Il telaio di Caterina

When their mother died, the two sisters suddenly felt like children holding hands in a dark room. Their aunts, partly out of love for their brother and more so out of pity for their nieces, decided to stay on.

Aunt Vanna was the first to say it: “How will I be able to leave Marietta?”

“And me,” sighed Aunt Fifì, “how can I abandon Caterina at a moment like this?”

During the long period spent caring in vain for their poor sister-in-law, each one had let herself be carried away by a particular affection.

Caterina and Marietta now clung to one another more than ever. One wouldn’t leave the bedroom if the other wasn’t feeling well; one would stop speaking if the other knit her brow, assailed by painful memories. They slept in the same room in two little white beds, and they would always call out to each other as soon as they lay down:

“Caterina!”

“Marietta!”

They wouldn’t fall asleep without saying good night like that.

They even resembled one another. Except that Caterina seemed stronger; Marietta was more delicate. For this reason Aunt Vanna paid special attention to her favorite niece. At home everyone understood, and jealousies didn’t arise, if at breakfast Marietta had an egg or two while her sister made do with a piece of fruit or a slice of fresh cheese, or if when stepping out into the courtyard, Aunt Vanna followed Marietta with a shawl ready in her hands. She had developed a little cough that refused to go away.

One evening, while walking up to Crocetta for the first time after the two years of mourning, a stranger, possibly from Palermo, followed them.

Aunt Vanna exclaimed, quite pleased, “That bad-mannered fellow is looking at Marietta.”

Aunt Fifì declared, laughing, “No, it’s Caterina.”

Once back home, the two girls exchanged tender confidences.

“You know, I saw him looking at you….”

“To me it seemed he was looking at you….”

“He stopped under the archway….”

“For you….”

They were happy. And while helping the servant make the beds or sewing at the window that still remained half closed, they smiled absentmindedly, each to herself, at the face of the stranger who had looked at them. When they went out, they saw him again. He clearly liked Marietta, since he now looked at her alone, with bright eyes full of affection. There could be no doubt about it.

Caterina was a little disappointed, but this preference also seemed natural to her given that every special attention on the part of her father and her aunts had always been directed at her more frail sister.

One day, Marietta was coughing more than usual, and Aunt Vanna didn’t allow her to go out.

The young girl wept because of it.

“Do you really think I’m sick? How long have I had this stupid cough? I’m so tired of it!”