Goosefoot began to swear, and to fling his cap on the ground after his usual fashion, vowing that he had not bread to eat, and that he could not wait even until Ascension-tide.
“Listen, Cousin Tino!” said Padron ’Ntoni, with clasped hands, as if he were praying to our Lord God, “if you don’t give me at least until Saint Giovanni, now that I have to marry my granddaughter, it would be better that you should stab me with a knife and be done with it.”
“By the holy devil!” cried Uncle Tino, “you make me do more than I can manage. Cursed be the day and the hour in which I mixed myself up in this confounded business.” And he went off, tearing at his old cap.
Padron ’Ntoni went home, still pale from the encounter, and said to his daughter-in-law, “I’ve got off this time, but I had to beg him as if I had been praying to God,” and the poor old fellow still trembled. But he was glad that nothing had come to Padron Cipolla’s ears, and that the marriage was not likely to be broken off.
On the evening of the Ascension, while the boys were still dancing around the post with the bonfire, the gossips were collected around the Malavoglia’s balcony, and Cousin Venera Zuppidda was with them to listen to what was said, and to give her opinion like the rest. Now, as Padron ’Ntoni was marrying his granddaughter, and the Provvidenza was on her legs once more, everybody was ready to put a good face on it with the Malavoglia—for nobody knew anything of what Goosefoot had in his head to do, not even Cousin Grace, his wife, who went on talking with Cousin Maruzza just as if her husband had nothing on his mind. ’Ntoni went every evening to have a chat with Barbara, and had confided to her that his grandfather had said, “First we must marry Mena.”
“And I come next,” concluded ’Ntoni. After this Barbara had given to Mena the pot of basil, all adorned with carnations, and tied up with a fine red ribbon, which was the sign of particular friendship between girls; and everybody made a great deal of Sant’Agata—even her mother had taken off her black kerchief, because it is unlucky to wear mourning in the house where there is a bride, and had written to Luca to give him notice that Mena was going to be married. She alone, poor girl, seemed anything but gay, and everything looked black to her, though the fields were covered with stars of silver and of gold, and the girls wove garlands for Ascension, and she herself went up and down the stairs helping her mother to hang the garlands over the door and the windows.
While all the doors were hung with flowers, only that of Cousin Alfio, black and twisted awry, was always shut, and no one came to hang the flowers there for the Ascension.
“That coquette Sant’Agata,” Vespa went about saying in her furious way, “she’s managed at last to send that poor Alfio Mosca out of the place.” Meanwhile they had made a new gown for Sant’-Agata, and were only waiting until Saint John’s Day to take the silver dagger out of her braids of hair, and part it over her forehead, before she went to church, so that every one who saw her pass said, “Lucky girl!”
Padron Cipolla at this time sat for whole evenings together with Padron ’Ntoni, on the church steps, talking of the wondrous doings of the Provvidenza.
Brasi was always hanging about the street near the Malavoglia, with his new clothes on; and soon after it was known all over the place that on that Sunday coming Cousin Grace Goosefoot was going herself to part the girl’s hair, and to take out the silver dagger from her braids—because Brasi Cipolla had lost his mother—and the Malavoglia had asked Cousin Grace on purpose to please her husband, and they had asked also Uncle Crucifix and all the neighborhood, and all their relations and friends without exception.