Rocco Spatu and Cinghialenta, who always had more or less money, laughed in his face from the door of the tavern, pointing their fingers at him, or came out to talk to him in low tones, pulling him by the arm in the direction of the downs, or whispering in his ear. He hesitated always about giving them an answer, like a fool as he was. Then they would come down upon him both at once. “You deserve to die of hunger, there in sight of the door, and to have us sneering at you worse than Don Michele does, you faint-hearted wretch, you!”
“Blood of Judas! don’t talk like that,” cried ’Ntoni, shaking his fist in the air; “or else some day something new will happen, that there will!”
But the others went sneering off and left him, until at last they succeeded in putting him into such a fury that he came straight into the middle of the tavern among them all, pale as a corpse, with his hand on his hip, and on his shoulder his old worn jacket, which he wore as proudly as if it had been a velvet coat, turning his blazing eyes about the room, looking out for somebody. Don Michele, out of respect for his own uniform, pretended not to see him, and made as if he would go away; but ’Ntoni, seeing that Don Michele was not in the humor for fighting, became outrageously insolent, sneering at him and at Santuzza, and spitting out the wine which he drank, swearing that it was poison, and baptized besides, for Santuzza had mixed it with water, and they were simply fools to go into such a place as that to throw away their money; and that was the reason why he had left off coming there. Santuzza, touched in her weakest point, could no longer command her temper, and flew out at him, saying that he didn’t come because they wouldn’t have him, that they were tired of keeping him for charity, and they had had to use the broom-handle to him before he’d go, a great hungry dog! And ’Ntoni began to rage and storm, roaring and flinging the glasses about, which, he said, they had put out to catch that other great codfish in uniform, but he would bring his wine out at his nose for him; he wasn’t afraid of anybody.
Don Michele, white with rage, with his cap on one side, stammered, “This will end badly, will end badly!” while Santuzza rained flasks and glasses upon both of them. At last they flew at each other with their fists, until they both rolled on the floor like two dogs, and the others went at them with kicks and thumps trying to part them, which at last Peppi Naso, the butcher, succeeded in doing by dint of lashing them with the leather strap which he took off his trousers, which took the skin off wherever it touched.
Don Michele brushed off his uniform, picked up his sabre, which he had lost in the scuffle, and went out, only muttering something between his teeth, for his uniform’s sake. But ’Ntoni Malavoglia, with the blood streaming from his nose, called out a lot of bad names after him—rubbing his nose with his sleeve meanwhile, and swearing that he would soon give him the rest of it.
XIV.
Ntoni Malavoglia did meet Don Michele, and “gave him his change,” and a very ugly business it was. It was by night, when it rained in torrents, and so dark that even a cat could have seen nothing at the turn on the down which leads to the Rotolo, whence those boats put out so quietly, making believe to be fishing for cod at midnight, and where ’Ntoni and Rocco Spatu, and Cinghialenta and other good-for-nothing fellows well known to the coast-guard, used to hang about with pipes in their mouths—the guards knew those pipes well, and could distinguish them perfectly one from another as they moved about among the rocks where they lay hidden with their guns in their hands.
“Cousin Mena,” said Don Michele, passing once more down the black street—“Cousin Mena, tell your brother not to go to the Rotolo of nights with Cinghialenta and Rocco Spatu.”