Master Turi Zuppiddu tramped about the landing, mallet in hand, brandishing his chisel as if he wanted to shed somebody’s blood, and wasn’t to be held even by chains. The bile ran high from door to door, like the waves of the sea in a storm. Don Franco rubbed his hands, with his great ugly hat on his head, saying that the people was raising its head; and seeing Don Michele pass with pistols hanging at his belt, laughed in his face. The men, too, one by one, allowed themselves to be worked up by their womankind, and began hunting each other up, to try and rouse each other to fury, losing the whole day standing about in the piazza, with arms akimbo and open mouths, listening to the apothecary, who went on speechifying, but under his breath, for fear of his wife up-stairs, how they ought to make a revolution if they weren’t fools, and not to mind the tax on salt or the tax on pitch, but to clear off the whole thing, for the king ought to be the people. Instead, some turned their backs, muttering, “He wants to be king himself; the druggist belongs to those of the revolution who want to starve the poor people.” And they went off to the inn to Santuzza, where there was good wine to heat one’s head, and Master Cinghialenta and Rocco Spatu made noise enough for ten.
* Dazio (French, octroi), tax on substances entering a town,
levied by the town-council.
The good wine made them shout, and shouting made them thirsty (for the tax had not yet been raised on the wine), and such as had much shook their fists in the air, with shirt-sleeves rolled up, raging even at the flies.
Vanni Pizzuti had closed his shop door because no one came to be shaved, and went about with his razor in his pocket, calling out bad names from a distance, and spitting at those who went about their own business with oars on their backs, shrugging their shoulders at the noise.
Uncle Crucifix (who was one of those who attended to their own affairs, and when they drew his blood with taxes, held his tongue for fear of worse, and kept his bile inside of him) was never seen in the piazza now, leaning against the wall of the bell-tower, but kept inside his house, reciting Paternosters and Ave Marias to keep down his rage against those who were making all the row—a lot of fellows who wanted to put the place to sack, and to rob everybody who had twenty centimes in his pocket.
Whoever, like Padron Cipolla, or Master Filippo, the ortolano, had anything to lose stayed shut up at home with doors bolted, and didn’t put out even their noses; so that Brasi Cipolla got a rousing cuff from his father, who found him at the door of the court, staring into the piazza like a great stupid codfish. The big fish stayed under water while the waves ran high, and did not make their appearance, not even those who were, as Venera said, fish-heads, but left the syndic with his nose in the air, counting his papers.
“Don’t you see that they treat you like a pup-pet?” screamed his daughter Betta, with her hands on her hips. “Now that they have got you into a scrape, they turn their backs on you, and leave you alone wallowing in the mud; that’s what it means to let one’s self be led by the hose by that meddling Don Silvéstro.”
“I’m not led by the nose by anybody,” shouted the Silk-worm. “It is I who am syndic, not Don Silvestro.”
Don Silvestro, on the contrary, said the real syndic was his daughter Betta, and that Master Croce Calta wore the breeches by mistake. He still went about and about, with that red face of his, and Rocco Spatu and Cinghialenta, when they saw him, went into the tavern for fear of a mess, and Vanni Pizzuti swore loudly, tapping his razor in his breeches-pocket all the time. Don Silvestro, without noticing them, went to say a word or two to Uncle Santoro, and put two centimes into his hand.
“The Lord be praised!” cried the blind man. “This is Don Silvestro, the secretary; none of these others that come here roaring and thumping their stomachs ever give a centime in alms for the souls in Purgatory, and they go saying they mean to kill your syndic and the secretary; Vanni Pizzuti said it, and Rocco Spatu and Master Cinghialenta. Vanni Pizzuti has taken to going without shoes, not to be known; but I know his step all the same, for he drags his feet along the ground, and raises the dust like a flock of sheep passing by.”