Part 10 (1/2)

Her son-in-law, when she fixed those eyes on his face, always began to laugh, and would pull out his cloth talisman, with its effigy of the Madonna, to cross himself with.

Maricchia stayed at home to nurse her children, and her mother went out to work in the fields with the men, just like a man,--to weed, to dig, to guide the animals, to dress the vines, whether it were during the Greek-Levant winds[13] of January, or during the August sirocco, when mules let their heads droop, and men sleep p.r.o.ne on their bellies under the shadow of the North wall.

[13] North-east.

In that time between vespers and nones, when, according to the saying, no good woman is seen going about, _gna_ Pina was the only living creature to be seen wandering across the campagna, over the fiery hot stones of the narrow streets, among the parched stubble of the wide, wide fields that stretched away into the burning haze toward cloudy Etna, where the sky hangs heavy on the horizon.

”Wake up!” said _la Lupa_ to Nanni, who was asleep in the ditch next the dusty harvest-field, with his head on his arms. ”Wake up, for I've brought you some wine to cool your throat.”

Nanni opened his eyes, half awake, and saw her sitting up straight and pale before him, with her swelling breast, and her eyes as black as coal, and drew back waving his arms,--

”No! a good woman does not go about between vespers and nones,”

groaned Nanni, thrusting his face in amongst the dried weeds of the ditch as far as he could, and putting his fingers into his hair. ”Go away! Get you gone! And don't you come to the thres.h.i.+ng-floor any more.”

She turned and went away,--_la Lupa_,--knotting up her splendid tresses again, looking down steadily as she made her way among the hot stubble, with her eyes black as coal.

But she did go back to the thres.h.i.+ng-floor, and Nanni no longer reproached her; and when she failed to come, in that hour between vespers and nones, he went, and with perspiration on his brow, waited for her at the top of the white deserted footpath, but afterwards he would thrust his hands through his hair, and every time he would say, ”Go away! Go away! Don't come to the thres.h.i.+ng-floor again.”

Maricchia wept night and day, and she looked into her mother's face with eyes blazing with tears and jealousy, like a _lupachiotta_, a young wolf herself, every time that she saw her coming back from the fields, silent and pale.

”Vile! _scellerata!_” she would say, ”Vile mamma.”

”Hold your tongue!”

”Thief! thief!”

”Hold your tongue!”

”I'll go to the _brigadiere_!”[14]

[14] Brigadiere is the station or the Commandant of the detachment of the Carabaneers in a small town.

And she actually went with her infants in her arms, without a sign of fear, and without shedding a tear, like a crazy woman, because now she pa.s.sionately loved that husband whom she had been forced to marry, greasy and dirty as he was from the olives set to fermenting.

The _brigadiere_ summoned Nanni, and threatened him with the galleys and the gallows. Nanni began to weep, and pull his hair; he denied nothing, did not try to justify himself.

”The temptation was too much,” said he, ”'twas the temptation of h.e.l.l.” He flung himself at the _brigadiere's_ feet, begging him to send him to the galleys.

”For mercy's sake, _Signor brigadiere_, take me out of this h.e.l.l! Have me shot! Send me to prison! Don't let me see her ever again! never again!”

”No,” replied _la Lupa_, to the _brigadiere's_ question. ”I kept a corner of the kitchen to sleep in when I gave him my house as my daughter's dowry. The house is mine. I do not intend to go away.”

Shortly after, Nanni was kicked in the chest by a mule, and was like to die; but the priest refused to bring him the Holy Unction unless _la Lupa_ was out of the house.

_La Lupa_ went away, and her son-in-law was then permitted to pa.s.s away like a good Christian; he confessed and partook of the Sacrament with such signs of penitence and contrition that all the neighbors and inquisitive visitors wept as they surrounded the dying man's bed.

And it would have been better for him if he had died then and there, before the devil had a chance to return to tempt him, and take possession of him, mind and body, when he got well again.