeli.
"Come and see me to-morrow and I will help you find a place. For
to-night, go back to the square where we have been hearing the band
play. You'll find a spot on some bench, and sleep out doors; you must
be used to that."
Jeli was used to that, but what pained him was that Mara said nothing
to him, but left him there at the door as if he were a beggar; and the
next day when he came back to see _massaro_ Agrippino, he was hardly
alone with the girl before he said to her,--
"Oh, _gna_ Mara! How you forget old friends!"
"Oh, is that you, Jeli?" replied Mara. "No, I haven't forgotten you.
But I was so tired after the fireworks!"
"You're in love with him aren't you--_massaro_ Neri's son?" demanded
Jeli, twirling his staff in his hands.
"What are you saying?" abruptly interposed _gna_ Mara. "My mother is
there and hears everything you say."
_Massaro_ Agrippino found him a place as shepherd at la Salonia, where
_massaro_ Neri was factor, but as Jeli was not very much skilled in
taking care of sheep, he had to be content with far smaller wages
than he had been having.
Now he attended faithfully to his flocks, and strove to learn how
cheese is made--the ricotta and the _caciocavallo_, and all the other
products of the flocks; but in the gossip that went on at eventide in
the yard, among the shepherds and _contadini_, while the women were
preparing the beans for the soup, if ever _massaro_ Neri's son was
mentioned as soon to marry _massaro_ Agrippino's Mara, Jeli said not a
word, and never dared open his mouth.
One time when the keeper insulted him, by saying, jestingly, that Mara
refused to have anything more to do with him, after every one had
declared that they were to be husband and wife, Jeli, as he went to
the pot where the milk was boiling, replied, as he slowly shook in the
rennet,--
"Now Mara has grown to be so pretty, she seems like a lady."
But as he was patient and laborious, and quickly got hold of the
secrets of the business, even better than one who had been born to
it, and as he was accustomed to be with animals, he came to love his
sheep as if they were his own, and for this reason the distemper--_il
male_--did not do so much damage at la Salonia, and the flock
prospered, so that it was a delight for _massaro_ Neri every time that
he came to the estate, and the next year it was no great trouble to
induce the _padrone_ to increase Jeli's wages, so that he came to have
as much as he got in looking out for the horses. And it was money well
spent, for Jeli never thought of reckoning up the miles and miles that
he travelled in search of the best pasturage for his flock, and if the
sheep were with young or were sick, he would take them to his
saddle-bags and carry the lambs in his arms, and they would lick his
face, thrusting their noses out of his pocket, and they would even
suck his ears.
In the famous snow storm of Santa Lucia's night, the snow fell four
handbreadths deep in the _lago morto_ at la Salonia, and all around
for miles and miles there was nothing else to be seen when day came,
and nothing would have been left of the sheep but the ears, had not
Jeli got up three or four times in the course of the night to drive
the sheep into the yard, so that the poor beasts shook the snow from
their backs and did not remain, as it were buried, as was the case in
so many of the neighboring flocks--at least so _massaro_ Agrippino
said when he came to give a look to a field of beans which he had at
la Salonia, and he also said that that story of _massaro_ Neri's son
marrying his daughter Mara was a lie made up of whole cloth--that Mara
had some one else in mind.
"It was said they were to be married at Christmas," said Jeli.
"Nothing of the sort; they aren't to marry at all; it's all the gossip
of envious folks who meddle with others' business," replied _massaro_
Agrippino.
But the keeper, who had known about it for some time, having heard it
talked about in town when he was there on Sunday, told the story as it
really was, after _massaro_ Agrippino had gone away.
"The engagement was broken because _massaro_ Neri's son had learned
that _massaro_ Agrippino's Mara was keeping company with Don Alfonso,
the signorino, who had known Mara from a little girl; and _massaro_
Neri had declared that his son was to be a man respected as his father
was, and the only horns he wanted in his house should be those of his
oxen."
Jeli was present at this conversation, sitting with the others in the
circle at breakfast, and at that instant was cutting his bread. He
still said nothing, but his appetite left him for that day.
While he was driving his sheep out to pasture he began to think of
Mara, as she had been when she was a little girl, when they were
together all day long wandering through the _valle del Jacitano_ and
over the _poggio alla Croce_, and how she stood looking at him, with
her chin in the air, while he climbed up to the tree-tops after the
birds' nests; and he thought also of Don Alfonso, who used to come and
see him from the neighboring villa, and how they would stretch
themselves out on their bellies, stirring up crickets' nests with
straws. All these things he considered and reconsidered for hours and
hours, as he sat on the edge of the brook, holding his knees between
his arms, and thinking of the tall walnuts of Tebidi, and the thick
bushes in the valleys and the slopes of the hills, green with sumachs,
and the gray olive trees spreading through the valley like a fog, and
the red-tiled roof of the house, and the campanile that looked like "a
handle of a salt cellar" among the oranges of the garden.
Here the campagna stretched away naked, desert, speckled with dried
grass, blending silently with the distant horizon.
In Spring the bean pods had begun to fill out when Mara came to la
Salonia with her father and mother and the boy and the ass, to pick
the beans, and they all came together to sleep at the farm for two or
three days during the picking.
In this way Jeli saw the girl morning and evening, and they would sit
together on the wall of the sheep-fold and talk, while the boy looked
after the sheep.
"It seems as if I were at Tebidi again," said Mara, "when we were
little things, and used to stand on the foot bridge."
Jeli also remembered everything, though he said little, being always a
judicious youth, and of few words.
When the harvest was over, and the eve of parting had come, Mara went
out to talk with the young man, just as he was making "ricotto
cheese," and he was wholly intent in skimming the whey with his ladle.
"Now I'll say _addio_," said she, "for to-morrow we return to
Vizzini."
"How have the beans gone?"
"Bad! _la lupa_[11] has eaten them all this year."
[11] A parasitic disease.
"It depends on the rain which has been scarce," said Jeli. "We have
had to kill even the lambs because there hasn't been enough feed for
them. Over all of la Salonia there hasn't been three inches of grass."
"But that doesn't affect you. You always have your wages, good year or
bad."
"Yes, that's so," said he. "But it disgusts me to give those poor
creatures to the butcher."
"Do you remember when you came for the _festa_ of Saint John, and were
left without a _padrone_?"
"Yes, I remember."
"It was my father who got you a place here with _massaro_ Neri."
"And why didn't you marry _massaro_ Neri's son?"
"Because it wasn't the will of God. My father has been unlucky," she
continued, after a brief pause. "Since we came to Marineo, everything
has gone ill with us. The beans, the corn, that piece of vineyard
that we have yonder. Then my brother went off to the army, and we lost
a mule that was worth forty _onze_."
"I know," said Jeli, "the bay mule."
"Now, that we have lost all our property, who would want to marry me?"
Mara was breaking up a twig of briar while she said this, with her
chin in her bosom, and, with her elbow, she gently nudged Jeli's elbow
without appearing to mean it. But Jeli, with his eyes on the churn,
also made no response, and she went on,--
"At Tebidi they used to say that you and I would be husband and wife,
do you remember?"
"Yes," said Jeli, and he laid his ladle on the top of the churn. "But
I am a poor shepherd, and I can not pretend to a _massaro's_ daughter
like you."
La Mara remained silent for a little while, and then she said, "If you
want me, I will willingly be yours."
"Really?"
"Yes, really."
"And what will _massaro_ Agrippino say to it?"
"My father says that now that you know your trade, and since you are
not one of those who waste their wages, but make one _soldo_ into two,
and do not eat to consume bread, in time you will come to have flocks
of your own, and will be rich."
"If that is so," said Jeli, in conclusion, "I will gladly take you."
"There," said Mara, as soon as it had grown dark and the sheep were
relapsing into silence, "if you want a kiss, I will give you one,
because we are going to be husband and wife."
Jeli took one in "holy peace," and not knowing what to say, added, "I
have always loved you, even when you were going to desert me for the
son of _massaro_ Neri."
But he had not the heart to speak of the other one.
"Don't you see? We were meant for one another," said Mara, in
conclusion.
_Massaro_ Agrippino, in fact, said "Yes," and _gna_ Lia put on a new
gown, and she had a pair of velvet trousers made for their son-in-law.
Mara was as lovely and fresh as a rose, with her white mantellina,
reminding you of the Paschal lamb, and that amber necklace which made
her neck look so white; so, when Jeli walked through the street at her
side, he marched stiffly and erect, dressed in his new cloth and
velvet suit, and he did not dare even blow his nose with his red silk
handkerchief, lest he should make a fool of himself; and the neighbors
and all who knew the story of Don Alfonso laughed in his face.
When Mara said "_sissignore_," and the priest made her Jeli's wife
with a grand sign of the cross, Jeli took her home, and it seemed to
him as if they had given him all the gold of the Madonna, and all the
lands that he had seen with his eyes.
"Now that we are husband and wife," said he, when they reached their
house, as he was sitting in front of her, and trying to appear very
humble, "now that we are husband and wife, I may tell you that it does
not seem to me true as you pretended--you might have had ever so many
better husbands than I--so beautiful and gracious you are."
The poor fellow could not find anything else to say, and he could not
contain his delight to see Mara setting and arranging everything
through the house, and playing _la padrona_. He found it impossible to
tear himself away to return to la Salonia; when he started Monday, he
was very slow in arranging in the pack of the ass, his saddle-bags,
and his cloak, and his umbrella.
"You ought to come to la Salonia, yourself," he said to his wife, who
was watching him from the door-step. "You ought to come with me."
But the young woman began to laugh, and replied that she was not born
to look after sheep, and had no reason to go to la Salonia.
Truly, Mara was not born for tending sheep, and she was not
accustomed to the January tramontana wind, which stiffens the hand on
the staff, and it seems as if your fingers would drop off, or to
furious storms that come, when the water penetrates to your very
bones, and again, when the dust drives choking through the streets,
when the sheep travel under the boiling sun, or to the hard bed on the
ground, and the mouldy bread, and the long, silent, solitary days,
when through the arid fields nothing else is seen in the distance but
occasionally some sun-burned peasant driving his ass silently along
over the white, interminable road.
Jeli knew at least that Mara was warm and comfortable under the
quilts, or was spinning in front of the fire, talking with the women
of the neighborhood, or was enjoying the sun on the balcony, while he
was returning from the pasture tired and thirsty, or wet through with
the rain, or when the wind drifted the snow back of his hut and put
out his fire of branches.
Every month Mara went to receive the wages from the _padrone_, and
they lacked neither eggs nor fowls, nor oil in the lamp, nor wine in
the jug. Twice a month Jeli came home to see her, and she would stand
on the balcony looking for him with her spindle in her hand, and after
he had left the ass in the stable and removed his pack and filled the
rack with oats, and placed the wood under the shed in the yard, or
whatever he brought into the kitchen, Mara would help him hang his
cloak on the nail and take off his leather leggings before the hearth,
and pour him out a glass of wine, and set to work to boil the soup and
get the table ready, quiet and thoughtful, like a good housewife,
while talking of this thing and that,--of the brooding hen that was
setting, of the cloth that was on the loom, of the calf which they
were raising, never forgetting anything of what she had been doing.
Jeli, when he found himself at home, felt that he was more important
than the pope.
But on the eve of Santa Barbara he came home unexpectedly late, when
all the lights were out in the street and the town clock was striking
midnight. He came in because the mare which the _padrone_ had left out
at pasture had been suddenly taken sick, and he saw that it was a case
that required the services of the farrier quickly, and he had wanted
to bring him to town in spite of the rain that was falling like a
torrent, and the muddy roads into which he sunk half up to his knees.
Knock and call as loud as he might behind the door, he had to wait
half an hour under the eaves, while the water ran out at his heels. At
last his wife came to open for him, and began to scold worse than if
it had been herself who had been obliged to wander across country in
such a tempest.
"Oh, what's the matter?" she demanded. "How you frightened me coming
at this time o' night! Does it seem to you a proper Christian time to
come? To-morrow I shall be ill!"
"Go back to bed, I will start up a fire."
"No, I'll have to go and get some wood."
"I'll go."
"No, I say."
When Mara returned with the wood in her arms Jeli said to her, "Why
did you leave the door to the yard open? Was there not enough wood in
the kitchen?"
"No, I went to get it under the shed."
She let him kiss her, coldly, coldly, and turned her head in another
direction.
"His wife lets him wait at the door," said the neighbors, "when there
is another bird in the nest."
But Jeli knew nothing about the fact that his wife was untrue to him,
nor did any one care to tell him, because it could surely be of no
consequence, for he had taken the woman with a damaged reputation
after _massaro_ Neri's son had jilted her, because he knew of the
story of Don Alfonso. But Jeli seemed to live happy and contented in
the shame of it, and grew as fat as a pig; for the proverb has it
"horns are lean but they make the house fat." At last, one time, the
herdman's boy told it to him in his face, while they were scuffling
about the pieces of cheese that had been stolen.
"Now that Don Alfonso has taken your wife you consider yourself his
brother-in-law, and you are proud enough to be a crowned king with
those horns on your head."
The factor and the keeper expected to see blood flow for those
insulting words, but on the contrary Jeli stood stupefied, as if he
had not heard, or as if it concerned him not, wearing the dull face of
an ox whose horns really fitted him.
Now that Easter was at hand the factor sent all the men of the estate
to confession, with the hope that through the fear of God they would
not do any more stealing. Jeli also went, and at the church entrance
sought for the boy with whom he had exchanged those hot words, and he
threw his arms around his neck, saying,--
"The confessor has bade me pardon you; but I am not angry with you for
such gossip; and if you will not steal any more of the cheese from me,
I will not take any further notice of what you said to me in passion."
It was from that moment that they nicknamed him _Corno d'ore_--"Gold
horns"--and the nickname stuck to him and all his, even after he had
washed his horns in blood.
La Mara also went to confession and returned from the church all
wrapped up in her mantellina, and with her eyes cast down, so that she
seemed a genuine _Santa Maria Maddelena_. Jeli, who was silently
waiting for her on the balcony, when he saw her coming in that way,
seeming as if she had the Holy Presence in her heart, kept looking at
her,--pale, pale from his foot to his head as if he saw her for the
first time, or as if his Mara had been changed for him, and he seemed
hardly to dare to lift his eyes to her while she was shaking the cloth
and setting the table, calm and neat as ever.
Then after long thinking he put the question to her: "Is it true that
you keep company with Don Alfonso?"
Mara looked him full in the face with those black eyes of hers and
made the sign of the cross.
"Why do you want to make me commit a sin on this day?" she demanded.
"I did not believe it, because Don Alfonso and I were always together
when we were boys, and there never passed a day that he did not come
to Tebidi when he was in the country there; and then he is rich, and
has bushels of money, and if he wanted women he might get married, nor
would he lack anything, either clothes to wear, or bread to eat."
But Mara was really angry, and she began to scold so that the poor
fellow did not dare lift his nose from his plate.
At last, so that that gift of God which they were eating might not
turn into poison, Mara changed the conversation, and asked him if he
had thought of weeding that little plot of flax which they had sowed
in the bean field.
"Yes," replied Jeli, "and the flax will do well."
"If that is so," said Mara, "this spring I will make you two new
shirts which will keep you warm."
In truth Jeli did not realize what "cuckold" meant, and he did not
know what jealousy was. Every new thing found difficulty in getting
into his head, and this became so great that, in making its way in, it
played devilish work, especially when he saw his Mara before him so
beautiful and white and neat, and how she had herself chosen him, and
how he had thought about her so many years, and so many years, ever
since he was a young boy, so that the day when they told him that she
was going to marry some one else, he had had no heart to eat anything
or to drink all day long.
Then again he thought of Don Alfonso, who had been his companion so
many times, and how he had always brought him strange feeling within
his heart. Don Alfonso had grown so tall that he no longer seemed the
same person, and now he had a full beard, curly like his hair, and a
velvet coat and a gold chain across his waistcoat. But he recognized
Jeli, and patted him on the shoulder in salutation. He had come with
the _padrone_ of the estate and a number of friends to have a
jollification while the sheep-shearing was in progress, and Mara also
came unexpectedly, under the pretext that she was pregnant, and longed
for some fresh ricotto.
It was a beautiful warm day in the pale fields, with the grain in
flower and the long green rows of the vines; the sheep were gamboling
and bleating for delight, at feeling themselves freed from all that
weight of wool, and in the kitchen, the women had made a great fire to
cook all the provisions that the _padrone_ had brought for the dinner.
The gentlemen, while they were waiting, had sat down in the shade
under the carob-trees, and were playing tambourines and bag-pipes,
and dancing with the girls of the estate, as if they were all of the
same class.
Jeli, meantime, went on with his work shearing the sheep, and felt
something within him, without knowing what, like a thorn, like a nail,
like a pair of shears, working within him, slowly, slowly, like a
poison.
The _padrone_ had ordered that they should kill a couple of goats, and
the yearling sheep, and some chickens, and a turkey cock. In fact, he
was going to do things on a grand scale, and lavishly, so as to do
honor to his friends; and while all those creatures were squealing
under the death-agony, and the goats were screaming under the knife,
Jeli felt his knees tremble, and little by little, it seemed to him
that the wool that he was shearing, and the grass in which the sheep
were leaping, were stained with blood.
"Don't go," he said to Mara, when Don Alfonso called her to come and
dance with the rest. "Don't go, Mara."
"Why not?"
"I don't want you to go. Do not go."
"I hear them calling me."
He uttered not another intelligible word while he stayed with the
sheep that he was shearing. Mara shrugged her shoulders, and went to
dance. She was blushing with delight, and her two black eyes shone
like two stars, and she smiled so that there was a gleam of white
teeth, and all the gold ornaments tossed and scintillated on her
wrists and on her bosom, so that she seemed like the Madonna herself.
Jeli had arisen to his full height, with the long shears in his hand,
and white in face, as white as once he had seen his father, the
cowherd, when he was trembling with fever in front of the fire in the
hovel.
Suddenly, when he saw how Don Alfonso, with his curling beard and his
velvet coat, and the gold chain at his waistcoat, took Mara by the
hand to dance--then--only at that moment that he touched her did he
fling himself on him and cut his throat with one stroke, as if he had
been a goat.
Later, while they were leading him off to the judge, bound, wholly
unmanned, without daring to make the least resistance,--
"How," said he, "should I not have killed him. He robbed me of my
Mara!"