The Zuppidda and the Mangiacarubbe had forgotten all the hard words that had passed between them, and stood chatting before the door, with hands under their aprons. Yes, it was always so with this trade, and it was bound to finish this way one day or another. Whoever marries their daughter to a seafaring man is sure to see her come back to the house a widow, and with children into the bargain; and if it had not been for Don Michele there would have remained not one of the Malavoglia to carry on the family. The best thing to do was to do nothing, like those people who got paid for just that—like Don Michele, for example; why, he was as big and as fat as a canon, and he ate as much as ten men, and everybody smoothed him down the right way; even the druggist, that was always railing at the King, took off his great ugly black hat to him.
“It will be nothing,” said Don Franco, coming out of the house; “we have bandaged his head properly; but if fever doesn’t come on, I won’t answer for him.”
Goosefoot insisted on going in “because he was one of the family, almost,” and Padron Fortunato, and as many more as could manage to pass.
“I don’t like the looks of him a bit!” pronounced Padron Cipolla, shaking his head. “How do you feel, Cousin ’Ntoni?”
For two or three days Padron ’Ntoni was more dead than alive. The fever came on, as the apothecary had said it would, but it was so strong that it went nigh to carry the wounded man off altogether. The poor old fellow never complained, but lay quiet in his corner, with his white face and his long beard, and his head bound up. He was only dreadfully thirsty; and when Mena or La Longa gave him to drink, he caught hold of the cup with both trembling hands, and clung to it as if he feared it would be taken from him.
The doctor came every morning, dressed the wound, felt his pulse, looked at his tongue, and went away again shaking his head.
At last there came one evening when the doctor shook his head more sadly than ever; La Longa placed the image of the Madonna beside the bed, and they said their rosary around, it, for the sick man lay still, and never spoke, even to ask for water, and it seemed as if he had even ceased to breathe.
Nobody went to bed that night, and Lia nearly broke her jaws yawning, so sleepy was she. The house was so silent that they could hear the glasses by the bedside rattle when the carts passed by on the road, making the watchers by the sick man start; so passed the day, too, while the neighbors stood outside talking in low tones, and watching what went on through the half-door. Towards evening Padron ’Ntoni asked to see each member of his family one by one, and looking at them with dim, sunken eyes, asked them what the doctor had said. ’Ntoni was at the head of the bed, crying like a child, for the fellow had a kind heart.
“Don’t cry so!” said his grandfather, “don’t cry. Now you are the head of the house: Think how they are all on your hands, and do as I have done for them.”
The women began to cry bitterly, and to tear their hair, hearing him speak in that way. Even little Lia did the same, for women have no reason at such times, and did not notice how the poor man’s face worked, for he could not endure to see them grieve for him in that way. But the weak voice continued: