At first Santuzza held out, for, as she said, she was determined to be mistress in her own house; but afterwards she began to see things in another light, and no longer treated ’Ntoni as she used to do. If there was anything left at meals she did not give it to him, and she left the glasses dirty, and gave him no wine; so that at last he began to look cross, and then she told him that she didn’t want any idle fellows about the place, and that she and her father earned their bread, and that he ought to do the same. Couldn’t he help a bit about the house, chopping wood or blowing up the fire, instead of always shouting and screaming about, or sleeping with his head on his arms, or else spitting about everywhere so that one didn’t know where to set one’s foot? ’Ntoni for a while did chop the wood, or blew the fire, which he preferred, as it was easier work. But he found it hard to work like a dog, worse than he did at home, and be treated like a dog into the bargain, with hard words and cross looks—and all for the sake of the dirty plates they gave him to lick.
At last, one day when Santuzza had just come back from confession, he made a scene, complaining that Don Michele had begun to hover about the house again, and that he had waited for her in the piazza when she came home from church, and that Uncle Santoro had called to him when he heard his voice as he was passing, and had followed him as far as Vanni Pizzuti’s shop, feeling the walls with his stick. Santuzza flew into a passion, and said that he had come on purpose to bring her into sin again, and make her lose her communion.
“If you are not pleased you can go,” she said. “Did I say anything when I saw you running after Vespa and the Mangiacarubbe, now that they have got themselves married?”
But ’Ntoni swore there wasn’t a word of truth in it, that he didn’t go running after any women, and that she might spit in his face if she saw him speaking to either of them.
“No, you won’t get rid of him that way,” said Uncle Santoro. “Don’t you see that he won’t leave you because he lives at your expense? You won’t get him out unless you kick him out. Master Filippo has told me that he can’t keep his new wine any longer in the barrels, and that he won’t let you have it unless you make it up with Don Michele, and help him to smuggle it in as he used to do.” And he went off after Master Filippo to Vanni Pizzuti’s shop, feeling his way along the walls with his stick.
His daughter put on haughty airs, protesting that she never would forgive Don Michele after the ugly trick he had played her.
“Let me manage it,” said Uncle Santoro. “I assure you I can be discreet enough about it. Don’t believe I will ever let you go back and lick Don Michele’s boots. Am I your father, or not?”
’Ntoni, since Santuzza had begun to be rude to him, was obliged to look somewhere else for his dinner, for he was ashamed to go home—where all the time his people were thinking of him with every mouthful they ate, feeling almost as if he were dead too; and they did not even spread the cloth any more, but sat scattered about the room with the plates on their knees.
“This is the last blow for me, in my old age,” said his grandfather, and those who saw him pass, bent down with the nets on his shoulders, on his way to his day’s work, said to each other:
“This is Padron ’Ntoni’s last winter. It will not be long before those orphans are left quite alone in the world.”