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“I’ll show that bitch summat, afore I’ve done!” he muttered to himself.

Across from Alfio’s house lived Farmer Cola, the wine-grower, who was as rich as a pig, so they said, and who had a daughter on his hands. Turiddu so managed it that he got Farmer Cola to take him on, helping in the vines, and then he started hanging round the house, saying nice things to the girl.

“Why don’t you go and say all those sweet nothings to Mrs Lola, over the road?” Santa replied to him.

“Mrs Lola thinks she’s somebody. Mrs Lola’s married my Lord Tomnoddy, she has!”

“And I’m not good enough for a Lord Tom-noddy, am I?”

“You’re worth twenty Lolas. And I know somebody as wouldn’t look at Mrs Lola, nor at the saint she’s named after, if you was by. Mrs Lola’s not fit to bring you your shoes, she’s not.”

“Ah là! it’s sour grapes, as the fox said when he couldn’t reach———”

“No, he didn’t! He said: ‘Ah, but you’re sweet, my little gooseberry!’ “

“Eh! Keep your hands to yourself, Turiddu!”

“Are you afraid I shall eat you?”

“I’m neither afraid of you nor your Maker.”

“Eh! your mother was a Licodia woman, we know it! You’ve got a temper right enough. Oh! I could eat you with my eyes!”

“Eat me with your eyes, then; we shall make no crumbs! But while you’re at it, lift me that bundle of kindling.”

“I’d lift the whole house up for you, that I would.”

She tried to hide her blushes, threw a stick at him which she’d got in her hand, and for a wonder missed him.

“Let’s look sharp! We shall bind no kindling with nothing but talk.”

“If I was rich, I should look for a wife like you, Miss Santa.”

“Eh well! I shan’t marry my Lord Tom-noddy, like Mrs Lola, but I shan’t come empty-handed neither, when the Lord sends me the right man.”

“Oh ay! we know you’re rich enough, we know that.”

“If you know it, then hurry up; my Dad’ll be here directly, and I don’t want him to catch me in the yard.”

Her father began by making a wry face, but the girl pretended not to notice. The tassel of the bersagliere’s cap had touched her heart, swinging in front of her eyes all the time. When her father put Turiddu out of the door, she opened the window to him, and stood there chattering to him all the evening, till the whole neighbourhood was talking about nothing else.

“I’m crazy about you,” Turiddu said.”I can neither eat nor sleep.”

“You say so———”

“I wish I was Victor Emmanuel’s son, so I could marry you.”

“You say so———”

“Oh, Madonna, I could eat you like bread!”

“You say so———”

“Ah, I tell you it’s true!”

“Eh, mother, mother!”

Night after night Lola listened, hidden behind a pot of sweet basil in her window, and going hot and cold by turns. One day she called to him:

“So that’s how it is, Turiddu? Old friends don’t speak to one another any more!”

“Why!” sighed the youth.”It’s a lucky chap as can get a word with you.”

“If you want to speak to me, you know where I live,” replied Lola.

Turiddu went so often to speak to her, that Santa was bound to notice it, and she slammed the window in his face. The neighbours nodded to one another, with a smile, when the bersagliere went by. Lola’s husband was away, going round from fair to fair, with his mules.

“I mean to go to confession on Sunday. I dreamed of black grapes last night,” said Lola.

“Oh, not yet, not yet!” Turiddu pleaded.

“Yes. Now it’s getting near Easter, my husband will want to know why I’ve not been to confession.”

“Ah!” murmured Farmer Cola’s Santa, waiting on her knees for her turn in front of the confessional, where Lola was having a great washing of her sins: “It’s not Rome I’d send you to for a penance, it isn’t, my word it isn’t!”

Master Alfio came home with his mules, and a good load of cash, and brought a fine new dress as a present to his wife, for the festival.