“Adieu, Cousin Barbara,” said the poor fellow; and so he put a stone over all that had been, and went back to his oar like a galley-slave—and galley-slave’s work it was from Monday morning till Saturday night—and he was tired of wearing out his soul for nothing, for when one has nothing, what good can come of driving away from morning till night, with never a dog to be friends with one either, and for that he had had enough of such a life. He preferred rather to do nothing at all, and stay in bed, as if he were sick, as they did on board ship when the service was too hard, for the grandpapa wouldn’t come to pull him and thump him like the ship’s doctor.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Nothing. Only I’m a poor miserable devil.”
“And what can be done for you, if you are a poor miserable devil? We must go on as we come into the world.”
He let himself be loaded down with tackle, like a beast of burden, and the whole day long never opened his mouth except to growl and to swear.
On Sunday ’Ntoni went hanging about the tavern, where people did nothing but laugh and amuse themselves; or else he sat for whole hours on the church steps, with his chin in his hands, watching the people passing by, and pondering over this hard life, where there was nothing to be got by doing anything.
At least on Sunday there was something that cost nothing—the sun, the standing idle with hands in one’s pockets; and then he grew tired even of thinking of his hard fate, and longing to bask again in the strange places he had seen when he was a soldier, and with the memory of which he amused himself on working-days. He only cared to lie like a lizard basking in the sun. And when the carters passed, sitting on their shafts, he muttered, “They have an easy time of it, driving about like that all day long and when some poor little old woman came from the town, bent down under her heavy burden like a tired donkey, lamenting as she went, as is the manner of the old, he said to her, by way of consolation:
“I would be willing to take your work, my sister; after all, it is like going out for a walk.”
Padron ’Ntoni would go off to old Crucifix, saying to him over and over again, at least a hundred times: “You know, Uncle Crucifix, if we can manage to put the money together for the house you must sell it to us and to nobody else, for it has always belonged to the Malavoglia, and ‘his own nest every bird likes best,’ and I long to die in my own bed. ‘Blest is he who dies in the bed where he was born.’”
Uncle Crucifix muttered something which sounded like “Yes,” not to compromise himself, and then would go off and put a new tile or a patch of lime on the wall of the court, to make an excuse for raising the price of the house.