“So then, should I go to prison?” I asked her, smiling.
“No, not to prison, but certainly to some other institution”.
Santi rose up against her. The argument grew more heated, and I vainly tried to restore peace by stating that, after all, these individuals did not harm me so much (since I know how to get along somehow), as they did the poor who needed my help.
“So, therefore,” Marta would retort, “you not only harmed yourself, but the others too. Don’t you agree? By not looking after yourself, you didn’t even look after the others. Doubly bad! And doesn’t it follow that all those who only look after themselves and never need anyone, show by this alone that they look after others? What are you going to do now? Now you need others. And do you think that having to show yourself grateful will benefit anybody?”
“Hey, what are you letting slip from your tongue, babbler?” Santi would snap back, hearing these words and fearing that I would take them as a reproach for the small amount of help he was giving me with all his heart.
Marta, as serene as ever, and looking at him compassionately, would answer him: “I’m not saying it for you. What do you have to do with it, Santi, my dear, you who are a decent poor man?”
How right she was! If I had let him carry on with his affection and consideration, I would have ended up living day and night with him! He never wanted to leave me for a single moment, and would beg me to accept his right and proper services. Poor Santi! But not even in my poverty did the fumes of my madness evaporate. I didn’t want to be a burden to any of my former beneficiaries, and so with pitiful grace I wore my rags and carried my misery around wherever I went. In the meantime I tried try to find work for myself, any sort of work, even manual labor, as long as it gave me a way to take care of my few needs.
But my wise teacher didn’t even like this.
“Work?” she would say to me. “That’s a fine expedient! You weren’t born for it, and now, by looking for work, you’ll unwittingly take away the job that some poor devil may have been trying to land.”
So, then, did the good lady want me dead? Her argument made an impression on me, and, not wanting to take away anyone’s job, I went far away and asked to be taken in by a family of peasants who had once worked for me. In return, with the excuse that I always had trouble falling asleep, I kept an eye on their coal pit in the woods. There, after a few months, I received the news that poor Bensai had died of a stroke. I cried over his death as I would have for a brother. After about one year, his widow asked for me. I was in such a sorry state that I absolutely did not want to visit her.
Now Marta does not want to take credit for having saved me, but if it’s true that good old Santi recommended me warmly in the will he left his wife, it’s also true that she could have ignored that.
“No, no,” she repeats to me, “thank Santi, bless his soul, for at least having had the foresight to put aside this little bit of money that was yours for our old age. See? What you were incapable of doing, he did for you. Too bad he lacked courage, poor man!”
And so now, I, being sane, enjoy the meager fruit of the sanest of virtues: the foresight of one of my poor thieves, who was grateful and decent.
The Shrine
I
Having crawled into bed beside his wife, who was already asleep with her face turned towards the small bed where their two children lay side by side, Spatolino first said his usual prayers, then clasped his hands behind his neck. He blinked his eyes and — without thinking about what he was doing — began to whistle, as was his habit whenever a doubt or worry gnawed at his heart.
“Fififi… fififi… fififi…”
It wasn’t exactly a whistle, but rather a soft hissing sound, gently formed on his lips, and always patterned on the same tune.
After a while his wife awoke.
“Oh! You’re here? What happened to you?”
“Nothing. Go to sleep. Good night.”
He pulled himself down beneath the covers, turned his back towards his wife and then he, too, curled up on his side to sleep. But how could he sleep?
“Fififi..-fififi… fififi…” At this point his wife reached over and struck him on the back with her clenched fist.
“Hey, will you stop that? Careful you don’t wake up the little ones!”
“You’re right. Keep quiet! I’ll fall asleep.”
He really tried to drive out of his mind that tormenting thought that now, as always, became a chirping cricket inside of him; but as soon as he thought he had driven it out:
“FififiL. fififi!… fififi!…”
This time he didn’t even wait for his wife to deliver another punch, which surely would have been stronger than the first, but jumped out of bed, exasperated.
“What are you doing? Where are you going?” she asked him.
“I’m getting dressed again, damn it!” he replied. “I can’t sleep. I’m going to go sit here in front of the door, on the street! Air! Air!”
“For heaven’s sake,” continued his wife, “will you tell me what the devil happened to you?”
“What? It’s that scoundrel,” burst out Spatolino then, making an effort to keep his voice down, “that rascal, that enemy of God…”
“Who? Who?”
“Ciancarella.”
“The notary?”
“Yes, him. He’s sent word that he wants me to come to his villa tomorrow.”
“Well?”
“What can a man like him want from me, would you tell me that? He’s a swine, even though he’s been baptized! A swine, to say the least! Air! Air!”
So saying, he grabbed a chair, reopened the door, and shut it quietly behind him. Then he sat down in the sleepy little street and rested his shoulders against the wall of his cottage.
A streetlamp languidly flickered nearby, casting a yellowish light on a stagnant pool of water, if we can call what lay between the loose cobblestones of that worn-out pavement, covered here and there with bumps and depressions, water.
From within the tiny, shaded cottages there emanated a heavy stench of stables, and from time to time one could hear, breaking the silence, the stamping of some animal tormented by flies. A cat, creeping along the wall, stopped and watchfully turned sideways.
Spatolino began looking at the clusters of stars twinkling in the strip of sky above, and as he looked, he twisted the few hairs of his small reddish beard up to his mouth.
Small in stature, even though since childhood he had mixed clay and mortar, he had a somewhat gentlemanly appearance.
Suddenly his blue eyes, turned upward to the sky, were filled with tears. He shuddered as he sat there in his chair and, wiping his tears with the back of his hand, murmured in the silence of the night:
“Oh, help me, dear Jesus!”
II
Ever since the clerical faction in town had been defeated, and the new party, that of the excommunicated, had taken over the seats of the town council, Spatolino felt as if he were in the middle of an enemy camp.
All his fellow workers had huddled behind the new leaders like so many sheep and now, forming a tightly-knit syndicate, were acting as if they owned the place.
With only a handful of workers who had remained faithful to Holy Mother Church, Spatolino had founded a Catholic Mutual Benefit Society among the Unworthy Sons of Our Lady of Sorrows.
But the battle was uneven. The jeering of his enemies (and even of his friends) and the anger he felt because of his helplessness, had made Spatolino see red.
He had gotten it into his head, as president of that Catholic Society, to promote processions, illuminations, and firework displays for all the religious holidays whose observance had previously been fostered by the former town council. While the opposition party whistled, shouted, and laughed, he had lost money on the expenses incurred for the feasts of St. Michael the Archangel, St. Francis of Paola, Good Friday, Corpus Christi, and, in brief, for all the other principal holidays of the church calendar.
Thus the sma
ll capital which up till then had permitted him to take a few jobs on contract had shrunk so much that he could see the day not too far off when, from being a master builder, he would be reduced to becoming a miserable day laborer.
His wife had long since lost all the respect and esteem she had had for him. She herself had begun providing for her own needs and for those of their children by washing clothes and sewing for others, and by doing all sorts of other domestic work.
As if he were unemployed for his own pleasure! What could he do if the consortium of those sons of bitches was picking up all the jobs? What did his wife expect him to do? Give up his faith, repudiate God, and sign up in the party of those others? He would rather have had his hands cut off!
Meanwhile, his forced leisure was tormenting him, making him increasingly more irritable and obstinate with each passing day, and embittering him against everyone.
Ciancarella, the notary, had never sided with anyone. Nonetheless, he was notorious for being an enemy of God, making that his profession ever since leaving public office. Once he had even dared to sic his dogs on a man of the cloth, Father Lagaipa, who had gone to visit him to intercede on behalf of some of the notary’s poor relatives. These unfortunates were actually starving to death, while he, their relative, was living like a prince in the magnificent villa he had built at the edge of town, with all those riches he had accumulated — heaven only knows how! — and increased through years and years of usury.
Spatolino stayed out-of-doors all night long (fortunately it was summer), mulling over that mysterious invitation from Ciancarella [fififi… fififh.. fififi—. J. Part of the time he sat, the rest of it he spent strolling up and down the deserted little street.
Since he knew that Ciancarella usually got up early, and he could hear that his wife had gotten up at daybreak and was bustling about the house, he decided to start on his way. He left the old chair out there in the street, confident that no one would steal it.
III
Giancarella’s villa was surrounded by a wall, like a fortress, and had a gate that opened onto the provincial highway.
The old man, who looked like an ugly toad all dressed up, was afflicted with an enormous cyst on the back of his neck, which forced him to keep his large, shaven head continuously bowed and bent to one side. He lived alone in the villa, except for one manservant. But he had a lot of countrymen at his command and they were all armed. He also had two mastiffs whose appearance alone incited fear.
Spatolino rang the bell. Immediately those two ugly beasts flung themselves furiously against the bars of the gate, and didn’t quiet down, not even when the manservant showed up to encourage Spatolino to enter. But Spatolino would not step inside until the dogs’ master, who was drinking coffee in his little ivy-covered arbor in the garden at one end of the villa, called them off with a whistle.
“Ah, Spatolino! Good!” said Ciancarella. “Sit there.” And he pointed to one of the iron stools arranged in a circle inside the little arbor.
But Spatolino remained standing, his little hat caked with sand and plaster in his hands.
“You’re an unworthy son, right?”
“Yes, sir, and I’m proud of it. An unworthy son of Our Lady of Sorrows. What can I do for you?”
“Well,” said Ciancarella, but instead of continuing, he brought the cup to his lips and took three sips of coffee. “A shrine…” (And then another sip.)
“What did you say?”
“I would like you to build me a shrine.” (Still another sip.)
“A shrine, your Lordship?”
“Yes, on the road, in front of the gate.” (Another sip, the last. He set the cup down, and without wiping his lips, rose to his feet. A drop of coffee ran down the corner of his mouth, through the bristly hair of his chin left unshaven for the past several days.) “As I was saying, I’d like a shrine, but not too small, because there’s got to be room in it for a life-sized statue of Christ at the Pillar. On the side walls I want to hang two beautiful paintings, large ones — on one side a Calvary, on the other a Descent from the Cross. In brief, I’d like it to look like a comfortable little room, on a plinth three feet high, with a small iron gate in front, and, of course, a cross on top. Do you understand?”
Spatolino nodded several times with his eyes shut. Then, opening his eyes, he sighed and said:
“But your Lordship is joking, right?”
“Joking? Why do you say that?”
“I think your Lordship wants to joke. Forgive me, but how can I believe that your Lordship is ordering a shrine dedicated to the Ecce Homo?”
Ciancarella made an effort to raise his large, unshaven head a little. He held it with his hand and laughed in that particular and quite peculiar way of his that sounded as if he were whimpering, a result of the malady affecting the back of his neck.
“What! Am I perhaps not worthy of it, in your opinion?”
“No, no, sir, it’s not that. Pardon me!” Spatolino hastened to answer, angered and becoming ever more inflamed. “Why should your Lordship commit a sacrilege like that, without any justification? Let me dissuade you, and forgive me for speaking frankly. Whom do you think you’re fooling, your Lordship? Certainly not God. You can’t fool God. God sees everything and won’t allow your Lordship to fool him. People? But they can see too, and they know that your Lordship…”
“What do they know, imbecile?” the old man shouted, interrupting him. “And what do you know about God, you wretch? Only what the priests told you! But God… Go on! Go on! Is it possible that I have to sit here and argue with you, now… Have you had breakfast?”
“No, sir.”
“Bad habit, my dear man! Am I supposed to offer you some now, huh?”
“No, sir. I don’t want anything.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Ciancarella with a yawn. “Ah! It’s the priests, young man, the priests who have confounded your brain. They go about preaching that I don’t believe in God, right? But do you know why? Because I don’t give them anything to eat. So then, keep quiet; they’ll get enough when they come to consecrate our shrine. I want it to be a splendid celebration, Spatolino. Why are you looking at me like that? Don’t you believe me? Or do you want to know how the idea came to me? In a dream, my boy. I had a dream the other night. Of course, now the priests will say that God has touched my heart. Let them say what they wish, I couldn’t care less! Now then, are we agreed, huh? Speak up… Snap out of it… Have you lost your wits?”
“Yes, sir,” confessed Spatolino, extending his arms.
This time Ciancarella held his head with both hands so as to have a good long laugh.
“Fine,” he then said. “You know how I do business. I don’t want any sort of trouble. I know you’re a fine worker and you do things properly and honestly. Handle it yourself, expenses and all, without bothering me. When you’re finished we’ll settle the account. As for the shrine… did you understand how I want it to be?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When will you start the work?”
“As far as I’m concerned, even tomorrow.”
“And when can it be completed?”
Spatolino hesitated a while to think.
“Well,” he then said, “if it’s to be as large as that, it’ll take at least… what should I say?… a month.”
“That’s fine. Now let’s go see the site together.”
The land on the other side of the road also belonged to Ciancarella, who left it uncultivated and in a state of complete neglect. He had bought it so that he wouldn’t be bothered by anyone who might want to live there in front of his villa. He allowed the shepherds to bring their small flocks to graze there, as if the land belonged to no one. Therefore it wasn’t necessary to ask anyone’s permission to build the shrine. As soon as the site had been established there, right in front of his gate, the old man went back into his villa, and Spatolino, left to himself,
began an interminable fififi fififi— fififi… Then he set off. He
walked and w
alked and finally found himself, almost without knowing how, in front of the door of Father Lagaipa, who was his confessor. Only after he knocked, did he remember that the priest had been sick in bed for the past several days. He should not have disturbed him with that morning visit, but the matter was serious, so he entered.
IV
Father Lagaipa was on his feet, dressed only in a shirt and trousers. He was cleaning the barrels of a shotgun right in the middle of the room, amid the confusion arising from the fact that his womenfolk, a maidservant and his niece, were unable to follow the orders he was giving.
His huge, fleshy nose, all covered with pockmarks like a sponge, seemed to have become even larger as a result of his recent illness. His dark, shiny eyes, one pointing in one direction, the other in another, as if out of fear of that nose, seemed to want to escape from that yellow, worn-out face.
“They’re ruining me, Spatolino, ruining me! A short time ago my young farmhand, ‘Baccala,’ came by to tell me that my fields have become communal property. Why, of course, they belong to everybody! It’s the socialists, understand? They’re stealing my grapes while they’re still green, my prickly pears, everything! What’s yours is mine, understand? What’s yours is mine! I’ll send him this shotgun. ‘Their legs!’ I told him. ‘Shoot them in the legs. The best medicine for them is lead! That’s what they need!’ (Rosina, you silly little goose, I told you to bring me some more vinegar and a clean rag.) What did you want to tell me, my son?”
Spatolino no longer knew where to start. As soon as he pronounced Ciancarella’s name, he heard a torrent of angry curse words, and when he but mentioned the building of the shrine, he saw Father Lagaipa gaze in openmouthed surprise.
“A shrine?”
“Yes, Father, dedicated to the Ecce Homo. I would like to ask your advice, reverend Father, concerning whether I ought to build it for him.”
“You’re asking me? That stupid fool, what did you answer him?”
Tales of Madness Page 5
