There, after a few months, I received the news that poor Bensai had died of a stroke. I cried over his death as I would have for a brother. After about one year, his widow asked for me. I was in such a sorry state that I absolutely did not want to visit her.

Now Marta does not want to take credit for having saved me, but if it's true that good old Santi recommended me warmly in the will he left his wife, it's also true that she could have ignored that.

"No, no," she repeats to me, "thank Santi, bless his soul, for at least having had the foresight to put aside this little bit of money that was yours for our old age. See? What you were incapable of doing, he did for you. Too bad he lacked courage, poor man!"

And so now, I, being sane, enjoy the meager fruit of the sanest of virtues: the foresight of one of my poor thieves, who was grateful and decent.

The Shrine

 

I

Having crawled into bed beside his wife, who was already asleep with her face turned towards the small bed where their two children lay side by side, Spatolino first said his usual prayers, then clasped his hands behind his neck. He blinked his eyes and — without thinking about what he was doing — began to whistle, as was his habit whenever a doubt or worry gnawed at his heart.

"Fififi... fififi... fififi..."

It wasn't exactly a whistle, but rather a soft hissing sound, gently formed on his lips, and always patterned on the same tune.

After a while his wife awoke.

"Oh! You're here? What happened to you?"

"Nothing. Go to sleep. Good night."

He pulled himself down beneath the covers, turned his back towards his wife and then he, too, curled up on his side to sleep. But how could he sleep?

"Fififi..-fififi... fififi..." At this point his wife reached over and struck him on the back with her clenched fist.

"Hey, will you stop that? Careful you don't wake up the little ones!"

"You're right. Keep quiet! I'll fall asleep."

He really tried to drive out of his mind that tormenting thought that now, as always, became a chirping cricket inside of him; but as soon as he thought he had driven it out:

"FififiL. fififi!... fififi!..."

This time he didn't even wait for his wife to deliver another punch, which surely would have been stronger than the first, but jumped out of bed, exasperated.

"What are you doing? Where are you going?" she asked him.

"I'm getting dressed again, damn it!" he replied. "I can't sleep. I'm going to go sit here in front of the door, on the street! Air! Air!"

"For heaven's sake," continued his wife, "will you tell me what the devil happened to you?"

"What? It's that scoundrel," burst out Spatolino then, making an effort to keep his voice down, "that rascal, that enemy of God..."

"Who? Who?"

"Ciancarella."

"The notary?"

"Yes, him. He's sent word that he wants me to come to his villa tomorrow."

"Well?"

"What can a man like him want from me, would you tell me that? He's a swine, even though he's been baptized! A swine, to say the least! Air! Air!"

So saying, he grabbed a chair, reopened the door, and shut it quietly behind him. Then he sat down in the sleepy little street and rested his shoulders against the wall of his cottage.

A streetlamp languidly flickered nearby, casting a yellowish light on a stagnant pool of water, if we can call what lay between the loose cobblestones of that worn-out pavement, covered here and there with bumps and depressions, water.

From within the tiny, shaded cottages there emanated a heavy stench of stables, and from time to time one could hear, breaking the silence, the stamping of some animal tormented by flies. A cat, creeping along the wall, stopped and watchfully turned sideways.

Spatolino began looking at the clusters of stars twinkling in the strip of sky above, and as he looked, he twisted the few hairs of his small reddish beard up to his mouth.

Small in stature, even though since childhood he had mixed clay and mortar, he had a somewhat gentlemanly appearance.

Suddenly his blue eyes, turned upward to the sky, were filled with tears. He shuddered as he sat there in his chair and, wiping his tears with the back of his hand, murmured in the silence of the night:

"Oh, help me, dear Jesus!"

 

II

Ever since the clerical faction in town had been defeated, and the new party, that of the excommunicated, had taken over the seats of the town council, Spatolino felt as if he were in the middle of an enemy camp.

All his fellow workers had huddled behind the new leaders like so many sheep and now, forming a tightly-knit syndicate, were acting as if they owned the place.

With only a handful of workers who had remained faithful to Holy Mother Church, Spatolino had founded a Catholic Mutual Benefit Society among the Unworthy Sons of Our Lady of Sorrows.

But the battle was uneven. The jeering of his enemies (and even of his friends) and the anger he felt because of his helplessness, had made Spatolino see red.

He had gotten it into his head, as president of that Catholic Society, to promote processions, illuminations, and firework displays for all the religious holidays whose observance had previously been fostered by the former town council. While the opposition party whistled, shouted, and laughed, he had lost money on the expenses incurred for the feasts of St. Michael the Archangel, St. Francis of Paola, Good Friday, Corpus Christi, and, in brief, for all the other principal holidays of the church calendar.

Thus the small capital which up till then had permitted him to take a few jobs on contract had shrunk so much that he could see the day not too far off when, from being a master builder, he would be reduced to becoming a miserable day laborer.

His wife had long since lost all the respect and esteem she had had for him. She herself had begun providing for her own needs and for those of their children by washing clothes and sewing for others, and by doing all sorts of other domestic work.

As if he were unemployed for his own pleasure! What could he do if the consortium of those sons of bitches was picking up all the jobs? What did his wife expect him to do? Give up his faith, repudiate God, and sign up in the party of those others? He would rather have had his hands cut off!

Meanwhile, his forced leisure was tormenting him, making him increasingly more irritable and obstinate with each passing day, and embittering him against everyone.

Ciancarella, the notary, had never sided with anyone. Nonetheless, he was notorious for being an enemy of God, making that his profession ever since leaving public office. Once he had even dared to sic his dogs on a man of the cloth, Father Lagaipa, who had gone to visit him to intercede on behalf of some of the notary's poor relatives. These unfortunates were actually starving to death, while he, their relative, was living like a prince in the magnificent villa he had built at the edge of town, with all those riches he had accumulated — heaven only knows how! — and increased through years and years of usury.

Spatolino stayed out-of-doors all night long (fortunately it was summer), mulling over that mysterious invitation from Ciancarella [fififi...