V
It was February when the crisis was reached; they were nearing the end of their stay, and Gian-Luca’s resentment towards Leone had got well-nigh beyond his control. As for the boy, he hated Gian-Luca and went out of his way to enrage him; the weapon he used was the little brown donkey, who must suffer accordingly. Yet as sometimes happens, a very small incident led to the final explosion; Gian-Luca came on Leone one morning thoughtfully tweaking out the donkey’s mane—a painful proceeding, but as heavenly balm when compared with the other torments. For one long minute Gian-Luca stood quite still while Leone looked up and grinned:
“Sai che non sentono niente—” he began. Then he stopped abruptly, for Gian-Luca had swooped forward and seized the discarded whip.
It was all so sudden that Leone knew nothing until he was swung off his feet and the whip was crashing down on his shoulders; over and over again it crashed down and, with every fresh blow Gian-Luca recited the woes of the little donkey.
“Take that for twitching out his mane!” he shouted; “and that for twisting his tongue; and that for prodding the sore on his shoulder; and that for the kick you gave him in the stomach; and that for keeping him all day without water; and that for working him when he was lame. Take that! and that! and that, you young swine! And now you know what it feels like!”
But Leone was yelling as though half-demented, and fighting to get away. The sound of his yells and Gian-Luca’s shouting brought Lidia running with Maddalena, and when Lidia saw the plight of her last-born, she too must start yelling as though she would go mad, and even Maddalena had to lift up her voice: “Gian-Luca! Gian-Luca! Santa Madonna, what are you doing, Gian-Luca?” Lidia was tearing at Gian-Luca’s arm, which was taut and as hard as steel, then she started to thump with inadequate fists, and finally buried her small teeth in the hand that was gripping Leone’s collar. For this comely-faced woman was like something possessed in her fierce defense of her offspring; a primitive thing, a tigress at bay, driven crazy by the howls of her cub. And now Maddalena was reaching for the whip, and she got in the way of the blows; Gian-Luca must either strike her or stop beating, so he had to release Leone.
“Oh, oh! Oh, oh! Oh, oh!” wailed Leone as he dropped in a blubbering heap.
“Well, I am glad that you know what it feels like,” said Gian-Luca; and he turned on his heel and left them.
Lidia knelt down by her cowering son and gathered him into her arms, then her eyes blazed up at the silent Maddalena. “The pig! the devil! the madman!” shrieked Lidia. “To beat my Leone because of a donkey!” And many other things she said in her wrath that are not, as a rule, recorded. When Leone had stopped sobbing and had got to his feet, Lidia pointed to the gates: “Take that madman out of my house!” she babbled. “Go quickly before Sisto comes home to kill him—the outrage, the scandal, to lay hands on our son because of a miserable donkey!”
What could the poor Maddalena answer? It was true that Leone had been thoroughly thrashed, it was also true that the cause of the thrashing had been a Sardinian donkey. And who should know better than Maddalena the pride of the Latins in their children? Gian-Luca’s sin could never be forgiven—he had sinned against the deep-rooted, primitive instinct of personal reproduction.
“My husband and I will go—” she faltered, then her loyalty suddenly came to her aid. “But,” said Maddalena, “we are not afraid of Sisto or of anyone else on earth!” And now she was full of her old, quiet courage, and she looked very straight at her cousin: “Before I go, Lidia, I will tell you what I think: if my husband speaks truly and the beasts feel as we do, then your son is more cruel than the devil himself, and Gian-Luca was right to defend the small donkey who cannot complain when he suffers.”
She turned and went slowly into the house, regardless of Lidia’s abuse. In their bedroom she found a placid Gian-Luca—he was quietly packing their clothes.
He looked up with a smile: “We will go, Maddalena, but I wish we could take the little donkey!”
“We cannot do that,” she told him gravely, “but I am glad that you beat Leone.”
When they came downstairs half an hour later, dragging their trunks behind them, there was Cousin Sisto waiting in the hall—presumably to kill Gian-Luca. But Cousin Sisto was not very large and moreover he dreaded a scandal; the whole village was talking already, it seemed, for a passing peasant had heard the uproar: the news had reached Levanto no doubt by now, to say nothing of the Villa Sabelli. The Marchese was coming home the next day, and he was almost as queer as Gian-Luca, he protested quite freely—when he was not too lazy—about horses and mules and all sorts of creatures; he had even forbidden the caging of richiami, which Sisto had caged all the same. No, Sisto was not particularly anxious for his master to visit the farm—he was merry and he loved pretty women, the Marchese; but once he had stopped to talk to the donkey, and had pointed out the sore on its shoulder, speaking quite sharply to Sisto. So Sisto forbore to slay Gian-Luca, and merely puffed out his cheeks.
“Go!” he said haughtily. “You have outraged my house; you reward hospitality by beating my son. I give you all, all that my poor house can offer, you take it and then beat my son!”
But at that Maddalena became purely a peasant, and a peasant’s memory is long. “And very well we have paid you,” she told him. Then she checked off their numerous payments on her fingers, and, declaimed with much fervor as Maddalena declaimed them, they sounded extremely impressive.
Sisto had ordered a fly from Levanto, anxious to be rid of his boarders, so Gian-Luca got the driver to help him with the luggage; then he and Maddalena were driven to the station, where they waited for the Genoa train.