"There's nothing more to be done," said the factor at last, having persuaded himself that it was all time lost. "Nothing can be done with this colt but to take his pelt; that's good for something."
Jeli began to tremble like a leaf when he saw the factor go and fetch his gun from the mule's pack.
"Get off of him, good-for-nothing!" shouted the factor. "I don't know what keeps me from laying you out beside this colt, which is worth more than you, in spite of the swine's baptism which that thief of a priest gave you!"
Thestellato, unable to move, turned its head, with its big, steady eyes, as if it understood every word, and its skin crisped in waves along the back-bone as if a chill ran over it.
In that way, the factor killed thestellatoon the spot, so as at least to save his pelt, and the dull noise which the gun held at short range made, as the charge pierced the living flesh, Jeli thought he felt in his own heart.
"Now if you want a piece of advice from me," said the factor, as he left him there, "I'd not let the master lay eyes on you, in spite of that bit of wages due you, for you may be sure, he'd give it to you with a vengeance!"
The factor went off together with Alfio, taking along the other colts, which did not once turn round to see what had become of thestellato, but proceeded cropping the grass along the ridge. The poorstellatowas left alone in the ravine waiting for the knacker to flay him, its eyes were still wide open, and its four legs stretched into the air, for to stretch them up was the only thing it could do.
Jeli, now that he had seen how the factor had been able to aim at the colt, as it painfully lifted its head in fear, and had been courageous enough to fire off the gun at it, no longer wept, but remained sitting on a rock looking at thestellatotill the men came to take off the pelt. Now he might go at his own pleasure and enjoy thefesta, or stand in the square all day long and see the gentlemen in thecafé, as best pleased him, for now he no longer had bread or a shelter, and it behooved him to find a newpadrone, if any one would take him after the misfortune of thestellato.
Thus go things in this world:—While Jeli was seeking a new employer, walking about with his bag over his shoulder and his staff in his hand, the band was playing gayly in the square, with plumes in their caps, and surrounded by a merry throng of white hats thick as flies, and the gentlemen were enjoying themselves as they sat at their coffee. All the people were dressed in holiday attire like the animals of the fair, and in one corner of the square was a lady, with a short gown and flesh-colored stockings, making her appear bare-legged, and she was pounding on a great box before a great painted sheet on which appeared a slaughter of Christians with blood flowing in torrents, and, there among the throng, gazing with open mouth, wasmassaroCola, whom he used to know when he was at Passanitello, and he told him that he would find him an employer, becausecompareIsidoro Macca was in want of a herdsman for his hogs.
"But I wouldn't say anything aboutstellato," recommendedmassaroCola. "A misfortune like that might happen to any one in the world. But it is best not to talk about it."
So they went in search ofcompareMacca, who was at the ball, and whilemassaroCola went to plead his cause, Jeli waited outside in the street in the midst of the throng, who were gazing in at the door of the hall. In the big room, there was a world of people jumping about enjoying themselves, all flushed and perspiring, and making a great trampling on the floor, while above all was heard theron ronof the double bass, and as soon as one piece of music, costing agrano,[10]was finished they would all lift their fingers to signifythat they wanted another; and the man of the double bass would make a cross with a piece of charcoal on the wall, to keep account to the last, and then begin over again.
"Those in there spend without thought," said Jeli, to himself. "That means that they have their pockets full and are not in trouble as I am, for lack of an employer, and if they sweat and tire themselves out in dancing, it is for their own pleasure, as if they were paid by the day."
MassaroCola came back saying thatcompareMacca needed no one.
Then Jeli turned away, and walked off gloomily, gloomily.
Mara's home was toward Sant'Antonio, where the houses climb up the mountainside, facing the valley of la Canziria, all green with prickly pears, and with the mill-wheels churning the water into foam in the lowlands by the stream. But Jeli hadn't the courage to go in that direction, now that they needed no one to watch theswine; and, making his way amid the throng which jostled him and pushed him without any thought of him, he seemed more alone than ever he had been when he was with his colts in the plains of Passanitello, and he felt like weeping.
At lastmassaroAgrippino, wandering about with his arms swinging, and enjoying thefesta, fell in with him in the square, and shouted to him,—
"Oh! Jeli! oh!" and took him home.
Mara was in gala dress, with such long ear-rings that they hung down to her cheeks, and she was standing on the threshold with her hands folded, loaded with rings, waiting till it should grow dark, so as to go and see the fireworks.
"Oh!" said Mara to him, "so you have come also for thefestaof Saint John!"
Jeli did not want to go in because he was shabbily dressed, butmassaroAgrippino forced him in saying that it was not the first time they had ever seen each other, and that he knew that he had cometo the fair with his employer's colts.GnàLia poured him out a good generous glass of wine, and wanted to take him with them to see the illuminations, together with thecomariand their other neighbors.
When they reached the square Jeli stood with open mouth, wondering at the spectacle; the whole square seemed a sea of fire as when the steppes are burning, and the reason was the great number of torches which the devout lighted under the eyes of the saint, who stood enjoying it all at the entrance ofil Rosario—all black under his silver baldachin. The acolytes were coming and going amid the flames like so many demons, and there was, moreover, a woman in loose attire and with dishevelled hair, and with her eyes staring out of her head, also engaged in lighting the candles, and a priest in a black soutane and without a hat, like one rendered crazy by religion.
"There's the son ofmassaroNeri, the factor of Saloni, and he is spending morethan tenlirefor rockets," saidgnàLia, pointing to a young man who was going round through the square holding two rockets in each hand, just like candles, so that all the women devoured him with their eyes, and cried to him: "Viva San Giovanni!"
"His father is rich and owns more than twenty head of cattle," addedmassaroAgrippino.
Mara also knew well that he had carried the great banner in the procession, and held it as straight as a pillar—such a strong and handsome youth was he.
MassaroNeri's son seemed to have heard them, and he set off his rockets for Mara, making the wheel of fire before her, and after this part of the fireworks was over, he joined them, and took them to the ball and to the cosmorama, where the new world and the old world were to be seen depicted, and he paid for them all, even for Jeli, who followed behind the others like a masterless cur, to seemassaroNeri'sson dancing with Mara, who whirled round and crouched down like a dove on a roof, and held daintily up the corner of her apron, andmassaroNeri's son gamboling like a colt, so thatgnàLia wept like a child at the consolation of the sight, andmassaroAgrippino nodded with his head to signify that all was going to his mind.
At last when they were all tired, they went out where the people were promenading, and they were carried away by the crowd as if they were in the midst of a torrent, and there they saw the transparencies lighted where the decapitation of Saint John was represented with such faithfulness that it would have moved the heart of a Turk, and the saint kicked out his legs like a goat under the hatchet. Near by the band was playing under a great wooden umbrella, all lighted up, and in the square there was such a crowd that one would have said never before had so many Christians come to the fair.
Mara went holdingmassaroNeri's son'sarm, as if she were a fine lady, and she whispered into his ear and laughed, as if she were having a fine time. Jeli was utterly tired out, and actually went to sleep sitting on the sidewalk till the first bombs of the fireworks were sent up. At that moment Mara was still by the side ofmassaroNeri's son, leaning against him with her hands clasped on his shoulder, and in the different-colored lights from the fireworks she seemed now all white and now all rosy. When the last sparks died away in the darkness of the sky,massaroNeri's son turned toward her, with green light on his face, and gave her a kiss.
Jeli said nothing, but at that instant all that he had enjoyed till then changed into poison, and he began once more to think of his misfortunes, which he had for the moment forgotten—that he was without an employer—and knew not what to do, nor where to go, that he had no food or shelter; that the dogs might eat him as they were eating the poorstellatoleft downin the bottom of the ravine, skinned to the hoofs!
Meantime, around him the people were still making merry in the darkness that had ensued; Mara, with her companions, was dancing and singing through the rock-paved streets as they turned homeward.
"Good-night! Good-night—buona notte!" shouted the people to one another, as they were left at their own doors. Mara shouted "good-night—buona notte!" in her musical voice, and it expressed her happiness, andmassaroNeri's son did not see fit to leave her whilemassaroAgrippino andgnàLia were disputing about the opening of the house door. No one gave Jeli a thought, till at lastmassaroAgrippino remembered him, and said,—
"And where are you going?"
"I don't know," said Jeli.
"Come and see me to-morrow and I will help you find a place. For to-night, go back to the square where we have been hearing the band play. You'll find a spoton some bench, and sleep out doors; you must be used to that."
Jeli was used to that, but what pained him was that Mara said nothing to him, but left him there at the door as if he were a beggar; and the next day when he came back to seemassaroAgrippino, he was hardly alone with the girl before he said to her,—
"Oh,gnàMara! How you forget old friends!"
"Oh, is that you, Jeli?" replied Mara. "No, I haven't forgotten you. But I was so tired after the fireworks!"
"You're in love with him aren't you—massaroNeri's son?" demanded Jeli, twirling his staff in his hands.
"What are you saying?" abruptly interposedgnàMara. "My mother is there and hears everything you say."
MassaroAgrippino found him a place as shepherd at la Salonia, wheremassaroNeri was factor, but as Jeli was not very much skilled in taking care of sheep, hehad to be content with far smaller wages than he had been having.
Now he attended faithfully to his flocks, and strove to learn how cheese is made—the ricotta and thecaciocavallo, and all the other products of the flocks; but in the gossip that went on at eventide in the yard, among the shepherds andcontadini, while the women were preparing the beans for the soup, if evermassaroNeri's son was mentioned as soon to marrymassaroAgrippino's Mara, Jeli said not a word, and never dared open his mouth.
One time when the keeper insulted him, by saying, jestingly, that Mara refused to have anything more to do with him, after every one had declared that they were to be husband and wife, Jeli, as he went to the pot where the milk was boiling, replied, as he slowly shook in the rennet,—
"Now Mara has grown to be so pretty, she seems like a lady."
But as he was patient and laborious, and quickly got hold of the secrets of thebusiness, even better than one who had been born to it, and as he was accustomed to be with animals, he came to love his sheep as if they were his own, and for this reason the distemper—il male—did not do so much damage at la Salonia, and the flock prospered, so that it was a delight formassaroNeri every time that he came to the estate, and the next year it was no great trouble to induce thepadroneto increase Jeli's wages, so that he came to have as much as he got in looking out for the horses. And it was money well spent, for Jeli never thought of reckoning up the miles and miles that he travelled in search of the best pasturage for his flock, and if the sheep were with young or were sick, he would take them to his saddle-bags and carry the lambs in his arms, and they would lick his face, thrusting their noses out of his pocket, and they would even suck his ears.
In the famous snow storm of Santa Lucia's night, the snow fell four handbreadthsdeep in thelago mortoat la Salonia, and all around for miles and miles there was nothing else to be seen when day came, and nothing would have been left of the sheep but the ears, had not Jeli got up three or four times in the course of the night to drive the sheep into the yard, so that the poor beasts shook the snow from their backs and did not remain, as it were buried, as was the case in so many of the neighboring flocks—at least somassaroAgrippino said when he came to give a look to a field of beans which he had at la Salonia, and he also said that that story ofmassaroNeri's son marrying his daughter Mara was a lie made up of whole cloth—that Mara had some one else in mind.
"It was said they were to be married at Christmas," said Jeli.
"Nothing of the sort; they aren't to marry at all; it's all the gossip of envious folks who meddle with others' business," repliedmassaroAgrippino.
But the keeper, who had known about itfor some time, having heard it talked about in town when he was there on Sunday, told the story as it really was, aftermassaroAgrippino had gone away.
"The engagement was broken becausemassaroNeri's son had learned thatmassaroAgrippino's Mara was keeping company with Don Alfonso, the signorino, who had known Mara from a little girl; andmassaroNeri had declared that his son was to be a man respected as his father was, and the only horns he wanted in his house should be those of his oxen."
Jeli was present at this conversation, sitting with the others in the circle at breakfast, and at that instant was cutting his bread. He still said nothing, but his appetite left him for that day.
While he was driving his sheep out to pasture he began to think of Mara, as she had been when she was a little girl, when they were together all day long wandering through thevalle del Jacitanoand over thepoggio alla Croce, and how she stood lookingat him, with her chin in the air, while he climbed up to the tree-tops after the birds' nests; and he thought also of Don Alfonso, who used to come and see him from the neighboring villa, and how they would stretch themselves out on their bellies, stirring up crickets' nests with straws. All these things he considered and reconsidered for hours and hours, as he sat on the edge of the brook, holding his knees between his arms, and thinking of the tall walnuts of Tebidi, and the thick bushes in the valleys and the slopes of the hills, green with sumachs, and the gray olive trees spreading through the valley like a fog, and the red-tiled roof of the house, and the campanile that looked like "a handle of a salt cellar" among the oranges of the garden.
Here the campagna stretched away naked, desert, speckled with dried grass, blending silently with the distant horizon.
In Spring the bean pods had begun to fill out when Mara came to la Salonia withher father and mother and the boy and the ass, to pick the beans, and they all came together to sleep at the farm for two or three days during the picking.
In this way Jeli saw the girl morning and evening, and they would sit together on the wall of the sheep-fold and talk, while the boy looked after the sheep.
"It seems as if I were at Tebidi again," said Mara, "when we were little things, and used to stand on the foot bridge."
Jeli also remembered everything, though he said little, being always a judicious youth, and of few words.
When the harvest was over, and the eve of parting had come, Mara went out to talk with the young man, just as he was making "ricotto cheese," and he was wholly intent in skimming the whey with his ladle.
"Now I'll sayaddio," said she, "for to-morrow we return to Vizzini."
"How have the beans gone?"
"Bad!la lupa[11]has eaten them all this year."
"It depends on the rain which has been scarce," said Jeli. "We have had to kill even the lambs because there hasn't been enough feed for them. Over all of la Salonia there hasn't been three inches of grass."
"But that doesn't affect you. You always have your wages, good year or bad."
"Yes, that's so," said he. "But it disgusts me to give those poor creatures to the butcher."
"Do you remember when you came for thefestaof Saint John, and were left without apadrone?"
"Yes, I remember."
"It was my father who got you a place here withmassaroNeri."
"And why didn't you marrymassaroNeri's son?"
"Because it wasn't the will of God. My father has been unlucky," she continued, after a brief pause. "Since we came to Marineo, everything has gone ill with us. The beans, the corn, that piece of vineyardthat we have yonder. Then my brother went off to the army, and we lost a mule that was worth fortyonze."
"I know," said Jeli, "the bay mule."
"Now, that we have lost all our property, who would want to marry me?"
Mara was breaking up a twig of briar while she said this, with her chin in her bosom, and, with her elbow, she gently nudged Jeli's elbow without appearing to mean it. But Jeli, with his eyes on the churn, also made no response, and she went on,—
"At Tebidi they used to say that you and I would be husband and wife, do you remember?"
"Yes," said Jeli, and he laid his ladle on the top of the churn. "But I am a poor shepherd, and I can not pretend to amassaro'sdaughter like you."
La Mara remained silent for a little while, and then she said, "If you want me, I will willingly be yours."
"Really?"
"Yes, really."
"And what willmassaroAgrippino say to it?"
"My father says that now that you know your trade, and since you are not one of those who waste their wages, but make onesoldointo two, and do not eat to consume bread, in time you will come to have flocks of your own, and will be rich."
"If that is so," said Jeli, in conclusion, "I will gladly take you."
"There," said Mara, as soon as it had grown dark and the sheep were relapsing into silence, "if you want a kiss, I will give you one, because we are going to be husband and wife."
Jeli took one in "holy peace," and not knowing what to say, added, "I have always loved you, even when you were going to desert me for the son ofmassaroNeri."
But he had not the heart to speak of the other one.
"Don't you see? We were meant for one another," said Mara, in conclusion.
MassaroAgrippino, in fact, said "Yes," andgnàLia put on a new gown, and she had a pair of velvet trousers made for their son-in-law. Mara was as lovely and fresh as a rose, with her white mantellina, reminding you of the Paschal lamb, and that amber necklace which made her neck look so white; so, when Jeli walked through the street at her side, he marched stiffly and erect, dressed in his new cloth and velvet suit, and he did not dare even blow his nose with his red silk handkerchief, lest he should make a fool of himself; and the neighbors and all who knew the story of Don Alfonso laughed in his face.
When Mara said "sissignore," and the priest made her Jeli's wife with a grand sign of the cross, Jeli took her home, and it seemed to him as if they had given him all the gold of the Madonna, and all the lands that he had seen with his eyes.
"Now that we are husband and wife," said he, when they reached their house, as he was sitting in front of her, and trying toappear very humble, "now that we are husband and wife, I may tell you that it does not seem to me true as you pretended—you might have had ever so many better husbands than I—so beautiful and gracious you are."
The poor fellow could not find anything else to say, and he could not contain his delight to see Mara setting and arranging everything through the house, and playingla padrona. He found it impossible to tear himself away to return to la Salonia; when he started Monday, he was very slow in arranging in the pack of the ass, his saddle-bags, and his cloak, and his umbrella.
"You ought to come to la Salonia, yourself," he said to his wife, who was watching him from the door-step. "You ought to come with me."
But the young woman began to laugh, and replied that she was not born to look after sheep, and had no reason to go to la Salonia.
Truly, Mara was not born for tendingsheep, and she was not accustomed to the January tramontana wind, which stiffens the hand on the staff, and it seems as if your fingers would drop off, or to furious storms that come, when the water penetrates to your very bones, and again, when the dust drives choking through the streets, when the sheep travel under the boiling sun, or to the hard bed on the ground, and the mouldy bread, and the long, silent, solitary days, when through the arid fields nothing else is seen in the distance but occasionally some sun-burned peasant driving his ass silently along over the white, interminable road.
Jeli knew at least that Mara was warm and comfortable under the quilts, or was spinning in front of the fire, talking with the women of the neighborhood, or was enjoying the sun on the balcony, while he was returning from the pasture tired and thirsty, or wet through with the rain, or when the wind drifted the snow back of his hut and put out his fire of branches.
Every month Mara went to receive the wages from thepadrone, and they lacked neither eggs nor fowls, nor oil in the lamp, nor wine in the jug. Twice a month Jeli came home to see her, and she would stand on the balcony looking for him with her spindle in her hand, and after he had left the ass in the stable and removed his pack and filled the rack with oats, and placed the wood under the shed in the yard, or whatever he brought into the kitchen, Mara would help him hang his cloak on the nail and take off his leather leggings before the hearth, and pour him out a glass of wine, and set to work to boil the soup and get the table ready, quiet and thoughtful, like a good housewife, while talking of this thing and that,—of the brooding hen that was setting, of the cloth that was on the loom, of the calf which they were raising, never forgetting anything of what she had been doing.
Jeli, when he found himself at home, felt that he was more important than the pope.
But on the eve of Santa Barbara he came home unexpectedly late, when all the lights were out in the street and the town clock was striking midnight. He came in because the mare which thepadronehad left out at pasture had been suddenly taken sick, and he saw that it was a case that required the services of the farrier quickly, and he had wanted to bring him to town in spite of the rain that was falling like a torrent, and the muddy roads into which he sunk half up to his knees.
Knock and call as loud as he might behind the door, he had to wait half an hour under the eaves, while the water ran out at his heels. At last his wife came to open for him, and began to scold worse than if it had been herself who had been obliged to wander across country in such a tempest.
"Oh, what's the matter?" she demanded. "How you frightened me coming at this time o' night! Does it seem to you a proper Christian time to come? To-morrow I shall be ill!"
"Go back to bed, I will start up a fire."
"No, I'll have to go and get some wood."
"I'll go."
"No, I say."
When Mara returned with the wood in her arms Jeli said to her, "Why did you leave the door to the yard open? Was there not enough wood in the kitchen?"
"No, I went to get it under the shed."
She let him kiss her, coldly, coldly, and turned her head in another direction.
"His wife lets him wait at the door," said the neighbors, "when there is another bird in the nest."
But Jeli knew nothing about the fact that his wife was untrue to him, nor did any one care to tell him, because it could surely be of no consequence, for he had taken the woman with a damaged reputation aftermassaroNeri's son had jilted her, because he knew of the story of Don Alfonso. But Jeli seemed to live happy and contented in the shame of it, and grew as fat as a pig;for the proverb has it "horns are lean but they make the house fat." At last, one time, the herdman's boy told it to him in his face, while they were scuffling about the pieces of cheese that had been stolen.
"Now that Don Alfonso has taken your wife you consider yourself his brother-in-law, and you are proud enough to be a crowned king with those horns on your head."
The factor and the keeper expected to see blood flow for those insulting words, but on the contrary Jeli stood stupefied, as if he had not heard, or as if it concerned him not, wearing the dull face of an ox whose horns really fitted him.
Now that Easter was at hand the factor sent all the men of the estate to confession, with the hope that through the fear of God they would not do any more stealing. Jeli also went, and at the church entrance sought for the boy with whom he had exchanged those hot words, and he threw his arms around his neck, saying,—
"The confessor has bade me pardon you; but I am not angry with you for such gossip; and if you will not steal any more of the cheese from me, I will not take any further notice of what you said to me in passion."
It was from that moment that they nicknamed himCorno d'ore—"Gold horns"—and the nickname stuck to him and all his, even after he had washed his horns in blood.
La Mara also went to confession and returned from the church all wrapped up in her mantellina, and with her eyes cast down, so that she seemed a genuineSanta Maria Maddelena. Jeli, who was silently waiting for her on the balcony, when he saw her coming in that way, seeming as if she had the Holy Presence in her heart, kept looking at her,—pale, pale from his foot to his head as if he saw her for the first time, or as if his Mara had been changed for him, and he seemed hardly to dare to lift his eyes to her while she was shaking the cloth and setting the table, calm and neat as ever.
Then after long thinking he put the question to her: "Is it true that you keep company with Don Alfonso?"
Mara looked him full in the face with those black eyes of hers and made the sign of the cross.
"Why do you want to make me commit a sin on this day?" she demanded.
"I did not believe it, because Don Alfonso and I were always together when we were boys, and there never passed a day that he did not come to Tebidi when he was in the country there; and then he is rich, and has bushels of money, and if he wanted women he might get married, nor would he lack anything, either clothes to wear, or bread to eat."
But Mara was really angry, and she began to scold so that the poor fellow did not dare lift his nose from his plate.
At last, so that that gift of God which they were eating might not turn into poison, Mara changed the conversation, and asked him if he had thought of weeding that littleplot of flax which they had sowed in the bean field.
"Yes," replied Jeli, "and the flax will do well."
"If that is so," said Mara, "this spring I will make you two new shirts which will keep you warm."
In truth Jeli did not realize what "cuckold" meant, and he did not know what jealousy was. Every new thing found difficulty in getting into his head, and this became so great that, in making its way in, it played devilish work, especially when he saw his Mara before him so beautiful and white and neat, and how she had herself chosen him, and how he had thought about her so many years, and so many years, ever since he was a young boy, so that the day when they told him that she was going to marry some one else, he had had no heart to eat anything or to drink all day long.
Then again he thought of Don Alfonso, who had been his companion so many times, and how he had always brought himstrange feeling within his heart. Don Alfonso had grown so tall that he no longer seemed the same person, and now he had a full beard, curly like his hair, and a velvet coat and a gold chain across his waistcoat. But he recognized Jeli, and patted him on the shoulder in salutation. He had come with thepadroneof the estate and a number of friends to have a jollification while the sheep-shearing was in progress, and Mara also came unexpectedly, under the pretext that she was pregnant, and longed for some fresh ricotto.
It was a beautiful warm day in the pale fields, with the grain in flower and the long green rows of the vines; the sheep were gamboling and bleating for delight, at feeling themselves freed from all that weight of wool, and in the kitchen, the women had made a great fire to cook all the provisions that thepadronehad brought for the dinner.
The gentlemen, while they were waiting, had sat down in the shade under the carob-trees,and were playing tambourines and bag-pipes, and dancing with the girls of the estate, as if they were all of the same class.
Jeli, meantime, went on with his work shearing the sheep, and felt something within him, without knowing what, like a thorn, like a nail, like a pair of shears, working within him, slowly, slowly, like a poison.
Thepadronehad ordered that they should kill a couple of goats, and the yearling sheep, and some chickens, and a turkey cock. In fact, he was going to do things on a grand scale, and lavishly, so as to do honor to his friends; and while all those creatures were squealing under the death-agony, and the goats were screaming under the knife, Jeli felt his knees tremble, and little by little, it seemed to him that the wool that he was shearing, and the grass in which the sheep were leaping, were stained with blood.
"Don't go," he said to Mara, when DonAlfonso called her to come and dance with the rest. "Don't go, Mara."
"Why not?"
"I don't want you to go. Do not go."
"I hear them calling me."
He uttered not another intelligible word while he stayed with the sheep that he was shearing. Mara shrugged her shoulders, and went to dance. She was blushing with delight, and her two black eyes shone like two stars, and she smiled so that there was a gleam of white teeth, and all the gold ornaments tossed and scintillated on her wrists and on her bosom, so that she seemed like the Madonna herself.
Jeli had arisen to his full height, with the long shears in his hand, and white in face, as white as once he had seen his father, the cowherd, when he was trembling with fever in front of the fire in the hovel.
Suddenly, when he saw how Don Alfonso, with his curling beard and his velvet coat, and the gold chain at his waistcoat, took Mara by the hand to dance—then—onlyat that moment that he touched her did he fling himself on him and cut his throat with one stroke, as if he had been a goat.
Later, while they were leading him off to the judge, bound, wholly unmanned, without daring to make the least resistance,—
"How," said he, "should I not have killed him. He robbed me of my Mara!"
(Cavalleria Rusticana.)
LOLA"LOLA USED TO GO OUT ON THE BALCONY WITH HER HANDS CROSSED."
"LOLA USED TO GO OUT ON THE BALCONY WITH HER HANDS CROSSED."
RUSTIC CHIVALRY.(Cavalleria Rusticana.)
Turiddu Macca,gnàNunzia's son, after returning from the army, used every Sunday to strut like a peacock through the square in his bersegliere uniform and red cap, looking like the fortune-teller as he sets up his stand with his cage of canaries. The girls on their way to Mass gave stolen glances at him from behind their mantellinas, and the urchins buzzed round him like flies.
He had brought back with him, also, a pipe with the king on horseback carved so naturally that it seemed actually alive, and he scratched his matches on the seat of his trousers, lifting his leg as if he were going to give a kick.
But in spite of all this, Lola, the daughter ofmassaroAngelo, had not shown herself either at Mass or on the balcony, for thereason that she was going to wed a man from Licodia, a carter who had four Sortino mules in his stable.
At first, when Turiddu heard about it,santo diavolone!he threatened to disembowel him, threatened to kill him—that fellow from Licodia! But he did nothing of the sort; he contented himself with going under the fair one's window, and singing all the spiteful songs he knew.
"HasgnàNunzia's Turiddu nothing else to do," asked the neighbors, "except spending his nights singing like a lone sparrow?"
At length, he met Lola on her way back from the pilgrimage to the Madonna del Pericolo, and when she saw him, she turned neither red nor white, just as if it were none of her affair at all.
"Oh,compareTuriddu, I was told that you returned the first of the month."
"But I have been told of something quite different!" replied the other. "Is it true that you are to marrycompareAlfio, the carter?"
"Such is God's will," replied Lola, drawing the two ends of her handkerchief under her chin.
"God's will in your case is done with a snap and a spring; to suit yourself! And it was God's will, was it, that I should return from so far to find this fine state of things,gnàLola!"
The poor fellow still tried to bluster, but his voice grew hoarse, and he followed the girl, tossing his head so that the tassel of his cap swung from side to side on his shoulders. To tell the truth, she felt really sorry to see him wearing such a long face, but she had not the heart to deceive him with fine speeches.
"Listen,compareTuriddu," she said to him at last, "Let me join my friends. What would be said in town if I were seen with you?"
"You are right," replied Turiddu, "Now that you are going to marrycompareAlfio, who has four mules in his stable, it is best not to let people's tongues wag about you.But my mother, poor soul, was obliged to sell our bay mule, and that little plot of vineyard on the highway while I was off in the army. The time 'when Berta spun,' is over and gone, and you no longer think of the time when we used to talk together from the window looking into the yard, and you gave me that handkerchief before I went away, and God knows how many tears I shed into it at going so far that even the name of our place is lost! So good-by,gnàLola,—Let's pretend it's rained and cleared off, and our friendship is ended."[12]
GnàLola married the carter, and on Sundays used to go out on the balcony with her hands crossed on her stomach, to show off all the heavy gold rings that her husband gave to her. Turiddu kept up his habit of going back and forth through the street with his pipe in his mouth, his hands in his pockets, and an air of unconcern, and ogling the girls; but it gnawed his heart that Lola's husband had so much money, and that she pretended not to see him when he passed.
"I'll get even with her, under her very eyes; the vile beast," he muttered.
OppositecompareAlfio livedmassaroCola, the vinedresser, who was as rich as a pig, and had one daughter at home. Turiddu said and did all he could to becomemassaroCola's workman, and he began to frequent the house, and make sweet speeches to the girl.
"Why don't you go and say sweet things tognàLola?" asked Santa.
"GnàLola is a fine lady.GnàLola has married a crowned king now!"
"I don't deserve crowned kings!"
"You are worth a hundred Lolas, and I know some one who wouldn't look atla gnàLola or her saint when you are by, forgnàLola isn't worthy to wear your shoes, no, she isn't!"
"The fox when he couldn't get at thegrapes said, 'How beautiful you are,racinedda mia,' my little grape!"
"Ohè! hands off,compareTuriddu!"
"Are you afraid that I will eat you?"
"I'm not afraid of you or of your God."
"Eh! your mother was from Licodia, we all know that! You have quarrelsome blood. Uh! How I could eat you with my eyes!"
"Eat me then with your eyes, for we should not have a crumb left, but meantime help me up with this bundle."
"I would lift up the whole house for you, yes, I would!"
She, so as not to blush, threw at him a stick of wood which was within reach, and by a miracle didn't hit him.
"Let's have done, for chattering never picked grapes."
"If I were rich I should try to get a wife like you,gnàSanta."
"I shall never marry a crowned king likegnàLola, but I have my dowry as well asshe, whenever the Lord shall send me anyone."
"We know you are rich, we know it."
"If you know it, say no more, for father is coming, and I shouldn't like to have him find me in the court-yard."
The old father began to turn up his nose, but the girl pretended not to notice it, because the tassel of the bersegliere's cap had set her heart to fluttering, and was constantly dancing before her eyes. When thebabboput Turiddu out of the house, his daughter opened the window for him, and stood chatting with him all the evening long, so that the whole neighborhood talked of nothing else.
"I'm madly in love with you," said Turiddu, "and I am losing my sleep and my appetite."
"How absurd!"
"I wish I were Victor Emmanuel's son, so as to marry you."
"How absurd!"
"By the Madonna, I would eat you like bread!"
"How absurd!"
"Ah! on my honor!"
"Ah!mamma mia!"
Lola, who was listening every evening, hidden behind the vase of basil, and turning red and white, one day called Turiddu:—
"And so,compareTuriddu, old friends don't speak to each other any more?"
"Ma!" sighed the young man, "blessed is he who can speak to you."
"If you have any desire to speak to me, you know where I live," replied Lola.
Turiddu went to see her so frequently that Santa noticed it, and shut the window in his face. The neighbors looked at him with a smile or with a shake of the head when the bersegliere passed. Lola's husband was making a round of the fairs with his mules.
"Sunday I am going to confession, for last night I dreamed of black grapes," said Lola.
"Put it off, put it off" begged Turiddu.
"No, Easter is coming, and my husbandwill want to know why I haven't been to confession."
"Ah," murmuredmassaroCola's Santa, as she was waiting on her knees before the confessional for her turn, while Lola was making a clean breast of her sins. "On my soul, I will not send you to Rome for your punishment!"
CompareAlfio came home with his mules; he was loaded with money, and he brought to his wife for a present, a handsome new dress for the holidays.
"You are right to bring her gifts," said his neighbor Santa, "because while you are away your wife adorns your house for you."
CompareAlfio was one of those carters who wear their hats over one ear, and when he heard his wife spoken of in such a way he changed color as if he had been knifed.
"Santo diavolone!" he exclaimed, "if you haven't seen aright, I will not leave you eyes to weep with, you or your whole family."
"I am not used to weeping!" repliedSanta, "I did not weep even when I saw with these eyesgnàNunzia's Turiddu going into your wife's house at night!"
"It is well," repliedcompareAlfio, "many thanks!"
Turiddu, now that the cat was at home, no longer went out on the street by day, and he whiled away the tedium at the inn with his friends; and on Easter eve they had on the table a dish of sausages.
WhencompareAlfio came in, Turiddu realized, merely by the way in which he fixed his eyes on him, that he had come to settle that affair, and he laid his fork on the plate.
"Have you any commands for me,compareAlfio?" he asked.
"No favors to ask,compareTuriddu; it's some time since I have seen you, and I wanted to speak concerning something you know about."
Turiddu at first had offered him a glass, butcompareAlfio refused it with a wave of his hand. Then Turiddu got up and said to him,—
"Here I am,compareAlfio."
The carter threw his arms around his neck.
"If to-morrow morning you will come to the prickly pears of la Canziria, we can talk that matter over,compare."
"Wait for me on the street at daybreak, and we will go together."
With these words they exchanged the kiss of defiance. Turiddu bit the carter's ear, and thus made the solemn oath not to fail him.
The friends had silently left the sausages, and accompanied Turiddu to his home.GnàNunzia, poor creature, waited for him till late every evening.
"Mamma," said Turiddu, "do you remember when I went as a soldier, that you thought I should never come back any more? Give me a good kiss as you did then, for to-morrow morning I am going far away."
Before daybreak he got his spring-knife, which he had hidden under the hay, whenhe had gone to serve his time in the army, and started for the prickly-pear trees of la Canziria.
"Oh, Gesummaria! where are you going in such haste!" cried Lola in great apprehension, while her husband was getting ready to go out.
"I am not going far," repliedcompareAlfio. "But it would be better for you if I never came back."
Lola in her nightdress was praying at the foot of the bed, and pressing to her lips the rosary which Fra Bernardino had brought to her from the Holy places, and reciting all the Ave Marias that she could say.
"CompareAlfio," began Turiddu, after he had gone a little distance by the side of his companion, who walked in silence with his cap down over his eyes, "as God is true I know that I have done wrong, and I should let myself be killed. But before I came out, I saw my old mother, who got up to see me off, under the pretence oftending the hens. Her heart had a presentiment, and as the Lord is true, I will kill you like a dog, so that my poor old mother may not weep."
"All right," repliedcompareAlfio, stripping off his waistcoat. "Then we will both of us hit hard."
Both of them were skilful fencers. Turiddu was first struck, and was quick enough to receive it in the arm. When he returned it, he returned it well, and wounded the other in the groin.
"Ah,compareTuriddu! so you really intend to kill me, do you?"
"Yes, I gave you fair warning; since I saw my old mother in the hen-yard, it seems to me I have her all the time before my eyes."
"Keep them well open, those eyes of yours," criedcompareAlfio, "for I am going to give you back good measure."
As he stood on guard, all doubled up, so as to keep his left hand on his wound, which pained him, and almost trailing hiselbow on the ground, he swiftly picked up a handful of dust, and flung it into his adversary's eyes.
"Ah!" screamed Turiddu, blinded, "I am dead."
He tried to save himself, by making desperate leaps backwards, butcompareAlfio overtook him with another thrust in the stomach, and a third in the throat.
"And that makes three! that is for the house which you have adorned for me! Now your mother will let the hens alone."
Turiddu staggered a short distance among the prickly pears, and then fell like a stone. The blood foaming, gurgled in his throat, and he could not even cry, "Ah! mamma mia!"
LA LUPA.
She was tall and lean; but she had a firm, full bust, and yet she was no longer young; her complexion was brunette, but pallid as if she had always suffered from malaria, and this pallor set forth two big eyes and fresh rosy lips that seemed to eat you.
In the village she was calledla Lupa—the She-Wolf—because she was never satisfied. Women made the sign of the cross when they saw her pass, always alone like a big ugly hound, with the vagabond and suspicious gait of a famished wolf; she would bewitch their sons and their husbands in the twinkling of an eye with her red lips and she made them fall in love with her merely by looking at them out of those big Satanic eyes of hers, even if they were before Santa Agrippina's altar.
Fortunatelyla Lupanever came to church at Easter or at Christmas, nor to hear Mass or to make confession.PadreAngiolino of Santa Maria di Gesù, a true servant of God, had lost his soul on her account.
Maricchia,—poor girl, pretty and clever she was,—secretly wept because she wasla Lupa'sdaughter, and no one had offered to marry her though she had nice clothes in her bureau, and her own little piece of land in the sun, like every other girl of the village.
One timela Lupafell in love with a handsome youth who had just served out his time in the army, and had come home and was helping to reap the notary's harvest with her; for surely it means to be in love when she felt the flesh burn under the fustian shift, and on looking at him to experience the thirst that one has in hot June days down in the low-lands.
But he went on with his work, undisturbed, with his nose on his sheaves, andhe said to her, "Oh, what's the matter,gnàPina?"
In the immense fields where the only sound was the rustle of the grasshoppers flying up, while the sun was pouring down his hottest beams perpendicularly,la Lupawas heaping up sheaf on sheaf, and pile on pile, without ever showing any signs of fatigue, without one moment straightening herself up, without once touching her lips to the water jug, so as to stick close to Nanni's heels as he reaped and reaped; and now and again he would ask,—
"What do you want,gnàPina?"
One evening she told him, it was while the men were sleeping in the threshing-floor, weary of the long day's work and the dogs were howling through the vast black campagna,—
"I want you! you are as handsome as the sun and as sweet as honey; I want you!"
"But I want your daughter—I want the young calf," said Nanni, laughing at his own joke.
La Lupathrust her hands into the masses of her hair, scratching her temples, without saying a word, and went off and was not seen again in the harvest field. But the following October she saw Nanni again at the time when they were pressing the oil, because he worked near her house, and the rattle of the press kept her awake all night.
"Take a bag of olives," she said to her daughter, "and come with me."
Nanni was shoveling the olives into the hopper and shouting "Ohi" to the mule to keep it going.
"Do you want my daughter Maricchia?" demandedgnàPina.
"What dowry will you give with your daughter Maricchia?" replied Nanni.
"She has her father's things, and besides I will give her my house; it will be enough for me if you'll let me have a corner in the kitchen to spread out a mattress in."
"If that is so, we can talk about it at Christmas," said Nanni. Nanni was allgrease and dirt from the olives put to fermenting, and Maricchia would not have him on any account; but her mother grabbed her by the hair as they stood in front of the hearth and hissed through her set teeth,—
"If you don't take him, I'll kill you."
La Lupalooked ill, and the people remarked: "When the devil was old the devil a monk would be." She no longer went wandering about; she stood no more at her doorway looking out with those eyes as of one possessed.
Her son-in-law, when she fixed those eyes on his face, always began to laugh, and would pull out his cloth talisman, with its effigy of the Madonna, to cross himself with.
Maricchia stayed at home to nurse her children, and her mother went out to work in the fields with the men, just like a man,—to weed, to dig, to guide the animals, to dress the vines, whether it were during the Greek-Levant winds[13]of January, or duringthe August sirocco, when mules let their heads droop, and men sleep prone on their bellies under the shadow of the North wall.
In that time between vespers and nones, when, according to the saying, no good woman is seen going about,gnàPina was the only living creature to be seen wandering across the campagna, over the fiery hot stones of the narrow streets, among the parched stubble of the wide, wide fields that stretched away into the burning haze toward cloudy Etna, where the sky hangs heavy on the horizon.
"Wake up!" saidla Lupato Nanni, who was asleep in the ditch next the dusty harvest-field, with his head on his arms. "Wake up, for I've brought you some wine to cool your throat."
Nanni opened his eyes, half awake, and saw her sitting up straight and pale before him, with her swelling breast, and her eyes as black as coal, and drew back waving his arms,—
"No! a good woman does not go aboutbetween vespers and nones," groaned Nanni, thrusting his face in amongst the dried weeds of the ditch as far as he could, and putting his fingers into his hair. "Go away! Get you gone! And don't you come to the threshing-floor any more."
She turned and went away,—la Lupa,—knotting up her splendid tresses again, looking down steadily as she made her way among the hot stubble, with her eyes black as coal.
But she did go back to the threshing-floor, and Nanni no longer reproached her; and when she failed to come, in that hour between vespers and nones, he went, and with perspiration on his brow, waited for her at the top of the white deserted footpath, but afterwards he would thrust his hands through his hair, and every time he would say, "Go away! Go away! Don't come to the threshing-floor again."
Maricchia wept night and day, and she looked into her mother's face with eyes blazing with tears and jealousy, like alupachiotta, a young wolf herself, every time that she saw her coming back from the fields, silent and pale.
"Vile!scellerata!" she would say, "Vile mamma."
"Hold your tongue!"
"Thief! thief!"
"Hold your tongue!"
"I'll go to thebrigadiere!"[14]
And she actually went with her infants in her arms, without a sign of fear, and without shedding a tear, like a crazy woman, because now she passionately loved that husband whom she had been forced to marry, greasy and dirty as he was from the olives set to fermenting.
Thebrigadieresummoned Nanni, and threatened him with the galleys and the gallows. Nanni began to weep, and pull his hair; he denied nothing, did not try to justify himself.
"The temptation was too much," saidhe, "'twas the temptation of hell." He flung himself at thebrigadiere'sfeet, begging him to send him to the galleys.
"For mercy's sake,Signor brigadiere, take me out of this hell! Have me shot! Send me to prison! Don't let me see her ever again! never again!"
"No," repliedla Lupa, to thebrigadiere'squestion. "I kept a corner of the kitchen to sleep in when I gave him my house as my daughter's dowry. The house is mine. I do not intend to go away."
Shortly after, Nanni was kicked in the chest by a mule, and was like to die; but the priest refused to bring him the Holy Unction unlessla Lupawas out of the house.
La Lupawent away, and her son-in-law was then permitted to pass away like a good Christian; he confessed and partook of the Sacrament with such signs of penitence and contrition that all the neighbors and inquisitive visitors wept as they surrounded the dying man's bed.
And it would have been better for himif he had died then and there, before the devil had a chance to return to tempt him, and take possession of him, mind and body, when he got well again.
"Let me be!" he said tola Lupa; "for mercy's sake, leave me in peace! I have seen death with my own eyes! Poor Maricchia is in despair. Now the whole region knows about it! If I don't see you, it's better for you and better for me."
And he would rather have put his eyes out, than seela Lupa's, for when hers were fastened on him, they made him lose soul and body. He did not know what to do to overcome the enchantment. He paid for Masses to be sung for the souls in Purgatory, and he went for aid to the priest and thebrigadiere. At Easter he went to confession, and as a penance, publicly stood on the flint stones of the holy ground in front of the church, putting out six handbreadths of tongue, and then, whenla Lupareturned to tempt him,—
"See here," said he, "don't you come onthe threshing-floor again, because if you do come to seek me again, as sure as God exists, I'll kill you."
"All right, kill me!" repliedla Lupa. "It makes no difference to me; but I can not live without you."
When he saw her afar off coming through the green corn field, he left off pruning the vines, and went and got his axe from the elm.
La Lupasaw him coming to meet her, with his face pale and his eyes rolling wildly, with the axe shining in the sun; but she did not hesitate an instant, did not look away. She went straight forward with her hands full of bunches of red poppies, and devouring him with those black eyes of hers.
"Ah! a curse on your soul!" stammered Nanni.