“You are throwing your alms away, thanking God for being in safety from the storm; there’s no danger of your dying like Bastianazzo.”
Everybody laughed at the joke, and then they all stood looking out at the sea, that was as black as the wet rocks.
Padron ’Ntoni had been going about all day, as if he had been bitten by the tarantula, and the apothecary asked him if he wanted a tonic, and then he said:
“Fine providence this, eh, Padron ’Ntoni?” But he was a Protestant and a Jew; all the world knew that.
La Locca’s son, who was out there with his hands in his empty pockets, began:
“Uncle Crucifix is gone with old Goosefoot to get Padron ’Ntoni to swear before witnesses that he took the cargo of lupins on credit.”
At dusk Maruzza, with her little ones, went out on the cliffs to watch the sea, which from that point could be seen quite well, and hearing the moaning waves, she felt faint and sick, but said nothing. The little girl cried, and these poor things, forgotten up there on the rocks, seemed like souls in Purgatory. The little one’s cries made the mother quite sick—it seemed like an evil omen; she couldn’t think what to do to keep the child quiet, and she sang to her song after song, with a trembling voice loaded with tears..
The men, on their way back from the tavern, with pot of oil or flask of wine, stopped to exchange a few words with La Longa, as if nothing had happened; and some of Bastianazzo’s special friends—Cipolla, for example, or Mangiacarubbe—walking out to the edge of the cliff, and giving a look out to see in what sort of a temper the old growler was going to sleep in, went up to Cousin Maruzza, asking about her husband, and staying a few minutes to keep her company, pipe in mouth, or talking softly among themselves. The poor little woman, frightened by these unusual attentions, looked at them with sad, scared eyes, and held her baby tight in her arms, as if they had tried to steal it from her. At last the hardest, or the most compassionate of them, took her by the arm and led her home. She let herself be led, only saying over and over again: “O Blessed Virgin! O Blessed Virgin Mary!” The children clung to her skirts, as if they had been afraid somebody was going to steal something from them too. When they passed before the tavern all the customers stopped talking, and came to the door in a cloud of smoke, gazing at her as if she were already a curiosity.
“Requiem aeternam,” mumbled old Santoro, under his breath: “that poor Bastianazzo always gave me something when his father let him have a soldo to spend for himself.”
The poor little thing, who did not even know she was a widow, went on crying: “O Blessed Virgin! O Blessed Virgin! O Virgin Mary!”