The House by the Medlar-Tree
Giovanni Verga
Paperback
(RareBooksClub.com, Oct. 12, 2012)
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1890 edition. Excerpt: ...galley-slave's work it was from Monday morning till Saturday night--and he was tired of wearing out his soul for nothing, for when one has nothing, what good can come of driving away from morning till night, with never a dog to be friends with one either, and for that he had had enough of such a life. He preferred rather to da nothing at all, and stay in bed, as if he were sick, as they did on board ship when the service was too hard, for the grandpapa wouldn't come to pull him and thump him like the ship's doctor. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Nothing. Only I'm a poor miserable devil." "And what can be done for you, if you are a poor miserable devil? We must go on as we come into the world." He let himself be loaded down with tackle, like a beast of burden, and the whole day long never opened his mouth except to growl and to swear. On Sunday 'Ntoni went hanging about the tavern, where people did nothing but laugh and amuse themselves; or else he sat for whole hours on the church steps, with his chin in his hands, watching the people passing by, and pondering over this hard life, where there was nothing to be got by doing anything. At least on Sunday there was something that cost nothing--the sun, the standing idle with hands in one's pockets; and then he grew tired even of thinking of his hard fate, and longing to bask again in the strange places he had seen when he was a soldier, and with the memory of which he amused himself on working-days. He only cared to lie like a lizard basking in the sun. And when the carters passed, sitting on their shafts, he muttered, "They have an easy time of it, driving about like that all day long"; and when some poor little old woman came from the town, bent down...