Sparrow (and other stories)

by Giovanni Verga

  I gazed at his house again … it looks sad and frightened, alone, cold and silent, lost at the bottom of the valley. I closed my window for the last time. I watched as the twilight faded from these window-panes and the stars came out in the firmament, one by one. By the light of the last evening’s candle the walls have a special look: this trestle-bed, this crucifix, these pieces of furniture, all these little things have become animate, they’re sad, and they’ve wished me goodbye … And I am sad … I cried, and my heart felt lighter.

  Catania, 9 January

  My dear Marianna, if you were expecting to see me, there was no point – we didn’t go through Mascalucia; it would have made our journey much longer and the weather was bad. We’ve been here since yesterday evening, and tomorrow I’m going back to the convent …

  We left Monte Ilice at about ten, with rain threatening, but that couldn’t be helped – everything was ready for our departure and mama wouldn’t have wanted to unpack the trunks and cases again, not for all the gold in the world. And so much the better – what was the point of staying there any longer? Even the sky seemed to be driving us away. Nevertheless, I crossed the threshold of that house with a heavy heart.

  I wanted to take a last look at those little rooms, the lawn, the steward’s cottage, the dry-stone wall, that fine chestnut tree with its branches spread over the roof. I fondly touched the walls and the furniture in my little room. I opened my window for the last time, to hear the hinges creak. I walked round the house to see my window from the outside, as he must have seen it … to try to identify the place where he stood …

  Everyone was happy – Giuditta, Gigi, papa and mama. Vigilante frisked about, poor thing, not realizing that we were deserting him. The steward’s wife wished us a safe journey, while her children clung to her skirts. A little bird shivering with cold came and settled on a small leafless branch of the tree, and it, too, began to cheep plaintively.

  We set off on foot. The mules were waiting at the bottom of the valley to take us down to Trecastagne, for as you know, you can’t come any further up these mountains except on horseback. Every now and again, we’d turn to take a last look at the place we were leaving. At the bend in the lane, further down in the valley, we passed by his house … I didn’t have the heart to look, and yet the smallest details are engraved on my mind. His window has green shutters and one of the panes of glass is broken. On the sill there’s a patch of damp where the pot of jasmine used to be. The wind has ripped away the vine from above the door, and cast it to the ground. On the lawn in front of the door lie bits of broken glass and scraps of letters and rain-sodden newspapers blown this way and that by the wind, and there’s still a broken pipe on the sill. All these things speak, and what they say is, ‘He’s not here any more! He’s gone away! We’re alone!’

  This was the lane that he took to come to us. He must have walked along it so often! From there, he’d have seen our house peeping through the chestnut trees – countless times he must have seen it! And countless times he must have rested his gaze on these moss-covered stones, and sat here with his splendid dog lying at his feet … Marianna, I can’t bear all these memories!

  The mules took us down to Trecastagne, where the carriage was waiting for us. Poor Vigilante was all over us, urging us to take him along. What could I do? I gave him a hug, and it almost brought tears to my eyes to see him being forcibly dragged away by the steward, who put him on a leash.

  I turned to take a last look at my beloved Monte Ilice. I could no longer see the house, the cottage, or the vineyard, only the brown mass of the forest; the rest was lost in the mist, and white with snow. We climbed into the carriage and left.

  When we came into town, my heart lightened immensely. I looked out of the window and seemed to recognize him in every person I encountered … They must have thought me shameless! When I saw a group of people, I couldn’t help sticking my head out of the window – I was all in a turmoil, sure that I was going to see him there … The carriage went swiftly past, and it wrang my heart to think that I hadn’t time to pick him out among those people. Does anyone know where the Valentini live? This question came to my lips countless times, but I didn’t have the courage to voice it. Catania’s so vast! It’s not like being in our beloved mountains, where you always knew where to find someone you were looking for. These great roads seemed forbidding, all these people looked sad. We arrived at the house – my stepmother’s house … I felt like a stranger in the family … they were all so delighted to be back …

  I wonder whether the Valentini will be aware of our arrival, and whether they’ll come? I wonder whether I’ll see him passing in the street? O God! Our street’s so deserted! No one comes here for a walk … unless … But he might … Who knows where he could be walking at this moment? And what if I were seen at the window?

  My stepmother’s told me that I’m going back to the convent tomorrow. She must have thought this would comfort me – she doesn’t realize that I felt chilled with terror …

  I’d stopped thinking about it … But I must resign myself … That’s my home. God will forgive me and soothe this poor heart that should never have gone away from Him.

  I shall see my cell again, my crucifix, my flowers, the church, my fellow postulants … all except you! You’re not coming back to the convent! The Lord’s will be done. At least you’ll occasionally come to visit your poor friend who’s so unhappy … Who knows whether I’ll be able to write to you and confide in you any more?

  Goodbye! Goodbye!

  10 January

  These few lines are perhaps the last that I shall write to you. The carriage is waiting below. Papa, mama, Gigi and Giuditta are all dressed up to accompany me.

  I’ve cried. I’m now wiping my eyes and taking my last breath of freedom.

  The Valentini came to say goodbye. He wasn’t with them. They hugged me. How Annetta and I cried!

  I shall go downstairs and climb into the carriage, and in twenty minutes it will all be over.

  Goodbye to you, too, goodbye. My heart is breaking.

  From the convent, 30 January

  I didn’t want to let the end of the month go by without writing to you. You might have thought that I was sad and unhappy, whereas here, at the foot of the altar, in the austere observance of our rule, I’ve found, if not peace, at least a quietness of heart.

  It’s true, that you get a feeling of overwhelming dismay as you enter this place, and hear the door shut behind you, suddenly seeing yourself bereft of air and light, down in these corridors, amid this tomb-like silence and monotonous drone of prayer. Everything saddens the heart and instills it with fear: those black figures to be seen passing beneath the dim light of the lamp burning before the crucifix, figures that meet without speaking to each other, and walk without a sound, as if they were ghosts; the flowers withering in the garden; the sun that tries in vain to penetrate the opaque glass in the windows; the iron railings; and the brown twill curtains. You can hear the world going on outside, its sounds faded to a whisper, deadened by these walls. Everything that comes from outside is weak and muted. I’m alone among one hundred other forsaken souls.

  I’ve also lost the consolation of my family. I can only see them in the presence of lots of other people, in a big gloomy room, through the double grating over the window. We can’t hold hands. All homely intimacy is gone, leaving nothing but phantoms speaking to each other through the screens, and I’m always wondering if that really is my father, the father who used to smile at me and hug me; if that’s the same Giuditta who used to dance with me; and if that’s the Gigi who used to be so bright and cheerful. Now, they’re grave, cold and melancholy. They look at me through the grille, as if peering into a tomb, in which they, the living, observe corpses that talk and move.

  Yet all these hardships, all these austere practices serve to detach the heart from earthly frailty, isolating it, making it think of itself, and imparting to it the still calm that comes from God and from the thought that our pi
lgrimage on earth is thereby shortened. I’ve confessed. I confessed everything – everything! That kindly priest took pity on my poor sick heart. He comforted and counselled me, and helped me to tear the demon from my breast. I feel freer, easier, more worthy of God’s mercy.

  Tomorrow I begin my noviciate. They tried to delay it for a few more days because of my delicate health (I’ve never completely recovered from the illness I suffered up at Monte Ilice: I have a fever every two or three days, and every night I cough), but God will give me the strength to endure the ordeal of this noviciate. From now on, only very rarely will we be able to see each other, and I won’t be able to write to you because I shan’t so often see Filomena, the kind-hearted lay sister who has been sending you my letters.

  I shan’t even be seeing my poor papa any more … The Lord’s will be done!

  Marianna, pray for me to God, that I might undergo this trial with resignation.

  8 February 1856

  I’ve completed my noviciate. I was granted a dispensation because of my health, which is still very poor. I often have a fever, I cough, and I’ve grown so weak that the least effort exhausts me. Yet my heart is at peace, and that is the greatest blessing God could have granted me. Sometimes frailty rebels, and temptation assails me again. Then I prostrate myself at the foot of the altar, I spend all night kneeling on the cold paving of the chancel, I mortify my body with fasting and penance, and when the flesh is subdued and passions quelled, temptation is overcome and peace returns.

  This year of trial has been very difficult, but God has enabled me to triumph. I saw my family depart at the sudden outbreak of cholera last summer, and I felt abandoned even by my loved ones … I went out on the terrace and fixed my gaze on that wonderful place where I was with them for a while … Ah, what good times they were! I thought of many things … yes, admittedly, I cried, and sometimes I felt weak, but in the end I triumphed.

  Everything here serves to close the mind in on itself, to circumscribe it, to render it mute, blind and deaf to all that is not God. Yet even at the foot of the cruficix, when those temptations assailed me, and I remembered our little house, those fields, the cottage, the fire on which the steward’s wife used to cook her soup, I’d think about that poor peasant-woman, cuddling her babies on her lap, without any of my temptations, doubts and regrets, and I wondered whether she might not be closer to God than I who mortify my rebellious spirit with many penances.

  How often have I not envisaged those mountains, woods and bright sky! And how often have I not said, ‘At this time of day, they’re sitting together beneath the chestnut tree. Now, they’re strolling down the paths through the vineyard, and now Vigilante is barking, and the birds are twittering under the eaves!’ And when I’ve awakened as if from a dream, I’ve found my face all wet with tears.

  And then there’s another thought … another ghost … there … always there, fixed before my eyes … at the foot of the Cross, in the midst of the crowd attending mass, at my bedside, behind that green twill curtain – the temptation that grabs me by the hair, and drags me from my prayer, that makes me cry and sends me into a frenzy …

  There have been times when I thought I was going mad – and I thanked God for it, because the mad are blameless. I think I see him down among all those people in the church, on Sundays. I cross myself, and appalled, in tears, I rush to the foot of my confessor. The good old man tries to comfort me, and he prescribes the penances supposed to remove this stain from my heart but that prove ineffectual because I’m a great sinner …

  Yet he might have come to church at least once … to hear mass … without even looking up at the choir … but only to show himself … He must know that I’m here, and he hasn’t tried to see me!

  O God! Forgive me, Marianna … you see how much at fault and how wretched I am! It’s the devil assailing me when I least expect it … How often, when praying to the Lord to take this cross away from me, have I not looked down into the church to see if he were there, searching for him among the crowd! And my prayer has died on my lips! And my thoughts have lingered on him … lost in reverie, dreaming of running through the fields, of listening for his footstep and that knock on the window, gazing up at those stars, touching that hand as it stroked that fine gun-dog’s head, and hearing in my ears the name ‘Maria’, that might have come from heaven …

  O God! I’m weak and very frail … but I fight and struggle with myself … My God, I’m not to blame! It’s stronger than me, stronger than my will, my remorse and my faith.

  You write that you are happy, and glad to be outside the convent. My dear Marianna, thank the good Lord for sparing your mother, and for sparing you from being born poor, for not having driven this thorn into your heart, or having made you weak, hysterical, excitable and sickly.

  Only when this flesh is dissolved will I cease to suffer. That’s why I would like to detach myself from the world that clings to me stubbornly, and I look up to heaven and raise my arms in entreaty …

  Now that I’ve been reunited with my dear Filomena, who takes pity on my sorrows and allows me the comfort of writing to you and receiving your letters, I’ll write to you a few more times before taking my solemn vows. You will come to the ceremony, won’t you?

  I want to say goodbye, through the grille, amid the clouds of incense and the sound of the organ, to all those who are dear to me. I want all those friendly faces to sustain me in this difficult step, because my poor heart is frail. I need to be able to gaze into your eyes, and those of my papa, my sister, Gigi, and Annetta, when I hear the rasp of the scissors in my hair …

  I’m scared, Marianna, I’m scared! I’m scared of those scissors … of that moment … I’m scared of him … if he were to come to the church that day … My God! No, no, I’m weak … for pity’s sake … You’ll come with my father, Giuditta, my brother, mama, Annetta and the Valentini … My God! Thy will be done!

  27 February

  My dear Marianna, my sister … I thought I was inured to pain, but this has caught me unawares, rending me, crushing me, annihilating me! Here I am, weaker and more wretched than before! My God! And now this! Now this!

  Do you know what I’ve heard, Marianna? Do you know what I’ve heard? Could you ever have imagined it! I’ve been extremely ill for more than two weeks. Now I’m up, writing to share my tears with you.

  What is this wretched thing inside me that groans and suffers, that can’t tear itself away from all this misery and raise itself to God?

  They shouldn’t have told me … They’ve no mercy! No, it’s just that I’m weak. It’s my fault, and God is punishing me.

  Signor Nino is going to marry my sister … do you hear? They came to bring me the glad tidings! It’s a good marriage … they’re both rich … Giuditta is pleased and happy … I didn’t have the courage to ask them to spare me the ordeal of the usual visit … because he will come, too … I sense that I shan’t have the strength for this further sacrifice … it will kill me …

  And will he have the strength for it?

  Yet I’ll pray so hard to God … for me … and for him … I’ll flagellate myself and weep so much that God will give both of us the strength to get through this cruel ordeal.

  I’ve cried until I’ve no tears left to shed.

  My chest aches, my mind is wandering. I wish I could sleep. Most of all, I wish the Lord would spare me this pain …

  God’s will be done!

  28 February, midnight

  Praise be to God! The ordeal’s over. I thought I’d die, but it’s in the past now, all over and done with …

  They’d informed me, as well as all the other nuns in our family, the abbess and the novice mistress. We waited in the big hall outside the parlour. I was sitting between Mother Superior and the novice mistress. They arrived exactly on time. I heard the carriage stop at the door, and the sound of their footsteps as they climbed the stairs and approached the grille. I rose unsteadily to my feet … I couldn’t see anything … I heard the bell summonin
g me … The novice mistress opened the curtain. I clung to the drapes and collapsed on to the wooden bench. I saw a blur of faces crowding the grille, but they couldn’t have seen me – it was dark on this side. They talked. After a while I was able to hear them. My stepmother talked, and so did papa … Giuditta didn’t say anything, and neither did he … My sister, wearing a pink dress and matching bonnet, looked happy. He was sitting beside her, holding his hat, and stroking it with his gloves. I didn’t cry … It seemed as though I was dreaming. I was surprised not to be suffering more … Then they stood up. My father said goodbye to me, mama gave me a smile, Giuditta blew me a kiss, Gigi asked for some sweets … He bowed. I watched him walk away. He was at Giuditta’s side. At the door he gave her his arm. Then the door closed, their footsteps faded away until they couldn’t be heard any more. The carriage left … and silence remained. Nothing else! Nothing! I’m alone!

  10 March

  In a month’s time I shall take the veil. Preparations for the occasion are already under way. Everyone showers me with affection. Not a day goes by that papa and mama don’t come to see me. They want to celebrate the event. There’ll be music, fireworks, and guests. My dear papa seems happy that I, too, should be gaining status, as he puts it. Giuditta has also come, several times. If you could only see how beautiful her happiness makes her! God bless her!