The woman, who was fond of strong spirits, pursed up her lips covetously.
“You certainly deserve it, there’s no denying that!” added Filippo La Selvi.
An idle crowd had gathered in front of the café. They all had the spirit of mischief in their faces. While the woman drank, Filippo La Selvi turned and addressed his audience:
“Say, she knew how to work it, didn’t she? Isn’t she the foxy one?” and he slapped the laundress familiarly upon her bony shoulder.
The crowd laughed. A little dwarf, called Magnafave, or “Big Beans,” weak-minded and stuttering, joined the forefinger of his right hand to that of his left, and striking a grotesque attitude and dwelling upon each syllable, said:
“Ca—ca—ca—Candia—Ci—ci—Cinigia!” and he continued to make gestures, and to stammer forth vulgar witticisms, all implying that Candia and Cinigia were in league together. His spectators indulged in contortions of merriment.
For a moment Candia sat there bewildered, with the glass still in her hand. Then in a flash she understood—they did not believe in her innocence. They accused her of having brought back the silver spoon secretly, by agreement with the sorceress, to save herself further trouble.
An access of blind anger came upon her. Speechless with passion, she flung herself upon the weakest of them, upon the little hunchback, in a hurricane of blows and scratches. And the crowd, at the sight of this struggle, formed a circle and jeered at them in cruel glee, as at a fight between two animals, and egged on the two combatants with voice and gesture.
Big Beans, badly scared by her unexpected violence, tried to escape, hopping about like a little ape; and held fast by the laundress’s terrible arms, whirled round and round with increasing velocity, like a stone in a sling, until at last he fell violently upon his face.
Some of the men hastened to pick him up. Candia withdrew in the midst of hisses, shut herself within her house, and flung herself across her bed, sobbing and gnawing her fingers, in the keenness of her suffering. The new accusation cut her deeper than the first, and all the more that she knew herself capable of such a subterfuge. How was she to clear herself now? How was she to establish the truth? She grew hopeless as she realized that she could not allege in defense any material difficulties that might have interfered with carrying out the deception. Access to the courtyard was perfectly simple; a door, that was never fastened, opened from the ground floor of the main stairway; people came and went freely through that door, to remove the garbage, or for other causes. So it was impossible for her to close the lips of her accusers by saying, “How could I have got in?” The means of successfully carrying out such a plan were many and easy.