Silk-worm, as they had come all the way to Master Filippo’s vineyard to call him, couldn’t do less than move. So he put on his new overcoat, washed his hands, and brushed the lime off his clothes, but wouldn’t go to the meeting without first calling for Don Stefano to come to him. It was in vain that his daughter Betta took him by the shoulders, and pushed him out of the door, saying to him that they who had cooked the broth ought to eat it, and that he ought to let the others do as they liked, that he might remain syndic. This time Master Calta had seen the crowd before the town-hall, distaffs in hand, and he planted his feet on the ground worse than a mule. “I won’t go unless Don Silvestro comes,” he repeated, with eyes starting out of his head. “Don Silvestro will find some way out of it all.”
At last Don Silvestro came, with a face like a wall, humming an air, with his hands behind his back. “Eh, Master Croce, don’t lose your head; the world isn’t going to come to an end this time!” Master Croce let himself be led away by Don Silvestro, and placed before the pine council-table, with the glass inkstand in front of him; but there was no council, except Peppi Naso, the butcher, all greasy and red-faced, who feared nobody in the world, and Messer Tino Piedipassera (Goosefoot).
“They have nothing to lose,” screamed La Zuppidda from the door, “and they come here to suck the blood of the poor, worse than so many leeches, because they live upon their neighbors, and hold the sack for this one and that one to commit all sorts of villanies. A lot of thieves and assassins.”
“See if I don’t slit your tongue for you!” shouted Goosefoot, beginning to rise from behind the pine-wood table.
“Now we shall come to grief!” muttered Master Croce Giufà.
“I say! I say! what sort of manners are these? You’re not in the piazza,” called out Don Silvestro. “What will you bet I don’t kick out the whole of you? Now I shall put this to rights.”
La Zuppidda screamed that she wouldn’t have it put to rights, and struggled with Don Silvestro, who pulled her by the hair, and at last ended by thrusting her inside her own gate. When they were at last alone he began:
“What is it you want? What is it to you if we put a tax on pitch? It isn’t you or your husband that will have to pay it, but those who come to have their boats mended. Listen to me: your husband is an ass to make all this row and to quarrel with the town-council, now when there is another councillor to be chosen in the room of Padron Cipolla or Master Mariano, who are of no use, and your husband might come in.”
“I know nothing about it,” answered La Zuppidda, becoming quite calm in an instant. “I never mix myself up in my husband’s affairs. I know he’s biting his hands with rage. I can do nothing but go and tell him, if the thing is certain.”
“Certain? of course it is—certain as the heavens above, I tell you! Are we honest men or not? By the holy big devil!”