Sicilian Stories

by Giovanni Verga

  And in that furious July Carnival, amid the intoxicated howls of the hungry crowd, God’s bell continued to sound the alarm, until evening: no noonday chime, no Angelus, just as if it were a Turkish land. They started to disperse, weary of the massacre, feeling dejected, each man avoiding his companions. Before night had set in, all the doors were shut, out of fear, and a light was kept burning in every house. In the narrow streets nothing was heard but the dogs searching every corner, with the sharp sound of bones being gnawed, in the moonlight that bathed the whole scene, revealing the wide-open doors and windows of the deserted houses.

  Day was breaking: a Sunday without people in the square or bells ringing for Mass. The sacristan had gone into hiding; not a priest was to be found. The first people who started to gather in front of the church looked one another in the face mistrustfully, each one reflecting on what his neighbor must have on his conscience. Then, when a

  mormorare. – Senza messa non potevano starci, un giorno di domenica, come i cani! – Il casino dei galantuomini era sbarrato, e non si sapeva dove andare a prendere gli ordini dei padroni per la settimana. Dal campanile penzolava sempre il fazzoletto tricolore, floscio, nella caldura gialla di luglio.

  E come l’ombra s’impiccioliva lentamente sul sagrato, la folla si ammassava tutta in un canto. Fra due casucce della piazza, in fondo ad una stradicciola che scendeva a precipizio, si vedevano i campi giallastri nella pianura, i boschi cupi sui fianchi dell‘Etna. Ora dovevano spartirsi quei boschi e quei campi. Ciascuno fra di sé calcolava colle dita quello che gli sarebbe toccato di sua parte, e guardava in cagnesco il vicino. – Libertà voleva dire che doveva essercene per tutti! – Quel Nino Bestia, e qual Ramurazzo, avrebbero preteso di continuare le prepotenze dei cappelli! – Se non s’era più il perito per misurare la terra, e il notaio per metterla sulla carta, ognuno avrebbe fatto a riffa e a raffa! – E se tu ti mangi la tua parte all’osteria, dopo bisogna tornare a spartire da capo? – Ladro tu e ladro io. – Ora che c’era la libertà, chi voleva mangiare per due avrebbe avuto la sua festa come quella dei galantuomini! – Il taglialegna brandiva in aria la mano quasi ci avesse ancora la scure.

  Il giorno dopo si udì che veniva a far giustizia il generale, quello che faceva tremare la gente. Si vedevano le camice rosse dei suoi soldati salire lentamente per il burrone, verso il paesetto; sarebbe bastato rotolare dall’alto delle pietre per schiacciarli tutti. Ma nessuno si mosse. Le donne strillavano e si strappavano i capelli. Ormai gli uomini, neri e colle barbe lunghe, stavano sul monte, colle mani fra le cosce, a vedere arrivare quei giovanetti stanchi, curvi sotto il fucile arrugginito, e quel generale piccino sopra il suo gran cavallo nero, innanzi a tutti, solo.

  Il generale fece portare della paglia nella chiesa, e mise a dormire i suoi ragazzi come un padre. La mattina, prima dell’alba, se non si levavano al suono della tromba, egli entrava nella chiesa a cavallo, sacramentando come un turco. Questo era l’uomo. E subito ordinò che glie ne fucilassero cinque o sei, Pippo, il nano, Pizzanello, i primi che capitarono. Il taglialegna, mentre lo facevano inginocchiare addosso al muro del cimitero, piangeva come un ragazzo, per certe parole che gli aveva dette sua madre, e pel grido che essa aveva cacciato quando glie lo strapparono dalle

  fair number had assembled, they began to murmur. “We can’t do without Mass on a Sunday, like dogs!” The gentry’s clubhouse was barricaded, and they didn’t know where to go to receive their masters’ orders for the coming week. The tricolored cloth was still dangling from the belltower, limp in the yellow July heat.

  And as the shadows slowly shrank in the churchyard, the whole crowd huddled into one corner. In between two small houses on the square, at the end of a steeply descending narrow street, could be seen the yellowish fields in the lowlands and the somber woods on the slopes of Etna. Now those woods and fields had to be redistributed. Everyone was silently calculating with his fingers the share that would fall to him, while looking daggers at his neighbor. Liberty meant that there should be plenty for everybody! That Nino Beast, and that Ramurazzo,2 would surely try to continue the highhanded ways of the felt hats! With no more surveyor to measure the land, or notary to draw up a deed, everyone would be scrambling for it, catch as catch can. “And if you eat up your share of it at the inn, do we have to start redistributing all over again?” “You’re a thief if I’m a thief!” Now that liberty had arrived, anyone who wanted to eat enough for two would get his head handed to him, just like the gentry! The woodcutter waved his hand in the air as if he were still carrying his axe.

  The next day, they heard that the general, the one who made folks shiver, was coming to mete out justice. His soldiers’ red shirts were seen slowly ascending the gorge in the direction of the village. All it would take to crush them all was to roll some boulders down from above. But no one budged. The women shrieked and tugged at their hair. By this time the men, swarthy and with long beards, were standing on the mountain, their hands dangling between their thighs, watching the arrival of those weary young men, bent under their rusty rifles, and that tiny general on his big black horse, riding alone in front.

  The general ordered straw to be brought into the church, and arranged sleeping quarters for his men as if he were their father. In the morning, before dawn, if they didn’t get up when the trumpet sounded, he’d ride his horse into the church, swearing like a Turk. That’s the kind of man he was. And immediately he issued orders for five or six men to be shot, Pippo, the dwarf, Pizzanello, the first ones who came to hand. While they were making the woodcutter kneel down against the cemetery wall, he wept like a little boy, on account of a few words that his mother had spoken to him, and because of the

  __________

  2. “Nino Beast” is a punning slur on Nino Bixio, the Garibaldian general who was operating in this part of Sicily. “Ramurazzo” refers to some associate of his, or some politician.

  braccia. Da lontano, nelle viuzze più remote del paesetto, dietro gli usci, si udivano quelle schioppettate in fila come i mortaletti della festa.

  Dopo arrivarono i giudici per davvero, dei galantuomini cogli occhiali, arrampicati sulle mule, disfatti dal viaggio, che si lagnavano ancora dello strapazzo mentre interrogavano gli accusati nel refettorio del convento, seduti di fianco sulla scranna, e dicendo ahi! ogni volta che mutavano lato. Un processo lungo che non finiva più. I colpevoli li condussero in città, a piedi, incatenati a coppia, fra due file di soldati col moschetto pronto. Le loro donne li seguivano correndo per le lunghe strade di campagna, in mezzo ai solchi, in mezzo ai fichidindia, in mezzo alle vigne, in mezzo alle biade color d’oro, trafelate, zoppicando, chiamandoli a nome ogni volta che la strada faceva gomito, e si potevano vedere in faccia i prigionieri. Alla città li chiusero nel gran carcere alto e vasto come un convento, tutto bucherellato da finestre colle inferriate; e se le donne volevano vedere i loro uomini, soltanto il lunedì, in presenza dei guardiani, dietro il cancello di ferro. E i poveretti divenivano sempre più gialli in quell’ombra perenne, senza scorgere mai il sole. Ogni lunedì erano più taciturni, rispondevano appena, si lagnavano meno. Gli altri giorni, se le donne ronzavano per la piazza attorno alla prigione, le sentinelle minacciavano col fucile. Poi non sapere che fare, dove trovare lavoro nella città, né come buscarsi il pane. Il letto nello stallazzo costava due soldi; il pane bianco si mangiava in un boccone e non riempiva lo stomaco; se si accoccolavano a passare una notte sull’uscio di una chiesa, le guardie le arrestavano. A poco a poco rimpatriarono, prima le mogli, poi le mamme. Un bel pezzo di giovinetta si perdette nella città e non se ne seppe più nulla. Tutti gli altri in paese erano tornati a fare quello che facevano prima. I galantuomini non potevano lavorare le loro terre colle proprie mani, e la povera gente non poteva vivere senza i galantuomini. Fecero la pace. L’orfano dello speziale rubò la moglie a Neli Pirru, e gli parve una bella cosa, per vendicarsi di lui che gli aveva ammazzato il padre. Alla donna che aveva di tanto in tanto certe ubbie, e temeva che suo marito le tagliasse la faccia, all’uscire dal carcere, egli ripeteva: – S
ta’ tranquilla che non ne esce più. – Ormai nessuno ci pensava; solamente qualche madre, qualche vecchiarello, se gli correvano gli occhi verso la pianura, dove era la città, o la domenica, al vedere gli altri che parlavano tranquillamente dei loro affari coi galantuomini,

  cry she had uttered when he was torn out of her arms. From the distance, in the remotest alleys of the village, behind the closed doors, could be heard those repeated shots, like holiday firecrackers.

  Later the real judges arrived, people of the gentry with eyeglasses, riding on she-mules, haggard from their journey. They were still complaining about the hardship of the trip while they were interrogating the accused in the convent refectory, sitting sideways on their high-backed chairs and moaning every time they shifted sides. It was a long, interminable trial. The guilty parties were brought to the big city on foot, chained in pairs, between two lines of soldiers with their muskets at the ready. Their wives followed them at a run over the long country roads, amid the furrows, amid the prickly pears, amid the vineyards, amid the golden grain; out of breath and limping, they’d call them by name at every bend in the road, when the faces of the prisoners could be seen. In the city the men were locked up in the big prison, as high and vast as a monastery, all riddled with barred windows; if the women wanted to see their husbands, they could do so only on Mondays, with the guards standing by, behind the iron gate. And the poor men became yellower and yellower in that permanent shadow, never catching a sight of the sun. Every Monday they were more taciturn, barely answering their visitors, and complaining less. On the other days of the week, if the women loitered in the square around the prison, the sentries threatened them with their rifles. In addition, they didn’t know what to do, where to find work in the city, or how to earn their bread. A bed in a stable cost two soldi; the white bread was gulped down in a single mouthful, and didn’t fill your stomach; if they squatted at the doorway of a church to spend the night there, the police arrested them. Little by little they went back home, first the wives, then the mothers. One fine figure of a girl got ruined in the city, and nothing was ever heard of her again. All the others back home had returned to their previous occupations. The gentry couldn’t till the land that they owned with their own hands, and the poor folk couldn’t live without the gentry. They made peace. The pharmacist’s orphan stole Neli Pirru’s wife, which he considered a fine thing to do, to take revenge on the man who had killed his father. When the woman had uneasy thoughts from time to time, fearing that her husband might slash her face when he got out of jail, he’d repeat: “Rest easy; he’ll never get out.” By this time nobody thought about the prisoners, except some mother or some old man, if his eyes wandered toward the lowlands, where the city was located, or on Sundays, seeing the others discussing their business calmly with the gentry in front

  dinanzi al casino di conversazione, col berretto in mano, e si persuadevano che all’aria ci vanno i cenci.

  Il processo durò tre anni, nientemeno! tre anni di prigione e senza vedere il sole. Sicché quegli accusati parevano tanti morti della sepoltura, ogni volta che li conducevano ammanettati al tribunale. Tutti quelli che potevano erano accorsi dal villaggio: testimoni, parenti, curiosi, come a una festa, per vedere i compaesani, dopo tanto tempo, stipati nella capponaia – ché capponi davvero si diventava là dentro! e Neli Pirru doveva vedersi sul mostaccio quello dello speziale, che s’era imparentato a tradimento con lui! Li facevano alzare in piedi ad uno ad uno. – Voi come vi chiamate? – E ciascuno si sentiva dire la sua, nome e cognome e quel che aveva fatto. Gli avvocati armeggiavano fra le chiacchiere, coi larghi maniconi pendenti, e si scalmanavano, facevano la schiuma alla bocca, asciugandosela subito col fazzoletto bianco, tirandoci su una presa di tabacco. I giudici sonnecchiavano, dietro le lenti dei loro occhiali, che agghiacciavano il cuore. Di faccia erano seduti in fila dodici galantuomini, stanchi, annoiati, che sbadigliavano, si grattavano la barba, o ciangottavano fra di loro. Certo si dicevano che l’avevano scappata bella a non essere stati dei galantuomini di quel paesetto lassù, quando avevano fatto la libertà. E quei poveretti cercavano di leggere nelle loro facce. Poi se ne andarono a confabulare fra di loro, e gli imputati aspettavano pallidi, e cogli occhi fissi su quell’uscio chiuso. Come rientrarono, il loro capo, quello che parlava colla mano sulla pancia, era quasi pallido al pari degli accusati, e disse: – Sul mio onore e sulla mia coscienza! . . .

  Il carbonaio, mentre tornavano a mettergli le manette, balbettava: – Dove mi conducete? – In galera? – O perché? Non mi è toccato neppure un palmo di terra! Se avevano detto che c’era la libertà! . . .

  of the clubhouse, holding their caps in their hands; and they were convinced that the weakest go to the wall.3

  The trial lasted three years, no less!—three years of prison without seeing the sun; so that the defendants looked as if they had been taken out of the grave, each time they were led to the courtroom in handcuffs. Everyone who was able to had arrived from the village: witnesses, relatives, inquisitive people, as if to a merrymaking, to see their fellow villagers, after all that time, crammed into the jail, that coop for fattening capons—and a man really did become a capon in there! And Neli Pirru was forced to see, right in his face, the face of the pharmacist, who had become a kinsman behind his back! The prisoners were made to rise one by one. “What’s your name?” And each one heard himself stating his Christian name, his family name, and what he had done. The lawyers were bustling around amid the chatter, their wide sleeves hanging down, and were getting excited, frothing at the mouth and immediately wiping away the froth with a white handkerchief, then taking a pinch of snuff. The judges were half-asleep behind the lenses of their eyeglasses, which sent a chill to the heart. Facing them, sitting in a row, were twelve men of the gentry, weary, bored, yawning, scratching their beards or mumbling to one another. They were surely telling one another they’d had a lucky escape not to have been the gentlefolk residing in that little village up in the hills when liberty had been proclaimed. And the poor prisoners were trying to read their expressions. Then they went out to deliberate in seclusion, while the pallid defendants waited, their eyes glued to that closed door. When they returned, their foreman, the one who spoke with one hand on his belly, was almost as pale as the defendants when he said: “On my honor and on my conscience! . . .”

  When they were putting the handcuffs back on the charcoal burner, he stammered: “Where are you taking me? To jail? Why? I didn’t get even an inch of land out of it! And they said we had gotten liberty! . . .”

  __________

  3. Literally: “the rags fly off in the air.”