Compare Tino won’t say no, when you tell him you want to wait till the Madonna of Ognina.’

‘This isn’t even enough for the expenses,’ repeated Dumb bell, tossing the money in his hand. ‘You go and ask him if he’ll wait, it’s not my business any more.’

Piedipapera began to swear and dash his cap to the ground, in his usual way, saying that he had no bread to eat, and couldn’t wait even until Ascension Day.

‘Listen, compare Tino’, padron ’Ntoni said to him with his hands clasped as though he were in the presence of God Himself. ‘If you don’t wait until St John Day, now that I am about to marry off my grand-daughter, you might as well give me a stab in the back right now.’

‘Heavens alive,’ shrieked compare Tino, ‘You’re forcing me to do something I can’t do,’ and he cursed the day and the hour when he got himself involved in this mess, and went off tearing his old cap.

Padron ’Ntoni arrived home quite pale, and said to his daughter-in-law: ‘I did it, but I had to beg him as if he were God Almighty,’ and the poor fellow was still all a-tremble. But he was pleased that padron Cipolla should know nothing about it, so that his grand-daughter’s wedding hadn’t gone up in smoke.

On the evening of Ascension Day, while the children were jumping around the bonfires, the neighbourhood women had come together again outside the Malavoglia’s balcony, and even comare Venera la Zuppidda arrived to hear what was being said, and to make her own contribution. Now that padron ’Ntoni was marrying off his granddaughter, and the Provvidenza was seaworthy once more, everyone had a welcome again for the Malavoglia, who knew nothing of what Piedipapera was hatching, and nor indeed did comare Grazia his wife, who chatted with comare Maruzza as though her husband were hatching nothing at all. ’Ntoni would go every evening to chat with Barbara, and he had confided in her that his grandfather had said that Mena must marry first. ‘And then it’s my turn,’ added ’Ntoni. So Barbara sent Mena a gift of basil, all decorated with carnations, and a fine red bow, which was an invitation to become special friends; and everyone made a fuss of St Agatha, and her mother had even taken off her black handkerchief, because when there is a wedding in the offing it is bad luck to wear mourning; and they had even written to Luca, to tell him that Mena was getting married.

Only Mena, poor thing, seemed less cheerful than the rest, and it was as though her heart spoke to her and made her see everything in black, while the fields were all dotted with little gold and silver stars and the children were making garlands for Ascension Day, and she herself had gone up the ladder to help her mother hang them at the door and windows.

All the doors had flowers on them, and only compare Alfio’s door, black and dilapidated, remained closed, and there was no longer anyone to hang the Ascension Day flowers on it.

‘That little flirt St Agatha,’ la Vespa went round saying, foaming at the mouth, ‘has sent compare Alfio packing from the village, with all her words and deeds.’

Meanwhile St Agatha had been dressed in her new dress and they were waiting for St John’s Day to take the little silver sword from her hair, and to part it on her forehead, before going into church, so that when they saw her pass everyone said how lucky she was.

But her mother, poor thing, did feel a deep sense of joy, because her daughter was going to be part of a family where she would want for nothing, and in the meanwhile she was completely absorbed in her cutting and sewing. Padron ’Ntoni wanted to be involved too, when he came home at night, and he would hold the cloth and the skein of cotton, and every time he went into town he would bring back some little thing. With the fine weather he felt a return of courage, and the children were all earning, some more and some less, and the Provvidenza earned her keep too, and they reckoned that with God’s help on St John’s Day they would be out of difficulties. Then padron Cipolla spent whole evenings sitting on the steps of the church disussing the achievements of the Provvidenza with padron ’Ntoni. Brasi kept wandering up and down the Malavoglia’s little street in his new suit, and soon afterwards the whole village learned that that Sunday comare Grazia Piedipapera herself was going to part the bride’s hair, and take out the little silver sword, because Brasi Cipolla’s mother was dead, and the Malavoglia had invited Grazia Piedipapera in order to ingratiate themselves with her husband, and they also invited zio Crocifisso, and the whole neighbourhood, and all their friends and relatives, with no thought of the cost.

‘I’m not going,’ muttered zio Crocifisso, to compare Tino, with his back against the elm, in the square. ‘I’ve had to down enough rage over them, and I don’t want to be driven crazy. You go though — it’s nothing to you, and it’s not your property that’s involved. There’s still time for the bailiff; the lawyer said so.’

‘You’re the boss, and I’ll do as you say. Now that Alfio Mosca has gone away, it’s not so important to you. But you’ll see, as soon as Mena is married, he’ll come back here and lay hands on your neice.’

Comare Venera la Zuppidda raised hell because they had invited comare Grazia to part the bride’s hair, while it should have fallen to her, since she was about to become an in-law of the Malavoglia, and her daughter had become special friends with Mena with the gift of basil, and indeed she had very promptly sewn Barbara a new dress, and wasn’t expecting that slight at all. In vain ’Ntoni begged and beseeched her not to take offence at that minor matter, and let things pass. Comare Venera, hair all neatly combed but hands covered in flour, because she had started kneading dough, just to show that she didn’t care about going to the Malavoglia’s gathering, answered:

“You wanted Grazia Piedipapera? Have her then; it’s either her or me! There’s no room for both of us.’

Everyone knew quite well that the Malavoglia had chosen comare Grazia because of that money they owed her husband. Now they were hand in glove with compare Tino, ever since padron Cipolla had got him to make peace with padron ’Ntoni’s ’Ntoni in Santuzza’s wine shop, over the business of the fist fight.

‘They’re licking his boots because they owe him that money for the house,’ Zuppidda would mutter. ‘They owe my husband fifty lire for the Provvidenza, too. And to-morrow I’ll get them to hand over.’

‘Leave them be, mother, leave them be,’ begged Barbara. But she too was in a sulk, because she hadn’t been able to wear her new dress, and she almost regretted the money spent for the basil she had sent to comare Mena; and ’Ntoni, who had come to get them, was sent away all crestfallen, so that his new jacket seemed suddenly to fall limply from his very shoulders. Then while they were putting the bread into the oven, mother and daughter stood looking out from the courtyard, listening to the babble going on in the Malavoglia’s house, because the voices and laughter could be heard right where they were, to annoy them still further. The house by the medlar tree was full of people, as it had been when compare Bastianazzo died, and Mena, without her little silver sword and with her hair parted on her forehead, looked quite different, so that all the neighbourhood women crowded round her, and you couldn’t have heard a cannon shot for the babble and festivity. Piedipapera seemed to be positively tickling the women, he was so witty, while the lawyer was drawing up the documents, because there was still time to call in the bailiff, zio Crocifisso had said so; even padron Cipolla let himself go to the extent of telling some jokes, at which only his son Brasi laughed; and everyone talked at the same time, while the children fought over the beans and chestnuts between the grown-ups’ legs. Even la Longa, poor thing, had forgotten her sorrows in her delight; and padron ’Ntoni sat on the wall nodding sagely, and laughed to himself.

‘Don’t you give a drink to your trousers like last time, they’re not thirsty’ said compare Cipolla to his son, and he also said he felt in better fettle than the bride herself and wanted to dance the fasola with her.

‘Well, there’s no place for me here, I might as well go home!’ said Brasi who wanted to tell his own jokes, and who was annoyed that they left him alone in a corner like a dunderhead, and not even Mena paid him any attention.

‘The party is for comare Mena,’ said Nunziata, ‘but she’s not as cheerful as the rest of them.’

Then cousin Anna pretended the jug had slipped from her hand, with a drop of wine still in it, and she began to shout that where there were shards, there there was good cheer, and that spilt wine meant good luck.

‘I nearly ended up with wine on my trousers this time too,’ grumbled Brasi, who was watchful after his previous mishap with the suit.

Piedipapera had seated himself astride the wall, with his glass between his legs, so that he seemed like the boss, because of that bailiff he could send in, and he said: ’Not even Rocco Spatu is in the wine shop, to-day all the merry-making is here, and it’s like being at Santuzza’s place.’

‘It’s far better here,’ commented la Locca’s son, who had brought up the rear, and they had asked him in so he could have a drink too. ‘They don’t give you anything at Santuzza’s if you go there without any money.’

From his wall Piedipapera was watching a small group of people who were talking among themselves near the fountain, looking as solemn as if the end of the world were at hand. At the chemist’s there were the usual loafers, mumbling their orisons to each other with the newspaper in their hands, or waving wildly in each other’s faces, chattering, as though they wanted to pick a quarrel; and don Giammaria was laughing and taking a pinch of snuff, and you could see how delighted he was from quite a long way off.

‘Why haven’t the priest and don Silvestro come?’ asked Piedipapera.

‘I mentioned it to them too, but they must have other things to do,’ replied padron ’Ntoni.

‘They’re there, in the chemist’s shop, as though the man who predicts the lottery numbers were there. What the devil has happened?’

An old woman went shrieking through the square, and tearing her hair, as though they had brought her bad tidings; and in front of Pizzuto’s shop there was the sort of crowd you get when a donkey collapses in front of a cart, and everyone pushes forward to see what has happened, and even the idle women were peering from a distance open-mouthed, without daring to go any closer.

‘Personally, I’m going to see what’s happened,’ said Piedipapera, and he got slowly down from the wall.

Amidst that group, instead of a fallen donkey, there were two soldiers with bags on their shoulders and bandaged heads, who were coming home on leave.