Sparrow by Giovanni Verga

Author:Giovanni Verga [Verga, Giovanni]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Italica Press, Inc.
Published: 2009-03-15T05:00:00+00:00

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November 26

How small-minded we are, my friend, if we can’t judge our own happiness. I’ve written you a letter that is bitterly ironic; I can’t reread it without crying. Listen. There we were, Nino and I, at the window, in silence, happy, dreaming. All of a sudden we heard a noise. Vigilante was barking. We heard my father and Gigi talking. I drew back abruptly and slammed the window. I was trembling all over as if I’d committed a serious offense. My father found me in bed. I had a fever and it lasted all night. Judith didn’t come to see me. I heard her talking in the next room. She sounded annoyed and in quite a bad mood. The next day I was so pale when I got up that my father wanted to send for the doctor. Later, my mother summoned me to her room, and just looking at her face I felt my knees giving way. She talked to me for a long time about her duties and mine, about my vocation, and the need for me to follow through with my vocation because I’m poor. She told me about the dangers a novice can encounter even from innocent friendships and ended by laying down the law. In the future, she said, when guests, even the Valentinis, came to the house, I would have to stay shut up in my little room.

My God, how did I stand the torture of that tongue-lashing? She seemed to enjoy needling me and accusing me of a thousand wrongs without specifying what they were. I couldn’t even figure out if she’d discovered or not that Nino had left the dance to come and see me.

More than once, as she was talking, I felt on the verge of fainting. She didn’t notice how pale I was getting or my trembling or that I’d had to grab the back of a chair because I couldn’t stand up any more. If she’d realized the state I was in, she would certainly have taken pity on me and spared me that torment. Once I could be by myself, I went to lie down on my bed. My fever had risen again. I felt sick and would have liked to die.

Judith didn’t come to see me even then. She had it in for me!... My God, what had I done to her? I felt like a delinquent that everybody avoids and nobody dares come near. I blushed with shame as I looked at the window that stood facing my bed like an inflexible accuser. The loneliness, the neglect made me sick. Toward evening I called my sister. I needed to see her and be comforted. Even my dear father seemed more serious than usual. Judith eventually came, but she seemed to me quite cold. I threw myself into her arms, but my crying fit, which made me feel so much better, only irritated her.

Now I’m all alone. Everybody seems to be avoiding me. I’m loathsome to myself.

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