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diff --git a/37979-8.txt b/37979-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e48be22 --- /dev/null +++ b/37979-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3763 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Under the Shadow of Etna, by Giovanni Verga + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Under the Shadow of Etna + Sicilian Stories from the Italian of Giovanni Verga + +Author: Giovanni Verga + +Translator: Nathan Dole + +Release Date: November 11, 2011 [EBook #37979] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDER THE SHADOW OF ETNA *** + + + + +Produced by Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have + been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. + + Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal + signs=. + + + + +UNDER THE SHADOW OF ETNA + + + + + [Illustration: "UNDER THE SHADOW OF ETNA."] + + + + + UNDER THE SHADOW + OF ETNA + + SICILIAN STORIES FROM THE ITALIAN OF + GIOVANNI VERGA + + BY + NATHAN HASKELL DOLE + + _ILLUSTRATED_ + + BOSTON + JOSEPH KNIGHT COMPANY + 1896 + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1895, + BY JOSEPH KNIGHT COMPANY. + + Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. + Boston, U.S.A. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + HOW PEPPA LOVED GRAMIGNA 1 + + JELI, THE SHEPHERD 23 + + RUSTIC CHIVALRY (_Cavalleria Rusticana_) 101 + + LA LUPA 117 + + THE STORY OF THE ST. JOSEPH'S ASS 131 + + THE BEREAVED 163 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. + + + PAGE + + "UNDER THE SHADOW OF ETNA" _Frontispiece_ + + JELI, THE SHEPHERD 22 + + "LOLA USED TO GO OUT ON THE BALCONY + WITH HER HANDS CROSSED" 104 + + THE DEATH OF THE ST. JOSEPH'S ASS 158 + + + + +_INTRODUCTION._ + + +_Giovanni Verga was born at Catania, in Sicily, in 1840. His youth was +spent in Florence and Milan. He afterwards lived in Catania again, +where he had an opportunity of studying those types of the Sicilian +peasantry which he introduces so effectively, and with such dramatic +suggestion, into many of his stories and sketches. After experiencing +grievous family losses he returned to Milan, where he now resides._ + +_In "L'Amante di Gramigna" Verga gives, in the form of a letter to his +friend, the novelist, S. Farina, a sort of brief exposition of his +literary Creed. Much of the drama is left to the imagination of the +reader, who sees through the lines the action hinted at in a word or a +phrase. Thus, in the story just mentioned, no definite time-limit is +assigned. Months elapse, but only a passing expression gives the clue +to it. It is amazing how definite is the idea left in the mind. It +gives all the vividness of reality._ + +_"Cavalleria Rusticana," or "Rustic Chivalry," has been known all over +the world by its operatic setting by Mascagni. "La Lupa," which is +scarcely less strong and vital, has been chosen by another Italian +composer, Puccini, as the subject for a two-act opera. These two, as +well as "L'amante di Gramigna" and "Jeli il Pastore," illustrate the +deeper passions of the Sicilian peasantry. Verga's sardonic humor is +shown in "Gli Orfani." How the sordid poverty of the people stands out +in the comparison between the sorrow over the dying ass, and the +utterly materialistic grief at the loss of the painstaking second +wife!_ + +_"La Storia dell' Asino di San Giuseppe," well illustrates the average +treatment of the long-suffering, long-eared mules and asses which make +so picturesque a part of the scenery of Italian and Spanish countries. +It is a document for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to +Animals, and well deserves to be circulated together with "Black +Beauty." What pathos in the sudden transfer of the poor little beast +from comparative comfort, at least from the "dolce far niente" of its +foalhood, to the grim realities of life, and its steady and fatal +decline through all the gamut of wretchedness and degradation, to die +at last under the weight of its burdens! And what side glances on the +condition of those unfortunate Sicilians who live in what ought to be +the very garden and Paradise of the world, and yet are so oppressed by +unregulated Nature and too well regulated taxes!_ + +_It is no land of the imagination into which we are brought by Verga; +there is no fascinating glamour of the virtuous triumphing after many +vicissitudes, and seeing at last the wicked adequately punished. Here +it is grim reality. The poor and weak go relentlessly to the wall; +innocence and humble ignorance are crushed by experienced vice, the +butterfly is singed by the flame; there is little joy, little peace. +The fleckless sky shines down brilliantly on wreck of home and +fortune; the son must go to the army, and the daughter to her shame; +the father's gray hairs must be crowned with dishonor, and despair +must abide in the mother's breast. But yet the stories are not wholly +pessimistic, nor do they give an utterly hopeless idea of the Sicilian +peasant. He shows his capabilities; the woman her fiery zeal and +faithfulness, even when on the wrong track. You see that education and +a little real sympathy might make a great people out of Verga's +"Turiddus" and "Alfios." There are dozens of others of Verga's short +sketches which would repay translation, but the little collection of +Sicilian pictures here presented is marked by quite wonderful variety +and contrast. They well illustrate the author's genius at its best._ + + NATHAN HASKELL DOLE. + + _"Hedgecote," Glen Road, + Jamaica Plain, June 19, 1895_. + + + + +NOTE. + + +Some of the Italian titles applied to the characters in these stories +are retained. They are untranslatable; to omit them takes away from +the Sicilian flavor, which is their great charm. Thus the words +_compare_ (_con_ and _padre_) and _comare_ (_con_ and _madre_), +literally godfather and godmother, are used in almost the same way as +"uncle" and "aunt" in our country districts, only they are applied to +young as well as old; _gnà_ is a contraction for _signora_, +corresponding somewhat to our _mis'_ for "Mrs." _Babbo_ is like our +"dad" or "daddie." _Massaro_ is a farmer; _compagni d'armi_ are +district policemen, not quite the same as _gens d'armes_; +_Bersegliere_ is the member of a special division of the Italian +army. + + + + +HOW PEPPA LOVED GRAMIGNA. + + + + +UNDER THE SHADOW OF ETNA. + + + + +HOW PEPPA LOVED GRAMIGNA. + + +Dear Farina, this is not a story, but the outline of a story. + +It will at least have the merit of being short, and of having fact for +its foundation; it is a human document, as the phrase goes +nowadays:--interesting perhaps for you and for all those who study the +mighty book of the heart. I will tell it just as I found it among the +country paths, and in almost the same simple and picturesque words +that characterize the tales of the people; and really you will prefer +to find yourself facing the bare and unadulterated fact rather than +being obliged to read between the lines of the book through the +author's spectacles. + +The simple truth of human life will always make us thoughtful; will +always have the effectiveness of reality, of genuine tears, of the +fevers and sensations that have inflicted the flesh. The mysterious +processes whereby conflicting passions mingle, develop and mature, +will long constitute the chief fascination in the study of that +psychological phenomenon called the plot of a story, and which modern +analysis tries to follow with scientific care, through the hidden +paths of oftentimes apparently contradictory complications. + +Of the one that I am going to tell you to-day I shall only narrate the +starting point and the ending, and that will suffice for you, as, +perchance, some day it will suffice for all. + +We replace the artistic method to which we owe so many glorious +masterpieces by a different method, more painstaking and more +recondite; we willingly sacrifice the effect of the catastrophe, of +the psychological result as it was seen through an almost divine +intuition by the great artists of the past, and employ instead a +logical development, inexorably necessary, less unexpected, less +dramatic, but not less fatalistic; we are more modest, if not more +humble; but the conquests that we make with our psychological verities +will not be any less useful to the art of the future. Supposing such +perfection in the study of the passions should be ever attained that +it would be useless to go further in the study of the interior man, +will the science of the human heart, the fruit of the new art, so far +and so universally develop all the resources of the imagination that +in the future the only romances written will be "Various Facts?" + +I have a firm belief that the triumph of the Novel, the completest and +most human of all the works of art, will increase until the affinity +and cohesion of all its parts will be so perfect, that the process of +its creation will remain a mystery like the development of human +passions; I have a firm belief that the harmony of its forms will be +so absolute, the sincerity of its reality so evident, its method and +justification so deeply rooted, that the artist's hand will remain +absolutely invisible. + +Then the romance will seem to portray a real event, and the work of +art will apparently have come about by itself, spontaneously springing +into being and maturing like a natural fact, without any point of +contact with its author. It will not have preserved in its living form +any stamp of the mind in which it originated, any shade of the eye +that beheld it, any trace of the lips that murmured the first words +thereof as the creative fiat; it will exist by its own reason, by the +mere fact that it is as it should be and must be, palpitating with +life and as immutable as a statue of bronze, the author of which has +had the divine courage of eclipsing himself and disappearing in his +immortal work. + + * * * * * + +A few years ago, down by the Simeto, they were giving chase to a +brigand, a certain Gramigna,[1] if I am not mistaken, a name as cursed +as the weed that bears it. The man had left behind him, from one end +of the province to the other, the terror of his evil reputation. +Carabineers, _compagni d'armi_, and cavalry-men had been on his track +for two months, without ever succeeding in putting their claws on him; +he was alone, but was equal to ten, and the evil plant threatened to +take firm root. + + [1] Gramigna means dog's-tail-grass. + +Moreover the harvest-time was approaching, the crops already covered +the fields, the ears bent over and were calling to the reapers, who +indeed had their reaping-hooks in their hands, and yet not a single +proprietor dared show his nose over the hedge of his estate, for fear +of meeting Gramigna, who might be stretched out among the furrows +with his carbine between his legs, ready to blow off the head of the +first person who should venture to meddle with his affairs. + +Thus the complaints were general. Then the prefect summoned all those +gentlemen of the district--carabineers and companies of armed men and +told them two words of the kind that makes men prick up their ears. +The next day an earthquake in every nook and corner:--patrols, +squadrons, scouts for every ditch and behind every wall; they hunted +him by day, by night, on foot, on horseback, by telegraph, as if he +had been a wild beast! Gramigna eluded them every time, and replied +with shots if they came too close on his track. + +In the fields, in the villages, among the factories, under the signs +of country taverns, wherever people met, Gramigna was the only topic +of conversation,--that wild chase, that desperate flight. The +carabineers' horses returned dead-tired; the soldiers threw +themselves down in utter weariness on the ground when they got back to +the stables; the patrols slept wherever chance offered; Gramigna alone +was never tired, never slept, kept always on the wing, climbed down +precipices, slipped through the harvest-fields, crept on all fours +among the prickly pear-trees,[2] made his way out of danger like a +wolf by means of the hidden channels of the torrents. + + [2] Fichidindia, also called Indian figs. + +The chief argument of every discourse at the cross roads, before the +village entrances, was the devouring thirst from which the fugitive +must suffer in the immense, barren plain, under the June sun. The lazy +loungers opened wide their eyes. + +Peppa, one of the prettiest girls of Licodia, was expecting at that +time soon to marry _compare_ Finu, called "_Candela di sego_" (the +tallow-candle), who had landed property and a bay mule, and was a +tall young man, handsome as the sun, who carried the standard of Santa +Margherita without bending his back, as though he were a pillar. + +Peppa's mother shed tears of delight over the good fortune that had +befallen her daughter, and spent her time in looking over and over the +bride's effects in the trunk, all white linen and of the nicest +quality, like a queen's, and earrings that would hang down to the +shoulders and gold rings for all the ten fingers of both hands; more +money than Santa Margherita could have ever had--and so they were to +have been married on Santa Margherita's day, which would fall in June, +after the hay had been harvested. + +"Candela di Sego," on his way back from the field, used every evening +to leave his mule at Peppa's front door and go in to tell how the +crops promised to be a veritable enchantment, unless Gramigna set them +on fire, and the lattice over against the bed would not be large +enough to hold all the grain, and that it seemed to him a thousand +years off before he should carry home his bride on the crupper of his +bay mule. + +But Peppa one fine day said to him,-- + +"Let your mule have a rest, for I do not wish to get married." + +The poor "Candela di Sego" was dumbfounded, and the old mother began +to tear her hair when she heard that her daughter had refused the best +match in the village. + +"I am in love with Gramigna," said the girl, "and he is the only one +whom I will marry." + +"Ah!" screamed the mamma, and she stormed through the house, with her +gray hair streaming so that she looked like a witch--"Ah! that demon +has been here to bewitch my daughter!" + +"No," replied Peppa, with her eyes flashing like a sword--"no, he has +not been here." + +"Where did you ever see him?" + +"I never saw him. I have only heard him spoken of. But I feel +something here, that burns me." + +The report spread through the region, though they tried to keep it a +secret. The women and girls who had envied Peppa the prosperous +farming, the bay mule and the handsome youth who could bear the +standard of Santa Margherita without bending his back, went around +telling all sorts of unkind stories: how Gramigna had been to visit +her one night in the kitchen, and how he had been seen hiding under +the bed. The poor mother burnt a lamp for the souls in purgatory and +even the curato went to Peppa's house to touch her heart with his +stole, so as to drive out that devil of a Gramigna, who had got +possession of it. + +But she persisted in her statement that she did not know the fellow by +sight; but that she had seen him one night in a dream, and the +following morning she had got up with her lips dry as if she had +herself suffered from all the thirst which they reported him to be +enduring. + +Then the old woman shut her up in the house, so that she might not +hear another word about Gramigna, and she stopped up all the cracks of +the door with images of the saints. + +Peppa heard all that was said in the street behind the sacred images, +and she turned red and white, as if the devil had kindled all his +fires in her face. + +Finally she heard it said that Gramigna had been located among the +prickly pear-trees of Palagonia. + +"They have been firing for two hours," they said. "He has killed one +carabineer and wounded more than three _compagni d'armi_. But they +sent back such a hailstorm of shots that he must have been hit; there +was a pool of blood where he had been." + +Then Peppa made the sign of the cross before the old mother's pillow, +and made her escape out of the window. + +Gramigna was in the prickly pear-trees of Palagonia, and they were not +able to find him in that stronghold of rabbits. He was ragged and +covered with blood, pale after two days of fasting, burning with +fever, and he had his carbine levelled. When he saw her coming, +resolute, among the prickly pear bushes, in the dim light of the +gloaming, he hesitated a moment whether to shoot or not:-- + +"What do you want?" he demanded. "What are you coming here for?" + +"I am coming to stay with you," said she, looking straight at him. +"Are you Gramigna?" + +"Yes, I am Gramigna. If you expect to get those twenty _oncie_[3] of +reward, you are mightily mistaken." + + [3] An onza is $2.55. + +"No, I have come to stay with you," she replied. + +"Go away!" said he. "You can't stay with me, and I don't want anyone +with me. If you are after money, I tell you you have made a mistake. +I haven't any, mind you! For two days I haven't had even a morsel of +bread." + +"I can't go back home now," said she; "the place is all full of +soldiers." + +"Go away! What is that to me? Each for himself." + +As she was turning away like a kicked dog, Gramigna called to her: + +"Say, go and get me a jug of water, down yonder in the brook. If you +want to stay with me, you must risk your skin." + +Peppa went without saying a word, and when Gramigna heard the gunshots +he began to laugh immoderately, and said to himself: "That was meant +for me!" + +But when he saw her coming back a few minutes later with the jug in +her hand, pale and bleeding, he said, before he sprang forward to +snatch the jug from her, and then when he had drunk till it seemed as +if he had no more breath: + +"You escaped, did you? How did you do it?" + +"The soldiers were on the other side, and there was a thick bush on +this." + +"But they put a bullet through your skin. There's blood on your +dress." + +"Yes." + +"Where were you hit?" + +"In the shoulder." + +"That's nothing. You can walk." + +So he allowed her to stay with him. She followed him, all in rags, +shoeless, suffering from the fever caused by the wound, and yet she +went foraging to procure for him a jug of water or a piece of bread, +and if she came back with empty hands, escaping through the gunshots, +her lover, devoured by hunger and thirst, would beat her. At last one +night when the moon was shining in the prickly pears, Gramigna said to +her,-- + +"They are on us." + +And he obliged her to stand with her back to the rock far in the +crevice; then he fled in another direction. Among the bushes were +heard the frequent reports of the musketry, and the shadows were cut +here and there by quick bright flashes. Suddenly Peppa heard the sound +of steps near her and saw Gramigna coming back, dragging along a +broken leg. He leaned against the prickly pear bushes to reload his +carbine: + +"It's all over," he said to her. "Now they'll take me." + +And what froze the blood in her veins more than anything else was the +light that shone in his eyes, as if he were a madman. + +Then when he fell on the dry branches like a log of wood, the soldiers +were on him in an instant. + +The following day they dragged him through the village street on a +cart, all in rags and covered with blood. The people who had crowded +in to look at him began to laugh when they saw how small he was, how +pale and ugly like a punchinello. And it was for him that Peppa had +deserted _compare_ Finu, the "Candela di Sego!" + +The poor "Candela di Sego" went and hid from sight, as if it behoved +him to be ashamed, and Peppa was led off, handcuffed by soldiers, as +if she also were a thief,--she who had as much gold as Santa +Margherita! Her poor mother was obliged to sell all the white linen +stored in her trunk, and the gold earrings and the rings for the ten +fingers, so as to pay the lawyers who defended her daughter and bring +the girl home again,--poor, ill, in shame, ugly as Gramigna, and with +Gramigna's child in her arms. + +But when at the end of the trial her daughter was restored to her, the +poor old soul recited an "Ave Maria" in the bare and already dark jail +among the soldiers of the guard; it seemed to her that they had given +her back a treasure when she had nothing else in the world, and she +wept like a fountain at this consolation. + +Peppa on the other hand seemed to have no tears to shed any more, and +said nothing, and disappeared from sight; yet the two women went out +every day to get their living by their own hands. People declared that +Peppa had taken up "the trade" in the woods, and went on robbing +expeditions at night. The truth of the matter was that she hid herself +in the kitchen like a wild beast in its lair, and it was only when her +old mother was dead of her privations, and the house had to be sold, +that she left it. + +"See here!" said "Candela di Sego," who was as much in love with her +as ever, "I could smash your head with two stones for the evil you +have brought on yourself and others." + +"It's true," replied Peppa, "I know it. It was God's will." + +After her house and those few wretched pieces of furniture that were +left to her were sold, she went away from the town by night, just as +she had done before, without turning round to look at the roof under +which she had slept so long, and she went to do God's will in the +city, with her baby boy, near the prison in which Gramigna was +incarcerated. She could see nothing else besides the black grated +windows along the mighty silent façade, and the sentinels drove her +away if she stopped to look where he might be. At last she was told +that he had not been there for some time, that he had been taken away +to the other side of the sea, manacled, and with a basket fastened +over his shoulder. + +She said nothing. She did not go away; for she knew not where to go, +and she had nothing more to expect. She made a shift to live, doing +chores for the soldiers, for the prisoners, as if she herself made a +part of that black and silent building; and she felt for the +carabineers who had taken Gramigna in the thicket of prickly pears, +and who had broken his leg with their shots, a sort of respectful +tenderness, as it were a brute admiration of force. + +On holidays, when she saw them with their plumes and their glittering +epaulettes, stiff and erect in their gala uniforms, she devoured them +with her eyes, and she was always at the barracks cleaning the big +rooms and polishing the boots, so that they called her "The +Carabineers' dish-cloth." + +Only when she saw them load their guns at nightfall and march out, two +and two, with their trousers turned up, revolver in belt, and when +they mounted horse under the light that made the muskets flash, and +heard the clattering of the horses' feet dying away in the darkness +and the jingling of sabres, she always grew pale, and while she was +closing the door of the stable she shivered; and when her youngster +played with the other urchins on the glacis before the prison, running +among the legs of the soldiers, and the urchins called him "Gramigna's +son, Gramigna's son," she flew into a rage and chased them away with +stones. + + + + +JELI, THE SHEPHERD. + + + [Illustration: JELI, THE SHEPHERD.] + + + + +JELI, THE SHEPHERD. + + +Jeli, who had charge of the horses, was thirteen when he first became +acquainted with the young gentleman, Don Alfonso. But he was so small +that he did not come up to the belly of the old mare Bianca, who +carried the big bell for the drove. Wherever his animals wandered for +their pasturage, here and there, on the mountains and down in the +plain, he was always to be found erect and motionless on some eminence +or squatting on some big rock. + +His friend, Don Alfonso, while he was at his country seat, went to +find him all the days that God sent to Tebidi, and shared with him his +piece of chocolate and shepherd's barley-bread and the fruit stolen in +the neighborhood. + +At first Jeli called the young nobleman _eccellenza_--your +excellence--as is the custom in Sicily, but after they had had one +good quarrel their friendship was established on a solid basis. Jeli +taught his friend how to climb up to the magpies' nests on the tip-top +of the walnut-trees, higher than the campanile of Licodia, to knock +down a sparrow on the wing with a stone, and to mount with one spring +on the bare backs of his half-wild animals, seizing by the mane the +first that came within reach, without being frightened by the wrathful +whinnyings and the desperate leaps of the untrained colts. + +Ah! the delightful gallops across the mown fields with their hair +flying in the wind; the lovely April days when the wind billowed the +green grass and the horses neighed in the pastures; the glorious +summer noons when the whitening fields lay silent under the cloudy +sky, and the crickets crackled among the clods as though the stubble +were on fire; the bright wintry sky seen through the naked branches +of the almond trees shivering under the north wind, and the narrow +path sounding frozen under the horses' hoofs, and the larks singing on +high in the warmth, in the azure; the delicious summer afternoons that +passed slowly, slowly, like the clouds; the sweet odor of the hay in +which they plunged their elbows, and the melancholy humming of the +evening insects, and those two notes of Jeli's zufolo or whistle, +always the same--iuh iuh!--making one think of distant things, of the +feast of Saint John, of Christmas eve, of the dawn of the +_scampagnata_,[4] of all those great events of the past which seemed +sad, so distant were they, and made you look up with moistened eyes as +if all the stars that were kindling in heaven poured showers into your +heart and made it overflow! + + [4] Pic-nic day. + +Jeli, himself, did not suffer from any such melancholy; he squatted on +the side of the hill with puffed-out cheeks, quite intent on sounding +his iuh! iuh! iuh! Then he would bring together his drove by dint of +shouts and stones, and drive them into the stable beyond the "poggio +alla Croce."[5] + + [5] Hill with a cross on it. + +Out of breath he would mount the hillside beyond the valley, and +sometimes shout to his friend Alfonso,-- + +"Call the dog! ohè! Call the dog!" or "Fling a good-sized stone at the +bay who's got the better of me and is slowly wandering away, dallying +among the bushes of the valley," or "To-morrow bring me a big +needle--one of _gnà_ Lia's." + +He could do all sorts of things with the needle, and he had a heap of +odds and ends in his canvas bag, in case of need, to mend his trousers +or the sleeves of his jacket; he also knew how to braid horsehairs, +and with the clay in the valley he used to wash out his own +handkerchief which he wore around his neck when it was cold. In fact, +provided he had his bag with him, he needed nothing in the world, +whether he were in the woods of Resecone, or lost in the depths of the +plain of Caltagirone. _Gnà_ Lia used to say,-- + +"Do you see Jeli, the shepherd? He is always alone in the fields, as +if he himself had been born a colt, and that's why he knows how to +make the cross with his two hands!"[6] + + [6] _I.e._, a _lusus naturæ_, abnormal! + +Indeed, it is true that Jeli needed nothing, but everybody connected +with the estate would have gladly helped him in any way because he was +a serviceable lad, and there was always a chance of getting something +from him. _Gnà_ Lia baked bread for him out of neighborly love, and he +showed his gratitude by making her osier baskets for her eggs, reels +of reeds, and other little things. + +"Let us do as his animals do," said _gnà_ Lia, "they scratch each +other's backs." + +At Tebidi every one had known him since he was a baby; there was no +time when he wasn't seen among the tails of the horses pasturing in +the "field of the _lettighiere_" and he had grown up, so to speak, +under their eyes, though really no one ever saw him very much, for he +was forever here and there, roaming about with his drove. + +"He had rained down from heaven and the earth had taken him up," as +the proverb has it; he was just one of those who have neither home nor +relatives. His _mamma_ was out at service at Vizzini, and he never saw +her more than once a year when he went with his colts to the fair of +San Giovanni; and the day that she died they came to call him--it was +one Saturday evening--and on the following Monday Jeli was back with +his drove, so that the _contadino_ who had taken his place in looking +after the horses might not lose a day's work; but the poor lad came +back so upset that he kept letting the colts get into the ploughed +land. + +"Ohè! Jeli!" cried _massaro_ Agrippino, from the threshing-floor. +"You want to have a taste of the rope's end, do you, you son of a +dog?" + +Jeli started to run after his stray colts, and drove them mechanically +toward the hill; but always before his eyes he saw his mamma with her +head done up in the white handkerchief. She would never speak to him +more! + +His father was a cow-herd at Ragoleti, beyond Licodia, "where the +malaria could be harvested," as the peasants of that region say, +meaning to signify its density; but in the malarious lands the +pasturage is fat and cows do not catch the fever. Jeli for that reason +stayed in the fields all the year long, either at Don Ferrante's, or +in the enclosure of la Commenda, or in the valley of il Jacitano, and +the hunters or travellers who took cross-cut over the country saw him +in this place or in that, like a dog without a master. + +He did not suffer from this state of things because he was accustomed +to be with his horses, as they moved about leisurely nibbling the +clover, and with the birds who flew around him in bevies, while the +sun accomplished his daily journey, slowly, slowly, until the shadows +grew long and then vanished; he had time to watch the clouds pile up +on the horizon, one behind another, and imagine them mountains and +valleys; he knew how the wind blew when it brought thunder-showers, +and what color the clouds were when it was going to snow. Everything +had its aspect and significance, and his eyes and ears were kept on +the alert all day long. In the same way when toward sunset the young +herdsman began to play his alder-whistle, the brown mare would come +up, lazily cropping the clover, and also stand looking with great, +pensive eyes. + +The only place where he suffered a little from melancholy was in the +desert lands of Passanitello, where not a grass-blade or a shrub is to +be seen, and during the hot months not a bird flies. The horses there +would cluster together with drooping heads to shade one another, and +during the long days of the threshing that mighty silent radiance +rained down without mitigation for sixteen hours. Wherever pasturage +was abundant and the horses liked to loiter, the lad busied himself +with something else--he would make reed-cages for the crickets, or +carved pipes and little baskets of bulrushes; with four branches he +could set up a shelter for himself when the North wind drove the long +lines of crows through the valley, or, when the cicadæ fluttered their +wings in the broiling sun over the parched stubble; he would roast +acorns in the coals of his sumach fire and imagine they were +chestnuts, or toast his thick slice of bread when it began to grow +musty, because, when he was at Passanitello in winter, the roads were +so bad that sometimes a fortnight would elapse without a single soul +passing. + +Don Alfonso, who had been kept in cotton by his parents, envied his +friend Jeli the canvas bag in which he stored his effects,--his +bread, his onions, his bottle of wine, his neckerchief for cold +weather, his little hoard of rags and thread and needles, his little +tin food-box and his flint; he envied him especially that superb +spotted mare, that animal with rough forelock and wicked eyes, +swelling her indignant nostrils like a fierce mastiff when anyone +tried to mount her. Sometimes she would allow Jeli to get on her back +and scratch her ears; she was jealous of him, and would come smelling +round to find out what he was saying. + +"Let the _vajata_ be," Jeli would say, "She isn't ugly, but she +doesn't know you." + +After Scordu from Bucchiere took away the Calabrian which he had +bought at San Giovanni's Fair, under agreement to keep her in the +drove until vintage time, _Zaino_, the bay colt, orphaned, refused to +be comforted and galloped over the mountain precipices with long, +lamenting neighings, and its nose in the wind. Jeli ran behind it, +calling to it with loud shouts, and the colt paused to listen with its +head in the air, and its ears pricking back and forth, and switching +its flanks with its tail. + +"It's because they have carried off his mother, and he doesn't know +what to make of it," observed the herdsman. "Now we must keep him in +sight, for he would be capable of jumping over the precipice. That was +the way I felt when my mamma died; I couldn't see with my eyes." + +Then, after the colt began to try the clover and to make believe +bite:-- + +"See! he is gradually beginning to forget.... But this one will be +sold, too. Horses are made to be sold, just as lambs are born to go to +the butcher, and the clouds to bring the rain. Only the birds have +nothing else to do but sing and fly all day." + +These ideas did not come to him clear cut and in sequence one after +the other, for it was rarely that he had anyone to talk with, and, +therefore, he had no cause for haste in starting them up and +disentangling them in the depths of his brain, where he was accustomed +to let them sprout and grow gradually, as the twigs burgeon under the +sun. + +"Even the birds," he added, "have to hunt for food, and when the snow +covers the ground they perish." + +Then he pondered for a moment,--"You are like the birds; but when +winter comes you can sit by the fire and do nothing." + +But Don Alfonso replied that he too went to school and had to study. +Jeli opened his eyes wide and was all ears, while the signorino began +to read, and he looked at the book and at the young master himself +with a suspicious air, listening with that slight winking of the +eyelids which indicates intensity of attention in beasts little +accustomed to mankind. + +He was delighted with the poetry that caressed his ears with the +harmony of an incomprehensible song, and occasionally he frowned, +drew up his chin, and made it evident that a great mental operation +was taking place within him; then he nodded "yes, yes," with a crafty +smile, and scratched his head. Then when the signorino started to +write so as to show how many things he knew how to do, Jeli could have +staid whole days watching him; and suddenly he would look round +suspiciously. He could not be persuaded that the words that were said +either by him or by Don Alfonso could possibly be repeated on paper, +and still more--those things that had not proceeded from their mouths, +and he ended with that shrewd smile. + +Every new idea which knocked for entrance at his head made him +suspicious; he seemed to try it with the wild diffidence of his +_vajata_. But he expressed no wonder at anything in the world; he +might have been told that in cities horses rode in carriages,--he +would have kept on that mask of oriental indifference which is the +dignity of a Sicilian peasant. It would seem as if he intrenched +himself instinctively in his ignorance, as if it were the force of +poverty. Every time that he remained short of arguments he would +repeat,-- + +"I do not know at all. I am poor," with that obstinate smile that was +intended to be shrewd. + +He had asked his friend Alfonso to write for him the name of Mara on a +piece of paper that he had found somewhere, because it was his habit +to pick up whatever he saw lying about and put into his packet of odds +and ends. One day, after being rather quiet and looking round +anxiously, he said, very gravely,-- + +"I'm in love with some one." + +Alfonso, though he knew how to read, opened his eyes in astonishment. + +"Yes," continued Jeli, "_massaro_ Agrippino's daughter Mara, who used +to be here; but now they're at Marineo, in that great house in the +plain that you can see from the 'plain of the _lettighiere_' yonder." + +"O you're going to get married, then?" + +"Yes, when I'm grown up and have six _onze_ a year wages. Mara knows +nothing about it." + +"Why, haven't you told her?" + +Jeli shook his head and reflected. Then he opened his hoard and +unfolded the paper which bore the written name. + +"It must be that it says 'Mara'; Don Gesualdo, the _campiere_,[7] has +read it; and _fra_ Cola, when he came down here begging for beans." + + [7] Field guard. + +"He who knows how to write," he went on saying, "is like one who +preserves words in his tinder-box and can carry them in his pocket, +and even send them this way and that." + +"Now what are you going to do with that piece of paper that you can't +read?" asked Alfonso. + +Jeli shrugged his shoulders, but kept on carefully folding his written +leaf to put away in his heap of odds and ends. + +He had known la Mara ever since she was a little girl. Their +acquaintance had begun in a pitched battle once when they met down in +the valley, both of them after blackberries. The little girl, knowing +that she was "within her rights," had seized Jeli by the neck as if he +were a thief. For awhile they exchanged blows on the slope--"You one, +I one,"--as the cooper does on the hoops of his barrels; but when they +got tired of it they gradually calmed down, though they still had each +other by the hair. + +"Who are you?" demanded Mara. + +And when Jeli with less breeding refused to tell who he was,-- + +"I am Mara, the daughter of _Massaro_ Agrippino, who is the keeper of +all these fields here." + +Jeli then let his grasp relax, and the little girl set to work to pick +up the blackberries that had fallen during their struggle, now and +then glancing with curiosity at her antagonist. + +"Just beyond the bridge, on the edge of the orchard, there are lots +of big berries," suggested the little maid, "and the hens are eating +them." + +Jeli meantime was creeping off stealthily, and Mara, after standing on +tip-toe to watch him disappearing in the grove, turned her back and +ran home as fast as her legs would carry her. + +But from that day forth they began to be friends. Mara went with her +hemp to spin on to the parapet of the little bridge, and Jeli would +slowly drive his cattle toward the slopes of the _poggio del Bandito_. +At first he kept at a distance, roving around and looking from afar, +with suspicion in his face, but he kept gradually edging near, with +the watchful gait of a dog used to stones. When at last he joined her, +they remained long hours without speaking a word, Jeli attentively +watching the intricate work of the stockings which Mara's mamma had +hung round her neck, or she looking on while he carved his pretty +zig-zags on the almond sticks. Then they would separate, he going one +way, she the other, without saying a word, and the little girl as soon +as she was in sight of her house would start to run, kicking high her +petticoat with her little red legs. + +When the prickly pears were ripe they would settle down in the thick +of the bushes, peeling the figs all the live-long day. They would +wander together under the immemorial walnuts, and Jeli would beat so +many of the walnuts that they would shower down thick as hail, and the +girl would tire herself out picking them up with jubilant shouts--more +than she could carry; and then she would scamper away nimbly, holding +up the two corners of her apron, bobbing like a little old woman. + +During the winter time, Mara dared not put her nose out of doors, it +was so cold. Sometimes toward evening could be seen the smoke of +Jeli's fires of sumach wood, which he built on the _Piano del +lettighiere_, or on the _Poggio di Macca_, so as not to perish of the +cold, like the tomtits which he sometimes found in the morning behind +some rock, or in the shelter of a clod. The horses also found pleasure +in dangling their tails around the fire, and they would cuddle close +together so as to be warmer. + +In March, the larks came back to the plain, the sparrows to the roofs, +the leaves and the nests to the hedges. Mara took up her habit of +going about with Jeli in the soft grass among the flowering bushes +under the still bare trees which were just beginning to show tender +points of green. Jeli would make his way through the brambles like a +bloodhound, so as to discover the nests of the blackbirds which would +look up to him in astonishment with their little keen eyes; the two +children would carry, cuddled in their hearts, little wee rabbits just +born, almost without fur, but already quick to move their long ears. + +They would scour the fields in pursuit of the drove of horses, +entering the plains behind the hay-gatherers, step for step with the +herd, pausing every time that a mare stopped to pluck a mouthful of +grass. At evening, when they got back to the bridge, they separated, +he going in one direction, she in another, without saying good-by. + +Thus they passed the whole summer. When the sun began to go down +behind the _Poggio alla Croce_, the robin red-breasts also went toward +the mountain, as it grew dark, following the light among the clumps of +prickly pears. The crickets and cicadæ were no longer heard, and at +that hour a great melancholy spread through the air. + +About that time, to Jeli's tumble-down hovel came his father, the +cowherd, who had caught the malaria at Ragoleti, and could scarcely +dismount from the ass which brought him. Jeli started a fire quickly, +and ran to "the hall" for some hen's eggs. + +"Put a little straw down in front of the fire as soon as you can," +said his father, "for I feel the fever returning." + +The chill of the fever was so severe that _compare_ Menu buried under +his thick cloak, the saddle-bags of the ass and Jeli's sacks shook as +the leaves do in November, in spite of the great blaze of branches +which made his face white as a corpse. + +The contadini of the farm came to ask him,-- + +"How do you think you feel, _compare_ Menu?" + +The poor man could only answer with a whine like a sucking puppy. + +"It's a kind of malaria that kills more surely than a rifle bullet," +said his friends, as they warmed their hands at the fire. + +The doctor was called, but it was money thrown away, because the +disease is one of those clear and evident ones which even a boy would +know how to cure; unless the fever happens to be so severe that it +will kill at any rate, a little quinine cures it quickly. + +_Compare_ Menu spent the eyes of his head for quinine but it was as +good as thrown down a well. + +"Take a good dose of _ecalibbiso_ tea, which does not cost anything," +suggested _massaro_ Agrippino, "and if it doesn't work as well as +quinine it doesn't ruin you by its cost." + +So he took the decoction of eucaliptus, but the fever returned all the +same, and even more violently. Jeli attended to his father the best he +knew how. Every morning before he went off with his colts, he left him +his medicine all prepared in a drinking cup, his bundle of dry +branches within reach, his eggs in the hot ashes, and he came back as +early as he could in the afternoon with more wood for the night, and +the bottle of wine and a little piece of mutton, which he had gone as +far as Licodia to buy for him. The poor lad did everything as handily +as a clever maiden would have done, and his father, following him with +weary eyes in his operations about the hovel, sometimes smiled to +think that the boy would be able to do for himself in case he were +left alone in the world. + +On days when the fever left him for a few hours, _compare_ Menu would +get up, all feeble as he was, and with his head wrapped in his +handkerchief, would stagger out to the door to wait for Jeli while the +sun was still warm. When Jeli dropped the bundle of wood at the +door-steps, and placed the bottle and the eggs on the table, he would +say to him,-- + +"Put the _ecalibbiso_ to boiling for to-night," or, "Remember that +your aunt Agata has charge of your mother's money, when I shall be no +more." + +Jeli would nod "yes" with his head. + +"It is hopeless," said _massaro_ Agrippino, every time he came to see +_compare_ Menu and his fever. "His blood is all diseased by this +time." + +_Compare_ Menu listened without winking, with his face whiter than his +night-cap. + +He now no longer got up. Jeli began to weep when he found himself not +strong enough to help him turn from one side to the other; shortly +after _compare_ Menu lay perfectly still. The last words that he +spoke to his boy were,-- + +"When I am dead, go to the owner of the cows at Ragoleti and let him +give you the three _onze_ and the twelve _tumoli_ of corn, which are +my due from March till now." + +"No," replied Jeli, "it's only two _onze_ and a half, because you left +the cows more than a month ago, and one must be fair to one's +_padrone_." + +"True!" agreed _compare_ Menu, closing his eyes. + +"Now I am quite alone in the world, like a lost colt which the wolves +may eat!" said Jeli to himself, when his father had been carried off +to the cemetery of Licodia. + +Mara had been one of those who came to see the dead man's house with +that morbid curiosity which is excited by horrible things. + +"Do you see how I am left?" asked Jeli, but the girl drew back so +frightened that he could not induce her to step inside the house where +the dead man had been. + +Jeli went to receive the money due his father, and then he started off +with his drove for Passanitello, where the grass was already tall on +the fallow-land, and the fodder was abundant; therefore, the colts +remained there for some time in pasture. + +Meantime Jeli had been growing into a big lad, and Mara also must be +grown tall, he often thought to himself, while he played on his +_zufalo_; and when he returned to Tebidi after some little time, +slowly driving forward the mares through the dangerous paths of "Uncle +Cosimo's Fountain," he scanned the little bridge down in the valley, +and the hovel in the _Valle del Jacitano_, and the roof of "the Hall" +where the pigeons were always flying. + +But at that time the _padrone_ had dismissed _massaro_ Agrippino, and +all Mara's family were just on the point of moving away. + +Jeli found the girl, who had grown tall and very pretty, standing at +the entrance of the yard watching the furniture and things, which +they were loading on the cart. The empty room seemed to him more +gloomy and smoky than ever before. The table, the commode and the +images of the Virgin and of Saint John, and even the nails for hanging +up the gourds for seed had left on the walls the marks where they had +been for so many years. + +"We are going away," said Mara, when she saw him looking around. "We +are going down to Marineo, where the great house stands in the plain." + +Jeli took hold and helped _massaro_ Agrippino and _la gnà Lia_ load up +the cart, and when there was nothing else to carry out of the room he +went and sat down with Mara on the edge of the watering-trough. + +"Even houses," he remarked, when he saw the last hamper piled on, +"even houses, when anything is taken away from them, do not any longer +seem the same." + +"At Marineo," replied Mara, "we shall have much better rooms, mamma +says, and large as the cheese house." + +"Now that you are going away, I shall not want to come here any more; +it seems to me as if winter had come back--to see that door closed." + +"At Marineo we shall find other friends, Pudda _la rossa_ and the +_campiere's_ daughter; it will be jolly there; they have more than +eighty harvesters in the season, and the bag-pipes, and they dance on +the threshing-floor." + +_Massaro_ Agrippino and his wife had gone off with the cart. Mara ran +behind them, full of joyous excitement, carrying the baskets with the +pigeons. Jeli was going to accompany her as far as the little bridge; +and when Mara was just on the point of disappearing down the valley he +called after her, "Mara! oh! Mara!" + +"What do you want?" demanded Mara. + +He knew not what he wanted. + +"Oh! what will you do here all alone?" asked the girl. + +"I shall stay with the colts." + +Mara ran skipping away, and he stood there as if rooted to the spot +so as to catch the last sounds of the cart rattling over the stones. + +The sun was just resting on the high rocks of the _Poggio alla Croce_, +the gray crests of the olive trees were shading into the twilight and +over the vast campagna far away, nothing was heard except the tinkling +bell of "Bianca" in the gathering stillness. + +Mara, now that she was in the midst of new faces and amid all the +bustle of the grape gathering, forgot about Jeli; but he was always +thinking about her, because he had nothing else to do in the long days +that he spent looking at the horses' tails. There was now no special +reason for him to go down into the valley beyond the bridge, and no +one ever saw him any more at the farm. + +Thus it was that he was for some time ignorant that Mara had become +betrothed--so much water had run and run under the bridge. The only +time that he saw the girl was on the day of Saint John's _Festa_, +when he went to the fair with his colts to sell; a festa which changed +everything for him into poison, and caused the bread to fall out of +his mouth by reason of an accident that befell one of the _padrone's_ +colts--the Lord deliver us! + +On the day of the fair, the factor waited for the colts ever since +dawn, walking impatiently up and down in his well-polished boots +behind the groups of horses and mules that came filing in along the +highway from this direction and that. It was almost time for the fair +to close, and still Jeli with his animals was not in sight beyond the +turn made by the highway. On the parched slopes of _Calvario_ and the +_Mulino a vento_--the Wind-Mill Mountain--there remained only a few +droves of sheep gathered in a circle, with noses drooping and weary +eyes, and a few yoke of oxen with long hair--of the kind that are sold +to satisfy unpaid rent, waiting motionless under the boiling sun. + +Yonder toward the valley, the bell of San Giovanni's was ringing for +High Mass, accompanied by the long crackling of the fireworks. + +Then the fair grounds seemed to spring up, and there ran a prolonged +cry among the shops of the green grocers, clustered in the place +called _salita dei Galli_, spreading through the country roads and +seeming to return from the valley where the church stood. + +"Viva San Giovanni!" + +"_Santo diavolone!_" screamed the factor. "That assassin of a Jeli +will make me lose the fair!" + +The sheep lifted their heads in astonishment and began to bleat all at +once, and the cattle also made a step or two, slowly looking around +with their great, calm eyes. + +The factor was in a rage because he was expected that day to pay the +rent due for the large enclosures--as the contract expressed it, "when +Saint John arrived under the elm;" and to make up the full sum, the +profits on the sale of the colts was necessary. Meantime the colts and +horses and mules were coming in such numbers as the good Lord had seen +fit to make, all curried and shining and adorned with tassels and +cockades and bells; and they were switching their tails to while away +their tedium, and turning their heads toward every one who passed, and +evidently waiting for some charitable soul willing to buy them. + +"He must have gone to sleep on the way, the assassin!" yelled the +factor, "and so made me lose the sale of my colts." + +In reality, Jeli had travelled all night so that the colts might reach +the fair fresh, and get a good position on their arrival; and he had +reached the _piano del Corvo_, and the "three kings" had not yet set, +but were shining over _monte Arturo_. There was a continuous +procession of carts passing along the road, and people mounted on +horses or mules going to the _festa_. Therefore, the young fellow +kept his eyes open so that the colts, frightened by the unusual +commotion, might not get away, but that he might keep them together +along the ridge of the road behind _la bianca_, the white mare, who +with the bell around her neck, always travelled straight ahead without +minding anything. + +From time to time, when the road ran over the crest of the hills, the +bell of Saint John's could be heard in the distance, and in the +darkness and silence of the plain the rumor of the _festa_ was +distinguishable, and along the whole road far away, wherever there +were people on foot or on horseback going to Vizzini, were heard +shouts of "_Viva San Giovanni!_" And the rockets rose up high in the +air and brilliant behind the mountains of la Canzaria, like the rain +of meteors in August. + +"It is like Christmas Eve!" Jeli kept saying to the boy, who was +helping him drive the herd. "And in every place there is feasting and +light, and throughout the whole campagna you can see fireworks." + +The boy was half asleep as he forced one leg after the other, and he +made no response; but Jeli, who felt his blood stir within him at the +sound of that bell, could not keep quiet, as if each one of those +rockets that left their silent shining trails on the darkness behind +the mountains burst forth from his soul. + +"Mara also must be going to the _festa_ of Saint John," he said, +"because she goes every year." + +And without caring because the boy made no reply,-- + +"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.' _Gnà_ 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 _gnà_ 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 _café_, +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. _Gnà_ 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 _gnà_ 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 _gnà_ 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 _gnà_ 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, _gnà_ 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 _gnà_ 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 _gnà_ 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!" + + + + +RUSTIC CHIVALRY. + +(_Cavalleria Rusticana._) + + [Illustration: "LOLA USED TO GO OUT ON THE BALCONY WITH HER HANDS + CROSSED."] + + + + +RUSTIC CHIVALRY. + +(_Cavalleria Rusticana._) + + +Turiddu Macca, _gnà_ Nunzia's son, after returning from the army, used +every Sunday to strut like a peacock through the square in his +bersegliere uniform and red cap, looking like the fortune-teller as he +sets up his stand with his cage of canaries. The girls on their way to +Mass gave stolen glances at him from behind their mantellinas, and the +urchins buzzed round him like flies. + +He had brought back with him, also, a pipe with the king on horseback +carved so naturally that it seemed actually alive, and he scratched +his matches on the seat of his trousers, lifting his leg as if he were +going to give a kick. + +But in spite of all this, Lola, the daughter of _massaro_ Angelo, had +not shown herself either at Mass or on the balcony, for the reason +that she was going to wed a man from Licodia, a carter who had four +Sortino mules in his stable. + +At first, when Turiddu heard about it, _santo diavolone!_ he +threatened to disembowel him, threatened to kill him--that fellow from +Licodia! But he did nothing of the sort; he contented himself with +going under the fair one's window, and singing all the spiteful songs +he knew. + +"Has _gnà_ Nunzia's Turiddu nothing else to do," asked the neighbors, +"except spending his nights singing like a lone sparrow?" + +At length, he met Lola on her way back from the pilgrimage to the +Madonna del Pericolo, and when she saw him, she turned neither red nor +white, just as if it were none of her affair at all. + +"Oh, _compare_ Turiddu, I was told that you returned the first of the +month." + +"But I have been told of something quite different!" replied the +other. "Is it true that you are to marry _compare_ Alfio, the +carter?" + +"Such is God's will," replied Lola, drawing the two ends of her +handkerchief under her chin. + +"God's will in your case is done with a snap and a spring; to suit +yourself! And it was God's will, was it, that I should return from so +far to find this fine state of things, _gnà_ Lola!" + +The poor fellow still tried to bluster, but his voice grew hoarse, and +he followed the girl, tossing his head so that the tassel of his cap +swung from side to side on his shoulders. To tell the truth, she felt +really sorry to see him wearing such a long face, but she had not the +heart to deceive him with fine speeches. + +"Listen, _compare_ Turiddu," she said to him at last, "Let me join my +friends. What would be said in town if I were seen with you?" + +"You are right," replied Turiddu, "Now that you are going to marry +_compare_ Alfio, who has four mules in his stable, it is best not to +let people's tongues wag about you. But my mother, poor soul, was +obliged to sell our bay mule, and that little plot of vineyard on the +highway while I was off in the army. The time 'when Berta spun,' is +over and gone, and you no longer think of the time when we used to +talk together from the window looking into the yard, and you gave me +that handkerchief before I went away, and God knows how many tears I +shed into it at going so far that even the name of our place is lost! +So good-by, _gnà_ Lola,--Let's pretend it's rained and cleared off, +and our friendship is ended."[12] + + [12] _Facemu cuntu ca chioppi e scampau e la nostra amicizia finiu._ + +_Gnà_ Lola married the carter, and on Sundays used to go out on the +balcony with her hands crossed on her stomach, to show off all the +heavy gold rings that her husband gave to her. Turiddu kept up his +habit of going back and forth through the street with his pipe in his +mouth, his hands in his pockets, and an air of unconcern, and +ogling the girls; but it gnawed his heart that Lola's husband had so +much money, and that she pretended not to see him when he passed. + +"I'll get even with her, under her very eyes; the vile beast," he +muttered. + +Opposite _compare_ Alfio lived _massaro_ Cola, the vinedresser, who +was as rich as a pig, and had one daughter at home. Turiddu said and +did all he could to become _massaro_ Cola's workman, and he began to +frequent the house, and make sweet speeches to the girl. + +"Why don't you go and say sweet things to _gnà_ Lola?" asked Santa. + +"_Gnà_ Lola is a fine lady. _Gnà_ Lola has married a crowned king +now!" + +"I don't deserve crowned kings!" + +"You are worth a hundred Lolas, and I know some one who wouldn't look +at _la gnà_ Lola or her saint when you are by, for _gnà_ Lola isn't +worthy to wear your shoes, no, she isn't!" + +"The fox when he couldn't get at the grapes said, 'How beautiful you +are, _racinedda mia_,' my little grape!" + +"Ohè! hands off, _compare_ Turiddu!" + +"Are you afraid that I will eat you?" + +"I'm not afraid of you or of your God." + +"Eh! your mother was from Licodia, we all know that! You have +quarrelsome blood. Uh! How I could eat you with my eyes!" + +"Eat me then with your eyes, for we should not have a crumb left, but +meantime help me up with this bundle." + +"I would lift up the whole house for you, yes, I would!" + +She, so as not to blush, threw at him a stick of wood which was within +reach, and by a miracle didn't hit him. + +"Let's have done, for chattering never picked grapes." + +"If I were rich I should try to get a wife like you, _gnà_ Santa." + +"I shall never marry a crowned king like _gnà_ Lola, but I have my +dowry as well as she, whenever the Lord shall send me anyone." + +"We know you are rich, we know it." + +"If you know it, say no more, for father is coming, and I shouldn't +like to have him find me in the court-yard." + +The old father began to turn up his nose, but the girl pretended not +to notice it, because the tassel of the bersegliere's cap had set her +heart to fluttering, and was constantly dancing before her eyes. When +the _babbo_ put Turiddu out of the house, his daughter opened the +window for him, and stood chatting with him all the evening long, so +that the whole neighborhood talked of nothing else. + +"I'm madly in love with you," said Turiddu, "and I am losing my sleep +and my appetite." + +"How absurd!" + +"I wish I were Victor Emmanuel's son, so as to marry you." + +"How absurd!" + +"By the Madonna, I would eat you like bread!" + +"How absurd!" + +"Ah! on my honor!" + +"Ah! _mamma mia!_" + +Lola, who was listening every evening, hidden behind the vase of +basil, and turning red and white, one day called Turiddu:-- + +"And so, _compare_ Turiddu, old friends don't speak to each other any +more?" + +"_Ma!_" sighed the young man, "blessed is he who can speak to you." + +"If you have any desire to speak to me, you know where I live," +replied Lola. + +Turiddu went to see her so frequently that Santa noticed it, and shut +the window in his face. The neighbors looked at him with a smile or +with a shake of the head when the bersegliere passed. Lola's husband +was making a round of the fairs with his mules. + +"Sunday I am going to confession, for last night I dreamed of black +grapes," said Lola. + +"Put it off, put it off" begged Turiddu. + +"No, Easter is coming, and my husband will want to know why I haven't +been to confession." + +"Ah," murmured _massaro_ Cola's Santa, as she was waiting on her knees +before the confessional for her turn, while Lola was making a clean +breast of her sins. "On my soul, I will not send you to Rome for your +punishment!" + +_Compare_ Alfio came home with his mules; he was loaded with money, +and he brought to his wife for a present, a handsome new dress for the +holidays. + +"You are right to bring her gifts," said his neighbor Santa, "because +while you are away your wife adorns your house for you." + +_Compare_ Alfio was one of those carters who wear their hats over one +ear, and when he heard his wife spoken of in such a way he changed +color as if he had been knifed. + +"_Santo diavolone!_" he exclaimed, "if you haven't seen aright, I will +not leave you eyes to weep with, you or your whole family." + +"I am not used to weeping!" replied Santa, "I did not weep even when +I saw with these eyes _gnà_ Nunzia's Turiddu going into your wife's +house at night!" + +"It is well," replied _compare_ Alfio, "many thanks!" + +Turiddu, now that the cat was at home, no longer went out on the +street by day, and he whiled away the tedium at the inn with his +friends; and on Easter eve they had on the table a dish of sausages. + +When _compare_ Alfio came in, Turiddu realized, merely by the way in +which he fixed his eyes on him, that he had come to settle that +affair, and he laid his fork on the plate. + +"Have you any commands for me, _compare_ Alfio?" he asked. + +"No favors to ask, _compare_ Turiddu; it's some time since I have seen +you, and I wanted to speak concerning something you know about." + +Turiddu at first had offered him a glass, but _compare_ Alfio refused +it with a wave of his hand. Then Turiddu got up and said to him,-- + +"Here I am, _compare_ Alfio." + +The carter threw his arms around his neck. + +"If to-morrow morning you will come to the prickly pears of la +Canziria, we can talk that matter over, _compare_." + +"Wait for me on the street at daybreak, and we will go together." + +With these words they exchanged the kiss of defiance. Turiddu bit the +carter's ear, and thus made the solemn oath not to fail him. + +The friends had silently left the sausages, and accompanied Turiddu to +his home. _Gnà_ Nunzia, poor creature, waited for him till late every +evening. + +"Mamma," said Turiddu, "do you remember when I went as a soldier, that +you thought I should never come back any more? Give me a good kiss as +you did then, for to-morrow morning I am going far away." + +Before daybreak he got his spring-knife, which he had hidden under the +hay, when he had gone to serve his time in the army, and started for +the prickly-pear trees of la Canziria. + +"Oh, Gesummaria! where are you going in such haste!" cried Lola in +great apprehension, while her husband was getting ready to go out. + +"I am not going far," replied _compare_ Alfio. "But it would be better +for you if I never came back." + +Lola in her nightdress was praying at the foot of the bed, and +pressing to her lips the rosary which Fra Bernardino had brought to +her from the Holy places, and reciting all the Ave Marias that she +could say. + +"_Compare_ Alfio," began Turiddu, after he had gone a little distance +by the side of his companion, who walked in silence with his cap down +over his eyes, "as God is true I know that I have done wrong, and I +should let myself be killed. But before I came out, I saw my old +mother, who got up to see me off, under the pretence of tending the +hens. Her heart had a presentiment, and as the Lord is true, I will +kill you like a dog, so that my poor old mother may not weep." + +"All right," replied _compare_ Alfio, stripping off his waistcoat. +"Then we will both of us hit hard." + +Both of them were skilful fencers. Turiddu was first struck, and was +quick enough to receive it in the arm. When he returned it, he +returned it well, and wounded the other in the groin. + +"Ah, _compare_ Turiddu! so you really intend to kill me, do you?" + +"Yes, I gave you fair warning; since I saw my old mother in the +hen-yard, it seems to me I have her all the time before my eyes." + +"Keep them well open, those eyes of yours," cried _compare_ Alfio, +"for I am going to give you back good measure." + +As he stood on guard, all doubled up, so as to keep his left hand on +his wound, which pained him, and almost trailing his elbow on the +ground, he swiftly picked up a handful of dust, and flung it into his +adversary's eyes. + +"Ah!" screamed Turiddu, blinded, "I am dead." + +He tried to save himself, by making desperate leaps backwards, but +_compare_ Alfio overtook him with another thrust in the stomach, and a +third in the throat. + +"And that makes three! that is for the house which you have adorned +for me! Now your mother will let the hens alone." + +Turiddu staggered a short distance among the prickly pears, and then +fell like a stone. The blood foaming, gurgled in his throat, and he +could not even cry, "_Ah! mamma mia!_" + + + + +LA LUPA. + + +She was tall and lean; but she had a firm, full bust, and yet she was +no longer young; her complexion was brunette, but pallid as if she had +always suffered from malaria, and this pallor set forth two big eyes +and fresh rosy lips that seemed to eat you. + +In the village she was called _la Lupa_--the She-Wolf--because she was +never satisfied. Women made the sign of the cross when they saw her +pass, always alone like a big ugly hound, with the vagabond and +suspicious gait of a famished wolf; she would bewitch their sons and +their husbands in the twinkling of an eye with her red lips and she +made them fall in love with her merely by looking at them out of those +big Satanic eyes of hers, even if they were before Santa Agrippina's +altar. + +Fortunately _la Lupa_ never came to church at Easter or at Christmas, +nor to hear Mass or to make confession. _Padre_ Angiolino of Santa +Maria di Gesù, a true servant of God, had lost his soul on her +account. + +Maricchia,--poor girl, pretty and clever she was,--secretly wept +because she was _la Lupa's_ daughter, and no one had offered to marry +her though she had nice clothes in her bureau, and her own little +piece of land in the sun, like every other girl of the village. + +One time _la Lupa_ fell in love with a handsome youth who had just +served out his time in the army, and had come home and was helping to +reap the notary's harvest with her; for surely it means to be in love +when she felt the flesh burn under the fustian shift, and on looking +at him to experience the thirst that one has in hot June days down in +the low-lands. + +But he went on with his work, undisturbed, with his nose on his +sheaves, and he said to her, "Oh, what's the matter, _gnà_ Pina?" + +In the immense fields where the only sound was the rustle of the +grasshoppers flying up, while the sun was pouring down his hottest +beams perpendicularly, _la Lupa_ was heaping up sheaf on sheaf, and +pile on pile, without ever showing any signs of fatigue, without one +moment straightening herself up, without once touching her lips to the +water jug, so as to stick close to Nanni's heels as he reaped and +reaped; and now and again he would ask,-- + +"What do you want, _gnà_ Pina?" + +One evening she told him, it was while the men were sleeping in the +threshing-floor, weary of the long day's work and the dogs were +howling through the vast black campagna,-- + +"I want you! you are as handsome as the sun and as sweet as honey; I +want you!" + +"But I want your daughter--I want the young calf," said Nanni, +laughing at his own joke. + +_La Lupa_ thrust her hands into the masses of her hair, scratching her +temples, without saying a word, and went off and was not seen again in +the harvest field. But the following October she saw Nanni again at +the time when they were pressing the oil, because he worked near her +house, and the rattle of the press kept her awake all night. + +"Take a bag of olives," she said to her daughter, "and come with me." + +Nanni was shoveling the olives into the hopper and shouting "Ohi" to +the mule to keep it going. + +"Do you want my daughter Maricchia?" demanded _gnà_ Pina. + +"What dowry will you give with your daughter Maricchia?" replied +Nanni. + +"She has her father's things, and besides I will give her my house; it +will be enough for me if you'll let me have a corner in the kitchen to +spread out a mattress in." + +"If that is so, we can talk about it at Christmas," said Nanni. Nanni +was all grease and dirt from the olives put to fermenting, and +Maricchia would not have him on any account; but her mother grabbed +her by the hair as they stood in front of the hearth and hissed +through her set teeth,-- + +"If you don't take him, I'll kill you." + +_La Lupa_ looked ill, and the people remarked: "When the devil was old +the devil a monk would be." She no longer went wandering about; she +stood no more at her doorway looking out with those eyes as of one +possessed. + +Her son-in-law, when she fixed those eyes on his face, always began to +laugh, and would pull out his cloth talisman, with its effigy of the +Madonna, to cross himself with. + +Maricchia stayed at home to nurse her children, and her mother went +out to work in the fields with the men, just like a man,--to weed, to +dig, to guide the animals, to dress the vines, whether it were during +the Greek-Levant winds[13] of January, or during the August sirocco, +when mules let their heads droop, and men sleep prone on their bellies +under the shadow of the North wall. + + [13] North-east. + +In that time between vespers and nones, when, according to the saying, +no good woman is seen going about, _gnà_ Pina was the only living +creature to be seen wandering across the campagna, over the fiery hot +stones of the narrow streets, among the parched stubble of the wide, +wide fields that stretched away into the burning haze toward cloudy +Etna, where the sky hangs heavy on the horizon. + +"Wake up!" said _la Lupa_ to Nanni, who was asleep in the ditch next +the dusty harvest-field, with his head on his arms. "Wake up, for I've +brought you some wine to cool your throat." + +Nanni opened his eyes, half awake, and saw her sitting up straight and +pale before him, with her swelling breast, and her eyes as black as +coal, and drew back waving his arms,-- + +"No! a good woman does not go about between vespers and nones," +groaned Nanni, thrusting his face in amongst the dried weeds of the +ditch as far as he could, and putting his fingers into his hair. "Go +away! Get you gone! And don't you come to the threshing-floor any +more." + +She turned and went away,--_la Lupa_,--knotting up her splendid +tresses again, looking down steadily as she made her way among the hot +stubble, with her eyes black as coal. + +But she did go back to the threshing-floor, and Nanni no longer +reproached her; and when she failed to come, in that hour between +vespers and nones, he went, and with perspiration on his brow, waited +for her at the top of the white deserted footpath, but afterwards he +would thrust his hands through his hair, and every time he would say, +"Go away! Go away! Don't come to the threshing-floor again." + +Maricchia wept night and day, and she looked into her mother's face +with eyes blazing with tears and jealousy, like a _lupachiotta_, +a young wolf herself, every time that she saw her coming back from +the fields, silent and pale. + +"Vile! _scellerata!_" she would say, "Vile mamma." + +"Hold your tongue!" + +"Thief! thief!" + +"Hold your tongue!" + +"I'll go to the _brigadiere_!"[14] + + [14] Brigadiere is the station or the Commandant of the detachment + of the Carabaneers in a small town. + +And she actually went with her infants in her arms, without a sign of +fear, and without shedding a tear, like a crazy woman, because now she +passionately loved that husband whom she had been forced to marry, +greasy and dirty as he was from the olives set to fermenting. + +The _brigadiere_ summoned Nanni, and threatened him with the galleys +and the gallows. Nanni began to weep, and pull his hair; he denied +nothing, did not try to justify himself. + +"The temptation was too much," said he, "'twas the temptation of +hell." He flung himself at the _brigadiere's_ feet, begging him to +send him to the galleys. + +"For mercy's sake, _Signor brigadiere_, take me out of this hell! Have +me shot! Send me to prison! Don't let me see her ever again! never +again!" + +"No," replied _la Lupa_, to the _brigadiere's_ question. "I kept a +corner of the kitchen to sleep in when I gave him my house as my +daughter's dowry. The house is mine. I do not intend to go away." + +Shortly after, Nanni was kicked in the chest by a mule, and was like +to die; but the priest refused to bring him the Holy Unction unless +_la Lupa_ was out of the house. + +_La Lupa_ went away, and her son-in-law was then permitted to pass +away like a good Christian; he confessed and partook of the Sacrament +with such signs of penitence and contrition that all the neighbors and +inquisitive visitors wept as they surrounded the dying man's bed. + +And it would have been better for him if he had died then and there, +before the devil had a chance to return to tempt him, and take +possession of him, mind and body, when he got well again. + +"Let me be!" he said to _la Lupa_; "for mercy's sake, leave me in +peace! I have seen death with my own eyes! Poor Maricchia is in +despair. Now the whole region knows about it! If I don't see you, it's +better for you and better for me." + +And he would rather have put his eyes out, than see _la Lupa's_, for +when hers were fastened on him, they made him lose soul and body. He +did not know what to do to overcome the enchantment. He paid for +Masses to be sung for the souls in Purgatory, and he went for aid to +the priest and the _brigadiere_. At Easter he went to confession, and +as a penance, publicly stood on the flint stones of the holy ground in +front of the church, putting out six handbreadths of tongue, and then, +when _la Lupa_ returned to tempt him,-- + +"See here," said he, "don't you come on the threshing-floor again, +because if you do come to seek me again, as sure as God exists, I'll +kill you." + +"All right, kill me!" replied _la Lupa_. "It makes no difference to +me; but I can not live without you." + +When he saw her afar off coming through the green corn field, he left +off pruning the vines, and went and got his axe from the elm. + +_La Lupa_ saw him coming to meet her, with his face pale and his eyes +rolling wildly, with the axe shining in the sun; but she did not +hesitate an instant, did not look away. She went straight forward with +her hands full of bunches of red poppies, and devouring him with those +black eyes of hers. + +"Ah! a curse on your soul!" stammered Nanni. + + + + +THE STORY OF THE ST. JOSEPH'S ASS. + +[Illustration: THE DEATH OF THE ST. JOSEPH'S ASS.] + + + + +THE STORY OF THE ST. JOSEPH'S ASS. + + +They had bought it at the Fair of Buccheri when it was still a young +colt, and if it caught sight of a she ass, it would run to it and try +to nurse; for this reason, it had got blows and kicks on its rump, and +it was all in vain for them to shout "_arricca_"--get up--to it. + +_Compare_ Neli, when he saw how lively and obstinate it was, and how +it licked its nostrils when the blows fell, and how it kept wagging +its ears, said,-- + +"That's the one for me." + +And he went straight up to the proprietor, with his hand in his pocket +on thirty-five _lire_. + +"The colt is handsome," said the proprietor, "and is worth more than +thirty-five _lire_. No matter if it has a white and black skin like a +magpie. There, I'll show you its mother; we keep her over yonder in +that little grove, because the colt's all the time wanting to nurse. +You shall see what a pretty dark hide it's got! Why, she does more +work for me than a mule would, and has given me more colts than she +has hairs on her back. My conscience! I don't know where this colt got +its magpie coat. But it is well built, I tell you. Even men aren't +judged by their moustaches. Look, what a chest! and what thick, solid +legs! See how it holds its ears. An ass that holds its ears up like +that can be put in a cart or to a plow as you please, and it will +carry four bushels of corn better than a mule, I swear it will--by all +the saints. Just feel that tail--strong enough to hold up you and all +your kith and kin." + +_Compare_ Neli knew that as well as the other, but he wasn't dunce +enough to say so, and he stood with his hand in his pocket, shrugging +his shoulders and making grimaces while the proprietor of the colt +made it turn round before them. + +"Huh!" grunted _compare_ Neli, "with a skin like that, it looks like +Saint Joseph's ass. Animals of that color are always _vigliacche_,[15] +and when you ride them about, people laugh in your face. Am I going to +be made a laughing stock for a Saint Joseph's ass?" + + [15] Cowardly, ridiculous, vile. + +It was the _padrone's_ turn to turn his back on him in a passion, +screaming that some people didn't know a good animal when they saw +one, and if they hadn't any money to buy with, they'd better not come +to the fair, and waste good Christian's time--on a saint's day, too. + +_Compare_ Neli let him fume away, and he went off with his brother, +who pulled the sleeve of his jacket, and whispered in his ear, that if +he was going to throw away his money on that good-for-nothing animal +he would deserve to be kicked. + +While the _padrone_ pretended to be shelling some young beans, +holding the halter between his legs, _compare_ Neli, not really losing +sight of the Saint Joseph's ass, went off on a tour of inspection +among the mules and horses, now and again stopping to criticise or +even haggle over the price of this one or of that among the better +animals; but he did not open his hand, which still clasped safely in +his pocket the thirty-five _lire_ as if it were going to buy half the +fair. But his brother kept telling him in a whisper, pointing to the +ass, which they called Saint Joseph's,-- + +"That's the one for us." + +The ass's mistress, every once in a while, came over to her husband to +see how business was progressing, and when she saw him sitting with +the halter in his hand, she said,-- + +"Isn't the Madonna going to send a purchaser for the foal, to-day?" + +And the husband would always reply in these terms,-- + +"None yet! One's been here bargaining, and he liked it. But he +objected to the price, and went off again with the money in his +pocket. There he is, over yonder with the white cap, beyond that flock +of sheep. He hasn't bought anything yet; that means, he'll be back +again." + +The woman was about to squat down on a couple of stones near her foal, +to see whether it would be sold or not. But her husband said to her,-- + +"Off with you. If they see you are waiting, they won't finish the +bargain." + +Meantime the foal was nosing about between the legs of several +she-asses that were passing by. It wanted to nurse, for it was half +starved. It was just opening its mouth to bray when the _padrone_ +reduced it to silence by a shower of blows because they had not wanted +it. + +"It's still there," said _compare_ Neli in his brother's ear, +pretending to turn round and look for something. "If we wait till the +Ave Maria, we may be able to get it for five _lire_ cheaper than the +price that we offered." + +The May sunshine was warm so that gradually amid all the noise and +bustle of the fair a great silence followed throughout the whole +field, as if no one were there: then it was that the mistress of the +young ass came to her husband again and said: + +"I wouldn't hold out for five _lire_ more or less, for to-night we +have not enough to buy our supper and you know well that the foal will +eat his head off in a month if he remains on our hands." + +"If you don't go off," replied her husband, "I'll give you a kick that +you'll remember." + + * * * * * + +Thus passed the hours at the fair; but of all those who passed in +front of the Saint Joseph's ass not one stopped to look at it, and +that, too, though the _padrone_ had chosen the most humble place near +the animals of small value, so that with its magpie skin it might not +be compared with the beautiful bay mules and the sleek horses! Some +one like _compare_ Neli was wanted to buy his Saint Joseph's ass, at +the sight of which every one at the fair was laughing. + +The colt, after such a long waiting in the sun, let his head and ears +hang down; his _padrone_ went and squatted on the stones, with his +hands also hanging between his knees and the halter in his hands, +gazing at the long shadows that began to be cast across the plain from +the sun, which was preparing to set, and at the legs of all those +animals that had not as yet found purchasers. + +Just then _compare_ Neli and his brother, and a friend of theirs whom +they had picked up for the occasion, came sauntering by, with their +noses in the air; but the owner of the young ass turned his head aside +so as not to seem to be on the look out for them. And _compare_ Neli's +friend, squinting up his eyes, remarked as if the idea had just +occurred to him: + +"O, see that Saint Joseph's ass! Why don't you buy that one, _compare_ +Neli?" + +"I bargained it this morning; but he asks too much for it. Besides, I +should be the laughing stock of the town if I were seen with that +black and white beast. You see no one has had a thought of buying it +so far." + +"That's so, but the color makes no difference in the use that you make +of one." + +And turning to the _padrone_ he asked,-- + +"How much must we pay for that Saint Joseph's ass of yours?" + +The mistress of the Saint Joseph's ass, seeing that the business was +on once more, had quietly approached, with her hands clasped under her +apron. + +"Don't speak to me of it," cried _compare_ Neli making off across the +field. "Don't speak of it again, I don't want to hear a word." + +"If you don't want it, let it be," replied the _padrone_. "If he does +not take it, some one else will. 'A sad wretch is he who has nothing +left to sell after the fair.'" + +"And I will be heard, _santo diavolone_!" screamed the friend. "Can't +I be permitted to have my say?" + +And he ran and caught _compare_ Neli by the jacket, then he came back +and whispered something in the _padrone's_ ear as the man was about to +return home with his young ass, and he flung his arm round his neck, +murmuring,-- + +"Look here! five _lire_ more or less, and if you don't sell it to-day +you won't find another blunderhead like my _compare_ to buy a beast, +which between you and me, isn't worth a cigar!" + +He also embraced the young ass's mistress, whispered in her ear to win +her to his way of thinking. But she shrugged her shoulders and replied +with stern face,-- + +"'Tis my husband's business: I don't mix myself in it. But if he lets +it go for less than forty _lire_ he is a dunce, and that's what I say. +It cost us more than that." + +"This morning I was crazy when I offered him thirty-five _lire_," +resumed _compare_ Neli. "Has he found any other purchaser even at that +price? I reckon not. In the whole fair there aren't more than four +scabby rams and the Saint Joseph's ass. I'll give thirty _lire_ if +he'll take it." + +"Take it," softly whispered the young ass's mistress to her husband, +and the tears came into her eyes. "We haven't made enough this evening +to buy our supper, and Turiddu has the fever again; he'll have to have +quinine." + +"_Santo diavolone!_" screamed her husband, "if you don't get away from +here I'll give you a taste of this halter." + +"Thirty-two and a half, there now!" cried the friend at last, giving +him a powerful shake to the collar. + +"Neither you nor I! This time my advice ought to hold, by all the +saints in paradise! and I don't even ask for a glass of wine. Don't +you see the sun is set? What is the use of you both holding out any +longer?" + +And he snatched the halter from the _padrone's_ hand, while, at the +same time, _compare_ Neli with an oath took out of his pocket his +closed fist clutching the thirty-five _lire_, and gave them to the man +without looking at them as if they took his liver with them. The +friend retired to one side with the mistress of the young ass to count +over the money on a rock, while the _padrone_ went off to another part +of the fair like a colt, cursing and beating himself with his fists. + +But when he was at last rejoined by his wife, who was carefully +recounting the money in her handkerchief, he demanded,-- + +"Have you got it?" + +"Yes, the whole of it; praised be San Gaetano![16] Now I'll go to the +apothecary's." + + [16] The especial saint of the Provident. + +"I got the best of them! I'd have let them have the beast for twenty +_lire_; asses of that color are _vigliacchi_--vile." + +And _compare_ Neli, as he got behind the ass to drive it off, said,-- + +"As God exists I robbed him of the colt! The color makes no +difference. See what solid legs, _compare_! That beast is worth forty +_lire_ with one's eyes shut." + +"If it had not been for me," returned the friend, "you would not have +struck the bargain. Here are still two _lire_ and a half of your +money. And if you don't object we will go and have a drink to the +health of the ass!" + +Now the colt needed to have its health in order to repay the +thirty-two and a half _lire_ which had been paid for it, and the straw +which it ate. Meanwhile it was contented to frisk behind _compare_ +Neli, trying to bite his new _padrone's_ coat tails, and making no ado +because it was leaving forever the stall where it had been sheltered +by its mother's side, free to rub its nose on the edge of the manger, +or to gambol and cut up capers, butting with the ram or going to rub +the pig's back in its pen. + +And the _padrone_, who was still again counting over the money in her +handkerchief before the apothecary's counter, had on her side no +regrets, although she had assisted at the birth of the foal with its +black and white skin, as shiny as silk, and which could not at first +stand up on its legs, but lay in the warm sun in the court-yard while +all the grass which had made it grow so big and strong had passed +through her hands! + +The only person who missed the foal was its mother, who stretched out +her neck toward the entrance of the stall and brayed. But when her +udder was no longer painfully distended with the milk, she also forgot +about the foal. + +"Now you will see," said _compare_ Neli, "that this ass will carry +four bushels of corn better than a mule, for me." + +And at harvest time he was set to threshing. + +At the threshing, the colt, fastened by the neck, in a row with other +animals--worn out mules, decrepit horses, paced over the sheaves, +from morning till night, so that when it was brought back to the +stable, he was so tired that he had no desire to bite at the heap of +straw where they put him up in the shade when the wind blew, while the +peasants did their winnowing with shouts of "_Viva Maria!_" + +Then he let his nose hang down and drooped his pendent ears, like a +full-fledged ass with eyes dulled, as if he were weary of gazing +across over that vast plain, smoking here and there with the dust of +the threshing-floors, and he seemed made for nothing else than to die +of thirst and enforced treading on sheaves. + +At eventide, it was sent to the village with the saddle-bags filled +full, and the _padrone's_ boy followed, to prick it in the withers, +along the hedges lining the road, that seemed alive with the +chattering of the tomtits, and the odor of the catnip and rosemary; +and the ass would gladly have snatched a mouthful, if they had not +always kept it on the go, until at last, the blood ran to its legs and +they had to take it to the farrier; but this did not trouble the +_padrone_, because the harvest was good, and the young ass had earned +its cost,--his thirty-two _lire_ and a half. The _padrone_ said,-- + +"Now, the work has worn him out, but if I could sell him for twenty +_lire_, I should still have made a good thing out of him." + +The only person who had a fondness for the young ass was the boy who +made it trot over the road on the way from the threshing-floor. And he +felt badly when the farrier burnt its legs with red-hot irons, so that +the young ass squirmed and flung its tail into the air, and pricked up +its ears, and when it ran across the field of the fair, and it tried +to break loose from the twisted rope which they fastened to its lip, +and it rolled its eyes with the agony, as if it were undergoing +torture, when the farrier's apprentice came to change the hot irons, +red as fire, and the skin smoked and sizzled, like fish in a +frying-pan. But _compare_ Neli cried to his boy,-- + +"You beast! what are you weeping for? Now that he is played out, and +since the harvest has been a good one, we'll sell him and buy a mule, +and that will be better." + +Boys do not understand some things, and after the young ass was sold +to _massaro_ Cirino, of Licodiana, _compare_ Neli's son used to visit +it in the stall, and to caress its face and neck, and the ass would +turn round its head, and snuff as if it had become attached to him, +while, as a general thing, asses are made to be tied wherever their +_padrone_ may see fit to tie them, and change their lot as they change +their stall. + +_Massaro_ Cirino, of Licodiana, had paid a very small price for the +Saint Joseph's ass, because it still bore the scars on its pastern, +and _compare_ Neli's wife, when she saw the poor beast go by with its +new master, said,-- + +"That beast was our mascot. That black and white skin brought joy to +the threshing-floor, and now the profits are going from bad to worse, +for we have had to sell the mule, too." + + * * * * * + +_Massaro_ Cirino had yoked the ass to the plow, together with an old +mare which matched it like a stone in a ring, and drew her brave +furrow all day long, for miles and miles, from the time the lark began +to sing in the clear morning sky, till, with quick and hasty flights, +and melancholy chirping, the robin red-breasts ran to hide behind the +naked bushes, trembling with cold under the mist that rose like a sea. + +Only, as the ass was smaller than the mare, a cushion of hay was put +over the saddle under the yoke, and it had hard work to break up the +frozen clods, by dint of chafed shoulders. + +"It'll help spare the mare, who's getting old," said _massaro_ Cirino. +"It's got a heart as broad and big as the Plain of Catania, that Saint +Joseph's ass has! and you would not think it!" + +And he added, turning to his wife, who had followed him, wrapped in a +mantellina, penuriously scattering the seed,-- + +"If anything should happen to it--Heaven forefend--we are ruined with +the prospects before us." + +The woman looked forward to the prospects of crops in the rocky, +desolate, little field, with its white and cracked soil, so long had +it been since the rain fell, and all the water it got came in the form +of mist and fog, of the kind that spoils the seed, and when it was +time to dig up the ground, it was so yellow and hard, that you would +call it the very beard of the devil, as if it had been burnt with +sulphur matches! + +"In spite of the crop which I put in," mourned _massaro_ Cirino, +pulling off his doublet, "why, that ass has worked himself to death +like a stupid mule. That ass is under a curse!" + +His wife had a lump in her throat at the sight of the parched field, +and she replied with tears rolling from her eyes,-- + +"The ass had nothing to do with the failure. It brought a good crop +to _compare_ Neli. But we are unfortunate." + +So the Saint Joseph's ass changed masters once more, when _massaro_ +Cirino returned from the field with the sickle over his shoulder, it +being useless even to try to reap that year, although the images of +the saints had been stuck into bamboo sticks all over the ground for +protection, and two _tarì_[17] had been paid to the priest for his +blessing. + + [17] A _tarì_ is one-thirtieth of an _onza_. + +"It's the devil that we want rather than the saints," said _massaro_ +Cirino, irreverently, when he saw all those stalks standing up like +crests, which even the ass refused to touch, and he spat up towards +that turquoise-colored sky, so relentlessly cloudless. + +It was then that _compare_ Luciano, the carter, meeting _massaro_ +Cirino, as he was driving back the ass with empty saddlebags, asked,-- + +"What'll you take for that Saint Joseph's ass?" + +"Anything you'll give me! Cursed be he and the saint who made him!" +replied _massaro_ Cirino. "Now we haven't any more bread to eat, or +fodder to give the beast." + +"I'll give you fifteen _lire_ for it, seeing that you are ruined, but +the ass isn't worth so much, for it won't last out more than six +months! See how thin it is!" + +"You might have got more than that," grumbled _massaro_ Cirino's wife, +after the bargain was settled. "_Compare_ Luciano's mule's dead, and +he hadn't money enough to buy another. Now if he hadn't bought our +Saint Joseph's ass, he wouldn't have known what to do with his cart +and harnesses; you'll see that ass'll be a fortune to him." + +The ass was set to work drawing the cart, but the shafts of it were +much too high for it, and brought all the weight on its shoulders, so +that it would not have survived even six months; for it went limping +along over the hilly roads under _compare_ Luciano's cruel +cudgelling, who tried to put a little spirit into it; and when it went +down hill, the case was even worse, for then the whole load rested on +it, and pushed against it so hard that it had to make its back like an +arch to hold the cart back, and push with those poor scarred legs, and +people would laugh to see it, and when it fell it would have taken all +the angels of Paradise to get it to its feet again. But _compare_ +Luciano knew that he carried three quintals of merchandise more than a +mule, and the load would bring him five _tarì_ a quintal. + +"Every day that Saint Joseph's ass lives," said he, "I make fifteen +_tarì_, and his keep costs me less than a mule's would." + +Every time the people who happened to be sauntering along behind the +cart saw the poor beast, which could hardly put one leg in front of +the other, arching its spine and panting heavily, with discouragement +clouding its eye, they would say,-- + +"Block the wheel with a rock, and let that poor creature have a chance +to get its breath." + +But _compare_ Luciano would reply,-- + +"If I let him do as he pleases, I should not make my fifteen _tarì_ a +day. His hide's got to pay for mine. When he can't do any more work I +shall sell him to the lime dealer; for the beast is good enough for +his work. I tell you there's no truth at all in the idea that St. +Joseph's asses are _vigliacchi_. Besides, I got this one of _massaro_ +Cirino for a piece of bread, after he was 'poverished." + + * * * * * + +In this way the Saint Joseph's ass passed into the hands of the +lime-dealer, who already possessed a score or more of asses all lean +and moribund, which carried his sacks of plaster, and picked up a +wretched living by means of the mouthfuls of weeds that they could +snatch as they went along the road. + +The lime-dealer objected to the Saint Joseph's ass because it was +covered with worse scars than his other beasts, with its legs seared +by the hot iron, and the skin on its chest worn off by the poitrel, +and the withers raw by the chafing of the plow, and the knees barked +by constant falls, and then that pelt of black and white seemed to him +so inharmonious among his other brown-skinned animals. + +"That makes no difference," replied _compare_ Luciano. "Besides, it +will serve to distinguish your asses at a distance." + +But he deducted two _tarì_ from the seven _lire_ that he had asked, so +as to bring the business to a settlement. + +Now the Saint Joseph's ass would not have been recognized even by the +_padrona_ who had been present when it was born, so greatly had it +changed as it stumbled along with its nose to the ground and its ears +curled over like an umbrella under the lime-dealer's heavy sacks, +twitching its flanks under the blows of the youth who drove the +caravan. But then the _padrona_ herself was changed at that time, +what with the bad harvests they had gathered and the hunger from which +she had suffered, and the fevers which they had all contracted in the +low lands, she and her husband and her Turiddu, while they had no +money to buy any more quinine at the apothecary's and at the same time +they had no more asses even of the Saint Joseph kind to sell for the +small price of thirty-five _lire_! + +In winter, when there was little work and the wood for burning the +lime was scarce, and to be had only at a distance, and the frozen +paths hadn't a leaf on their hedges or a mouthful of stubble along by +the icy gutters, life was still harder for those poor brutes, and the +_padrone_ knew that in winter not half as much was eaten; so he used +to buy a good stock of provisions in the spring. + +At night the drove remained in the open air near the lime-burners, and +the brutes clustered together for protection against the cold. But +those stars shining like swords through and through them in spite of +their thick hides, and all those ulcer-eaten beasts shook and trembled +in the cold as if they were human beings. + +But then there are many Christians who are not better off, not having +even such a ragged coat as that wrapt up in which the herd-boy slept +before the furnace. + +Near by there lived a poor widow in a dilapidated hut, more +tumble-down by far than the lime-furnace, and through its roof the +stars penetrated like swords, as if it were no roof at all, and the +wind fluttered the wretched rags of her covering. At first she took in +washing, but that was meagre pay, for the people thereabouts do their +own washing, when they wash at all, and now that her little boy had +grown she went about peddling wood in the village. No one had known +her husband and no one knew where she got the wood that she sold; that +was known only by her son, who went about picking it up here and +there at the risk of getting shot by the _campieri_. + +"If you only had an ass!" the lime-dealer had said to her, hoping that +he might dispose of that Saint Joseph's ass, which was good for +nothing more, "then you could take down to the village much bigger +fagots, now that your son is getting to be grown up." + +The poor woman had a few _lire_ in the knot of her handkerchief, and +she let herself be persuaded into it by the lime-burner, because it is +said that "old things go to destruction in the house of a fool." + +One thing at least was true: the poor Saint Joseph's ass had a more +endurable existence at last, because the widow regarded it as a +treasure by reason of the few _soldi_ that it had cost her, and she +went out nights in search of straw and hay for it, and she kept it in +her hut next her own bed because its vital heat was as good as a fire, +and in this way one hand washed the other, as the proverb has it. + +The woman driving the ass loaded with a mountain of wood so that its +ears could not be seen, built air-castles as she went, and her son +ravaged the hedges, and risked his life in the borders of the +woodlands to gather together his load, while both mother and son had +an idea that they were going to become rich by that business, until, +finally, the baron's _campiere_ caught the boy breaking off branches, +and gave him a terrible beating. + +The doctor, for the price of curing the lad, devoured all the spare +_soldi_ knotted in the handkerchief, the store of wood, and whatever +else vendible she had,--and that was not much in all conscience,--so +that the widow one night when her son was in a raging fever, with his +face turned to the wall, and there was not a mouthful of bread in the +house, went out, raging and talking to herself, as if she, too, had +the fever, and she went to break off an almond-tree near by in such a +way that it would not appear how it happened, and at dawn she loaded +it on the ass to go and sell it. But the ass on the way up stumbled +under the weight, and went down on its knees, just as Saint Joseph's +ass knelt before the infant Jesus, and would not get up again. + +"Souls of the dead!" stammered the woman, "won't you carry this load +of wood for me." + +And the passers-by pulled the ass's tail, and they bit its ears, so as +to make it get up. + +"Don't you see it's dying?" at last remarked a carter, and so at least +the others let it alone, because the ass had the eye of a dead fish, a +cold nose, and a shudder ran over its skin. + +The woman, meantime, thought of her son, who was delirious with fever, +and a flushed face, and cried,-- + +"Now what shall we do,--what shall we do?" + +"If you will sell it, and all the wood on its back for five _tarì_, +I'll give that much," said the carter who had an empty cart; and as +the woman looked at it with squinting eyes, he added, "I'll only take +the wood, for the ass isn't worth that--" + +And he gave a kick to the carcass, which sounded like a burst drum. + + + + +THE BEREAVED. + + +The little girl appeared at the door, twisting the corner of her apron +in her fingers, and said,-- + +"Here I am!" + +Then, when no one paid any attention to her, she looked shyly first at +one and then at another of the women who were kneading dough, and +spoke again,-- + +"They told me,--'Go to _comare_ Sidora.'" + +"Come here, come here," cried _comare_ Sidora, red as a tomato, as she +stood in the back part of the bake-shop. "Wait a moment, and I'll make +you a nice cake." + +"It means they are bringing _comare_ Nunzia the Viaticum; they've sent +the little girl away," observed the woman from Lacodia. + +One of the women engaged in kneading the dough, turned her head, with +her hands still at work in the trough, her arms bare to the elbow, and +asked the little girl,-- + +"How is your step-mother?" + +The child, not knowing the woman, looked at her with frightened eyes, +and hanging her head, and nervously working at the ends of her apron, +said, in a low voice, between her set teeth,-- + +"She's in bed." + +"Don't you see 'tis the Sacrament," replied la Licodiana. "Now the +neighbors have begun to scream at the door." + +"As soon as I finish kneading this dough," said _comare_ Sidora, "I'll +run over a moment to see if they have need of anything. _Compare_ Meno +loses his right hand when this second wife of his dies." + +"Some men have no luck with their wives, just as some are unfortunate +with their mules. No sooner do they get 'em than they lose 'em. +There's _comare_ Angela." + +"Yesterday evening," observed la Licodiana, "I saw _compare_ Meno at +his door; he had come back from the vineyard before the Ave Marie, and +was blowing his nose on his handkerchief." + +"But," suggested the woman who was kneading the dough, "he is a master +hand at killing off his wives. In less than three years already two of +_curátolo_[18] Nino's daughters have been eaten up, one after the +other! Wait a little and you'll see the third go the same way, and all +_curátolo_ Nino's things wasted." + + [18] The manager of a farm, not a tenant. + +"Is this little girl _comare_ Nunzia's daughter, or his first wife's?" + +"She's his first wife's daughter. But this one has been just as kind +to her as though she had been her own mamma, because the little orphan +was her niece, you know." + +The child, hearing them speaking of herself, began to weep silently in +a corner, thus relieving her bursting heart, which she had till then +kept under control, by playing with her apron. + +"Come here, come here," pursued _comare_ Sidora. "The nice cake's all +ready. There, there! Don't cry; for your mamma's in Paradise." + +The little girl then dried her eyes with her doubled fists, because +she saw that _comare_ Sidora was preparing to open the oven. + +"Poor _comare_ Nunzia!" said a neighbor, appearing at the door. "The +gravediggers are on their way. They just passed by here." + +"Heaven protect me! as I am under Mary's grace!"[19] exclaimed the +women, crossing themselves. + + [19] "_Lontano sia! che son figlia di Maria!_" + +_Comare_ Sidora took the cake out of the oven, brushed off the ashes, +and handed it, smoking hot, to the little girl, who took it in her +apron and walked away slowly, slowly, blowing on it as she went. + +"Where are you going?" cried _comare_ Sidora. "Stay here! There's a +black-faced _ba-bau_ at your house who carries folks off." + +The little orphan listened gravely, with wide-opened eyes. Then she +replied in the same obstinate drawl,-- + +"I am going to carry it to my mamma." + +"Your mamma is dead; stay here," said one of the neighbors. "Eat your +cake." + +Then the little girl squatted down on the door-step, the image of +sadness, holding her cake in her hand without offering to eat it. + +Then suddenly seeing "_il babbo_" coming, she jumped up joyously and +ran to meet him. + +_Compare_ Meno entered without saying a word, and sat down in a +corner, with his hands dangling between his knees, with a long face, +and his lips as white as paper; for since the day before, he had not +put a morsel of food into his mouth because of his grief. He looked at +the women as if to say,-- + +"_Poveretto me!_" + +Seeing the black handkerchief around his neck, the women, with their +hands still pasted with dough, made a circle round him and condoled +with him in chorus. + +"Don't speak of it to me, _comare_ Sidora," he exclaimed, shaking his +head, and heaving up his great shoulders. "This is a thorn that will +never be pulled out of my heart. That woman was a real saint! I did +not deserve her, saving your presence. Only day before yesterday, when +she was so sick, she got up to tend to the weaning colt, and she would +not let me call in the doctor, or buy any medicine, either--so as to +not waste any money. I sha'n't find another wife like her. No I +sha'n't, I tell you. Let me weep--I've good reason to." + +And he began to shake his head and to heave his shoulders as if his +misfortune were a burden not to be borne. + +"As to getting another wife," said la Licodiana, to encourage him, +"all you've got to do is to look for one." + +"No! no!" asseverated _compare_ Meno, with his head hung low, like a +mule's. "Such another wife is not to be had. This time I shall remain +a widower. I tell you I shall." + +_Comare_ Sidora interrupted him,-- + +"Don't say foolish things like that. You must get another wife, if +only for the sake of this little orphan girl; for otherwise, who will +look out for her when you are out working? You wouldn't let her run in +the streets, would you?" + +"Then find me another wife like my last one! She would not wash +herself, for fear of soiling the water; and at home, she served me +better than a farm-hand--affectionate and faithful. Why, she would not +take even a handful of beans from the rack, or ever open her mouth to +ask for anything. And beside, a fine dowry--things as good as gold. +And I've got to give it all back because she had no children. At +least, so the sacristan says, when he came with the Holy Water. And +how kind she was to the little girl who reminded her of her poor +sister. Any other woman, except an aunt, would have cast an evil eye +on her, the poor little orphan! + +"If you asked _curátolo_ Nino for his third daughter, it would make +things all right, both for the orphan and for the dowry," suggested la +Licodiana. + +"That's what I say. But don't speak of it to me, for now my mouth is +bitter as gall." + +"I wouldn't talk about it now," said _comare_ Sidora. "Eat a bit of +something, _compare_ Meno. You are all tired out." + +"No! no!" returned _compare_ Meno several times. "Don't speak to me of +eating, for I have a lump in my throat." + +_Comare_ Sidora placed before him on a stool fresh bread with ripe +olives, a piece of sheep's-head cheese, and a jug of wine. And the +poor clumsy fellow set to work nibbling at it, all the time grumbling, +with a long face. + +"Such bread as she made," he observed with a quaver in his voice, "no +one else could ever make. Just as if it were made of real meal. And +with a handful of wild fennel, she would make a soup to lick your +fingers over! Now I shall have to buy bread at the shop of that thief, +_mastro_ Puddo; and as for hot soup, I sha'n't have any more, when I +come home wet as a fresh-hatched chicken. And I shall have to go to +bed with a cold stomach. Only the other night, while I was watching +with her, after I had been digging and grubbing all day on the hill, +and caught myself snoring as I sat next the bed, so tired I was, the +poor soul said to me: 'Go and get a mouthful of something to eat. I +left the soup to keep hot on the hearth.' And she was always thinking +about my comfort, and about the house, and whatever was to be done, +and this thing and that thing; and she could not come to an end of +speaking or of giving her last directions, like one who is going off +on a long journey, and I heard her constantly muttering between waking +and sleeping. And how contentedly she went off to the other world! +With the crucifix on her breast, and her hands folded over it. She +has no need of Masses and rosaries, saint that she was. Money spent on +the priest would be money thrown away." + +"World of tribulation!" exclaimed a neighbor. "_Comare_ Angela's ass +is like to die of the colic." + +"But my misfortunes are heavier," ended _compare_ Meno, wiping his +mouth with the back of his hand. "No, don't make me eat any more, for +the mouthfuls fall like lumps of lead into my stomach. You eat +something, you poor innocent, for you don't understand what you've +lost. Now you have no one any longer to wash you and brush your hair. +Now you haven't a mamma any more to shelter you under her wings like a +setting hen, and you are ruined, as I am. I found her for you, but a +second stepmother like her you won't get, my daughter!" + +The child with bursting heart put up her lip again, and stuck her +fists into her eyes. + +"No, you can't possibly get along alone," interposed _comare_ Sidora. +"You must find another wife for the sake of this poor little +motherless girl, left in the midst of the street." + +"And how shall I get along? And my colt? And my house? And who'll look +after the hens? Let me weep, _comare_ Sidora! It would have been +better if I had died instead of that good soul." + +"Hush, hush! you don't know what you are saying, and you don't know +what a house without its head is!" + +"That is true," assented _compare_ Meno, comforted. + +"Just take example from poor _comare_ Angela! First, her husband died; +then her grown-up son, and now her ass is also dying." + +"The ass ought to be bled in the belly, if it has the colic," said +_compare_ Meno. + +"Come, you know all about such things," suggested the neighbor. "Do a +work of charity for the sake of your wife's soul." + +_Compare_ Meno got up to go to _comare_ Angela's, and the little +orphan ran behind him like a chicken, now that she had no one else in +the world. _Comare_ Sidora, good housewife that she was, called him +back. + +"And the house? How have you left it, now that there is no one there +to look after it?" + +"I locked the door, and besides cousin Alfia lives opposite, and will +keep an eye on it." + +Neighbor Angela's ass lay stretched out in the midst of the yard, with +his muzzle cold and his ears hanging, every now and then kicking his +four legs into the air whenever the colic made him draw in his sides +like a pair of bellows. The widow crouching in front of him on the +rocks, with her hands clenching her gray hair, and her eyes dry and +despairing, was watching him, pale as a corpse. + +_Compare_ Meno manoeuvred round the animal, touching his ears, +looking into his lifeless eyes, and when he saw that the blood was +still oozing from the punctured vein under the belly, drop by drop, +and coagulating in a black mass on his hairy skin, he remarked: + +"So you've had him bled, have you?" + +The widow fixed her dark eyes on his face without speaking, and nodded +her "yes." + +"Then there's nothing more to do," said _compare_ Meno, and he +continued to stare at the ass, which stretched itself out on the +stones, stiffly, with its hair all rumpled, like a dead cat. + +"It is God's will, sister!" said he to comfort her. "We are ruined, +both of us!" + +He had gone round by the widow's side and squatted down on the stones, +with his little daughter between his knees, and both of them continued +to gaze at the poor beast, which from time to time threshed the air +with its legs as if it were in the agonies of death. + +_Comare_ Sidora, when she had got the bread safely out of the oven, +also came into the yard with the cousin Alfia, who had put on her new +gown and wore her silk handkerchief on her head, all ready for a bit +of gossip, and _comare_ Sidora said to _compare_ Meno, drawing him +aside,-- + +"_Curátolo_ Nino won't give you his third daughter, for at your house +the women die off like flies, and he loses the dowry. And then la +Santa is too young, and there's the risk that she'd fill your house +with children." + +"If only one could be sure of boys! But there's always the danger of +girls coming. Oh, I am so unfortunate!" + +"Well, there's the cousin Alfia. She is no longer young, and she has +property,--the house and a bit of vineyard." + +_Compare_ Meno fixed his eyes on the cousin Alfia, who with her arms +a-kimbo was pretending to look at the ass, and then he said, "That's +so! One might think of that. But I am so very unlucky!" + +_Comare_ Sidora interrupted him,-- + +"Think of those who are more unlucky than you are!" + +"No one is, I tell you. I shall never find another wife like her, I +shall never be able to forget her, even if I married ten times. And +this poor little orphan will never forget her, either." + +"Calm yourself! You'll forget her fast enough. And the little girl +will forget her, too. Didn't she forget her own mother? But just look +at poor neighbor Angela, whose ass is dying, and she hasn't got +anything else. She'll never be able to forget it." + +_Comare_ Alfia saw that it was a favorable moment for her to approach, +and drawing a long face, she began to eulogize the dead woman. She had +with her own hands helped to lay her out on the bier, and had put over +her face a fine linen handkerchief, of which she had a goodly store, +as may be imagined. + +Then _compare_ Meno, with his heart melting within him, turned to his +neighbor Angela, who was sitting motionless, as if she had been turned +to stone. + +"I suppose you'll have the ass skinned won't you? At least get some +money for his pelt." + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Under the Shadow of Etna, by Giovanni Verga + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDER THE SHADOW OF ETNA *** + +***** This file should be named 37979-8.txt or 37979-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/9/7/37979/ + +Produced by Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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