Tales of My Native Town. Gabriele D'Annunzio
with his mouth a grimace both comic and childish, in order to restrain his grief and force back the tears.
He seized Rosa by both wrists, and thus incited her to speak, to reveal.
“I do not know, Signor,” she answered. “This morning she put her clothes in her portmanteau, sent for Leones’ carriage, and went away without a word. What can you do about it? She will return.”
“Return-n-n!” sobbed Don Giovanni, raising his eyes in which already the tears had started to overflow. “Has she told you when? Speak!” And this last cry was almost threatening and rabid.
“Eh? … to be sure she said to me, ‘Addio, Rosa. We will never see each other again … ! But, after all … who can tell! Everything is possible.’ ”
Don Giovanni sank dejectedly upon a chair at these words, and set himself to weeping with so much force of grief that the woman was almost touched by it.
“Now what are you doing, Don Giovà? Are there not other women in this world? Don Giovà, why do you worry about it … ?”
Don Giovanni did not hear. He persisted in weeping like a child and hiding his face in Rosa Catana’s apron; his whole body was rent with the upheavals of his grief.
“No, no, no. … I want Violetta! I want Violetta!” he cried.
At that stupid childishness Rosa could not refrain from smiling. She gave assistance by stroking the bald head of Don Giovanni and murmuring words of consolation.
“I will find Violetta for you; I will find her. … So! be quiet! Do not weep any more, Don Giovannino. The people passing can hear. Don’t worry about it, now.”
Don Giovanni, little by little, under the friendly caress, curbed his tears and wiped his eyes on her apron.
“Oh! oh! what a thing to happen!” he exclaimed, after having remained for a moment with his glance fixed on the zinc kettle, where the water glittered now under a sunbeam. “Oh! oh! what luck! Oh!”
He took his head between his hands and swung it back and forth two or three times, as do imprisoned monkeys.
“Now go, Don Giovanino, go!” Rosa Cantana said, taking him gently by the arm and drawing him along.
In the little room the perfume seemed to increase. Innumerable flies buzzed around a cup where remained the residue of some coffee. The reflection of the water trembled on the walls like a subtle net of gold.
“Leave everything just so!” pleaded Don Giovanni of the woman, in a voice broken by badly suppressed sobs. He descended the stairs, shaking his head over his fate. His eyes were swollen and red, bulging from their sockets like those of a mongrel dog.
His round body and prominent stomach overweighted his two slightly inverted legs. Around his bald skull ran a crown of long curling hair that seemed not to take root in the scalp but in the shoulders, from which it climbed upward toward the nape of the neck and the temples. He had the habit of replacing from time to time with his bejewelled hands, some disarranged tuft; the jewels, precious and gaudy, sparkled even on his thumb, and a cornelian button as large as a strawberry fastened the bosom of his shirt over the centre of his chest.
When he reached the broad daylight of the square, he experienced anew that unconquerable confusion. Several cobblers were working near by and eating figs. A caged blackbird was whistling the hymn of Garibaldi, continuously, always recommencing at the beginning with painful persistency.
“At your service, Don Giovanni!” called Don Domenico Oliva, as he passed, and he removed his hat with an affable Neapolitan cordiality. Stirred with curiosity by the strange expression of the Signor, he repassed him in a short time and resaluted him with greater liberality of gesture and affability. He was a man of very long body and very short legs; the habitual expression of his mouth was involuntarily shaped for derision. The people of Pescara called him “Culinterra.”
“At your service!” he repeated.
Don Giovanni, in whom a venomous wrath was beginning to ferment which the laughter of the fig-eaters and the trills of the blackbird irritated, at his second salute turned his back fiercely and moved away, fully persuaded that those salutes were meant for taunts.
Don Domenico, astonished, followed him with these words:
“But, Don Giovà! … are you angry … but. …”
Don Giovanni did not listen. He walked on with quick steps toward his home. The fruit-sellers and the blacksmiths along the road gazed and could not understand the strange behaviour of these two men, breathless and dripping with perspiration under the noonday sun.
Having arrived at his door, Don Giovanni, scarcely stopping to knock, turned like a serpent, yellow and green with rage, and cried:
“Don Domè, oh Don Domè, I will hit you!” With this threat, he entered his house and closed the door violently behind him.
Don Domenico, dumbfounded, stood for a time speechless. Then he retraced his steps, wondering what could account for this behaviour, when Matteo Verdura, one of the fig-eaters, called:
“Come here! Come here! I have a great bit of news to tell you.”
“What news?” asked the man of the long spine, as he approached.
“Don’t you know about it?”
“About what?”
“Ah! Ah! Then you haven’t heard yet?”
“Heard what?”
Verdura fell to laughing and the other cobblers imitated him. Spontaneously all of them shook with the same rasping and inharmonious mirth, differing only with the personality of each man.
“Buy three cents’ worth of figs and I will tell you.”
Don Domenico, who was niggardly, hesitated slightly, but curiosity conquered him.
“Very well, here it is.”
Verdura called a woman and had her heap up the fruit on a plate. Then he said:
“That signora who lived up there, Donna Violetta, do you remember … ? That one of the theatre, do you remember … ?”
“Well?”
“She has made off this morning. Crash!”
“Indeed?”
“Indeed, Don Domè.”
“Ah, now I understand!” exclaimed Don Domenico, who was a subtle man and cruelly malicious.
Then, as he wished to revenge himself for the offence given him by Don Giovanni and also to make up for the three cents expended for the news, he went immediately to the casino in order to divulge the secret and to enlarge upon it.
The “casino,” a kind of café, stood immersed in shadow, and up from its tables sprinkled with water, arose a singular odour of dust and musk. There snored Doctor Punzoni, relaxed upon a chair, with his arms dangling. The Baron Cappa, an old soul, full of affection for lame dogs and tender girls, nodded discreetly over a newspaper. Don Ferdinando Giordano moved little flags over a card representing the battlefields of the Franco-Prussian war. Don Settimio de Marinis appraised with Doctor Fiocca the works of Pietro Mettastasio, not without many vocal explosions and a certain flowery eloquency in the use of poetical expressions. The notary Gaiulli, not knowing with whom to play, shuffled the cards of his game alone, and laid them out in a row on the table. Don Paolo Seccia sauntered around the billiard table with steps calculated to assist the digestion.
Don Domenico Oliva entered with so much vehemence, that all turned toward him except Doctor Panzoni, who still remained in the embrace of slumber.
“Have you heard? Have you heard?”
Don Domenico was so anxious to tell the news, and so breathless,