They can’t take anything from you, because the house is part of the dowry, and we’ll make a claim for the boat in mastro Turi Zuppiddo’s name. Your daughter-in-law has nothing to do with the purchase of the lupins.’

The lawyer carried on talking without so much as spitting, or scratching his head, for more than twenty five lire worth, so that padron ’Ntoni and his grandchildren felt their mouths watering with eagerness to get a word in too, to blurt out that fine defence which they felt swelling within them; and they went off stunned, overwhelmed by all those reasons they now had, mulling over the lawyer’s jabber and gesticulating to it all along the street. Maruzza hadn’t gone this time, and when she saw them arriving red-faced and bright-eyed, she felt a great weight lifting from her too, and her face cleared as she waited for them to tell her what the lawyer had said. But no one said a word and they just stood there looking at each other.

‘Well?’ asked Maruzza at last, dying of impatience.

‘Nothing! There’s nothing to be afraid of,’ padron ’Ntoni replied calmly.

‘And the lawyer?’

‘Yes, the lawyer said there was nothing to be afraid of.’

‘But what exactly did he say?’ insisted Maruzza.

‘Well, he knows how to put things. A most impressive man. Those twenty five lire were well spent.’

‘But what did he say?’

Grandfather looked at grandson, grandson at grandfather and back again.

‘Nothing,’ said padron ’Ntoni at last. ‘He said we should do nothing.’

‘We don’t pay him anything,’ added ’Ntoni more boldly, ‘because they can’t take either the house or the Provvidenza from us. We don’t owe him anything.’

‘And the lupins?’

‘That’s true! What about the lupins?’ repeated padron ’Ntoni.

‘The lupins? … we didn’t steal his lupins … we haven’t got them in our pockets; and zio Crocifisso can’t take anything from us; the lawyer said so, and that zio Crocifisso will pay the expenses.’

A moment of silence followed; meanwhile Maruzza did not seem convinced.

‘So he said not to pay?’

’Ntoni scratched his head, and his grandfather added:

‘It’s true, he gave us the lupins, and we must pay for them.’

There was no more to be said. Now that the lawyer wasn’t there, they had to be paid for. Shaking his head, padron ’Ntoni murmured:

‘We’ve always paid what we owe. Zio Crocifisso can take the house, and the boat, and everything — we’ve always paid our debts.’

The poor old man was confused; but his daughter-in-law was crying in silence into her apron.

‘Then we must go to don Silvestro,’ concluded padron

’Ntoni.

And with one accord grandfather, daughter-in-law and grandsons trooped once more to the town clerk, to ask him what they ought to do to pay the debt, without zio Crocifisso sending more official documents, which devoured house, boat and the lot of them along with it. Don Silvestro, who knew about the law, was passing his time constructing a cagetrap which he wanted to give to the Signora’s children. He didn’t behave like the lawyer, and he let them talk and talk, while he carried on with his cage. At last he came up with what was needed: ‘Well now, if gnà Maruzza would set her mind to it, everything could be sorted out.’ The poor woman could not imagine what she should set her mind to. ‘You must set your mind to a sale,’ don Silvestro told her, ‘and give up the dowry mortgage, even though it wasn’t you who bought the lupins.’ ‘We all bought the lupins,’ murmured la Longa, ‘and the Lord has punished us all together by taking away my husband.’

Seated motionless on their chairs, those poor ignorant things looked at one another, and meanwhile don Silvestro was laughing at them behind their backs. Then he sent for zio Crocifisso, who came chewing on a dry chestnut because he had just finished eating, and his little eyes were even brighter than usual. At first he didn’t want to listen at all, and said that it wasn’t his business any more. ‘I’m like a handy wall, everyone leans on me and uses me as they choose, because I can’t talk like a lawyer, and state my case; somehow my property seems like stolen property, but what they are doing to me is tantamount to what they did to Christ on the cross;’ and he went on grumbling and complaining with his shoulders to the wall and hands stuffed into his pockets; and you couldn’t even understand what he was saying, because of the chestnut he had in his mouth. Don Silvestro sweated through a whole shirt to get it into zio Crocifisso’s head that when all was said and done the Malavoglia could not be said to be swindlers, if they wanted to pay the debt, and the widow was giving up her right to the mortgage. ‘The Malavoglia are quite happy to pay all they can in order to avoid a quarrel; but if you put them with their backs to the wall, they too will begin sending official documents, and that’s that. In short you have to have a bit of charity, in Christ’s name. What’s the betting that if you carry on digging in you heels like a mule, you’ll get nothing at all?’

Then zio Crocifisso replied:‘When you talk to me like that, I don’t know what to say,’ and he promised to talk to Piedipapea. ‘I’d make any sacrifice for the sake of friendship.’ Padron ’Ntoni could vouch that he would so such and such a thing, for the sake of friendship; and he offered him his snuff box, patted the baby and gave her a chestnut. ‘Don Silvestro knows my soft spots; I can’t say no. This evening I’ll have a talk with Piedipapera, and tell him to wait until Easter; as long as comare Maruzza sets her mind to it.’ Comare Maruzza didn’t know what she was supposed to set that mind of hers to, but she said she’d set it to it straight away, anyway. ‘Then you can send for those beans you asked me for, and plant them,’ zio Crocifisso said to don Silvestro, before going off.

‘Fine, fine,’ said don Silvestro. ‘I know your heart is as big as the sea, for your friends.’

Piedipapera didn’t want any talk of delay in front of people: and he shrieked and tore his hair, asking whether they wanted to get him into a strait jacket, and to leave him without bread for the winter, him and his wife Grazia, having persuaded him to take over the Malavoglia debt, and he’d said goodbye to five hundred good solid lire that he had taken out of his own mouth in order to give them to zio Crocifisso. His wife Grazia, poor thing, stared in amazement, because she didn’t know where he had got this money from, and put in good words for the Malavoglia, who were decent folk, and everyone in the neighbourhood had always known them as such. Now zio Crocifisso too was taking the Malavoglia’s part. ‘They said they will pay, and if they can’t pay they’ll leave you the house.