He hates the man
who has waked him by clapping him on the shoulder.
Pietro is already married, yet he behaves as if he were not. He has been
carrying on with a loose woman, the wife of the citron-coloured barber,
the Siciliano. Then he seats himself on the women's side of the theatre,
behind a young person from Bogliaco, who also has no reputation, and
makes her talk to him. He leans forward, resting his arms on the seat
before him, stretching his slender, cat-like, flexible loins. The
padrona of the hotel hates him--'_ein frecher Kerl_,' she says with
contempt, and she looks away. Her eyes hate to see him.
In the village there is the clerical party, which is the majority;
there is the anti-clerical party, and there are the ne'er-do-wells. The
clerical people are dark and pious and cold; there is a curious
stone-cold, ponderous darkness over them, moral and gloomy. Then the
anti-clerical party, with the Syndaco at the head, is bourgeois and
respectable as far as the middle-aged people are concerned, banal,
respectable, shut off as by a wall from the clerical people. The young
anti-clericals are the young bloods of the place, the men who gather
every night in the more expensive and less-respectable cafe.
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