Read Online Cavalleria rusticana and Other Stories by Giovanni Verga - Free Book Online

hot as it is in June, the distant meadows were beginning to turn brown, the shadows cast by the trees had a festive air about them, and the grass beneath their feet was still green and flecked with dew.
    Towards midday they sat in the shade to eat their black bread and their white onions. Janu also had some of that special Mascali wine, and he never stopped handing it over to Nedda, so that the poor girl, who was not used to drinking so much, was getting a thick head and a furry tongue to go with it. From time to time their eyes met and they burst out laughing for no apparent reason.
    ‘If we were husband and wife we could eat bread and drink wine together every day,’ Janu said, with his mouth full, and Nedda lowered her eyes because of the way he was looking at her. The deep silence of noon enveloped them all around, the tiniest leaves of the trees were motionless, shadows were rare; the air was filled with a stillness, a warmth, a sensuous murmuring of insects that made the eyelids droop. The loftiest tops of the chestnuts suddenly started to sigh in a fresh breeze coming off the sea.
    ‘It’s going to be a good year for the poor as well as the rich,’ said Janu, ‘and at harvest time, God willing, I shall put aside a bit of money… and then, if you love me…!’ He handed her the flask.
    ‘No, I won’t drink any more,’ she said, blushing all over her face.
    ‘Why do you turn so red?’ he said, laughing.
    ‘I won’t tell you.’
    ‘Is it because of the wine?’
    ‘No!’
    She struck him on the shoulder and started laughing.
    In the distance they heard the braying of a donkey that had caught a whiff of fresh grass.
    ‘Do you know why the donkeys are braying?’ Janu asked.
    ‘You tell me, since you know the reason.’
    ‘Of course I know. They’re braying because they’re in love,’ he said, staring at her with a meaningful smile on his lips. She lowered her eyes as though they were dazzled by flames of fire, and she felt as if all the wine she had drunk had gone to her head, and all the warmth of that golden sky was rushing through her veins.
    ‘Let’s go now!’ she exclaimed, tormentedly shaking her head, still heavy with the wine.
    ‘What’s the matter?’
    ‘I don’t know, but let’s go, quickly!’
    ‘Do you love me?’
    She nodded her head.
    ‘Will you marry me?’
    She looked him calmly in the eyes and gripped his rough hand tightly between her own dark hands, at the same time raising herself unsteadily on to her knees in order to get away. Distraught, he held on to her by her dress, murmuring unintelligible words, as though no longer in control of his actions.
    When they heard the crowing of a cock from the nearby farm, Nedda suddenly sprang to her feet and looked anxiously all around.
    ‘Let’s go! Come on, let’s go!’ She was all flushed, and the words came out from her lips in a rapid stream.
    As she was about to turn the corner before reaching her cottage she paused for a moment and trembled, as though afraid she would find her old mother waiting on the doorstep, deserted now for six whole months.
    Then it was Easter, the joyous festival of the countryside, with its enormous bonfires, its merry processions through fields turning green and beneath trees laden with blossom, with the village church decked out in all its glory, the cottage doorways festooned with flowers, and the girls parading abroad in their bright new summer dresses. Nedda was seen in tears as she came away from the confessional, and failed to appear among the girls lined up at the choir to receive communion. From that day forth no respectable girl addressed so much as a single word to her, and when she went to Mass she found no room in her usual pew, and had to stay on her knees for the whole service. Whenever they saw her crying they conjured up all the nasty sins they could think of, and turned their backs on her in horror. And anyone offering her a job of work took advantage to lower her day’s