If ’Ntoni had a spark of courage, said Goosefoot, he would get rid of that Don Michele. But ’Ntoni had another reason for wishing to get rid of Don Michele. Santuzza, after having quarrelled with Don Michele, had taken a fancy to ’Ntoni Malavoglia for that fashion he had of wearing his cap, and of swaggering a little when he walked, that he had learned when he was a soldier, and used to hide for him behind the counter the remains of the customers’ dinners, and to fill his glass as well now and then on the sly. In this way she kept him about the tavern, as fat and as sleek as the butcher’s dog. ’Ntoni meantime discharged himself, to a certain extent, of his obligation to her by taking her part, sometimes even to the extent of thumps, with those unpleasant people who chose to find fault with their bills, and to scold and swear about the place for ever so long before they would consent to pay them. With those who were friends with the hostess, on the contrary, he was chatty and pleasant, and kept an eye on the counter, too, while Santuzza went to confession; so that every one there liked him and treated him as if he were at home. All but Uncle Santoro, who looked askance at him, and muttered, between one Ave Maria and another, against him, and how he lived upon his girl like a canon, without lifting a finger; Santuzza replying that she was the mistress, and if it were her pleasure to keep ’Ntoni Malavoglia for herself as fat as a canon, she should do it; she had no need of anybody.
“Yes, yes,” growled Uncle Santoro, when he could get her for a minute by herself. “You always need Don Michele! Master Filippo has told me time and again that he means to have done with it, that he won’t keep the wine in the cellar any longer, and we must get it into the place contraband.”
“Don Filippo must attend to his own affairs. But I tell you once for all, that if I have to pay the duty twice over, I won’t have Don Michele here again. I won’t, I won’t!”
She could not forgive Don Michele the ugly trick he had played her with the Zuppidda, after all that time that he had lived like a fighting-cock at the tavern for love of his uniform; and ’Ntoni Malavoglia, with no uniform at all, was worth ten of Don Michele; whatever she gave to him she gave with all her heart. In this way ’Ntoni earned his living, and when his grandfather reproved him for doing nothing, or his sister looked gravely at him with her large melancholy eyes, he would reply:
“And do I ask you for anything? I don’t spend any money out of the house, and I earn my own bread.”
“It would be better that you should die of hunger,” said his grandfather, “and that we all fell dead on the spot.”
At last they spoke no more to each other, turning their backs as they sat. Padron ’Ntoni was driven to silence sooner than quarrel with his grandson, and ’Ntoni, tired of being preached to, left them there whining, and went off to Rocco Spatu and Cousin Vanni, who at least were jolly? and could find every day some new trick to play off on somebody. They found one, one day, which was to serenade Uncle Crucifix the night of his marriage with his niece Vespa, and they brought under his windows all the crew, to whom Uncle Crucifix would no longer lend a penny, with broken pots and bottles, sheep’s bells, and whistles of cane, making the devil’s own row until midnight; so that Vespa got up the next morning rather greener than usual, and railed at that hussy of a Santuzza, in whose tavern all that noisy raff had got up that nasty trick; and it was all out of jealousy she had done it, because she couldn’t get married herself as Vespa had.
Everybody laughed at Uncle Crucifix when he appeared in the piazza in his new clothes, yellow as a corpse, and half frightened out of his wits at Vespa and the money she had made him spend for his new clothes. Vespa was always spending and spilling, and if he had left her alone would have emptied his money-bags in a fortnight; and she said that now she was mistress, so that there was the devil to pay between them every day. His wife planted her nails in his face, and screamed that she was going to keep the keys herself; that she didn’t see why she should want a bit of bread or a new kerchief worse than she did before; and if she had known what was to come of her marriage, with such a husband, too! she would have kept her fields and her medal of the Daughters of Mary. And he screamed, too, that he was ruined; that he was no longer master in his own house; that now he had the cholera in his house in good earnest; that they wanted to kill him before his time, to waste the money that he had spent his life in putting together! He, too, if he had known how it would be, would have seen them both at the devil, his wife and her fields, first; that he didn’t need a wife, and they had frightened him into taking Vespa, telling him that Brasi Cipolla was going to run off with her and her fields. Cursed be her fields!
Just at this point it came out that Brasi Cipolla had allowed himself to be taken possession of by the Mangiacarubbe, like a great stupid lout as he was; and Padron Fortunato was always hunting for them up and down on the heath, in the ravine, under the bridge, everywhere, foaming at the mouth, and swearing that if he caught them he would kick them as long as he could stand, and would wring his son’s ears off for him. Uncle Crucifix, at this, became quite desperate, and said that the Mangiacarubbe had ruined him by not running off with Brasi a week sooner. “This is the will of God!” he said, beating his breast. “The will of God is that I should have taken this Wasp to expiate my sins.” And his sins must have been heavy, for the Wasp poisoned the bread in his mouth, and made him suffer the pains of purgatory both by day and by night.
The neighbors never came near the Malavoglia now, any more than if the cholera were still in the house; but left her alone, with her sister in her flowered kerchief, or with Nunziata and her cousin Anna, when they had the charity to come and chat with her a bit. As for Anna, she was as badly off as they were with her drunkard of a son, and now everybody knew all about it; and Nunziata, too, who had been so little when that scamp of a father of hers had deserted her and gone elsewhere to seek his fortune. The poor things felt for each other, for that very reason, when they talked together, in low tones, with bent heads and hands folded under their aprons, and also when they were silent, each absorbed in her own pain.