Original subtitles

* for the marmoset and in memory of Barnabé, the cat.

Sicilia, Sicilia, sings a shepherdess

Sicilia, Sicilia, plays the little spring;

The air and the sun fill every soul with poetry

Sicilia, Sicilia, fatherland, homeland to me!

There's no cheese like ours.

You aren't Sicilian, are you?

Why not?

A Sicilian

never eats in the morning. You're an American,

aren't you?

Yes. I am American.

Have been for 15 years.

I have cousins in America. An uncle and cousins.

And on which end? In New York or in Argentina?

I don't know that. In America.

Where are you from then?

Me? I was born in Syracuse.

No. From which end of America are you?

From... from New York.

How are things in New York? Good?

You don't get rich there.

Who cares? You can be happy without being rich.

That's even better.

Who knows! There's unemployment there, too.

And what does that matter?

It's not always the unemployment

that does harm.

That's not it. I'm not unemployed myself. Nobody here is.

We work. In the gardens.

Have you come back because of unemployment?

No. I've come back just for some days.

I see. And you eat in the morning.

In America, does everybody eat in the morning?

I think so, yes.

And for lunch, they all eat?

One way or another...

And in the evenings?

For good or for bad...

Bread? Bread and cheese? Bread and vegetables? Bread and meat?

Yes, bread and other things.

They eat salad.

In America?

No, here.

Here? Salad with oil?

Yes, with oil. And a bit of garlic, and salt.

And with bread?

Sure, with bread.

As a child, I've always eaten that.

Ah, you have eaten it?

So you've been well, too?

So-so.

You have never eaten oranges with salad, have you?

Yes, I have, a few times. But there isn't always oil.

It's not always a good year.

Oil can be expensive.

And there isn't always bread.

If we don't sell oranges, there's no bread.

But why!

Is it so difficult to sell oranges?

They don't sell very well. Nobody wants them.

The foreigners don't want them.

And the boss pays us like that, he gives us the oranges.

And we don't know what to do. Nobody wants them.

We go to Messina by foot, and nobody wants them.

We go see if somebody wants them in Reggio, at Villa San Giovanni,

and they don't want them. Nobody wants them.

We go back and forth, we pay the trip,

we don't eat bread,

nobody wants them.

As if they were poisoned. Accursed oranges.

But what does that guy want?

It seems he is protesting.

He's got it with someone.

I'd say he's got it with everybody.

I'd say that myself, too. He's a real have-not.

If I'd been down there, I'd have stopped him.

You would have done nothing more than your duty.

Naturally.

Characters like that, you always have to stop them.

Indeed. You never know.

Every have-not is a dangerous man.

Capable of everything.

Of robbing.

That goes without saying.

Of stabbing people.

Without a doubt.

And even of committing political crimes.

Whatever class they're from... Whatever their state is...

Be they ignorants... Be they knowledgeable...

No difference.

Shop-owners...

Lawyers...

My butcher in Lodi...

And in Bologna, a lawyer...

You see, they don't have respect.

They have no consideration.

But that's why we are Sicilians.

That's it, why we are Sicilians,

but in the countryside, in Sicily, it's even worse.

Myself, in Mussumelini...

In Sciacca, my mother

doesn't say what I do, she's afraid to say it,

and she says that I'm employed at the register of real estates.

At the register of real estates!

That's a question of prejudices.

I know... of old prejudices.

Me, I don't know why I've returned here.

And maybe I know it?

To get what out of it?

To ruin your intestines...

To poison your blood...

Don't you smell that stench?

Stench? What stench?

What? You don't smell it?

I don't know.

I don't know what stench you're talking about.

Unbelievable! He doesn't know what stench I'm talking about.

I really don't know. I don't smell any stench.

The Signore talks about the stench coming from the corridor.

There's a stench coming from the corridor?

That's unbelievable! He doesn't smell it!

The monsieur talks about the smell coming from those two there.

Those two there?

Those two over at the window? They smell?

Ah, that stench! That stench!

It's strange. Nowhere in the whole world

are they less regarded

than in Sicily.

And despite of that, it's always the Sicilians, in Italy,

who do that job.

All of the Sicilians?

Really!

It's been 15 years that I've walked Italy. I've seen Florence,

I've seen Bologna, Turin,

and I've seen Milan,

and everywhere where I found a Sicilian,

he did that job.

That's also what my cousin says,

who travels.

After all, that's understandable.

We are a sad folk.

Very sad. Grim, even.

Always ready,

all, to be pessimistic, always hoping of something else, something better,

desolate about being able to have it. Always discouraged.

Always demoralized. And always

with the temptation to take one's life.

It's possible that that's true.

But what's the relation to doing that job?

I don't know how to express it, but I think that there is a relation.

What does one do, when one gives himself up?

When he throws himself out wholeheartedly?

He does what he hates most to do.

I'm from Leonforte,

up there, in the valley Demone, between Enna and Nicosia,

I'm a landlord with three beautiful daughters,

three girls, one prettier than the other,

and I have a horse,

on which I ride through my land and think of myself as a king,

but it doesn't seem to me that there's everything there, being a king

when I mount the horse, and I want to gain another consciousness,

to feel different with something new in my mind,

I'd give everything that I possess,

the horse even, my land,

to feel more at peace with the people

like somebody who has nothing to reproach himself with.

Not that I have anything particular to reproach me with.

Not at all. And I won't talk no longer like in a church.

But it's not like me, to be at peace with the people.

I'd like to have a fresh conscience,

one that demands me to accomplish other tasks,

not those I'm used to, others, new tasks, higher tasks,

towards the people, because after completing those habitual tasks

there's no satisfaction, and one stays as if he hadn't done anything,

displeased with himself, disappointed.

I think that man is mature for another reason.

Not only for not stealing, not killing, etc.,

and for being a good citizen.

I believe that he is mature

for another thing, for other duties, new ones.

It's this, that we feel, I think,

the lack of other duties, other things to accomplish. Things to do for

our conscience, in a new sense.

I think that you are right. Are you a professor?

There's nothing to laugh about, old man, there's nothing to laugh about.

Ah, I think that that's exactly it. We feel more satisfaction

when we accomplish our duty, our duties. To accomplish them does not

matter to us.

We feel bad no matter what.

And I believe that it's exactly because of that,

because it's the too old duties,

too old and having become too easy,

are no longer significant for the conscience.

But really, you aren't a professor?

Do I look like a professor?

I'm not an ignorant,

I can read a book if I want to,

but I'm no professor. Kid, I was with the Salesians

but I'm no professor.

You allow me, don't you?

Sure, how couldn't I?

It seems to me that I have seen you walk down to Catane.

Ah, you have seen me?

But I've accompanied a friend to the train from Caltanissetta.

I've entered the last wagon at the last minute.

I hardly had any time.

I was preoccupied with my suitcases!

Yes, you never know.

That's true, isn't it?

You never know. With those dubious characters around.

I work at the register of real estates.

Oh, really?

And what do you do? You're going home on holiday?

Yes, I'm going on holiday. To Sciacca, to the countryside.

To Sciacca. And are you from far away?

From Bologna. I work there.

And my wife is from there. My children, too.

And you go to Sciacca through here?

Yes, through here.

Syracuse, Spaccaforno, Modica, Genisi, Donnafugata...

Vittoria, Falconara, Licata.

Girgenti...

Agrigente, please.

Don't you mind continuing through Caltanissetta ?

Yes, I do mind, and it costs me eight lire.

But here you always go along the ocean.

Do you like the ocean?

I don't know.

I think that I like it. I definitely like that

train route.

Do you stay in Syracuse?

I stay there.

Do you live there?

No.

I do not live there.

But you don't have anybody in Syracuse?

So you go there for business.

No, no.

You have a nice baritone-voice.

Why? Don't you know it?

Oh, as for knowing it, I know it.

Naturally.

You couldn't have lived until now

without knowing it.

It's a pity that you're employed at the register of real estates

instead of being a singer.

Yes. I would have liked that.

In Falstaff, in Rigoletto, on all stages in Europe...

Or even on the streets, who cares?

Still better than being an employee.

Oh, yes, maybe...

We've arrived at Syracuse.

I think I'll catch my connecting train right away.

But what do you do in Syracuse?

How have you recognized me?

That's what I'm asking myself, too.

Come. I have a herring over the fire.

You'll see how good it is.

Have we eaten that when I was a child?

And how!

Herrings in winter and paprika in summer.

That was how we've eaten all the time. Don't you remember?

And beans with cardoons.

Yes, beans with cardoons,

you've always wanted a second plate of that. And I also cooked lentils

with onion, dried tomatoes and ham...

And a scion of rosemary, right?

Yes. And a scion of rosemary.

Did I always want a second plate of that, too?

And how! You were like Esaà¼...

You'd have given your birthright

for a second plate of lentils.

I can still see you coming home from school,

at three or four in the afternoon, by train.

Yes, with the freight train, in the baggage wagon...

First me all by myself,

then me and Felix, then me, Felix and Liboire...

All of you cheeky, the head full of hair,

and a black face, the hands always black.

And you'd always ask me: Are there lentils today, Mom?

In those houses by the railroad tracks

where we lived. You got on the train at the station,

to San Cataldo, Serradifalco, Acquaviva, all those places we've been to

and you had to go one or two kilometers by foot to arrive at the house...

Yes. Sometimes even three kilometers.

The train would pass and I'd know that you were on your way home,

and I'd put the lentils on the oven,

the herring on the grill and then I'd hear you cry: "Earth, earth."

Earth? Why that, earth?

Sure, earth! One of your games.

And then, one time, in Racalmuto,

the house was on a hill

and the train had to slow down,

and you learned to leave the running train

and you came down in front of the house,

and I was so afraid that something had happened to you, I'd wait for you

outside with a stick.

And you beat us up?

And how!

I'd hit your legs with that stick.

And in some cases, I'd send

you to bed without eating.

Don't you make some soup, for yourself?

Are you talking to me? I've hardly ever eaten soup

in my whole life. I cooked for you and your father,

but for myself, those were my meals:

Herrings in winter, grilled paprika in summer,

a lot of oil, a lot of bread.

Always like that?

Sometimes with olives, too, of course,

and sometimes pork, sausages,

when we had a pig...

In some years we had pigs in the houses near the tracks,

we'd raise them with figs from Barbarie and then we'd kill them...

We had chickens too, didn't we?

Yes, we had some, naturally.

We made mustard...

We made all sorts of things.

Sun-dried tomatoes... Bread from figs.

We were fine. We had wire netting!

Those were places for malaria, most of the time.

With cigales!

I believe that they were responsible for the malaria, those cigales!

Maybe that's why you've caught so many?

But I think that it was their singing, the malaria,

not they themselves... I caught them?

And how!

Twenty, thirty each time.

I can imagine that I thought they were crickets...

What did I do with them?

I think you ate them.

Yes. You and your brothers.

How is that possible?

Maybe you were hungry.

We were hungry?

Maybe you were.

But I thought we were doing fine!

Yes. Your father earned money

at the end of every month, and so so for ten days we lived fine,

we made all the farmers and poor people envy us.

But after the first ten days

we became like them. We'd eat snails.

Yes, and wild chicory.

They didn't eat anything besides snails?

Yes, all the poor people

didn't eat anything besides snails, out of habit.

And we were always poor

for the last twenty days of every month.

And we ate snails for twenty days?

Snails and wild chicory.

I can imagine that it was good, after all.

Very good.

We could cook them in many ways.

Simply boiled for example. Or with garlic and tomatoes.

Or crumbed and fried.

What an idea! With the shell?

That goes without saying!

We ate them and sucked them out of the shell.

Don't you remember?

I remember, I remember...

It seems to me that all the taste was in the sucking.

We'd spend hours sucking...

Was he a great man, grandfather?

And how! Didn't you know that?

He was a great man. He could work for eighteen hours every day,

and he was a great socialist,

a great hunter,

and he was a great horseman at the procession of St. Joseph.

He rode a horse at the procession of St. Joseph?

And how! He was a great rider,

better than everybody from the country, even from Piazza Armerina.

Why did you want that they do the parade without him?

But he was a socialist...

He was a socialist.

He could neither read nor write but he understood politics

and he was a socialist.

How could he ride behind St. Joseph if he was a socialist?

Socialists don't believe in St. Joseph.

What an animal you are! Your grandfather

wasn't a socialist like all the others. He was a great man.

He could believe in St. Joseph and be socialist.

He was occupied with a lot of things at the same time. And he was socialist

because he understood politics. But he could

believe in St. Joseph. He didn't say anything against St. Joseph.

But after all, the priests,

I guess, did say something against it?

And what did they matter to him, the priests?

But the procession was

an affair of the priests!

You're quite an ignorant!

The parade were horses and men on horses.

It was a cavalcade.

The cavalcade

started right over there. There is a little church

that you can't see, on that mountain, but they illuminated it , inside

and outside, and it became a star,

and the parade started from the church with lanterns and bells,

and descended the mountain.

That was always in the night, of course. You'd see the lanterns

and I'd know, that at the head there was my father,

a great cavalier,

and we all waited at the place down there

and on the bridge.

And then the parade entered the woods,

we no longer saw the lanterns, we only heard the bells.

That took a long time, and then the parade emerged on the bridge,

with the loud ringing of the bells

and with the lanterns and with him ahead

as if he was a king...

I think I can remember.

As if!

You weren't older than three the one time that you saw it.

But why are you staring at me?

I can't look at you?

Bah, if you want to stare at me, stare at me...

But what did father think to go away

with another woman

at his age?

What do you know about that?

He wrote me about it.

The coward! He wrote you

that he saw another woman and that he left me,

that he went away with her! What a coward!

Why? Isn't it true?

Why, do you want it to be true?

Don't you remember what a coward he was?

A coward?

But yes. When he hit me, he'd start to cry afterwards

and asked me to forgive him...

It's obvious that he didn't like that.

That he didn't like that!

As if I didn't know how to defend myself,

and to deal out blows myself. Maybe it was that that he didn't like.

And he also cried whenever I gave birth.

I was the one suffering, but I didn't cry,

And he, he cried. Do you see what a weakling he was?

I can imagine that he didn't like to see you suffer.

He didn't like that! Why wouldn't he like that? I wasn't going to die.

He'd better given me a hand

instead of crying.

What could he have done?

What? What he could have done?

Don't you do anything, when your wife is giving birth?

Eh well, I was with her...

You see, you do something.

But he, he wasn't even there.

I was all alone in that solitude,

and there were so many things to do,

like preparing the hot water,

but he didn't know better than to cry. Or he ran

to the neighbour's house to call the women from there.

That, that he liked, having other women in the house,

but they didn't come right away,

and I needed help,

I cried at him to help me, to take me, to hold me in his arms,

and he cried. He didn't want to see...

No, he didn't want to see.

You others, you wanted to help. You left your rooms and

went to him,

but he didn't raise his eyes and you, you had them wide open.

You looked at him, crying,

at me who tried to walk, grabbing furniture for support,

and so I shouted at him to send you away,

but he didn't do anything, he didn't understand

he didn't raise his head, he was afraid to look up.

And one time I felt the head of the child coming out,

that was the third of you,

and I sat up and said to him: Come quick, it's there!

And do you know what he did?

He raised his hands to the sky

and started to pray to the Lord like reciting some tragedy.

Yes, that was what he did...

And the baby looked at me its face got violet,

it was a beautiful child, I didn't want it to suffocate!

I suppose someone came to help then?

It was two in the morning and nobody came...

But I grabbed the bottle of water that was on the bed stand,

I was really furious, and I threw the bottle at your father's head...

Did you hit him?

God knows,

I aimed well: I hit him,

and so he decided to help me and helped me,

he pulled out a healthy child

as if he was another man and not himself,

but of course it was me who had to push him to it,

his face was all bloody and sweaty.

You see he wasn't a coward! He didn't lack courage.

Instead, he had something more that left him

as he started to bleed.

What more?

What do you want him to have had more? He wasn't a man like my father!

My father was a farmer

who could plow his acre eighteen hours a day and who had courage

and it was him who did everything when my mother was pregnant...

Where are you going?

We also have winter melons.

I keep them in the straw in the chicken-shack.

At the moment I keep them in the loft.

I have about ten of them.

It's him.

Isn't there any of our furniture here?

Not a single piece of furniture.

There's our dishes

and kitchen gear.

And the blankets and sheets.

We sold the furniture when we came here.

But why have you decided to come here?

It was me who decided.

It's my father's house and we don't have to pay any rent.

He built it piece by piece on Sundays.

Or do you want us to go?

I don't know.

But it's so far from the railroad tracks here.

How can you live without ever seeing the tracks?

What's so important about seeing the tracks?

I wanted to say... Without ever hearing a passing train?

What important is hearing a passing train?

I believe that it is important to you...

It was you who went out

to be in front of the crossing gates with the flag, when it drove by.

Yes, I never sent one of you.

There was a place

where we were near the station. Serradifalco, I think.

We couldn't see it, but we could hear the freight wagons

clashing against each other...

And cut the melon!

Yes, well. So what happened to papa?

Why talk about it? To me

it's the same thing, with him or without him.

And for him too, it's the same thing, without me,

that doesn't matter to him.

So it is true that he left with another woman?

Left? As if, left.

I kicked him out.

It was my house here.

Oh Signora! He began to get on your nerves

and you kicked him out?

Well, I supported him for many years,

and now, it was enough,

I couldn't support seeing him in love at his age.

But he was always like that with women.

He always needed to have other women in the house,

and to play cool around them.

You know that he wrote poetry.

He wrote it for them...

It wasn't bad at all.

And those women who looked at me from head to toe

when they were called queens in his poetry,

they weren't bad at all either?

But yes. And even

queen bees! The dirty women of the signalmen,

the teachers from school and the wives of the station bosses...

Queen bees!

But how could they know that it was about them?

When you saw him gentle with her,

and on the parties clinking glasses with the most beautiful

while looking at her, and then reading his poetry

the arms towards her,

what else would you need to know it?

He was a big fool. He couldn't keep out of trouble.

Every six, seven days he he had, by all means to plot something:

To call the train-people down the tracks

with their wives and children

and to act smug amidst them.

There were times when we had a party every evening,

either at our house, or at others' or dancing or card games or theater...

And he, in the middle of the party, with his brilliant eyes...

He was great at that. He'd never get tired of dancing

and he didn't miss a single round.

The disc finished, and he ran to change it,

then he came back, grabbed a woman and danced.

He could lead the quadrille

with a spiritual answer to each phrase...

And he knew to play the accordion and the bagpipe, too.

Don't you care about being alone?

If you think that I have to feel that I miss the company of your father,

you're wrong.

Why? Wasn't he good company?

I can imagine that he helped you

do the dishes.

That doesn't mean that I have to feel alone

without him.

But he was a kind man!

Around the house you don't need a kind man!

That was my bad luck, that he was a kind man...

You see, your grand-father

wasn't a kind man, he didn't call the women queens,

he didn't write poetry

for them...

I guess that he didn't like them.

He liked them ten times more than your father.

But he didn't have to call them queens. If he liked one,

he took them down to the valley.

There are many

in this village who remember him and also many in Piazza.

And you complain about papa?

I think that it could have been worse for you,

being the wife of grand-father, for example.

Worse? How worse?

Ah well, your father took them down to the valley

and my father wrote them poetry.

I think

that those escapades in the valley

were harder than the poetry.

Not at all!

The worst thing about your father was that poetry.

I would have been content

if he had only taken them down to the valley.

He took them down to the valley and then wrote them poetry?

Of course, and he called them queens, he treated them like queens.

He was a kind man.

And if one had a lovely name, like for example Manon,

he seemed to have gone mad, a ridiculous thing at his age.

Whose name was Manon?

The circus rider.

I threw him out because of her. Because her name was Manon.

But he always treated them like queens,

the bad thing was that he treated them like that and not like dirty cows.

They came to me,

wives of railroaders, farmers,

and they were audacious, calm,

they didn't lower their eyes,

they looked at me

as if they were who knows who.

And I couldn't stare at them! That was the trouble!

He,

he made them think that they were worth much more than me.

And they looked at me as if they were worth

much more than me!

You are a funny woman!

Did you want them to feel like cows?

I wanted to. I wanted to

laugh about the whole thing.

Of course.

I didn't care about nothing! I laughed about them!

But he didn't treat them like cows...

Why was it his fault?

They had a husband like you, children, too, like you...

So what! Nobody forced them to do it.

Was it so dirty what they did?

Didn't they do the same thing that you did

with him? Or did they do something else?

What do you mean, something else?

They did the same thing, of course.

What else could they have done?

So what? They didn't do anything dirtier

than what you did yourself with him...

So why

should he treat them like dirty cows?

But he wasn't their husband,

he was my husband.

And that's the difference?

I don't understand your point. Were you the same dirty cow

when you did it with other men?

Because I suppose that you were

down in the valley yourself...

You weren't always in the kitchen!

You were in the valley with someone as well!

Oh, a single time!

A single time! Because the other time it was a mistake

and that doesn't count.

A mistake? In what way a mistake?

That was one time with a relative,

when we were in Messina. After the earthquake.

That was a confused thing, and after all,

I was very young and we didn't talk about it afterwards.

And with that other one?

Oh! With the other one was pure luck.

Was he a relative, too?

No. It was somebody I didn't know.

What do you find so strange? You don't know how it was.

But where did it happen?

Were we already in the houses by the railroad tracks?

We were in Acquaviva.

But we were all grown up in Acquaviva.

That was after the war.

And so what?

Should I have asked for your permission, you who were

all grown up?

You were 11 years old. You went to school and you played a lot.

It was a terrible summer. There weren't any wasps,

there weren't any flies, there was nothing...

It must have been in the afternoon. I had made bread.

I was washing: We had a tub outside, beside the well,

and it must have been in the afternoon because there was shadow

on the side of the tub.

He was a tramp.

With a little clothing bag to change

and dressed like a soldier without any medals,

an old straw hat on his head.

And he had taken off his shoes,

he carried them, bound together, over his shoulder...

Was he from far away?

He told me

that he came through Pietraperzia, Mazzarino, Butera,

Terranova and hundreds of other places.

But it seemed

that he came all the way from where the war ended.

All by foot?

By foot.

On that day it had been 48 hours that

he hadn't passed through a village or met a single living soul.

The last place he came through was a farm house

and the dogs wouldn't let people near the houses.

So he told me that,

and drank a bucket of water.

He didn't want more than water?

In fact he didn't ask at all.

But I gave him a loaf of bread

that I had taken out of the oven not more than an hour before

and I spiced it up with a bit of oil, salt and oregano,

and he took a deep breath, smelled the air, the smell of the bread,

and he said God bless you!

But altogether that was also only a passing thing!

No.

So he came from near the sea? He wasn't just a tramp?

He was a tramp.

He went to Palermo and he had crossed the whole of Sicily.

He went to Palermo?

He went there,

but he didn't get there. He went just as far as Bivona,

he had found work there

and settled.

In Bivona? But Bivona is a far way from Acquaviva.

About fifty kilometers. All the villages

are about fifty kilometers

from Acquaviva.

Casteltermini is nearer than fifty kilometers.

So why didn't he settle down in Casteltermini?

Maybe he didn't find work in Casteltermini.

Or maybe he wanted to continue to Palermo and then he came to Bivona,

and he changed his mind.

And so he walked fifty kilometers by foot just to find you?

Fifty kilometers to come and fifty to go back.

Did he come back multiple times?

Multiple times.

He brought me little presents.

One time he brought me fresh honey

that filled the whole house with its smell.

So why didn't he come back anymore?

When winter started

there was a strike where he worked, and the farmers joined them in the strike.

The railroaders didn't. The trains brought loads of policemen.

And there died

more than a hundred men

in Bivona;

not policemen,

but the others.

And you think that he was among the victims?

I think so.

Why else

didn't he

come back?

I'm talking to you, stranger.

Didn't you bring anything that needs sharpening

to this place?

Don't you have a sword to sharpen? Don't you have a cannon to sharpen?

You don't have a lot to sharpen

in this place?

Nothing much worth it. Nothing much worthwhile.

Nothing much that's fun.

You'll sharpen well knifes. You'll sharpen well scissors.

Knifes? Scissors?

Do you believe that there still

exist knifes and scissors in this world?

I believe so, yes.

Aren't there any knifes or scissors in this place?

Neither in this place nor in others.

I came through many countries,

and there are thousands of souls for who I sharpen,

but still I have never seen neither knifes nor scissors.

But what do they give you to sharpen

if you have never seen knifes or scissors?

That's what I always ask them.

What do you give me to sharpen?

You don't give me a sword? You don't give me a cannon?

And I look them in the face, in the eyes,

I see that what they give me couldn't even be called a doornail

What's really fun to sharpen is a real blade. You can throw it

and it's an arrow,

you can grab it

and it's a dagger.

Ah! If everybody only had a real blade!

Why?

Do you think that would change something?

I'd love to always sharpen a real blade!

Sometimes it seems to me that it would be enough

if everybody had teeth or toenails to sharpen.

I'd sharpen them for them like a viper's teeth, like leopards' claws.

Forty centime.

Four for bread. Four for wine. And the taxes?

For for taxes. Four for bread. And the wine?

Four for wine. Four for taxes. And the bread?

But why

don't you put everything together

and then divide it?

It's too risky.

Sometimes I use everything for eating, sometimes for drinking...

Take it. I wanted to take two soldi more,

but God doesn't want to. Those were two soldi that confused everything.

Two for bread,

two for wine,

two for taxes,

You'll have to excuse me.

I believed I could do it because you were a foreigner.

Oh, that's nothing. Two soldi more or two soldi less...

The question

is that one doesn't know how to behave

around foreigners.

There are maybe grinders

who take eight soldi

and one risks to make a mistake

by taking six.

The world is beautiful.

Light, shadow, cold, heat, happiness, unhappiness...

Hope,

charity...

Infancy, youth, old age...

Men, children, women...

Beautiful women, ugly women, God's grace, deception

and honesty...

Memory,

fantasy.

What do you want to say with that?

Oh, nothing.

Bread

and wine.

Sausages, milk, goats,

pigs and cows.

Rats.

Bears,

wolves.

Birds.

Trees and smoke,

snow.

Sickness, healing. I know it, I know it.

Death,

immortality and resurrection.

That's wonderful.

I suppose so.

It's bad

to offend the world;

excuse me, if someone knows someone else

whose acquaintance to make really pleased him,

and he then takes two soldi or two lires more

for a service that he should on the contrary have given for free,

given the great pleasure that he had meeting the other person,

that person, isn't he someone,

isn't he a man who offends the world?

Thank you, friend.

Sometimes

one confuses the world's pettinesses

with offenses to the world.

Ah, if there only were

knifes and scissors, awls, picks and harquebuses,

mortars, sickles and hammers, cannons, cannons, dynamite.

ENGLISH SUBTITLES: Kane32 for karagarga.net

ORIGINAL FRENCH TRANSLATION: Danièlle Huillet

ORIGINAL SUBTITLES: C. M .C.