III
Donna Cristina Lamonica, meanwhile, sent for La Cinigia, a woman of the ignorant masses, who followed the profession of magic and unscientific medicine. Previously, La Cinigia had several times discovered stolen goods and some said that she had underhand dealings with the thieves.
Donna Cristina said to her, “Recover the spoon for me and I will give you a rich present.”
La Cinigia answered, “Very well. Twenty-four hours will suffice me.” And after twenty-four hours she brought the news, “The spoon is to be found in the court in a hole adjacent to the sewer.” Donna Cristina and Maria descended to the court, searched, and to their great astonishment found the missing piece.
The news spread rapidly throughout Pescara. Then in triumph, Candia Marcanda immediately began to frequent the streets. She seemed taller, held her head more erect and smiled into the eyes of everyone as if to say, “Now you have seen for yourselves?”
The people in the shops, when she passed by, murmured something and then broke into laughter. Filippo Selvi, who was drinking a glass of brandy in the Café d’Angeladea, called to Candia, “Over here is a glass waiting for Candia.”
The woman, who loved ardent liquor, moved her lips greedily.
Filippo Selvi added, “And you are deserving of it, there is no doubt of that.”
A crowd of idlers had assembled before the café. All wore a teasing expression upon their countenances. Filippo La Selvi having turned to his audience while the woman was drinking, vouchsafed, “And she knew how to find it, did she? The old fox....”
He struck familiarly the bony shoulder of the laundress by way of prelude.
Everyone laughed.
Magnafave, a small hunchback, defective in body and speech and halting on the syllables, cried:
“Ca-ca-ca—Candia—a—and—Cinigia!” He followed this with gesticulations and wary stutterings, all of which implied that Candia and La Cinigia were in league. At this the crowd became convulsed with mirth.
Candia remained dazed for a moment with the glass in her hand. Then of a sudden she understood. They still did not believe in her innocence. They were accusing her of having secretly carried back the spoon, in agreement with the fortune-teller as to the placing of it, in order to escape disgrace.
At this thought, the blind grip of rage seized her. She could not find words for speech. She threw herself upon the weakest of her tormentors, which was the small hunchback, and belaboured him with blows and scratches. The crowd, taking a cruel pleasure in witnessing the scuffle, cheered itself into a circle as if watching the struggle of two animals, and encouraged both combatants with cries and gesticulations.
Magnafave, terrified by her unexpected madness, sought to flee, dodging like a monkey; but, detained by those terrible hands of the laundress, he whirled with ever-increasing velocity, like a stone from a sling, until at length he fell upon his face with great violence.
Several ran forward to raise him. Candia withdrew in the midst of hisses, shut herself up in her house, threw herself across her bed, weeping and biting her fingers. This latest accusation burnt into her more than the former, particularly because she realised that she was capable of such a subterfuge. How to disentangle herself now? How make the truth clear? She grew desperate on thinking that she could not bring to the aid of her argument any material difficulties that might have hindered the execution of such a deceit. Access to the court was very easy; a never closed door was on the first landing-place of a large staircase and in order to dispose of waste matter and to attend to other diverse duties, a quantity of people passed freely in and out of that doorway. Therefore she could not close the mouths of her accusers by saying, “How could I have got in there?” The means for accomplishing such an undertaking were many and simple, and on this very lack of obstacles popular opinion chose to establish itself.
Candia therefore sought different persuasive arguments; she sharpened all her cunning, imagined three, four, five separate circumstances that might easily account for the finding of the spoon in that hole; she took refuge in mental turnings and twistings of every kind and subtilised with singular ingenuity. Later she began to go around from shop to shop, from house to house, straining in every way to overcome the incredulity of the people.
At first they listened to her enticing arguments for a diversion. At last they said, “Oh, very well! Very well!” But with a certain inflection of the voice which left Candia crushed. All her efforts then were useless. No one believed!
With an astonishing persistency, she returned to the siege. She passed entire nights pondering on new reasons, how to construct new explanations, to overcome new obstacles. Little by little, from the continuous absorption, her mind weakened, could not entertain any thought save that of the spoon, and had scarcely any longer any realisation of the events of every day life. Later, through the cruelty of the people, a veritable mania arose in the mind of the poor woman.
She neglected her duties and was reduced almost to penury. She washed the clothes badly, lost and tore them. When she descended to the bank of the river under the iron-bridge where the other laundresses had collected, at times she let escape from her hands garments which the current snatched and they were gone forever. She babbled continuously on the same subject. To drown her out the young laundresses set themselves to singing and to bantering one another from their places with impromptu verses. She shouted and gesticulated like a mad woman.
No one any longer gave her work. Out of compassion for her, her former customers sent her food. Little by little the habit of begging settled upon her. She walked the streets, ragged, bent, and dishevelled. Impertinent boys called after her, “Now tell us the story of the spoon, that we may know about it, do, Candia!”
She stopped sometimes unknown passersby to recount her story and to wander into the mazes of her defence. The scapegoats of the town hailed her and for a cent made her deliver her narration three, four times; they raised objections to her arguments and were attentive to the end of the tale for the sake of wounding her at last with a single word. She shook her head, moved on and clung to other feminine beggars and reasoned with them, always, always indefatigable and unconquerable. She took a fancy to a deaf woman whose skin was afflicted with a kind of reddish leprosy, and who was lame in one leg.
In the winter of 1874 a malignant fever seized her. Donna Cristina Lamonica sent her a cordial and a hand-warmer. The sick woman, stretched on her straw pallet, still babbled about the spoon. She raised on her elbows, tried to motion with her hands in order to assist in the summing up of her conclusions. The leprous woman took her hands and gently soothed her.
In her last throes, when her enlarged eyes were already being veiled behind some suffusing moisture that had mounted to them from within, Candia murmured, “I was not the one, Signor ... you see ... because ... the spoon....”