This, truly, in so far as New York is concerned, is the region of the love feud and the balcony. If you will stand at any of the cross-streets that lead east from Second Avenue you will obtain a splendid panorama of the latter feature, window after window ornamented with a red or green or orange iron balcony and hung, in the summertime, with an array of green vines and bright flower-pots that invariably suggests the love scene of Shakespeare’s famous play and the romantic love feeling of the south. Dark, poetic-looking Italians lean against doorjambs and open gateways and survey the surrounding neighborhood with an indolent and romantic eye. Plump Italian mothers gaze comfortably out of open windows, before which they sit and sew and watch their chubby little children romp and play in the streets. Fat, soft-voiced merchants, and active, graceful, song-singing Italian street venders ply their various vocations, the latter turning a wistful eye to every window, the former lolling contentedly in wooden chairs, the blessings of warmth and a little trade now and again being all that they require.
And from out these windows and within these doors hang or lounge those same maidens, over whom many a bloody feud has been waged and for whom (for a glance of the eyes or the shrug of the shoulder) many of these moody-faced, somber-eyed, love-brooding Romeos have whipped out their glistening steel and buried it in the heart of a hated rival. Girls have been stabbed here, been followed and shot (I have seen it myself); petty love-conversations upon a street corner or in the adjacent park between two ardent lovers have been interrupted by the sudden appearance of a love frenzied Othello, who could see nothing for it but to end the misery of his unrequited affection by plunging his knife into the heart of his rival and into that of his fair but unresponsive sweetheart. They love and hate; and death is the solution of their difficulties—death and the silence of the grave.
“She will not love me! Then she must die!”
The wonder of the colony is the frankness and freedom with which its members take to this solution. Actually, it would seem as if this to them were the only or normal way out of a love tangle. And if you can ever contrive an intelligent conversation with any of them you will find it so. Lounge in their theaters, the teatro marionette, their cafés, about the open doorways and the street corners, and hear the frankness with which they discuss the latest difficulty. Then you will see for yourself how simple it all seems to them.
Vincenzo is enamored of his Elvina. So is Nicola. They give each other black looks, and when Elvina is seen by Vincenzo to walk openly with Nicola he broods in silence, meditating his revenge.
One night, when the moon is high and the noisy thoroughfare is pulsating with that suppressed enthusiasm which is a part of youth and passion and all the fervid freshness of a warm July night, Vincenzo meets them at the street corner. He is despondent, desperate. Out comes his knife—click!—and the thing is done. On the pavement lies Nicola bleeding. Elvina may be seen running and screaming. She too is wounded, mayhap to the death. Vincenzo runs and throws his hands dramatically over his head as he falls, mayhap shot or stabbed—by himself or another. Or Elvina kneels in the open street beside her lover and cries. Or Vincenzo, white-faced and calm, surrenders himself into the hands of the rough, loud swearing American policeman—and there you have it.
A Love Affair in Little Italy
But ask of the natives, and see what it is they think. They will not have it that Vincenzo should not have done so, nor Elvina, nor Nicola. Love is love! Youth is youth! What would you? May not a man settle the affairs of his heart in his own way? Perdi!
And these crimes (as the law considers them), so common are they that it would be quite impossible to give more than a brief mention to any of a hundred or more that have occurred within as many as ten or fifteen years. Sometimes, as in the case of Tomasso Ceralli and Vincenzo Matti, it is a question of a married woman and an illegal passion. Sometimes, as in the case of Biegio Refino and Alessandro Scia, it is some poor cigarette-factory girl who, being used as a tool by one or more, has fallen into others’ hands and so incensed all and brought into being a feud. Sometimes, as in the case of Mollinero and Pagnani, it is a bold, bad Carmen who is not sorry to see her lovers fight.