And Lia, when Mena told her to stay in the house when Don Michele passed by, answered, with a pout: “Yes, it is worth while staying in the house, for such precious persons as we are! You needn’t be afraid anybody ‘ll want to steal us.”
“Oh, if your mother were here you wouldn’t talk in that way,” murmured Mena.
“If my mother were here I shouldn’t be an orphan, and shouldn’t have to take care of myself. Nor would ’Ntoni go wandering about the streets, until it is a shame to hear one’s self called his sister. And not a soul would think of taking ’Ntoni Malavoglia’s sister for a wife.”
’Ntoni, now that he was in bad luck, was not ashamed to show himself everywhere with Rocco Spatu, and with Cinghialenta, on the downs and by the Rotolo, and was seen whispering to them mysteriously, like a lot of wolves. Don Michele came back to Mena, saying, “Your brother will play you an ugly trick some day, Cousin Mena.” Mena was driven to going out to look for her brother on the downs, or towards the Rotolo, or at the door of the tavern, sobbing and crying, and pulling him by the sleeve. But he replied:
“No, it is all Don Michele; he is determined to ruin me, I tell you. He is always plotting against me with Uncle Santoro. I have heard them myself in Pizzuti’s shop; and that spy said to him, ‘And if I come back to your daughter, what kind of a figure shall I cut?’ And Uncle Santoro answered, ‘But when I tell you that the whole place will by that time be dying of envy of you?’”
“But what do you mean to do?” asked Mena, with her pale face. “Think of our mother, ’Ntoni, and of us who have no one left in the world!”
“Nothing! I mean to put Santuzza to shame, and him too, as they go to the mass, before all the world. I mean to tell them what I think of them, and make them a laughing-stock for everybody. I fear nobody in the world. And the druggist himself shall hear me.”
In short, it was useless for Mena to weep or to beg. He went on saying that he had nothing to lose, and the others should look after themselves and not blame him; that he was tired of that life, and meant to end it, as Don Franco said. And since he was not kindly received at the tavern, he took to lounging about the piazza, especially on Sundays, and sat on the church-steps to see what sort of a face those shameless wretches would wear, trying to deceive not only the world, but Our Lord and the Madonna under their very eyes.
Santuzza, not wishing to meet ’Ntoni, went to Aci Castello to mass early in the morning, not to be led into temptation. ’Ntoni watched the Mangia-carubbe, with her face wrapped in her mantle, not looking to the right or to the left, now she had caught a husband. Vespa, all over flounces, and with a very big rosary, went to besiege Heaven that she might be delivered from her scourge of a husband, and ’Ntoni snarled after them: “Now that they have caught husbands, they want nothing more. They’ve somebody to see that they have plenty to eat.” Uncle Crucifix had lost even his devotional habits since he had got Vespa on his shoulders; he kept away from church, to be free from her presence at least for so long a time, to the great peril of his soul.
“This is my last year!” he whined. And now he was always running after Padron ’Ntoni and the others who were badly off. “This year I shall have hail in my vineyard, you’ll see; I shall not have a drop of wine!”