The House by the Medlar-Tree

of the lupins, and as La Longa returned with Lia from th

ifix screamed as if you had been pulling out his quill-feathers; but you needn’t mind that he has plenty of quills, the old boy. Oh, we had a time of it! you can say as much for your part, too, can’t you, Padron ‘Ntoni? But for Padron ‘Ntoni, you know, I’d throw myself off the cliffs any

who was really his uncle, because he was La Locca’s

here to work by the day he gives me only half

sefoot

uldn’t take to drinking, and that he may h

f one now of another, as it hap-pened; but so good-humoredly, wi

to La Lo

r half what it’s worth making her believe he’ll marry her. But if La Vespa succeeds in drawing him on, you may

“ after all, Uncle Dumb-bell was a Christian, and hadn’t quite throw

He’s mad, you mean! He’s as rich as a pig; what does he want of that litt

es along my vineyard,” said Padron Ci

ard? Four prickly-pear

l send us a good shower of rain, you’ll see if I don’t have some go

eavy one must look for a we

se he chose to talk. One wants rain, and one wants wind,” he wound up. “Padron Cipolla wants rain for his vines, and Pa-dron ‘Ntoni wants a wind to push the poop of the Provv

eard the sound of heavy

ays going about the world,” s

seemed as if there were only Trezza in the world, and ever

ave rounded the Cape of the Mills, and

enza, and when they were not talking of her he sa

st’s, where they are talking politics. You’d make

said La Locca’s son, “di

ke a brute, as Uncle Cipolla and old Mala-voglia did. In the summer, besides, there was no need of a candle, for they could stand under the lamp at the door, when Mastro Cirino lighted it, and sometimes Don Michele, the brigadier of the customs guard, joined them; and Don Silvestro, the town-clerk, too, coming back from his vineyard^ stopped for a moment. Then Don Franco would say, rubbing his hands, that they were quite a parliament, and go off behind his counter, passing his fingers through his long beard like a comb, with a shrewd little grin, as if he were going to eat some-body for his breakfast; and would let slip broken phrases under his breath full of hidden meaning; so that it was

Silvestro had been willing to stay where he belonged,

aughter Mena?” said Cipolla at

ess leave the wolf to

tween him and Padron ‘Ntoni of marrying Mena to his son Brasi; if the lupin business

the place knew that La Longa had brought up her girl beautifully, that anybody who passed through the alley behind the house by the medlar at the h

m the beach, sat down at the window

d she stays at the loom day and night,

instead of letting them stay gaping out the window. ‘ Do

manage to catch the foolish fish that pass,”

to spare for this speech; for that great hulking fellow, her son Rocco, had tacked himself on to the Man

d made her “sack like a sieve, eating holes all over it, as if they had had wits like Christians;” so the talk became general because those accursed little brutes had done Ma

to catch mice; they’d go aft

all sorts of tricks to gain their ends; and at Trezza one saw faces now that nobody had ever seen on the coast; coming, pretending to be fishing, and catching up the clothes that were out to dry if they could manage it. They had stolen a new sheet from poor Nunziata that way. Poor girl! robbing her, who worked so hard to feed those little brothers that her father left on h

ker; she lived at the foot of the lane, and always appeared unexpectedly, like the

Rocco never helped you a bit; if he got h

he spinning was only a pretext. “ She always told gospel truth that was a habit of hers and people who didn’t like to have the truth told about them accused her of being a wicked slanderer one of those whose tongues dropped gall. ‘ Bitter

and Vanni Pizzuti gave her the figs he stole from Mastro Philip, the ortolano, and they ate them together in the vineyard under the almond-tree. I saw them myself. And Peppi (Joe) Naso, the butch-er, aft

easily. “ Don’t you know Don Giammaria says it i

laying off the airs of a young girl at Don Silvestro when he goes past the house, and with Don Michele, the bri

soul for them. Grief hardens the heart, they say, and hard work the hands, but the harder they are the better one can work with them. My daughters will do as I have done, and while ther

little fellows who sat whining on the steps of the tumble-down little house on the opp

broom to burn,” said Cousin Anna, “

l at once; and the biggest one, perched like a little chicken on the

tual chatter from one door to another. Even Alfio Mosca, who had the donkey-cart, had opened his window

y all cried, and made

zza. “She’s already eighteen, come Easter-tide. I know her age; she was born in the ye

road, and up came Luca and Nun-ziata, who couldn’t be see

eighbors, “ were not you afraid

h them,” s

sin Anna, and then I had not

d down the little kitchen after her, so that she looked like a hen with her chickens; Alessio ha

the door-step, “ when you’ve lighted

cross to perch herself on the landing beside Sant’Agata

g his broad beans now,” obser

r of you any one to get the minestra ready by

Alfio did, and knew every inch of her neighbor’s house as if it had been the palm of her hand.) “ Now,” she said

aid that to be precisely like a wo

ife will go round with the donkey-cart, and he

for a husband so said La Zuppidda “ because the Wasp had her own nice little property, and wanted to marry somebody who

a felt her heart swell with contempt at the way they scorned Alfio, only bec

d marry him, so I wou

thing herself, but she cha

o town for the A

leave the hou

iness of the lupins goes

ught a minut

going too, to sell h

f the Feast of All Souls, and how Al

he puts Vespa in his pocket,” b

s in his house on one pretext or another, slipping in like a cat, with something good for him to eat or drink, and the old man never ref

ng, when, instead, he had money by the shovelful for La Zuppidda, one day

hears also in the dark,” and they could hear the voice of Uncle Crucifix talking with Don Giammaria, who

enraged the apothecary, who had never had any patience for that matte

ll, hard as a stone, shrugged his shoulders, and took care to repeat “ that all that was nothing to him; he attended to his own affairs.” “As if the affairs of the Company of the Happy Death were not your affairs,” said Don Giammaria, “ and no-body

Don Sil-vestro’s cackling laugh, which was enough to mad-den anybody. But everybody knew

enough if it was for scho

nd Uncle Crucifix, when he was far enough off not to be heard by Don Silvestro

my time there weren’t so many lamps nor so m

l, and you can manage yo

,” said Uncle Crucifix, not t

could cross with his eyes shut, and was on the point of breaking

they’d light

look after one’s steps,”

s head in assent, mechanically, though they couldn’t see each other; and Don Giammaria, as he passed the whole village in review, said: “ This one is a thief; that one is a rascal; the other is a Jacobin so you hear Goosefoot, there, talking with Padron Malavoglia and Padron Cipolla anot

up with it.” “Padron Cipolla was another old fool, a regular balloon, that fellow!, to let himself be blindfold

heir own business,” r

ke a president on the church steps

erything was different; Now the fish ar

efore it comes,” resumed Pa-dron ‘Ntoni, “ it has always been s

weep the sea with nets,

ers beating the water with their confounded wheels. What will you have? Of

istening, with his mouth

ish at Messina nor at Syracuse, and instead they cam

la, angrily. “ I wash my hands of it. I don’t care a fig about it.

the north-east wind doesn’t get up before mid-night,

ow strokes of the deep bell. “ One hour

gn, and replied, “Peace to the

for sup-per,” observed Goosefoot, sn

he others, for in such times as these one must be friends with those ras-

icelli to-night

n their mouthfuls everybody hates the church!” And coming face to face with Don Michele, the brigadier of the coast-guard, who was going his round

cle Cruci-fix. “ I like those fellows

lot of thieves,” he went on muttering, with the knocker in his hand, following with suspicious eye the form of the briga-dier, wh

tavern to protect the interests of honest people, for he had spent whole

about every-body’s business in Trezza and everywhere else; and old Uncle Santoro, blind as he is, blinking like a bat in the sunshine

lage went to sleep the sea became audible once more at the foot of the little street, and every now and then it gave a great sigh like a sleepless man turning

ght,” said Alfio Mosca from his window

eplied Mena, who had remained on the

stra, because when I see you all at table, with yo

ot in good

any things to put o

, and after a littl

oing to town for

for All Souls

year my poor littl

to look for a wife,” said Nun

true?” as

ook for one I could find girls

silence. “They say they are the souls lo

’Agata, if you dream of a good number in the lottery, tell it to me, and I’ll pawn my

ght!” sa

ree kings “ shone out over the Fariglione, wi

on the stones, and going out into the wide world so wide, so wide, that if one could walk forever one couldn’t get to the end of it; and there we

aiting on the land

, which twinkled more than they need have done, and then muttered, “Ugly Sea!” Rocco Spatu howled a ti