Moscardino by Enrico Pea Page B

began to hum, stroking his beard, when he saw the neighbor coming along a bit thoughtful, saying that the bank was of no importance and that he would see to mending it himself.

    Grandpop pretended not to understand and said: Tomorrow that Apuleian rooster will be here.
    The neighbor grinned: Hey! by gob, I’ll bet you three flasks of old wine . . .
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    Late that evening when we were sure the neighbor wouldn’t come over that night, grandpop went down to the cellar, took the rooster out of the barrel, put it in a bag and brought it to the house.
    He took a pair of pinchers, lit the lamp and said: You remember, Buck, when you were at Querceta, one of the farmer’s hens always came into the house? Yes. And when I grabbed it, I said to you: If you speak I’ll do you in as I do this hen? Yes. And I cut its head off, and we ate it that night. We put the feathers in a sack and the bones and went and buried ’em a long way from the house? Yes.
    All right, Buck, now I tell you: If you speak, I’ll pull out your nails, as I propose to pull ’em out of this Apuleian rooster.
    I held the cock in the bag, with its feet sticking out; I felt it shake and shudder; and my heart beat and trembled as if I were committing a crime. The cock inside the bag was braced against the table, and the pinchers gripped its claws and used the edge of the table as fulcrum, and you could see the claws come out from the pulp like little teeth from a kid’s jaws; and a spurt of black blood came out from he flesh.

    Granddad had put on his glasses.
    Every now and again he would look into my pallid face. He seemed to enjoy the operation.
    When the eight claws were lined up on the table like eight bits of confetti, he heaved a sigh of satisfaction. He put down the tweezers and heated some oil. He anointed the feet of the Apuleian rooster, bound ’em up with bits of rag and took the bird back to the barrel.
    The neighbor hadn’t been easy and trusting for quite a while and no longer came in of an evening.
    He had to be asked several times to come look at the rooster.
    He brought Foscolo on lead, and I greeted my friend Foscolo and ran to get the Pom for a frolic as usual.
    But the dogs seemed almost unacquainted; they hardly said a word to each other, a few mere civilities. I attributed this coldness to Foscolo’s iron chain and the neighbor’s having tied him to the leg of the table. Foscolo tied up like an assassin felt the humiliation.
    The neighbor felt the rooster to see if it was made of real meat, pulled its anemic wattles, touched its crest with curiosity. There was reddish skin in place of claws which made him think it would grow its claws late.
    The rooster walked on the table, slowly, very slowly, gingerly, as if its toes hurt.

    Sure! It’s a friek!
    It’s not a friek, it’s a BREED! thundered my granddad, and the argument started.
    When the old bloke was at the end of his arguments he decided sadly to go get the wine.
    It started off as a joke.
    Even Foscolo drank a glass of wine. I drank one. Foscolo danced on his hind legs, had a pull at the old man’s pipe; then went to sleep under the table because the show was getting dramatic.
    The old bloke got drunker, then he was afraid of my granddad, thought the scrawny Apuleian cock was a devil. He found the devil’s claws in the last glass of wine and was terrified.
    He wouldn’t believe they were the claws of a mere cock born of a hen.
    And my grandfather grinned at him: Look how that rooster is laughin’, he’s laughin’ at you. He’s got an eye on you. He’s lookin’ at you with only one eye.
    The cock was hunched up behind the lamp by the wall.
    Every now and again he opened an eye at the sound of grandpop’s voice.
    Look how he’s lookin’ at you!
    See how red his eye is.

    There’ll be claws to wake you in hell, you damn thief!
    Perhaps you’ll turn into a crazy rooster, and the