Sparrow (and other stories)

by Giovanni Verga

  And you, too, are engaged to be married, my dear Marianna. You write that you’re happy. I hope so. But in your happiness don’t forget your poor friend who has more need than ever of your affection. Come and see me once in a while, when you have time. If you only knew how happy I am in those few rare moments when I see the people who love me. You know, it’s an act of charity to visit poor prisoners!

  You who are betrothed, you who are happy, tell me what joy and celebration and jubilation my sister must be feeling. Tell me what must be in her heart at the prospect of remaining for ever at her beloved’s side, free of doubt, remorse and fear, blessed and feted and cosseted by everyone. Tell me what happiness it must be to think that she will be his, and that he will belong to her; that she will see him every day, at every hour, and hear him speak; that she will rest on his arm, and whisper in his ear everything that passes through her mind; that she will be called by his name, and see the day when she will cradle his children in her arms and teach them to love him, and to pray for him to the good Lord. To think that everything will be a joy, and there will be no end to that joy. How good the Lord is, to grant such happiness! I’ve been told that the wedding’s on Sunday … God bless them!

  Sunday, 29 March, midnight

  My dear Marianna, I’m writing to you from my cell, by night, afraid that my small light might be seen through the curtain and even this meagre comfort of being completely openhearted with you will be taken away from me. What a day this has been for me, Marianna! Will my suffering never end?

  I’m alone, shivering with cold. All is silence. There’s only the sound of the clock’s pendulum, like the footsteps of a ghost moving down these long, dark corridors. I spent all day in the chancel, praying and weeping before God. Now I’m weak and tired, I can’t take any more, but I’m a little calmer. Today’s Sunday! You’ll appreciate the full significance of that word – I’ll say no more … It was today!

  You know, they brought me refreshments from the wedding! Don’t they remember I’m ill and that such things would be bad for me?

  Yet how were they to remember? Everyone’s so happy, this is a day of rejoicing … It’s my fault for being such a poor sickly, tiresome wretch. What a celebration it must have been!

  I couldn’t sleep at all last night. And they can’t have slept either, waiting for this Sunday to dawn … dreaming, open-eyed, of those flowers and wedding outfits, of the crowd and those smiling faces …

  I, too, pictured all those things. I saw Giuditta, looking so beautiful in her bridal gown, with her white veil and crown of orange blossom, and him, holding out his hand, smiling at her … They entered the church, surrounded by friends and relatives, by their loved ones … The altar was all lit up, and the organ was playing. Then they knelt down and called on God as a witness to their happiness.

  God who is merciful must have allowed him to forget that evening when he took my hand, and the words that he said to me, and the starlight, and that stormy night when he came to say goodbye to me, and his knock at the window, and my coughing fit …

  I, too, have forgotten … I want to forget …

  It’s all over now … everything …

  You see, Marianna, that I’m resigned, that God has taken pity on me! Tomorrow I’ll be preparing myself for this great step with spiritual exercises. I shan’t write to you; I shan’t see anybody ever again, not even my father. This is a torment to me.

  Could that happy couple, in the tumult of their happiness, have spared a few moments’ thought for this poor woman, dying here, alone and forsaken?

  Come to the ceremony. It’ll be on Sunday, 6 April – another Sunday, as you see … only this will be a sad one! Will you come? I’ll expect you. Goodbye (don’t you think this is a very gloomy word?).

  Saturday, 5 April

  I’m writing a hurried note to remind you that I’m expecting you, that I have need of you, all of you, that I have need of strength and courage.

  They brought me my veil, flowers and new gown – it’s a lovely bridal gown. The final preparations are being made. Tomorrow’s the day …

  You should see what unusual activity there is, what excitement and jubilation! It’s a festive occasion for all these poor recluses. This vast sepulchre only comes to life when it opens up for another victim.

  It’s a lovely April day. The weather has been bad until today, but now there’s brilliant sunshine. I went out on the terrace for a last breath of life.

  I saw so many things from up there, Marianna – the fields, the sea, that huge mass of buildings, and Etna, far away in the distance … And all these things seemed to have an air of sadness about them …

  I’d like to have seen Monte Ilice one last time, and our little house, and that lovely chestnut grove … I couldn’t, nor shall I ever see them again … I feel a pang, here, in my heart!

  A hubbub from the road reaches the belvedere – the sound of carts and carriages, of voices, of people working, to-ing and fro-ing … All these people going about their business have their joys and sorrows, they work, and live … And these birds fly far away from here …

  Tomorrow, in a few hours’ time, between me and all this life around me will rise an insurmountable wall, an abyss, a word, a vow …

  How shall I get through this coming night? If only I had you here with me, at least …

  I’m scared!

  God, sustain me!

  Monday, 7 April

  My sister! Have you ever heard the dead speak from the grave?

  I’m dead! Your poor Maria is dead. They laid me out on the bier and covered me with a funeral shroud, they recited the requiem, and the bells tolled … It’s as though something funereal were weighing on my spirit and my limbs were inert. Between me and the world – nature, life – there’s something heavier than a tombstone, more silent than the grave.

  It’s a terrifying spectacle – that of Death amid the exuberance of life and the tumult of the passions, that of the soul seen by the body to expire, of matter surviving spirit.

  I open my eyes as though in a trance. I gaze out into infinity, amid this darkness, and silence, this still calm … Everything is infinitely distant. I see you as in a dream, beyond the confines of reality. Is it you that has vanished into the void, or I that have strayed into nothingness?

  I’m still in a daze. I feel as though I were wandering about in a vast tomb, as though all this were a dream … that it couldn’t last for ever, and I was bound to wake up. I witnessed a solemn spectacle, but it didn’t seem to be for me … I felt that I, like everyone else, was attending a funeral, a lugubrious religious ceremony, but that when the music fell silent and all the bells stopped ringing, when the candles were extinguished and the priests filed out to the sacristy, when all those people got up to leave, I, too, would leave and not have to remain alone here … where I feel scared … I saw all that funereal, heart-wringing ceremonial – and was I at the centre of it all? Was I the one that was dying? Those people in their Sunday best, that music and bell-ringing, those lights – were they all for me? And could I possibly have consented to die? Could I have been willing to die?

  They dressed me as a bride, with a veil, a crown, and flowers. They told me I was beautiful. God forgive me, but I was pleased, only because he would have seen me like that! They led me up to the grille. You saw me. I couldn’t see anybody – I saw a cloud of incense, a blurred throng, and many candles burning, and I heard the organ playing. Then they closed the curtain, stripped me of that lovely gown, removed the veil and flowers, and clothed me in a habit, without my having any awareness of what was happening. I couldn’t see or hear anything … I let them do as they pleased, but I was trembling so much that my teeth were chattering. I thought of my sister’s lovely wedding dress, of the ceremony she would have taken part in without experiencing the dismay that then overwhelmed me. The curtain was drawn back again. All the people were still there, watching, listening, with an avid curiosity that chilled me with inexplicable terror. They loosened my hair an
d I felt it come right down over my hands, which I kept joined together. They gathered it all up in a fistful … then came a rasp of steel … I thought I’d been seized with a shiver of fever, but it was the touch of coolness on my neck from that cold implement in my hair. Otherwise, I had only a confused idea of what was happening. I saw my father, crying. Why was he crying? I saw my mother, Giuditta, and Gigi … At Giuditta’s side there was another person looking very pale, and watching me with staring eyes. At that moment the rasp of those cold scissors seemed to drown the priests’ chanting, the organ music, and my father’s sobs. My hair fell all around me in heaps of curls, in whole tresses … and tears fell from my eyes. Then the organ became mournful, and it sounded to me as though the bells were lamenting. They laid me on the bier, and covered me with a funeral pall. All those black figures gathered round me; pale and as impassive as ghosts, they watched me, chanting, with candles in their hands. The curtain closed. From the church came the shuffling of all those people leaving. Everyone was abandoning me, even my father. The ghosts hugged me, and kissed me. They had cold lips and they smiled without making a sound.

  All this meant that I was dying! And how was it that it took only this to quieten all the passions seething in my breast? To stifle them? How could that ceremony – the candles, the bier, the scissors – have had the power to leave me devoid of feeling, and my senses dulled. How had they got me to bury myself alive, and give up all God’s blessings – air, light, freedom, and love?

  And still I’m sinning! Still! Even after I’m dead! But my sin will die, too. Here, where my heart used to be, there’s nothing now. These are the last throes of life, the struggle of a spirit that doesn’t want to die. I think, I groan, I’m troubled and distressed, but it won’t be for long. I spent the whole night unable to sleep, or dream, or think. What have they done to me? What have they done? That’s what I ask myself in terror. All night, that face is always there, above the curtain … his face … that watched me, pale and silent, with staring eyes, while the scissors rasped incessantly in my hair. I haven’t the strength to cry any more: I’m overwhelmed with emptiness.

  No, it’s not true! The strange mystery that has taken place hasn’t brought me any closer to God. It’s left me in the dark, in the void; it’s annihilated me. I don’t know what’s inside me any more: there’s a silence that terrifies me.

  15 May

  I’m writing to you from my bed. I’m very ill. My dear Marianna, if you could only see how the fever has devoured my flesh. I look at my poor pale and trembling hands, and they’re so thin that I think I can see the blood flowing through my veins. I have a hot, burning sensation here in my chest.

  Today I’m feeling a little better, and I’m strong enough to write to you. I wish I could chat to you and think of those happy days that were full of life and joy, but everything around me is so dismal that even if I close my eyes and dream of the past, I don’t have the heart to smile. I’ve been very poorly, but the Lord hasn’t forsaken me. They’ve transferred me to the sick-room, which was a great blow. At least in my little cell I had lots of memories that, although painful, I nevertheless cherished; but here, everything seems so gloomy, as if every sick nun had left behind the spectre of her suffering. Who knows how many nuns have died here? Perhaps in this very bed! And as these thoughts occur to me, during the long, sleepless nights when I’m racked with fever, I’m seized with an uncontrollable shudder, and I see ghosts shrouded in black veils creeping quietly along the walls, causing the dim light of the lamp in the corridor to waver … and I feel scared and hide my head under the sheets. I cry from morning until evening, remembering that dear little room at Monte Ilice with its friendly walls that knew me, where I was with my family, with that lovely sunshine and fresh air, and those beloved faces … And when my heart has more need of comfort and affection, all I see around me are the faces of the nursing sisters, grown impassive through familiarity with the sight of suffering. And the light that comes through the window is pale, wan, and sickly. Joyful spring has visited the earth without sending a single one of its festive colours to this forsaken corner of pain and misery.

  Yesterday a little white butterfly came flitting by and settled on the window-pane. You, who’ve been blessed by God, and are able to see the sun and fill your lungs with deep breaths of fresh air, can’t conceive of the sense of tenderness a butterfly’s visit, or the scent of a flower can bring to the heart of a sick nun! It’s as though the whole joyful panoply of spring – the perfumed breeze, the greenness of the meadows, the skylark’s early-morning song – were gathered round that butterfly and had come to cheer the sad home of all these desolate women. Alas, having rested for a moment on that sorry little flower growing out of a crack in the window-sill, the butterfly flew off, fluttering its wings, and disappeared into the blue. It was free, and happy, and perhaps had seen all these pale faces and all these tears!

  In two or three days, I hope to be able to get up for an hour or two. I’ll force myself, as long as they let me return to my little cell … as long as they let me out of here …

  Who knows when I’ll be able to see you again? I feel so drained of strength that it seems to me that I may never get out of this bed again.

  I’ve come back to this letter two or three times, and yet you couldn’t possibly imagine how much effort it’s cost me to write it … However, it’s been a great comfort … the only comfort left to me. I wish I could keep on chatting to you, because in the meantime I stop thinking about my suffering, about being here … and lots of other horrible things besides. But now I’m exhausted. I’ve written a long letter, haven’t I – a very long letter for a poor sick person like me! You’ll have some difficulty in deciphering my writing because my hand’s unsteady, but you love me, so you’ll be able to tell what I’ve written … and what I haven’t written.

  I should thank God even for this illness. It’s somewhat stupefying. I feel as though I’m dreaming, and I still don’t fully understand what’s happened to me … When I wake up, God will give me strength …

  Goodbye.

  27 May

  Why have you all abandoned me, Marianna? Even my father! Even you! Here I am, all alone, suffering, in this huge corridor, where there’s not a ray of sunshine, and no loving faces. I’m in a state that would wring compassion from a stone. I’m going to die, Marianna. Your poor friend will die here and never see you, or her father, again.

  I thought I was getting better; I’d hoped to be leaving this dreadful sick-room. I’ve got worse, and no one’s hiding from me the seriousness of my condition.

  If I were to die here, alone!

  The nights are terrible, Marianna! Those long hours that never end! That flickering light, that crucifix, those gloomy pictures, those stifled groans, that snoring from the nursing sisters asleep in the armchairs. I have a raging thirst and daren’t disturb the sisters, who grumble, poor things, when they keep being wakened. Last night I tried to drag myself over to the little table to quench the burning dryness inside me. I felt as if I were going mad with thirst. But I’d no sooner got out of bed than I fell to the ground in a faint, and cut my head badly. I was found in a pool of blood …

  Dawn comes, pale, sad, and unsmiling. Night falls, full of fears and shadows. I think of my father, my little family, of all those things that would allay even these present sufferings, and I cry and cry, and my chest feels sore.

  My God! If I were to die here? If I were to die … without seeing my father?

  It must be a terrible moment, Marianna! I’m frightened at the thought of being alone, with no one to comfort me … If I could only see my father, at least! Don’t you think it’s barbarous not to let us see those dearest to us at least one last time at that solemn moment? The only comfort I have is that of writing to them, as I write to you. But when I can’t write any more – what then? If my papa had any knowledge of even a fraction of what I’m suffering!

  It costs me so much effort to write to you. In those rare moments when I feel a
little revived, I force myself to write two or three lines: it makes me feel that I have a hold on life again – and I assure you that I cling to it desperately. But my hand shakes so much that I can’t even read what I’ve written, and I’m so feeble-headed I don’t know what my mind is telling me. I have to come back to the letter ten times to write ten lines.

  That charitable soul Filomena comes to see me every day and brings me your news. God bless her for the comfort she gives to this poor sick woman! I can’t tell you how precious to my desolate heart is the smallest favour, or the least sign of sympathy … I’ve such great need of being loved … and loving intensely, since life is slipping away from me!

  3 June

  O Marianna! Tomorrow they’re going to give me the Last Rites! Is my condition so serious, then?

  Yet I don’t feel as if I’m about to die …

  O God, thy will be done!

  Outside the window the sun’s still shining, and you can hear the sound of all those people moving about, living … a sunbeam coming through the window has settled on my bed …

  What a world there is in a ray of sunshine! Everything it sees and casts its light on at any moment … countless joys, and sorrows, and people who love each other … and him!

  Under the eaves there’s a swallow’s nest – the sun shines for them, too …

  O God!

  Yet how can I die without seeing my father? May I never see him again? O God! I’m resigned to dying, but I wish I could see my father one last time … Poor papa, who doesn’t know that I’m dying … Why haven’t they told him? Why haven’t they sent for him? There’s no telling how much he’ll grieve for me!

  To think of dying – of dying so young … I’m not yet twenty!