Page:Under the shadow of Etna; Sicilian stories from the Italian of Giovanni Verga (IA undershadowofetn00vergrich).pdf/184

Rh there at the risk of getting shot by the campieri.

"If you only had an ass!" the lime-dealer had said to her, hoping that he might dispose of that Saint Joseph's ass, which was good for nothing more, "then you could take down to the village much bigger fagots, now that your son is getting to be grown up."

The poor woman had a few lire in the knot of her handkerchief, and she let herself be persuaded into it by the lime burner, because it is said that "old things go to destruction in the house of a fool."

One thing at least was true: the poor Saint Joseph's ass had a more endurable existence at last, because the widow regarded it as a treasure by reason of the few soldi that it had cost her, and she went out nights in search of straw and hay for it, and she kept it in her hut next her own bed because its vital heat was as good as a fire, and in this way one hand washed the other, as the proverb has it.