‘A man’s home is his castle.’ St. Francis has granted my prayers and allowed me to close my eyes content.’
At the same time they had laid in all the purchases for the winter, grain, beans and oil; and they had given the deposit to massaro Filippo for that bit of wine they had on Sundays.
Now they were no longer so worried; father-in-law and daughter-in-law resumed their counting of the money in the stocking, of the barrels lined up in the courtyard, and made their calculations to see how much was still needed for the house. Maruzza knew that money sou by sou, the money for the oranges and the eggs, what Alessi had brought back from the railway, what Mena had earned at her loom, and she would say that there was some from everybody.
‘Didn’t I say that the five fingers of the hand have to pull together to row a good oar?’ padron ’Ntoni would repeat. ‘We’re nearly there now.’ And then he would sit in a corner conferring with la Longa, and glancing towards St. Agatha who, poor thing, was only talked about by other people ‘because she had neither mouth nor will of her own’ and simply concentrated on working, singing to herself as birds do in their nests before dawn; and only when she heard the carts go by, in the evening, did she think of compare Alfio Mosca’s cart, which was going round the world, though there was no guessing quite where; and then she would stop singing.
Throughout the village all you could see was people with their nets around their necks, and women sitting on doorsteps pounding tiles; and there was a row of barrels in front of each door, so that just to walk down the street was a treat for the nose, and right from a mile outside the village you could sense that St. Francis had sent bounty; people talked of nothing except pilchards and brine, even in the chemist’s shop where they set the world to rights after their own fashion; and don Franco wanted to teach them a new method of salting anchovies, which he had read about in books. When they laughed in his face, he started to shout:
‘You’re just like cattle, you are! and you want progress! and the republic!’ People turned their backs on him, and left him there shrieking like a loon. Ever since the world began anchovies have been made using salt and ground tiles.
‘The usual story! That’s how my grandfather did it,’ the chemist continued to shout after them. ‘All you need to be donkeys is a tail! What can you do with people like this? and they make do with mastro Croce Callà, that nodding idiot, because he has always been the mayor; and they’d be quite capable of telling you that they don’t want a republic because they’ve never had one!’ He then repeated all this to don Silvestro, in connection with certain discussions they had had in private, although don Silvestro hadn’t uttered, it’s true, but he had listened intently. And it was known that he was on bad terms with mastro Croce’s Betta, because she wanted to act the mayor, and her father had allowed himself to be led by the nose, so that to-day he said one thing and to-morrow another, just as Betta had wanted. And all he could say was:
‘I’m the mayor, by Jove!’ as his daughter had taught him; and she would rest her hands on her hips when talking with don Silvestro, saying reproachfully:
‘Do you think they will always let you lead that poor dear father of mine by the nose, to do your bidding and guzzle up the lot of them? because even donna Rosolina is going round saying that you’re gnawing away at the whole village! But you won’t eat me, because I’m not obsessed with marriage, and I look after my father’s affairs.’
Don Franco declared that without new men you couldn’t achieve anything, and it was pointless to go running to the big wigs, like padron Cipolla, who told you that by the grace of God he was quite well set up and didn’t need to act the unpaid public servant at all; or like massaro Filippo who thought of nothing except his smallholdings and his vines, and who paid attention only when there was talk of putting a tax on wine must.
‘Old-fashioned folk,’ don Franco concluded with his beard in the air. ‘People at home with cliques and factions. In this modern age you need new men.’ ‘We’ll send off to the kiln for another batch,’ quipped don Giammaria.
‘If things went as they should, we’d be swimming in gold,’ said don Silvestro; and that was all he would say.
‘You want to know what we need?’ said the chemist, in a low voice, casting a glance towards the back of the shop. ‘We need people like us!’
And after having whispered this secret in their ear, he ran on tiptoe to stand at the doorway, with his beard in the air, rocking to and fro on his short legs with his hands behind his back.
‘Fine people they would be,’ muttered don Giammaria. ‘You’ll find as many as you need in Favignana, or the other prisons, without having to go to any kiln. Go and tell Tino Piedipapera, or that drunkard Rocco Spatu, they are all in favour of the ideas of your time! All I know is that I’ve been robbed of twenty five onze, and nobody has gone to Favignana! Typical of these new times and new men!’
At that moment the Signora came into the shop, with her knitting in her hand, and the chemist promptly swallowed what he was about to say, and carried on muttering into his beard, while pretending to look at the people who were going to the fountain. At last, seeing that everyone had fallen suddenly so silent, don Silvestro said loudly and clearly that the only new men were padron ’Ntoni’s ’Ntoni and Brasi Cipolla, because he wasn’t in awe of the chemist’s wife.
‘You keep out of this,’ the Signora then rebuked her husband; ‘it’s not your business.’
‘I’m not saying anything,’ replied don Franco, smoothing his beard.
Now that he had the upper hand, with don Franco’s wife there, so that he could throw stones from behind the wall, the parish priest amused himself by irritating the chemist.
‘A fine lot, your new men! Do you know what Brasi Cipolla is doing, now that his father is after him to pull his ears because of la Vespa? He’s scuttling around hiding all over the place like a naughty schoolboy. Last night he slept in the sacristy; and yesterday my sister had to send him a plate of maccheroni when he was hiding in the chicken run because the great idiot hadn’t eaten for twenty four hours and was all over little chickens! And ’Ntoni Malavoglia, he’s another fine new man! His grandfather and all the rest of them sweat away to get back on their feet again; but whenever he can skive off with an excuse, he goes sauntering round the village, standing around outside the wine shop, just like Rocco Spatu.’
The council dissolved as it always did, without concluding anything, because everyone kept to their own opinions, and furthermore on that occasion the Signora was there, so that don Franco couldn’t give vent to his feelings in his own way.
Don Silvestro was cackling away, and as soon as the conversation broke up he too went off, with his hands behind his back and his head teeming with thoughts.
‘Just look at don Silvestro, he’s so much more sensible than you,’ the Signora said to her husband, while he was shutting up shop. ‘He’s a man with conviction, and if he has something to say he shuts it inside himself and doesn’t utter a word. The whole village knows he swindled twenty five onze out of donna Rosolina, but no one will say as much to his face, not to a man like that! But you will always be the kind of fool who can’t mind his own business; one of those asses who bray at the moon! a great chatterbox!’ ‘But what have I done, damn it?’ whinged the chemist, walking up the stairs behind her holding the lamp. Did she know what he had said? He did not usually venture on his endless ramblings in front of her. All he knew was that don Giammaria had gone off crossing himself over the square and muttering that they were a fine race of new men, like that ’Ntoni Malavoglia, ambling round the village at this hour!’
Once, on his amblings, ’Ntoni Malavoglia had seen two young men who had set sail a few years earlier from Riposto in search of their fortunes, and who were now coming back from Trieste, or perhaps Alexandria, the one in Egypt, anyhow from a long way off, and they were spending at the wine shop more freely than compare Naso, or padron Cipolla; they would sit astride the tables and tell jokes to the girls, and they had silk handkerchieves in every jacket pocket; so that the whole village was in a state of ferment.
The only people at home that evening when he returned were the women, who were changing the brine in the barrels, and chatting in groups with the neighbours, sitting on the stones; and meanwhile they were passing the time by telling stories and riddles, just about good for the children who were listening wide-eyed, half-dazed with sleep. Padron ’Ntoni was listening too, keeping an eye on the dripping of the brine and nodding approval at those who told the best stories, and at the children who showed as much judgement as the adults in explaining the riddles.
‘The really good story,’ ’Ntoni then said, ‘Is the one about the foreigners who arrived to-day, with so many silk handkerchieves it hardly seems possible; and they don’t even look at their money when they take it out of their pockets. They’ve travelled half the world, they say, and Trezza and Aci Castello put together are nothing in comparison. I’ve seen as much too; and out there people spend their time enjoying themselves all day long, instead of sitting around salting anchovies; and the women are dressed in silk and laden with more rings than the Madonna of Ognina, and they go around the streets stealing all the handsome sailors.’
The girls blinked, and padron ’Ntoni too pricked up his ears, as when the children explained the riddles:
‘When I’m grown up,’ said Alessi, who was carefully emptying the barrels and passing them to Nunziata, ‘If I get married, I want to marry you.’
‘There’s plenty of time,’ said Nunziata, very gravely.
‘There must be big cities like Catania; the sort of place where you get lost if you don’t know them; and you feel stifled always walking between two rows of houses, without seeing sea or countryside.’
‘Cipolla’s grandfather has been there too,’ added padron ’Ntoni; ‘and he got rich there. But he didn’t come back to Trezza, and he just sends money to his children.’
‘Poor thing,’ said Maruzza.
‘Let’s see if you can guess this one,’ said Nunziata; ‘two shiners, two prickers, four hooves and one licker.’
‘An ox,’ said Lia quick as a flash.
‘You already knew it, you got there so fast,’ said her brother.
‘I’d like to go there too, like padron Cipolla’s father, and get rich,’ added ’Ntoni.
‘You leave all that be,’ said his grandfather, pleased because of the barrels he could see in the courtyard.
‘Now there are anchovies to be salted.’ But la Longa looked at her son with a heavy heart, and said nothing, because every time there was talk of leaving, a picture of those had had never returned loomed up before her eyes.
The rows of barrels were lining up nicely against the wall, and as each one was put in its place, with the stones on top, padron ’Ntoni would say:
‘There’s another one ready! And by All Saints’ Day they’ll all mean money.’
Then ’Ntoni laughed, like padron Fortunato when you talked to him about other people’s property.
‘Big money,’ he said scathingly; and he went back to thinking about those two foreigners who were going hither and thither, and stretching out on the wine shop benches, and ringing their change in their pockets. His mother looked at him as though she could read his thoughts; and the jokes they were telling in the courtyard didn’t raise a smile in her.
‘The person who eats these anchovies,’ began cousin Anna, ‘will be the son of a crowned king, as fair as the sun, who will walk for a year, a month and a day, with his white horse; until he arrives at an enchanted fountain of milk and honey; there, getting down from his horse to drink, he will find my daughter Mara’s thimble, carried there by the fairies when she was filling her jug; and as he drinks out of Mara’s thimble, the king’s son will fall in love with her; and he will walk for another year, a month and a day until he arrives in Trezza, and the white horse will take him right to the wash place, where my daughter Mara will be rinsing out the washing; and the king’s son will marry her and put the ring on her finger; and then he will put her on the back of his white horse, and carry her off to his kingdom.’
Alessi was listening open-mouthed, as though he could see the king’s son on the white horse, carrying Anna’s Mara behind him.
‘And where will he take her?’ Lia asked.
‘Far away, to his kingdom beyond the sea; the kingdom from which you never return.’
‘Your daughter hasn’t a ha’porth of dowry, and that’s why the king’s son won’t come and marry her,’ said ’Ntoni; ‘in fact they’ll turn their backs on her, as they do with people who have nothing.’
‘That’s why my daughter is working here now, after having spent all day at the wash place, to earn her dowry. Isn’t it, Mara? At least if the king’s son doesn’t come, someone else will. Even I know that that is how the world goes, and we have no right to complain. Why didn’t you fall in love with my daughter, instead of with Barbara, who is as yellow as saffron? It was because of her smallholding, wasn’t it? and when misfortune caused you to lose your own possessions, it was only natural that Barbara should drop you.’
‘You put up with everything,’ replied ’Ntoni sulkily, ‘and they’re right to call you a ‘happy soul.’
‘And if I weren’t, what good would that do? When you haven’t got anything, the best thing is to go off, like compare Alfio Mosca did.’
‘That’s what I say,’ exclaimed ’Ntoni.
‘The worst thing,’ said Mena at last, ‘is to leave your own village, where even the stones know you, and it must be a heartbreaking thing to leave them all behind you on the road.
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