“Go away, you; you haven’t any nuts to play with. Now they’re going to take away your house.”
In fact, on Christmas eve the officer came in a carriage to the Malavoglia’s, so that the whole village was upset by it; and he went and left a paper with a stamp on it on the bureau, beside the image of the Good Shepherd.
The Malavoglia seemed as if they all had been struck by apoplexy at once, and stayed in the court, sitting in a ring, doing nothing; and that day that the bailiff came there was no table set in the house of the Malavoglia.
“What shall we do?” said La Longa. Padron ’Ntoni did not know what to say, but at last he took the paper, and went off with his two eldest grandsons to Uncle Crucifix, to tell him to take the Prov-videnza, which Master Bastiano had just finished mending; and the poor old man’s voice trembled as it did when he lost his son Bastianazzo. “I know nothing about it,” replied Dumb-bell. “I have no more to do with? the business. I’ve sold my debt to Goosefoot, and you must manage it the best way you can with him.”
Goosefoot began to scratch his head as soon as he saw them coming in procession to speak to him.
“What’ do you want me to do?” answered he; “I’m a poor devil, I need the money, and I can’t do anything with the boat. That isn’t my trade; but if Uncle Crucifix will buy it, I’ll help you to sell it. I’ll be back directly.”
So the poor fellows sat on the wall, waiting and casting longing glances down the road where old Goosefoot had disappeared, not daring to look each other in the face. At last he came limping slowly along (he got on fast enough when he liked, in spite of his crooked leg). “He says it’s all broken, like an old shoe; he wouldn’t hear of taking it,” he called out from a distance. “I’m sorry, but I could do nothing.” So the Malavoglia went off home again with their stamped paper.
But something had to be done, for that piece of stamped paper lying on the bureau had power, they had been told, to devour the bureau and the house, and the whole family into the bargain.
“Here we need advice from Don Silvestro,” suggested Maruzza. “Take these two hens to him, and he’ll be sure to know of something you can do.”
Don Silvestro said there was no time to be lost, and he sent them to a clever lawyer, Dr. Scipione, who lived in the street of the Sick-men, opposite Uncle Crispino’s stable, * and was young, but, from what he had been told, had brains enough to put in his pocket all the old fellows, who asked five scudi for opening their mouths, while he was contented with twenty-five lire.