The house of the Malavoglia had always been one of the first in Trezza, but now—with Bastianazzo drowned, and ’Ntoni gone for a soldier, and Mena to be married, and all those hungry little ones—it was a house that leaked at every seam.
“In fact what could it be worth, the house?” Every one stretched out his neck from the garden, measuring the house with his eye, to guess at the value of it, cursorily as it were. Don Silvestro knew more about it than any one, for he had the papers safe in the clerk’s room at Aci Castello.
“Will you bet five francs that all is not gold that glitters,” he said, showing the shining new silver piece of money. He knew that there was a mortgage of two francs the year, so he began to count on his fingers what would be the worth of the house with the well and the garden and all.
“Neither the house nor the boat can be sold, for they are security for Maruzza’s dowry,” said some one else; and they began to wrangle about it until their voices might have been heard even inside, where the family were mourning for the dead. “Of course,” cried Don Silvestro, like a pistol-shot, “there’s the dowry mortgage.”
Padron Cipolla, who had spoken with Padron ’Ntoni about the marriage of his son Brasi and Mena, shook his head and said nothing.
“Then,” said Uncle Cola, “nobody’ll suffer but Uncle Crucifix, who loses his lupins that he sold on credit.”
They all turned to look at old Crucifix, who had come, too, for appearance’ sake, and stood straight up in a corner, listening to all that was said, with his mouth open and his nose up in the air, as if he was counting the beams and the tiles of the roof to make a valuation of the house. The most curious stretched their necks to look at him from the door, and winked at each other, as if to point him out.
“He looks like a bailiff making an inventory,” they sneered.
The gossips, who had got wind of the talk between Cipolla and Padron ’Ntoni about the marriage, said to each other that Maruzza must get through her mourning, and then she could settle about that marriage of Mena’s. But now La Longa had other things to think of, poor dear!
Padron Cipolla turned coolly away without a word; and, when everybody was gone, the Malavoglia were left alone in the court.