The nets shivered and glittered in the sun, and all the bottom of the boat seemed full of quicksilver.
“Padron Fortunato will be contented now,” said Barabbas, red and sweaty, “and won’t throw in our faces those few centimes he pays us for the day.”
“This is what we get,” said ’Ntoni, “to break our backs for other people; and then when we have put a few soldi together comes the devil and carries them off.”
“What are you grumbling about?” asked his grandfather. “Doesn’t Padron Fortunato pay your day’s wages?”
The Malavoglia were mad after money: La Longa took in weaving and washing; Padron ’Ntoni and his grandsons went out by the day, and helped each other as best they could; and when the old man was bent double with sciatica, he stayed in the court and mended nets and tackle of all kinds, of which trade he was a master. Luca went to work at the bridge on the railroad for fifty centimes a day, though ’Ntoni said that wasn’t enough to pay for the shirts he spoiled by carrying loads on his back—but Luca didn’t mind spoiling his shirts, or his shoulders either; and Alessio went gathering crabs and mussels on the shore, and sold them for ten sous the pound, and sometimes he went as far as Ognino or the Cape of the Mills, and came back with his feet all bloody. But Goodman Zuppiddu wanted a good sum every Saturday for mending the Provvidenza; and one wanted a good many nets to mend, and rolls of linen to weave, and crabs at ten sous the pound, and linen to bleach, too, with one’s feet in the water, and the sun on one’s head, to make up two hundred francs. All Souls was come, and Uncle Crucifix did nothing but promenade up and down the little street, with his hands behind his back, like an old basilisk.
“This story will end with a bailiff,” old Dumbbell went on saying to Don Silvestro and to Don Giammaria, the vicar.
“There will be no need of a bailiff, Uncle Crucifix,” said Padron ’Ntoni, when he was told what old Dumb-bell had been saying. “The Malavoglia have always been honest people, and have paid their debts without the aid of a bailiff.”
“That does not matter to me,” said Uncle Crucifix, as he stood against the wall of his court measuring the cuttings of his vines; “I only know I want to be paid.”
Finally, through the interposition of the vicar, Dumb-bell consented to wait until Christmas, taking for interest that sixty-five francs which Maruzza had managed to scrape together sou by sou, which she kept in an old stocking hid under the mattress of her bed.
“This is the way it goes,” growled Padron ’Ntoni’s ’Ntoni; “we work night and day for old Crucifix. When we have managed to rake and scrape a franc we have to give it to old Dumbbell.”