“How can I? I’m not rich, like Vanni Pizzuti; if I were, I swear I wouldn’t sell him, poor beast! If I had enough to keep another person, I’d take a wife, and not live here alone like a dog.”
Mena didn’t know what to say, and Alfio added: “Now that the Provvidenza has put to sea again, you’ll be married to Brasi Cipolla.”
“Grandpapa has said nothing about it.”
“He will. There’s still time. Between now and your marriage who knows how many things may happen, or by what different roads I shall drive my cart? I have been told that in the plain, at the other side of the town, there is work for everybody on the railroad. Now that Santuzza has arranged with Master Philip for the new wine, there is nothing to be done here.”
Meanwhile the Provvidenza had slipped into the sea like a duck, with her beak in the air, and danced on the green water, enjoying its coolness, while the sun glanced on her shining side. Padron ’Ntoni enjoyed it, too, with his hands behind his back, and his legs apart, drawing his brows together, as sailors do when they want to see clearly in the sunshine; for it was a fine winter’s day, and the fields were green and the sea shining and the deep blue sky had no end. So return the sunshine and the sweet winter mornings for the eyes that have wept, to whom the sky has seemed black as pitch; and so all things renew themselves like the Provvidenza, for which a few pounds of tar and a handful of boards sufficed to make her new once more; and the eyes that see not these things are those that are done with weeping and are closed in death.
“Bastianazzo is not here to see this holiday!” thought Maruzza, as she went to and fro, arranging things in the house and about the loom—where almost everything had been her husband’s work on Sundays or rainy days—and those hooks and shelves he had fixed in the wall with his own hands. Everything in the house was full of him, from his water-proof cape in the corner to his boots under the bed, that were almost new. Mena, setting up the warp, had a sad heart, too, for she was thinking of Alfio, who was going away, and would have sold his donkey, poor beast! for the young have short memories, and have only eyes for the rising sun; and no one looks westward save the old, who have seen the sun rise and set so many times.
“Now that the Provvidenza has put to sea again,” said Maruzza at last, noticing that her daughter was still pensive, “your grandfather has begun to go with Master Cipolla again; I saw them this morning, from the landing, before Peppi Naso’s shed.”
“Padron Fortunato is rich, and has nothing to do, and stays all day in the piazza,” answered Mena.
“Yes, and his son Brasi has plenty of the gifts of God. Now that we have our boat, and our men no longer need to go out by the day to work for others, we shall get out of this tangle; and if the souls in Purgatory will help us to get rid of the debt for the lupins, we shall be able to think of other things. Your grandfather is wide-awake, don’t you fear, and he won’t let you feel that you have lost your father. He will be another father to you.”
Shortly after arrived Padron ’Ntoni, loaded with nets, so that he looked like a mountain, and you couldn’t see his face. “I’ve been to get them out of the bark,” he said, “and I must look over the meshes, for to-morrow we must rig the Provvidenza.”