I

Three days after the customary Easter banquet, which in the house Lamonica was always sumptuous and crowded with feasters by virtue of its traditions, Donna Cristina Lamonica counted her table linen and silver while she placed each article systematically in chest and safe, ready for future similar occasions.

With her, as usual, at this task and aiding, were the maid Maria Bisaccia and the laundress Candida Marcanda, popularly known as “Candia.” The large baskets heaped with fine linen rested in a row on the pavement. The vases of silver and the other table ornaments sparkled upon a tray; they were solidly fashioned, if somewhat rudely, by rustic silversmiths, in shape almost liturgical, as are all of the vases that the rich provincial families hand down from generation to generation. The fresh fragrance of bleached linen permeated the room.

Candia took from the baskets the doilies, the table cloths and the napkins, had the “signora” examine the linen intact, and handed one piece after another to Maria, who filled up the drawers while the “signora” scattered through the spaces an aroma, and took notes in a book. Candia was a tall woman, large-boned, parched, fifty years of age; her back was slightly curved from bending over in that position habitual to her profession; she had very long arms and the head of a bird of prey resting upon the neck of a tortoise. Maria Bisaccia was an Ortonesian, a little fleshy, of milk-white complexion, also possessing very clear eyes; she had a soft manner of speaking and made slow, delicate gestures like one who was accustomed habitually to exercise her hands amongst sweet pastry, syrups, preserves and confectionery. Donna Cristina, also a native of Ortona, educated in a Benedictine monastery, was small of stature, dressed somewhat carelessly, with hair of a reddish tendency, a face scattered with freckles, a nose long and thick, bad teeth, and most beautiful and chaste eyes which resembled those of a priest disguised as a woman.

The three women attended to the work with much assiduity, spending thus a large part of the afternoon.

At length, just as Candia went out with the empty baskets, Donna Cristina counted the pieces of silver and found that a spoon was missing.

“Maria! Maria!” she cried, suddenly panic-stricken. “One spoon is lacking.... Count them! Quick!”

“But how? It cannot be, Signora,” Maria answered. “Allow me a glance at them.” She began to re-sort the pieces, calling their numbers aloud. Donna Cristina looked on and shook her head. The silver clinked musically.

“An actual fact!” Maria exclaimed at last with a motion of despair. “And now what are we to do?”

She was quite above suspicion. She had given proof of fidelity and honesty for fifteen years in that family. She had come from Ortona with Donna Cristina at the time of her marriage, almost constituting a part of the marriage portion, and had always exercised a certain authority in the household under the protection of the “signora.” She was full of religious superstition, devoted to her especial saint and her especial church, and finally, she was very astute. With the “signora” she had united in a kind of hostile alliance to everything pertaining to Pescara, and especially to the popular saint of these Pescaresian people. On every occasion she quoted the country of her birth, its beauties and riches, the splendours of its basilica, the treasures of San Tomaso, the magnificence of its ecclesiastical ceremonies in contrast to the meagreness of San Cetteo, which possessed but a solitary, small, holy arm of silver.

At length Donna Cristina said, “Look carefully everywhere.”

Maria left the room to begin a search. She penetrated all the angles of the kitchen and loggia, but in vain, and returned at last with empty hands.

“There is no such thing about! Neither here nor there!” she cried. Then the two set themselves to thinking, to heaping up conjectures, to searching their memories.

They went out on the loggia that bordered the court, on the loggia belonging to the laundry, in order to make a final examination. As their speech grew louder, the occupants of the neighbouring houses appeared at their windows.

“What has befallen you? Donna Cristina, tell us! Tell us!” they cried. Donna Cristina and Maria recounted their story with many words and gestures.

“Jesu! Jesu! then there must be thieves among us!” In less than no time the rumour of this theft spread throughout the vicinity, in fact through all of Pescara. Men and women fell to arguing, to surmising, whom the thief might be. The story on reaching the most remote house of Sant’ Agostina, was huge in proportions; it no longer told of a single spoon, but of all the silver of the Lamonica house.

Now, as the weather was beautiful and the roses in the loggia had commenced to bloom, and two canaries were singing in their cages, the neighbours detained one another at the windows for the sheer pleasure of chattering about the season with its soothing warmth. The heads of the women appeared amongst the vases of basil, and the hubbub they made seemed especially to please the cats in the caves above.

Donna Cristina clasped her hands and cried, “Who could it have been?”

Donna Isabella Sertale, nicknamed “The Cat,” who had the stealthy, furtive movements of a beast of prey, called in a twanging voice, “Who has been with you this long time, Donna Cristina? It seems to me that I have seen Candia come and go.”

“A-a-a-h!” exclaimed Donna Felicetta Margasanta, called “The Magpipe,” because of her everlasting garrulity.

“Ah!” the other neighbours repeated in turn.

“And you had not thought of her?”

“And did you not observe her?”

“And don’t you know of what metal Candia is made?”

“We would do well to tell you of her!”

“That we would!”

“We would do well to tell you!”

“She washes the clothes in goodly fashion, there is none to dispute that. She is the best laundress that dwells in Pescara, one cannot help saying that. But she holds a defect in her five fingers. Did you not know that, now?”

“Once two of my doilies disappeared.”

“And I missed a tablecloth.”

“And I a shift shirt.”

“And I three pairs of stockings.”

“And I two pillow-cases.”

“And I a new skirt.”

“And I failed to recover an article.”

“I have lost——”

“And I, too.”

“I have not driven her out, for who is there to fill her place?”

“Silvestra?”

“No! No!”

“Angelantonia? Balascetta?”

“Each worse than the other!”

“One must have patience.”

“But a spoon, think of that!”

“It’s too much! it is!”

“Don’t remain silent about it, Donna Cristina, don’t remain silent!”

“Whether silent or not silent!” burst out Maria Bisaccia, who for all her placid and benign expression never let a chance escape her to oppress or put in a bad light the other servants of the house, “we will think for ourselves!”

In this fashion the chatter from the windows on the loggia continued, and accusation fled from mouth to mouth throughout the entire district.

II

The following morning, when Candia Marcanda had her hands in the soap-suds, there appeared at her door-sill the town guard Biagio Pesce, popularly known as “The Corporal.” He said to her, “You are wanted by Signor Sindaco at the town-hall this very moment.”

“What did you say?” asked Candia, knitting her brows without discontinuing her task.

“You are wanted by Signor Sindaco at the town-hall this very moment.”

“I am wanted? And why?” Candia asked in a brusque manner. She did not know what was responsible for this unexpected summons and therefore reared at it like a stubborn animal before a shadow.

“I cannot know the reason,” answered the Corporal. “I have received but an order.”

“What order?”

The woman because of an obstinacy natural to her could not refrain from questions. She was unable to realise the truth.

“I am wanted by Signor Sindaco? And why? And what have I done? I have no wish to go there. I have done nothing unseemly.”

Then the Corporal cried impatiently, “Ah, you do not wish to go there? You had better beware!” And he went away muttering, with his hand on the hilt of his shabby sword.

Meanwhile several who had heard the dialogue came from their doorways into the street and began to stare at the laundress, who was violently attacking her wash. Since they knew of the silver spoon they laughed at one another and made remarks that the laundress did not understand. Their ridicule and ambiguous expressions filled the heart of the woman with much uneasiness, which increased when the Corporal appeared accompanied by another guard.

“Now move on!” he said resolutely.

Candia wiped her arms in silence and went. Throughout the square everyone stopped to look. Rosa Panara, an enemy, from the threshold of her shop, called with a fierce laugh, “Drop the bone thou hast picked up!”

The laundress, bewildered, unable to imagine the cause of this persecution, could not answer.

Before the town-hall stood a group of curious people who waited to see her pass. Candia, suddenly seized with a wrathful spirit, mounted the stairs quickly, came into the presence of Signor Sindaco out of breath, and asked, “Now, what do you want with me?”

Don Silla, a man of peaceable temperament, remained for a moment somewhat taken aback by the sharp voice of the laundress and turned a beseeching look upon the faithful custodians of the communal dignity. Then he took some tobacco from a horn-box and said, “Be seated, my daughter.”

Candia remained upon her feet. Her hooked nose was inflated with choler, and her cheeks, roughly seamed, trembled from the contraction of her tightly compressed jaws.

“Speak quickly, Don Silla!” she cried.

“You were occupied yesterday in carrying back the clean linen to Donna Cristina Lamonica?”

“Well, and what of it? Is she missing something? Everything was counted piece by piece ... nothing was lacking. Now, what is it all about?”

“One moment, my daughter! The room had silver in it...!”

Candia, divining the truth, turned upon him like a viper about to sting. At the same time her thin lips trembled.

“The room had silver in it,” he continued, “and now Donna Cristina finds herself lacking one spoon. Do you understand, my daughter? Was it taken by you ... through mistake?”

Candia jumped like a grasshopper at this undeserved accusation. In truth she had stolen nothing. “Ah, I? I?” she cried. “Who says I took it? Who has seen me in such an act? You fill me with amazement ... you fill me with wonder! Don Silla! I a thief? I? I?...”

And her indignation had no limit. She was even more wounded by this unjust accusation because she felt herself capable of the deed which they had attributed to her.

“Then you have not taken it?” Don Silla interrupted, withdrawing prudently into the depths of his large chair.

“You fill me with amazement!” Candia chided afresh, while she shook her long hands as if they were two whips.

“Very well, you may go. We will see in time.” Without saying good-bye, Candia made her exit, striking against the door-post as she did so. She had become green in the face and was beside herself with rage. On reaching the street and seeing the crowd assembled there, she understood at length that popular opinion was against her, that no one believed in her innocence. Nevertheless she began publicly to exculpate herself. The people laughed and drifted away from her. In a wrathful state of mind she returned home, sank into a condition of despair and fell to weeping in her doorway.

Don Donato Brandimarte, who lived next door, said to her by way of a joke:

“Cry aloud, Candia. Cry to the full extent of your strength, for the people are about to pass now.”

As there were clothes lying in a heap waiting to be boiled clean she finally grew quiet, bared her arms and set herself to work. While working, she brooded on how to clear her character, constructed a method of defence, sought in her cunning, feminine thoughts an artificial means for proving her innocence; balancing her mind subtly in mid-air, she had recourse to all of those expedients which constitute an ignorant argument, in order to present a defence that might persuade the incredulous.

Later, when she had finished her task, she went out and went first to Donna Cristina.

Donna Cristina would not see her. Maria Bisaccia listened to Candia’s prolific words and shook her head without reply and at length left her in a dignified way.

Then Candia visited all of her customers. To each one she told her story, to each one she laid bare her defence, always adding to it a new argument, ever increasing the size of the words, becoming more heated and finally despairing in the presence of incredulity and distrust as all was useless. She felt at last that an explanation was no longer possible. A kind of dark discouragement fastened upon her mind. What more could she do! What more could she say!

III

Donna Cristina Lamonica, meanwhile, sent for La Cinigia, a woman of the ignorant masses, who followed the profession of magic and unscientific medicine. Previously, La Cinigia had several times discovered stolen goods and some said that she had underhand dealings with the thieves.

Donna Cristina said to her, “Recover the spoon for me and I will give you a rich present.”

La Cinigia answered, “Very well. Twenty-four hours will suffice me.” And after twenty-four hours she brought the news, “The spoon is to be found in the court in a hole adjacent to the sewer.” Donna Cristina and Maria descended to the court, searched, and to their great astonishment found the missing piece.

The news spread rapidly throughout Pescara. Then in triumph, Candia Marcanda immediately began to frequent the streets. She seemed taller, held her head more erect and smiled into the eyes of everyone as if to say, “Now you have seen for yourselves?”

The people in the shops, when she passed by, murmured something and then broke into laughter. Filippo Selvi, who was drinking a glass of brandy in the CafÉ d’Angeladea, called to Candia, “Over here is a glass waiting for Candia.”

The woman, who loved ardent liquor, moved her lips greedily.

Filippo Selvi added, “And you are deserving of it, there is no doubt of that.”

A crowd of idlers had assembled before the cafÉ. All wore a teasing expression upon their countenances. Filippo La Selvi having turned to his audience while the woman was drinking, vouchsafed, “And she knew how to find it, did she? The old fox....”

He struck familiarly the bony shoulder of the laundress by way of prelude.

Everyone laughed.

Magnafave, a small hunchback, defective in body and speech and halting on the syllables, cried:

“Ca-ca-ca—Candia—a—and—Cinigia!” He followed this with gesticulations and wary stutterings, all of which implied that Candia and La Cinigia were in league. At this the crowd became convulsed with mirth.

Candia remained dazed for a moment with the glass in her hand. Then of a sudden she understood. They still did not believe in her innocence. They were accusing her of having secretly carried back the spoon, in agreement with the fortune-teller as to the placing of it, in order to escape disgrace.

At this thought, the blind grip of rage seized her. She could not find words for speech. She threw herself upon the weakest of her tormentors, which was the small hunchback, and belaboured him with blows and scratches. The crowd, taking a cruel pleasure in witnessing the scuffle, cheered itself into a circle as if watching the struggle of two animals, and encouraged both combatants with cries and gesticulations.

Magnafave, terrified by her unexpected madness, sought to flee, dodging like a monkey; but, detained by those terrible hands of the laundress, he whirled with ever-increasing velocity, like a stone from a sling, until at length he fell upon his face with great violence.

Several ran forward to raise him. Candia withdrew in the midst of hisses, shut herself up in her house, threw herself across her bed, weeping and biting her fingers. This latest accusation burnt into her more than the former, particularly because she realised that she was capable of such a subterfuge. How to disentangle herself now? How make the truth clear? She grew desperate on thinking that she could not bring to the aid of her argument any material difficulties that might have hindered the execution of such a deceit. Access to the court was very easy; a never closed door was on the first landing-place of a large staircase and in order to dispose of waste matter and to attend to other diverse duties, a quantity of people passed freely in and out of that doorway. Therefore she could not close the mouths of her accusers by saying, “How could I have got in there?” The means for accomplishing such an undertaking were many and simple, and on this very lack of obstacles popular opinion chose to establish itself.

Candia therefore sought different persuasive arguments; she sharpened all her cunning, imagined three, four, five separate circumstances that might easily account for the finding of the spoon in that hole; she took refuge in mental turnings and twistings of every kind and subtilised with singular ingenuity. Later she began to go around from shop to shop, from house to house, straining in every way to overcome the incredulity of the people.

At first they listened to her enticing arguments for a diversion. At last they said, “Oh, very well! Very well!” But with a certain inflection of the voice which left Candia crushed. All her efforts then were useless. No one believed!

With an astonishing persistency, she returned to the siege. She passed entire nights pondering on new reasons, how to construct new explanations, to overcome new obstacles. Little by little, from the continuous absorption, her mind weakened, could not entertain any thought save that of the spoon, and had scarcely any longer any realisation of the events of every day life. Later, through the cruelty of the people, a veritable mania arose in the mind of the poor woman.

She neglected her duties and was reduced almost to penury. She washed the clothes badly, lost and tore them. When she descended to the bank of the river under the iron-bridge where the other laundresses had collected, at times she let escape from her hands garments which the current snatched and they were gone forever. She babbled continuously on the same subject. To drown her out the young laundresses set themselves to singing and to bantering one another from their places with impromptu verses. She shouted and gesticulated like a mad woman.

No one any longer gave her work. Out of compassion for her, her former customers sent her food. Little by little the habit of begging settled upon her. She walked the streets, ragged, bent, and dishevelled. Impertinent boys called after her, “Now tell us the story of the spoon, that we may know about it, do, Candia!”

She stopped sometimes unknown passersby to recount her story and to wander into the mazes of her defence. The scapegoats of the town hailed her and for a cent made her deliver her narration three, four times; they raised objections to her arguments and were attentive to the end of the tale for the sake of wounding her at last with a single word. She shook her head, moved on and clung to other feminine beggars and reasoned with them, always, always indefatigable and unconquerable. She took a fancy to a deaf woman whose skin was afflicted with a kind of reddish leprosy, and who was lame in one leg.

In the winter of 1874 a malignant fever seized her. Donna Cristina Lamonica sent her a cordial and a hand-warmer. The sick woman, stretched on her straw pallet, still babbled about the spoon. She raised on her elbows, tried to motion with her hands in order to assist in the summing up of her conclusions. The leprous woman took her hands and gently soothed her.

In her last throes, when her enlarged eyes were already being veiled behind some suffusing moisture that had mounted to them from within, Candia murmured, “I was not the one, Signor ... you see ... because ... the spoon....”