House by the Medlar Tree — Chapter 14 Pt 2
“It will be an ugly business for them,” added Don Silvestro; “the razor itself couldn’t save them from the galleys.
” And Don Giammaria went up close to him and said under his nose: “Everybody that ought to be at the galleys doesn’t go there!
” “By no means everybody,” answered Don Silvestro, turning red with fury.
“Nowadays,” said Padron Cipolla, yellow with bile, “the real thieves rob one of one’s goods at noonday and in the middle of the piazza.
They thrust themselves into one’s house by force, but they break open neither doors nor windows.
” “Just as ’Ntoni Malavoglia wanted to do in my house,” added La Zuppidda, sitting down on the wall with her distaff to spin hemp.
“What I always said to you, peace of the angels!
” said her husband.
“You hold your tongue, you know nothing about it!
Just think what a day this would have been for my daughter Barbara if I hadn’t looked out for her!
” Her daughter Barbara stood at the window to see how Padron ’Ntoni’s ’Ntoni looked in the middle of the police when they carried him to town.
“He’ll never get out,” they all said.
“Do you know what there is written on the prison at Palermo?
‘Do what you will, here you’ll come at last,’ and ‘As you make your bed, you must lie down.
’ Poor devils!
” “Good people don’t get into such scrapes,” screamed Vespa.
“Evil comes to those who go to seek it.
Look at the people who take to that trade--always some scamp like La Locca’s son or Malavoglia, who won’t do any honest work.
” And they all said yes, that if any one had such a son as that it was better that the house should fall on him.
Only La Locca went in search of her son, and stood screaming in front of the barracks of the guards, saying that she would have him, and not listening to reason; and when she went off to plague her brother Dumb-bell, and planted herself on the steps of his house, for hours at a time, with her white hair streaming in the wind, Uncle Crucifix only answered her: “I have the galleys at home here!
I wish I were in your son’s place!
What do you come to me for?
And he didn’t give you bread to eat either.
” “La Locca will gain by it,” said Don Silvestro; “now that she has no one to work for her, they will take her in at the poor-house, and she will be well fed every day in the week.
If not, she will be left to the chanty of the commune.
” And as they wound up by saying, “Who sows the wind will reap the whirlwind,” Padron Fortunato added: “And it is a good thing for Padron ’Ntoni too.
Do you think that good-for-nothing grandson of his did not cost him a lot of money?
I know what it is to have a son like that.
Now the King must maintain him.
” But Padron ’Ntoni, instead of thinking of saving those soldi, now that his grandson was no longer likely to spend them for him, kept on flinging them after him, with lawyers and notaries and the rest of it--those soldi which had cost so much labor, and had been destined for the house by the medlar-tree.
“Now we do not need the house nor anything else,” said he, with a face as pale as ’Ntoni’s own when they had taken him away to town, with his hands tied, and under his arm the little bundle of shirts which Mena had brought to him with so many tears at night when no one saw her.
The whole town went to see him go in the middle of the police.
His grandfather had gone off to the advocate--the one who talked so much--for since he had seen Don Michele, also, pass by in the carriage on his way to the hospital, as yellow as a guinea, and with his uniform unbuttoned, he was frightened, poor old man, and did not stop to find fault with the lawyer’s chatter as long as he would promise to untie his grandson’s hands and let him come home again; for it seemed to him that after this earthquake ’Ntoni would come home again, and stay with them always, as he had done when he was a child.
Don Silvestro had done him the kindness to go with him to the lawyer, because, he said, that when such a misfortune as had happened to the Malavoglia happened to any Christian, one should aid one’s neighbor with hands, and feet too, even if it were a wretch fit only for the galleys, and do one’s best to take him out of the hands of justice, for that was why we were Christians, that we should help our neighbors when they need it.
The advocate, when he had heard the story, and it had been explained to him by Don Silvestro, said that it was a very good case, “a case for the galleys certainly”--and he rubbed his hands--“if they hadn’t come to him.
” Padron ’Ntoni turned as white as a sheet when he heard of the galleys, but the advocate clapped him on the shoulder and told him not to be frightened, that he was no lawyer if he couldn’t get him off with four or five years’ imprisonment.
“What did the advocate say?
” asked Mena, as she saw her grandfather return with that pale face, and began to cry before she could hear the answer.
The old man walked up and down the house like a madman, saying, “Ah, why did we not all die first?
” Lia, white as her smock, looked from one to the other with wide dry eyes, unable to speak a word.
A little while after came the summonses as witnesses to Barbara Zuppidda and Grazia Goosefoot and Don Franco, the druggist, and all those who were wont to stand chattering in his shop and in that of Vanni Pizzuti, the barber; so that the whole place was upset by them, and the people crowded the piazza with the stamped papers in their hands, and swore that they knew nothing about it, as true as God was in heaven, because they did not want to get mixed up with the tribunals.
Cursed be ’Ntoni and all the Malavoglia, who pulled them by the hair into their scrapes.
The Zuppidda screamed as if she had been possessed.
“I know nothing about it; at the Ave Maria I shut myself into my house, and I am not like those who go wandering about after such work as we know of, or who stand at the doors to talk with spies.
” “Beware of the Government,” added Don Franco.
“They know that I am a republican, and they would be very glad to get a chance to sweep me off the face of the earth.
” Everybody beat their brains to find out what the Zuppidda and Cousin Grace and the rest of them could have to say as witnesses on the trial, for they had seen nothing, and had only heard the shots when they were in bed, between sleeping and waking.
But Don Silvestro rubbed his hands like the lawyer, and said that he knew because he had pointed them out to the lawyer, and that it was much better for the lawyer that he had.
Every time that the lawyer went to talk with ’Ntoni Malavoglia Don Silvestro went with him to the prison if he had nothing else to do; and nobody went at that time to the Council, and the olives were gathered.
Padron ’Ntoni had also tried to go two or three times, but whenever he got in front of those barred windows and the soldiers who were on guard before them, he turned sick and faint, and stayed waiting for them outside, sitting on the pavement among the people who sold chestnuts and Indian figs; it did not seem possible to him that his ’Ntoni could really be there behind those grated windows, with the soldiers guarding him.
The lawyer came back from talking with ’Ntoni, fresh as a rose, rubbing his hands, and saying that his grandson was quite well, indeed that he was growing fat.
Then it seemed to the poor old man that his grandson was with the soldiers.
“Why don’t they let him go?
” he asked over and over again, like a parrot or like a child, and kept on asking, too, if his hands were always tied.
“Leave him where he is,” said Doctor Scipione.
“In these cases it is better to let some time pass first.
Meanwhile he wants for nothing, as I told you, and is growing quite fat.
Things are going very well.
Don Michele has nearly recovered from his wound, and that also is a very good thing for us.
Go back to your boat, I tell you; this is my affair.
” “But I can’t go back to the boat, now ’Ntoni is in prison--I can’t go back!
Everybody looks at me when I pass, and besides, my head isn’t right, with ’Ntoni in prison.
” And he went on repeating the same thing, while the money ran away like water, and all his people stayed in the house as if they were hiding, and never opened the door.
At last the day of trial arrived, and those who had been summoned as witnesses had to go--on their own feet if they did not wish to be carried by force by the carbineers.
Even Don Franco went, and changed his ugly hat, to appear before the majesty of justice to better advantage, but he was as pale as ’Ntoni Malavoglia himself, who stood inside the bars like a wild beast, with the carbineers on each side of him.
Don Franco had never before had anything to do with the law, and he trembled all over at the idea of going into the midst of all those judges and spies and policemen, who would catch a man and put him in there behind the bars like ’Ntoni Malavoglia before he could wink.
The whole village had gone out to see what kind of a figure Padron ’Ntoni’s ’Ntoni would make behind the bars in the middle of the carbineers, yellow as a tallow-candle, not daring to look up for fear of seeing all those eyes of friends and acquaintances fixed upon him, turning his cap over and over in his hands while the president, in his long black robe and with napkin under his chin, went on reading a long list of the iniquities which he had committed from the paper where they were written down in black and white.
Don Michele was there too, also looking yellow and ill, sitting in a chair opposite to the “Jews” (as they would call the jury), who kept on yawning and fanning themselves with their handkerchiefs.
Meanwhile the advocate kept on chatting with his next neighbor as if the affair were no concern of his.
“This time,” murmured the Zuppidda in the ear of the person next her, listening to all those awful things that ’Ntoni had done, “he certainly won’t get off the galleys.
” Santuzza was there too, to say where ’Ntoni had been, and how he had passed that evening.
“Now I wonder what they’ll ask Santuzza,” murmured the Zuppidda.
“I can’t think how she’ll answer so as not to bring out all her own villanies.
” “But what is it they want of us?
” asked Cousin Grazia.
“They want to know if it is true that Don Michele had an understanding with Lia, and if ’Ntoni did not stab him because of that; the advocate told me.
” “Confound you!
” whispered the druggist, furiously, “do you all want to go to the galleys?
Don’t you know that before the law you must always say no, and that we know nothing at all?
” Cousin Venera wrapped herself in her mantle, but went on muttering: “It is the truth.
I saw them with my own eyes, and all the town knows it.
” That morning at the Malavoglia’s house there had been a terrible scene when the grandfather, seeing the whole place go off to see ’Ntoni tried, started to go after them.
Lia, with tumbled hair, wild eyes, and her chin trembling like a baby’s, wanted to go too, and went about the house looking for her mantle without speaking, but with pale face and trembling hands.
Mena caught her by those hands, saying, pale as death herself, “No!
you must not go--you must not go!
” and nothing else.
The grandfather added that they must stay at home and pray to the Madonna; and they wept so that they were heard all the length of the black street.
The poor old man had hardly reached the town when, hidden at a corner, he saw his grandson pass among the carbineers, and with trembling limbs went to sit on the steps of the court-house, where every one passed him going up and down on his business.
Then it came over him that all those people were going to hear his grandson condemned, and it seemed to him as if he were leaving him alone in the piazza surrounded by enemies, or out at sea in a hurricane, and so he, too, amid the crowd, went up the stairs, and strove, by rising on his tiptoes, to see through the grating and past the shining bayonets of the carbineers.
’Ntoni, however, he could not see, surrounded as he was by such a crowd of people; and more than ever it seemed to the poor old man that his grandson was one of the soldiers.
Meanwhile the advocate talked and talked and talked, until it seemed that his flood of words ran like the pulley of a well, up and down, up and down, without ceasing.
No, he said; no, it was not true that ’Ntoni Malavoglia had been guilty of all those crimes.
The president had gone about raking up all sorts of stories--that was his business, and he had nothing to do but to get poor helpless fellows into scrapes.
But, after all, what did the president know about it?
Had he been there, that rainy night, in the pitch darkness, to see what ’Ntoni Malavoglia was about?
“In the poor man’s house he alone is in the wrong, and the gallows is for the unlucky.
” The president went on looking at him calmly with his eye-glasses, leaning his elbows on his papers.
Doctor Scipione went on asking where were the goods, who had seen the goods that was what he wanted to know; and since how long had honest men been forbidden to walk about at whatever hour they liked, especially when they had a little too much wine in their heads to get rid of.
Padron ’Ntoni nodded his head at this, or said, “Yes, yes,” with tears in his eyes, and would have liked to hug the advocate, who had called ’Ntoni a blockhead.
Suddenly he lifted his head.
That was good; what the lawyer had just said was worth of itself fifty francs.
He said that since they wanted to drive them to the wall, and to prove plain as two and two make four that they had caught ’Ntoni Malavoglia in the act, with the knife in his hand, and had brought Don Michele there before them with his stupid face, well, then, “How are you to prove that it was ’Ntoni Malavoglia who stabbed him?
Who knows that it was he?
Who can tell that Don Michele didn’t stab himself on purpose to send ’Ntoni Malavoglia to the galleys?
Do you really want to know the truth?
Smuggled goods had nothing to do with it.
Between ’Ntoni Malavoglia and Don Michele there was an old quarrel--a quarrel about a woman.
” And Padron ’Ntoni nodded again in assent, for didn’t everybody know, and wasn’t he ready to swear before the crucifix, too, that Don Michele was furious with jealousy of ’Ntoni since Santuzza had taken a fancy to him, and then meeting Don Michele by night, and after the boy had been drinking, too?
One knows how it is when one’s eyes are clouded with drink.
The advocate continued: “You may ask the Zuppidda, and Dame Grazia, and a dozen more witnesses, if it is not true that Don Michele had an understanding with Lia, ’Ntoni Malavoglia’s sister, and he was always prowling about the black street in the evening after the girl.
They saw him there the very night on which he was stabbed.
” Padron ’Ntoni heard no more, for his ears began to ring, and at that moment he caught sight of ’Ntoni, who had sprung up behind the bars, tearing his cap like a madman, and shaking his head violently, with flashing eyes, and trying to make himself heard.
The by-standers took the old man out, supposing that he had had a stroke, and the guards laid him on a bench in the witnesses’ room and threw water in his face.
Later, while they were taking him down-stairs tottering and clinging to their arms, the crowd came pouring out like a torrent, and they were heard to say, “They have condemned him to five years in irons.
” At that moment ’Ntoni came out himself, deadly pale, handcuffed, in the midst of the carbineers.
Cousin Grazia went off home, running, and reached there sooner than the others, panting with speed, for ill news always comes on wings.
Hardly had she caught sight of Lia, who stood waiting at the door like a soul in purgatory, than she caught her by both hands, exclaiming: “Wretched girl!
what have you done?
They have told the judge that you had an understanding with Don Michele, and your grandfather had a stroke when he heard it.
” Lia answered not a word any more than if she had not heard or did not care.
She only stared with wide eyes and open mouth.
At last she sank slowly down upon a chair, as if she had lost the use of her limbs.
So she remained for many minutes without motion or speech, while Cousin Grazia threw water in her face until she began to stammer, “I can’t stay here!
I must go--I must go away!
” Her sister followed her about the room, weeping and trying to catch her by the hands, while she went on saying to the cupboard and to the chairs, like a mad creature, “I must go!
” In the evening, when her grandfather was brought home on a cart, and Mena, careless now whether she were seen or not, went out to meet him, Lia went first into the court and then into the street, and then went away altogether, and nobody ever saw her any more.
