Free Beautiful Antonio by Vitaliano Brancati Page A

other.
    â€œTell friend Angelo,” cried Antonio in tones of elation “that in no time at all I’m going to marry that girl you saw passing just now… and that I’m delighted at the prospect!”
    So saying he rested his eyes upon the statue of the Madonna up there on the church of the Carmine, and retained them there devoutly, as one who, in an act of thanksgiving, presses his forehead to the ground before an altar.
    â€œAnd what about your political opinions? What shall I tell friend Angelo about those?” enquired the other.
    â€œOh,
those
… What do they matter?” replied Antonio, grasping the pharmacist’s hand in both of his.
    That very same evening he entered his parents’ bedroom and announced that he was all agog to marry Barbara.
    His father, beside himself with joy, rushed in his long johns out onto the terrace and summoned Avvocato Ardizzone to announce the gladsome tidings.
    â€œ
Rara avis!
” replied the old lawyer, actuated merely by the wish to pronounce, in open air and cavernous voice, the phrase he had learnt two hours previously; the which, there in the darkness, amongst the jumbled encumbrance of chimney-pots and the glint of star-lit balustrades, was perfectly meaningless. “
Rara avis!
” My most hearty congratulations and felicitations thereupon!”
    But his daughter Elena, who had heard Signor Alfio’s words from her place of concealment behind the shutters of the French windows, clutched at a heart that writhed like a fish in the net, and was by no means of her father’s opinion.
    â€œHe’s been and gone and done it!” she murmured, at first in a tone of voice that struggled to appear bantering, but that gradually gave place to rage. “He’s gone and done it! That’s the way they carry on here in Catania! Go off and marry a girlthey’ve never clapped eyes on and take not a mite of notice of their next-door neighbour!”
    â€œElena, my dear!” exclaimed her father, administering a great shove with his shoulder to get her back behind the shutter from which she was elbowing to emerge.
    â€œYes, it’s true, it’s true! When you have a young girl right under your nose, you might at least glance at her, before committing a bloomer in another neighbourhood!”
    â€œBut Elena!…”
    â€œThe fact is that I’m hapless, hapless, I was born hapless! The stars do not favour me, the saints do not sweat for me, it was not my lot – and my father, instead of hankering after the Senate, might have…”
    â€œElena, Elena, Elena!” shrieked the old man in three different keys, going wildly off pitch on the last
Elena!
, as if clappering a cracked bell. “You don’t know what you’re saying. Elena, come now, Elena, Elena!”
    Another crack in his voice. Then he turned to Signor Alfio with, “Do forgive me, kind friend. Please have the condescension to pardon me and once again accept my… my… Good night, dear friend.”
    And the old lawyer flung the French windows to with a tremendous clatter.
    Quite early next morning Elena hurled down onto the Magnano terrace three bulky volumes of love-journals in which, along with sketches, pressed butterflies, violets, palm-leaves – all things which had lived and flourished fifteen years before – was pasted a photograph of Antonio astride a wooden rocking-horse: the only copy of that photo, the loss of which had saddened Signora Rosaria.
    These journals plummeted onto the terrace while Antonio was engaged in watering the pots of cacti. He did not lose his composure but continuing to sprinkle water among prickles and petals, he turned the pages with his toe, his eye lighting here and there upon a sentence containing words in capital letters. For example: “I would let HIM walk on my FACE,”or “From three o’clock until eight always thinking the same THING,” or else