“Among them they’ll chouse you out of it. If the Malavoglia girl marries Brasi Cipolla, Mosca will be left out in the cold, and will take to Vespa and her field for consolation.”
“The devil may have her for what I care,” called put old Crucifix, deafened by Uncle Tino’s clatter. “I don’t care what becomes of her, a godless cat that she is. I want my property. I made it of my blood; and one would think I had stolen it, that every one takes it from me—Alfio Mosca, Vespa, the Malavoglia. I’ll go to law and take the house.”
“You are the master. You can go to law if you like.”
“No, I’ll wait until Easter—‘the man has his word, and the bull has his horns;’ but I mean to be paid up to the last centime, and I won’t listen to anybody for the least delay.”
In fact, Easter was drawing near. The hills began once more to clothe themselves with green, and the Indian figs were in flower. The girls had sowed basil outside the windows, and the white butterflies came to flutter about it; even the pale plants on the sea-shore were starred with white flowers. In the morning the red and yellow tiles smoked in the rising sun, and the sparrows twittered there until the sun had set.
And the house by the medlar-tree, too, had a sort of festive air: the court was swept, the nets and cords were hung neatly against the wall, or spread on drying-poles; the garden was full of cabbages and lettuce, and the rooms were open and full of sunshine, that looked as if it too were content. All things proclaimed that Easter was at hand. The elders sat on the steps in the evening, and the girls sang at the washing-tank. The wagons began again to pass the high-road by night, and at dusk there began once more the sound of voices in conversation in the little street.
“Cousin Mena is going to be married,” they said; “her mother is busy with her outfit already.”
Time had passed—and all things pass away with time, sad things as well as sweet. Now Cousin Maruzza was always busy cutting and sewing all sorts of household furnishing, and Mena never asked for whom they were intended; and one evening Brasi Cipolla was brought into the house, with Master Fortunato, his father, and all his relations.
“Here is Cousin Cipolla, who is come to make you a visit,” said Padron ’Ntoni, introducing him into the house, as if no one knew anything about it beforehand, while all the time wine and roasted pease were made ready in the kitchen, and the women and the girls had on their best clothes.
That evening Mena looked exactly like Sant’-Agata, with her new dress and her black kerchief on her head, so that Brasi never took his eyes off her, but sat staring at her all the evening like a basilisk, sitting on the edge of his chair, with his hands between his knees, rubbing them now and then on the sly for very pleasure.