Don Giammaria, passing by on his way home, saluted Goosefoot as well as the others, for in such times as these one must be friends with those rascals, and Uncle Tino, whose mouth was always watering, called after him:
“Eh, fried vermicelli to-night, Don Giammaria!”
“Do you hear him? Even sniffing at what I have to eat!” muttered Don Giammaria between his teeth; “they spy after the servants of God to count even their mouthfuls—everybody hates the church!” And coming face to face with Don Michele, the brigadier of the coast-guard, who was going his rounds, with his pistols in his belt and his trousers thrust into his boots, in search of smugglers, “They don’t grudge their suppers to those fellows.”
“Those fellows, I like them,” cried Uncle Crucifix. “I like those fellows who look after honest men’s property!”
“If they’d only make it worth his while he’d be a heretic too,” growled Don Giammaria, knocking at the door of his house. “All a lot of thieves,” he went on muttering, with the knocker in his hand, following with suspicious eye the form of the brigadier, who disappeared in the darkness towards the tavern, and wondering “what he was doing at the tavern, protecting honest men’s goods?”
All the same, Daddy Tino knew why Don Michele went in the direction of the tavern to protect the interests of honest people, for he had spent whole nights watching for him behind the big elm to find out; and he used to say:
“He goes to talk on the sly with Uncle Santoro, Santuzza’s father. Those fellows that the King feeds must all be spies, and know all about everybody’s business in Trezza and everywhere else; and old Uncle Santoro, blind as he is, blinking like a bat in the sunshine, at the tavern door, knows everything that goes on in the place, and could call us by name one after another only by the footsteps.” Maruzza, hearing the bell strike, went into the house quickly to spread the cloth on the table; the gossips, little by little, had disappeared, and as the village went to sleep the sea became audible once more at the foot of the little street, and every now and then it gave a great sigh like a sleepless man turning on his bed. Only down by the tavern, where the red light shone, the noise continued; and Rocco Spatu, who made festa every day in the week, was heard shouting.
“Cousin Rocco is in good spirits to-night,” said Alfio Mosca from his window, which looked quite dark and deserted.
“Oh, there you are, Cousin Alfio!” replied Mena, who had remained on the landing waiting for her grandfather.
“Yes, here I am, Coz Mena; I’m here eating my minestra, because when I see you all at table, with your light, I don’t lose my appetite for loneliness.”