Alfio shrugged his shoulders, saying there was nothing to be done. “I would much rather not have gone away from here.” He went on looking at the candle. “And you say nothing to me, Cousin Mena?”
The girl opened her mouth two or three times as if to speak, but no words came; her heart beat too fast.
“And you, too, will leave the neighborhood when you are married,” added Alfio. “The world is like an inn, with people coming and going. By-and-by everybody will have changed places, and nothing will be the same as it was.” So saying, he rubbed his hands and smiled, but with lips only—not in his heart.
“Girls,” said La Longa, “go where Heaven appoints them to go. When they are young they are gay and have no care; when they go into the world they meet with grief and trouble.”
Alfio, after Padron ’Ntoni and the boys had come back, and he had wished them also good-bye, could not make up his mind to go, but stood on the threshold, with his whip under his arm, shaking hands now with one, now with another—with Cousin Maruzza as well as the rest—and went on repeating, as people do when they are going for a long journey, and are not sure of ever coming back, “Pardon me if I have been wanting in any way towards any of you.” The only one who did not take his hand was Sant’Agata, who stayed in the dark corner by the loom. But, of course, that is the proper way for girls to behave on such occasions.
It was a fine spring evening, and the moon shone over the court and the street, over the people sitting before the doors and the girls walking up and down singing, with their arms around each other’s waists. Mena came out, too, with Nunziata; she felt as if she should suffocate in the house.
“Now we sha’n’t see Cousin Alfio’s lamp any more in the evenings,” said Nunziata, “and the house will be shut up.”
Cousin Alfio had loaded his cart with all the wares he was taking away with him, and now he was tying up the straw which remained in the manger into a bundle, while the pot bubbled on the fire with the beans for his supper.
“Shall you be gone before morning, Cousin Alfio?” asked Nunziata from the door of the little court.
“Yes. I have a long way to go, and this poor beast has a heavy load. I must let him have a rest in the daytime.”