House by the Medlar Tree — Chapter 9 Pt 2

The poor old man hadn’t the courage to tell his daughter-in-law that she must go “quietly” out of the house by the medlar-tree.

After so many years that they had been there, it was like going into banishment, or like those who had gone away meaning to come back, and had come back no more.

And there was Luca’s bed there, and the nail where Bastianazzo’s pea-jacket used to hang.

But at last the time came that they had to move, with all those poor sticks of furniture, and take them out of their old places, where each left a mark on the wall where it had stood, and the house without them looked strange and unlike itself.

They carried their things out by night into the sexton’s cottage, which they had hired, as if everybody in the place didn’t know that now the house belonged no more to them but to Goosefoot, and that they had to move away from it.

But at all events no one saw them carrying their things from one house to the other.

Every time the old man pulled out a nail, or moved a cupboard from the corner where it was used to stand, he shook his poor old head.

Then the others, when all was done, sat down upon a heap of straw in the middle of the room to rest, and looked about here and there to see if anything had been forgotten.

But the grandfather could not stay inside, and went out into the court in the open air.

But there, too, was the scattered straw and broken crockery and coils of old rope, and in a corner the medlar-tree and the vine hanging in clusters over the door.

“Come, boys, let’s go.

Sooner or later we must,” and never moved.

Maruzza looked at the door of the court out of which Luca and Bastianazzo had gone for the last time, and the lane where she had watched her boy go off through the rain, with his trousers turned up, and then thought how the oil-skin cape had hidden him from her view.

Cousin Alfio Mosca’s window, too, was shut close, and the vine hung over the way, so that every one who passed by plucked off its grapes.

Each one had something in the house which it was specially hard to leave, and the old man, in passing out, laid his head softly, in the dark, on the old door, which Uncle Crucifix had said was in need of a good piece of wood and a handful of nails.

Uncle Crucifix had come to look over the house, and Goosefoot with him, and they talked loud in the empty rooms, where the voices rang as if they had been in a church.

Cousin Tino hadn’t been able to live all that time upon air, and had sold everything to old Dumb-bell to get back his money.

“What can I do Cousin Malavoglia?

” he said, passing his arm over his shoulder.

“You know I’m only a poor devil, and can’t spare five hundred lire.

If you had been rich I’d have sold the house to you.

” But Padron ’Ntoni couldn’t bear to go about the house like that, with Goosefoot’s arm on his shoulder.

Now Uncle Crucifix was come with the carpenter and the mason and a lot of people, who ran about the place as if they had been in the public square, and said, “Here must go bricks, here a new beam, here the floor must all be done over,” as if they had been the masters.

And they talked, too, of whitewashing it all over, and making it look quite a different thing.

Uncle Crucifix went about kicking the straw and the broken rubbish out of the way, and picking up off the floor a bit of an old hat that had belonged to Bastianazzo, he flung it out of the window into the garden, saying it was good for manure.

The medlar-tree rustled softly meanwhile, and the garlands of daisies, now withered, that had been put up at Whitsuntide, still hung over the windows and the door.

From this time the Malavoglia never showed themselves in the street or at church, and went all the way to Aci Castello to the mass, and no one spoke to them any more, not even Padron Cipolla, who went about saying: “Padron ’Ntoni had no right to play me such a trick as that.

That was real cheating to let his daughter-in-law give up her rights for the sake of the debt for the lupins.

” “Just what my wife says,” added Master Zuppiddu.

“She says even the dogs in the street wouldn’t have any of the Malavoglia now.

” All the same, that young heathen Brasi howled and swore that he wanted Mena; she had been promised him, and he would have her, and he stamped and stormed like a baby before a toyshop at a fair.

“Do you think I stole my property, you lazy hound, that you want to fling it away with a lot of beggars?

” shouted his father.

They even took back Brasi’s new clothes, and he worked out his ill-temper by chasing lizards on the down, or sitting astride of the wall by the washing-tank, swearing that he wouldn’t do a hand’s turn--no, that he wouldn’t, not if they killed him for it, now that they wouldn’t give him his wife, and they had taken back even his wedding-clothes.

Fortunately, Mena couldn’t see him looking as he did now, for the Malavoglia always kept the door shut down there at the sexton’s cottage, which they had hired, in the black street near the Zuppiddi; and if Brasi chanced to see any of them, if it were ever so far off, he ran to hide himself behind a wall or among the prickly-pears.

Mena was quite tranquil, however--there was so much to do in the new house, where they had to find places for all the old things, and where there was no longer the medlar-tree; nor could one see Cousin Anna’s door, or Nunziata’s. Her mother watched over her like a brooding bird while they sat working together, and her voice was like a caress when she said to her, “Give me the scissors,” or, “Hold this skein for me”;

so that the child felt it in her inmost heart, now that every one turned away from them; but the girl sang like a lark, for she was but eighteen, and at that age, if the sun do but shine, everything seems bright and the singing of the birds is in one’s heart.

Besides, she had never really cared for “that person,” she said to her mother in a whisper as they bent together over the loom.

Her mother had been the only one who had really understood her, and had had a kind word for her in that hard time.

At least if Cousin Alfio had been there he would not have turned his back upon them.

So goes the world.

Every one must look out for himself, and so said Cousin Venera to Padron ’Ntoni’s ’Ntoni--“Every one must see to his own beard first, and then to the others.

Your grandfather gives you nothing; what claim has he on you?

If you marry, that means that you must set up house for yourself, and what you earn must be for your own house and your own family.

‘Many hands are a blessing, but not all in one dish.

’” “That would be a fine thing to do, to be sure,” answered ’Ntoni.

“Now that my relations are on the street, am I to throw them over?

How is my grandfather to manage the _Provvidenza_ and to feed them all without me?

” “Then get out of it the best way you can!

” exclaimed La Zuppidda, turning away from him to hunt over the drawers, or in the kitchen, upsetting everything here and there, making believe to be ever so busy, not to have to look him in the face.

“I didn’t steal my daughter.

You can go on by yourselves, because you are young and strong and can work, and have your trade at your finger-ends--all the more now that there are so few young men, with this devil of a conscription sweeping off all the village every year; but if I’m to give you the dowry to spend it on your own people, that’s another affair.

I mean to give my daughter to one husband, not to five or six, and I don’t mean she shall have two families on her shoulders.

” Barbara, in the other room, feigned not to hear, and went on plying her shuttle briskly all the time.

But if ’Ntoni appeared at the door, she cast down her eyes and wouldn’t look at him.

The poor fellow turned yellow and green and all sorts of colors, for she had caught him, like a limed sparrow, with those great black eyes of hers, and then she said to him after her mother was gone, “I’m sure you don’t love me as much as you do your own people!

” and began to cry, with her apron over her head.

“I swear,” exclaimed ’Ntoni, “I wish I could go back to soldiering again!

” and tore his hair and thumped himself in the head, but couldn’t come to any decision one way or the other, like the pumpkin-head that he was.

“Then,” cried the Zuppidda, “come, come!

each to his own home!

” And her husband went on repeating: “Didn’t I tell you I didn’t choose to have a fuss?

” “You be off to your work!

” replied she.

“You know nothing about it.

” ’Ntoni, every time he went to the Zuppiddi, found them in an ill-humor, and Cousin Venera went on throwing in his face that time that his people had asked Goosefoot’s wife to dress Mena’s hair--and a fine hair-dressing they’d made of it!

--licking Cousin Tino’s boots because of that twopenny business of the house, and he’d taken the house all the same.

“Then, Cousin Venera, if you speak in this way, I suppose you mean, ‘I don’t want you in my house any longer.

’” ’Ntoni meant to play the man, and did not show himself again for two or three days.

But little Lia, who knew nothing of all this chatter, still continued to go to play in the court at Cousin Venera’s, as they had taught her to do in the days when Barbara used to give her chestnuts and Indian figs for love of her brother ’Ntoni, only now they gave her nothing.

And La Zuppidda said to her: “Have you come here to look for your brother?

Does your mother think we want to steal your precious brother?

” Things came to such a pass that La Longa and La Venera did not speak, and turned their backs upon each other if they met at church.

’Ntoni, bewitched by Barbara’s eyes, went back to stand before the windows, trying to make peace, so that Cousin Venera threatened to fling water over him one time or another; and even her daughter shrugged her shoulders at him, now that the Malavoglia had neither king nor kingdom.

And she said it to his face, too, to be rid of him, for he stood like a dog always in front of the window, and might stand in the way of a better match, too, if any one were to come that way for her.

“Now then, Cousin ’Ntoni, ‘the fish of the sea are destined for those who shall eat them’; let’s make up our minds to say good-bye, and have it over.

” “You may say good-bye to it all, Cousin Barbara, but I can’t. Love isn’t over so easily as that with me.

” “Try.

I guess you can manage it.

There’s nothing like trying.

I wish you all the good in the world, but leave me to look after my own affairs, for I am already twenty-two.

” “I knew it would come to this when they took our house, and everybody turned their backs on us.

” “Listen, Cousin ’Ntoni.

My mother may come at any minute, and it won’t do for her to find you here.

” “Yes, yes, I know; now that they’ve taken our house, it isn’t fair.

” Poor ’Ntoni’s heart was full; he couldn’t bear to part from her like that.

But she had to go to the fountain to fill her pitcher, and she said adieu to him, walking off quickly, swaying lightly as she went;

for though they were called hobblers because her great-grandfather had broken his leg in a collision of wagons at the fair of Trecastagni, Barbara had both her legs, and very good ones too.

“Adieu, Cousin Barbara,” said the poor fellow; and so he put a stone over all that had been, and went back to his oar like a galley-slave--and galley-slave’s work it was from Monday morning till Saturday night--and he was tired of wearing out his soul for nothing, for when one has nothing, what good can come of driving away from morning till night, with never a dog to be friends with one either, and for that he had had enough of such a life.

He preferred rather to do nothing at all, and stay in bed, as if he were sick, as they did on board ship when the service was too hard, for the grandpapa wouldn’t come to pull him and thump him like the ship’s doctor.

“What’s the matter?

” he asked.

“Nothing.

Only I’m a poor miserable devil.

” “And what can be done for you, if you are a poor miserable devil?

We must go on as we come into the world.

” He let himself be loaded down with tackle, like a beast of burden, and the whole day long never opened his mouth except to growl and to swear.

On Sunday ’Ntoni went hanging about the tavern, where people did nothing but laugh and amuse themselves; or else he sat for whole hours on the church steps, with his chin in his hands, watching the people passing by, and pondering over this hard life, where there was nothing to be got by doing anything.

At least on Sunday there was something that cost nothing--the sun, the standing idle with hands in one’s pockets; and then he grew tired even of thinking of his hard fate, and longing to bask again in the strange places he had seen when he was a soldier, and with the memory of which he amused himself on working-days.

He only cared to lie like a lizard basking in the sun.

And when the carters passed, sitting on their shafts, he muttered, “They have an easy time of it, driving about like that all day long and when some poor little old woman came from the town, bent down under her heavy burden like a tired donkey, lamenting as she went, as is the manner of the old, he said to her, by way of consolation: “I would be willing to take your work, my sister; after all, it is like going out for a walk.

” Padron ’Ntoni would go off to old Crucifix, saying to him over and over again, at least a hundred times: “You know, Uncle Crucifix, if we can manage to put the money together for the house you must sell it to us and to nobody else, for it has always belonged to the Malavoglia, and ‘his own nest every bird likes best,’ and I long to die in my own bed.

‘Blest is he who dies in the bed where he was born.

’” Uncle Crucifix muttered something which sounded like “Yes,” not to compromise himself, and then would go off and put a new tile or a patch of lime on the wall of the court, to make an excuse for raising the price of the house.

Uncle Crucifix would reassure him in this way: “Never fear, never fear;

the house won’t run away, you know.

Only keep an eye upon it.

Every one should keep an eye upon whatever he sets store by.

” And once he went on, “Isn’t your Mena going to be married?

” “She shall be married when it shall please God,” replied Padron ’Ntoni.

“For my part, I should be glad if it were to be to-morrow.

” “If I were you I would give her to Alfio Mosca; he’s a nice young fellow, honest and hard-working, always looking out for a wife everywhere he goes; it is the only fault he has.

Now they say he’s coming back to the place.

He’s cut out for your granddaughter.

” “But they said he wanted to marry your niece Vespa.

” “You too!

You too!

” Dumb-bell began to scream, in his cracked voice.

“Who says so?

That’s all idle chatter.

He wants to get hold of her ground, that’s what he wants!

A pretty thing that would be!

How would you like me to sell your house to somebody else?

” And Goosefoot, who was always hanging about the piazza, ready to put in his oar whenever he saw two people talking together, broke in with, “Vespa has Brasi Cipolla in her head just now, since his marriage with Sant’Agata is broken off.

I saw them with my own eyes walking down the path by the stream together.

” “A nice lot, eh?

” screamed Uncle Crucifix, quite forgetting his deafness.

“That witch is the devil himself.

We must tell Padron Fortunato about it, that we must.

Are we honest men, or are we not?

If Padron Fortunato doesn’t look out, that witch of a niece of mine will carry off his son before his eyes, poor old fellow.

” And off he ran up the street like a madman.

In less than ten minutes Uncle Crucifix had turned the place topsy-turvy, wanting to call Don Michele and his guest to look up his niece; for, after all, she was his niece, and belonged to him, and wasn’t Don Michele paid to look after what belonged to honest men?

Everybody laughed to see Padron Cipolla running hither and thither, panting like a dog with his tongue out, after his great lout of a son, and said it was no more than he deserved that his son should be snapped up by the Wasp when he thought Victor Emmanuel’s daughter hardly good enough for him, and had broken off with the Malavoglia without even saying “by your leave.

” Mena had not put on mourning, however, when her marriage went off; on the contrary, she began once more to sing at her loom, and while she was helping to salt down the anchovies in the fine summer evenings, for Saint Francis had sent that year such a provision as never was--a _passage_ of anchovies such as no one could remember in any past year, enough to enrich the whole place; the barks came in loaded, with the men on board singing and shouting and waving their caps above their heads in sign of success to the women and children who waited for them on the shore.

The buyers came from the city in crowds, on foot, on horseback, and in carts and wagons, and Goosefoot hadn’t even time to scratch his head.

Towards sunset there was a crowd like a fair, and cries and jostling and pushing so as no one ever saw the like.

In the Malavoglia’s court the lights were burning until midnight, as if there were a festa there.

The girls sang, and the neighbors came to help their cousin Anna’s daughters and Nunziata, because every one could earn something, and along the wall were four ranges of barrels all ready prepared, with stones on the top of them.

“I wish the Zuppidda were here now!

” exclaimed ’Ntoni, sitting on the stones to make weight, and folding his arms; “then she would see that we can manage for ourselves as good as anybody, and snap our fingers at Don Michele and Don Silvestro.

” The buyers ran after Padron ’Ntoni with money down in their hands.

Goosefoot pulled him by the sleeve, saying, “Now’s your time; make your profit while you can.

” But Padron ’Ntoni would only answer: “Wait till All Saints, that’s the time to sell anchovies.

No, I won’t take earnest-money.

I don’t mean to be tied; I know how things will go.

” And he thumped on the barrels with his fist, saying to his grandchildren: “Here is your house and Mena’s dowry; and the old house is ready to take you to its arms.

Saint Francis has been merciful.

I shall close my eyes in peace.

” At the same time they had made all their provision for the winter--grain, beans, oil--and had given earnest to Don Filippo for a little wine for Sundays.

Now they were tranquil once more.

Father and daughter-in-law began once more to count the money in the stocking, and the barrels ranged against the wall of the court, and made their calculations as to what more was needed for the house.

Maruzza knew the money, coin from coin, and said, “This from the oranges and eggs; this from Ales-sio for work at the railroad; this Mena earned at the loom;”

and she said, too, “Each has something here from his own work.

” “Did I not tell you,” said Padron ’Ntoni, “that to pull a good oar all the five fingers must help each other?

Now there is but little more needed.

” And then he would go off into a corner with La Longa, and they would have a great confabulation, looking from time to time at Sant’Agata, who deserved, poor child, that they should talk of her, because she had neither word nor will of her own, and attended to her work, singing softly under her breath like a bird on its nest before the break of morning; and only when she heard the carts pass on the highroad in the evening she thought of Cousin Alfio Mosca’s cart, that was wandering about the wide world, she knew not where; and then she stopped singing.

In the whole place nothing was seen but men carrying nets and women sitting in their doors pounding salt and broken bricks together; and before every door was a row of tiny barrels, so that it was a real pleasure to a Christian to snuff the precious odor as he passed, and for a mile away the breath of the gifts of the blessed Saint Francis floated on the breeze; there was nothing talked of but anchovies and brine, even in the drug-store, where all the affairs of all the world were discussed.

Don Franco wanted to teach them a new way of salting down, a receipt which he had found in a book.

They turned their backs on him, and left him storming like a madman.

Since the world was a world, anchovies had always been cured with salt and pounded bricks.

“The usual cry!

My grandfather used to do it,” the druggist went on shouting at them.

“You want nothing but tails to be complete asses!

What is to be done with such a lot as this?

And they are quite contented, too, with Master Croce Giufà (which means oaf), because he has always been syndic; they would be capable of saying that they didn’t want a republic because they had never seen one.

” This speech he repeated to Don Silvestro on a certain occasion when they had a conversation without witnesses.

That is to say, Don Franco talked, and Don Silvestro listened in silence.

He afterwards learned that Don Silvestro had broken with Betta, the syndic’s daughter, because she insisted on being syndic herself; and her father let her wear the breeches, so that he said white to-day and black to-morrow.