Lia, with tumbled hair, wild eyes, and her chin trembling like a baby’s, wanted to go too, and went about the house looking for her mantle without speaking, but with pale face and trembling hands.
Mena caught her by those hands, saying, pale as death herself, “No! you must not go—you must not go!” and nothing else. The grandfather added that they must stay at home and pray to the Madonna; and they wept so that they were heard all the length of the black street. The poor old man had hardly reached the town when, hidden at a corner, he saw his grandson pass among the carbineers, and with trembling limbs went to sit on the steps of the court-house, where every one passed him going up and down on his business. Then it came over him that all those people were going to hear his grandson condemned, and it seemed to him as if he were leaving him alone in the piazza surrounded by enemies, or out at sea in a hurricane, and so he, too, amid the crowd, went up the stairs, and strove, by rising on his tiptoes, to see through the grating and past the shining bayonets of the carbineers. ’Ntoni, however, he could not see, surrounded as he was by such a crowd of people; and more than ever it seemed to the poor old man that his grandson was one of the soldiers.
Meanwhile the advocate talked and talked and talked, until it seemed that his flood of words ran like the pulley of a well, up and down, up and down, without ceasing. No, he said; no, it was not true that ’Ntoni Malavoglia had been guilty of all those crimes. The president had gone about raking up all sorts of stories—that was his business, and he had nothing to do but to get poor helpless fellows into scrapes. But, after all, what did the president know about it? Had he been there, that rainy night, in the pitch darkness, to see what ’Ntoni Malavoglia was about? “In the poor man’s house he alone is in the wrong, and the gallows is for the unlucky.” The president went on looking at him calmly with his eye-glasses, leaning his elbows on his papers. Doctor Scipione went on asking where were the goods, who had seen the goods that was what he wanted to know; and since how long had honest men been forbidden to walk about at whatever hour they liked, especially when they had a little too much wine in their heads to get rid of.
Padron ’Ntoni nodded his head at this, or said, “Yes, yes,” with tears in his eyes, and would have liked to hug the advocate, who had called ’Ntoni a blockhead. Suddenly he lifted his head. That was good; what the lawyer had just said was worth of itself fifty francs. He said that since they wanted to drive them to the wall, and to prove plain as two and two make four that they had caught ’Ntoni Malavoglia in the act, with the knife in his hand, and had brought Don Michele there before them with his stupid face, well, then, “How are you to prove that it was ’Ntoni Malavoglia who stabbed him? Who knows that it was he? Who can tell that Don Michele didn’t stab himself on purpose to send ’Ntoni Malavoglia to the galleys? Do you really want to know the truth? Smuggled goods had nothing to do with it. Between ’Ntoni Malavoglia and Don Michele there was an old quarrel—a quarrel about a woman.” And Padron ’Ntoni nodded again in assent, for didn’t everybody know, and wasn’t he ready to swear before the crucifix, too, that Don Michele was furious with jealousy of ’Ntoni since Santuzza had taken a fancy to him, and then meeting Don Michele by night, and after the boy had been drinking, too? One knows how it is when one’s eyes are clouded with drink. The advocate continued:
“You may ask the Zuppidda, and Dame Grazia, and a dozen more witnesses, if it is not true that Don Michele had an understanding with Lia, ’Ntoni Malavoglia’s sister, and he was always prowling about the black street in the evening after the girl. They saw him there the very night on which he was stabbed.”
Padron ’Ntoni heard no more, for his ears began to ring, and at that moment he caught sight of ’Ntoni, who had sprung up behind the bars, tearing his cap like a madman, and shaking his head violently, with flashing eyes, and trying to make himself heard. The by-standers took the old man out, supposing that he had had a stroke, and the guards laid him on a bench in the witnesses’ room and threw water in his face. Later, while they were taking him down-stairs tottering and clinging to their arms, the crowd came pouring out like a torrent, and they were heard to say, “They have condemned him to five years in irons.” At that moment ’Ntoni came out himself, deadly pale, handcuffed, in the midst of the carbineers.
Cousin Grazia went off home, running, and reached there sooner than the others, panting with speed, for ill news always comes on wings. Hardly had she caught sight of Lia, who stood waiting at the door like a soul in purgatory, than she caught her by both hands, exclaiming: “Wretched girl! what have you done? They have told the judge that you had an understanding with Don Michele, and your grandfather had a stroke when he heard it.” Lia answered not a word any more than if she had not heard or did not care. She only stared with wide eyes and open mouth. At last she sank slowly down upon a chair, as if she had lost the use of her limbs. So she remained for many minutes without motion or speech, while Cousin Grazia threw water in her face until she began to stammer, “I can’t stay here! I must go—I must go away!” Her sister followed her about the room, weeping and trying to catch her by the hands, while she went on saying to the cupboard and to the chairs, like a mad creature, “I must go!”
In the evening, when her grandfather was brought home on a cart, and Mena, careless now whether she were seen or not, went out to meet him, Lia went first into the court and then into the street, and then went away altogether, and nobody ever saw her any more.