CHAPTER XIII
THE CONFECTIONER'S SHOP BANKRUPT
Cesare and Luisella Fragalà had shut the shop that rainy summer evening at nine o'clock, half an hour earlier than usual, because with that bad weather, that boisterous, warm scirocco wind, which made the hot rain whirl round, few people were in the streets, and no one would come out to buy coffee, a bottle of brandy, or a fancy chocolate-box, at that hour in the storm. Only some purchaser of a penny-worth of cough-lozenges came in occasionally, bringing in a puff of wind into the hot shop, dirtying the marble floor with his wet shoes. The evening had been unsuccessful, like the rest of the summer.
Luisella, who was suffering from low spirits, had not had the courage even to go to Santo Jorio for country quarters; it is one of the villages round Naples favoured by the towns-folk. She saw too many clouds coming down on her family peace, just as in the Naples skies, to dare to go from home and leave the shop. The humble pride of a rich tradesman's wife who stays at home with her children and does not think about the shop was all over. She left Rossi Palazzo, that had been the joy of her middle-class ambition, early, only to come back at the dinner-hour, go out again at once, and just come back in the evening to sleep. It was quite another affair from staying with the children.
Little Agnesina, who was three years old now, was a florid, quiet, well-behaved little creature, and often came to see her mother in the shop. She did not ask for sweets or tarts, but, hidden behind the tall counter, she cut out silently those slips of paper that are put like cotton-wool between one sweet and another in the boxes sent to country places. Agnesina made herself useful without making any noise or giving trouble, so that she should not be sent away nor be left at home with the cook and housemaid, who were always bickering. The mother, when she weaned her, would have liked to indulge in a nurse, a Tuscan by preference, so that she should not learn the Naples dialect; but just as she was going to get one, on thinking it over, she felt the subtle bitterness of a presentiment, and gave up the idea. The little girl would have grown up with no training; so, not to be separated so long nor see her unhappy, Luisella allowed her to be brought to the shop now and then.
When Agnesina saw her mother go away in the morning, she ran after her, not crying nor yelling, not saying anything, just looking up in a questioning way. The compassionate mother understood, and to console her, seeing her so quiet and obedient, she made her a promise she might come to the shop later on. That made the tiny arms let go, quite satisfied, as if she had made up her mind to wait. When she opened the big glass door, coming in in her plain cotton frock and big straw hat, she smiled at her mother as if she was a big child already. She silently went to put down her hat in the back-shop without any outburst of greed, very happy to stay beside her mother behind the high counter. Only her mother, after the moment of the little one's arrival was over, got sad. She had never thought of this, of coming to the shop every day for twelve hours to sell caramels and chocolate, to fill paper bags and wooden boxes, always to have to be ready to serve the public, whilst her little one cut paper strips, not saying a word, as neatly as a big girl. She had never dreamt her baby would be a shop-girl, too.
Luisella certainly did not despise a tradesman's life; but she would have liked to be a house, and not a shop, keeper, a housewife, and not a sweetmeat-seller. She had not dreamt of this. She would have liked to sew white work, make her baby's clothes, teach her something—carols at Easter and Christmas, the way to knit stockings, sewing, embroidery, all that is the humble but glorious inheritance of happy wives. But instead she spent her life in public with a stereotyped smile on her lips, not able to say a word privately to her husband and daughter, nor collect her thoughts a single moment. She had taken up that duty of selling in the shop from feeling the financial embarrassments her husband was in. It seemed to her that the shop-lads robbed him, or that they had bad ways with the customers—that, in short, there was need of a woman. For this she gradually sacrificed her whole day. Now no source of commercial aggrandisement was beyond her; while she was a zealous counter-up of pence, she kept house on a still more economical footing always. That was not enough, evidently, because her husband's low spirits began to be still more frequent. It must have to do with large transactions, buying sugar, flour, coffee, liqueurs—matters she could not go into. Cesare kept them out of her reach purposely. Still, she knew the price of goods, and it made her wonder the more at the discomfort they were in. When Cesare, not able to hide the straits he was in, ended by owning that he could not pay a bill, that he had not the weekly money to pay the workmen in the bakeries, she raised her eyebrows in sad surprise, saying:
'I cannot make it out. I do not see why we are so short of money.'
Cesare tried to humbug her, talking some nonsense about Customs and colonial tariffs. He spoke vaguely about losses by some speculations he was not responsible for, saying the whole trade was going to the bad. So she, getting thoughtful, ended by saying:
'Then it would be better to shut up shop.'