For instance, he was extremely skilled in puns: he knew pedantic, macaronic, enigmatic and leporeambic poems, and he could recite alliterations, puns, correlative, interwoven and reverse-reading poems by all the most worthless poets, and he composed quite a few crackbrained rhymes himself.
I remember one day when we were at San Rocchino, he made us shout at the cliffwall heaven knows how many times this composition of his, called ‘Echo’:
In cuor di donna quanto dura amore? — (Ore).
Ed ella non mi amò quant’io l’amai? — (Mai).
Or chi sei tu che si ti lagni meco? — (Eco).
(How long before the love in a woman’s heart sours? — Hours.
Did she love me as I loved her ever? — Never.
And who art thou that laments with me so? — Echo.)
He made us solve all the riddles written in ottava rima by Giulio Cesare Croce, and those in sonnet form by Moneti and some others, also in sonnet form, by another total good-for-nothing, who had dared to hide behind the pen-name, Cato. He had copied them all out in snuff-tinted ink into an old folder with yellowed pages.
“Listen! Listen to this other one by Stigliani! Lovely! What could it be? Listen:
‘At one and the same time, I am one, and two,
And I make two what was one at first.
One uses me with her five,
Against infinite numbers that people have on top.
I am all mouth from the waist up,
And I bite more toothless than with teeth.
I have two navels in opposite position,
My eyes are in my feet, and my fingers often in my eyes.’
I can see him now, declaiming, joy emanating from his whole face, his eyes half-closed, his hand aloft, forefinger and thumb pressed together.
My mother was convinced that our needs were met by what Pinzone taught us; and perhaps, hearing us recite riddles by Croce or Stigliani, she thought we already knew too much. Not so Aunt Scolastica who, having no success in foisting her beloved Pomino onto my mother, had started to persecute Berto and me. But we, strong in my mother’s protection, took no notice of her, and she worked herself up into such a frenzy that, had she been able to do so without being detected, would certainly have beaten us black and blue. I remember one occasion when she was leaving in a temper as usual and bumped into me in one of the empty rooms. She grabbed me by the chin, squeezing it hard between her fingers, murmuring, “Lovely boy, lovely, lovely, lovely,” drawing me closer as she spoke, until we were face to face, eyeball to eyeball, then she let out a kind of snort and released me, growling, “Ugly mug.”
She particularly had it in for me, even though I attended more closely to Pinzone’s wild and peerless teaching than Berto. She must have been irritated by my slow, peevish expression and the large, round spectacles I was obliged to wear to straighten out one eye, which for some reason tended to look in different directions, quite independent of the other.
Those spectacles were a real torment to me. Eventually I threw them away and left the eye free to wander where it wanted. In any case, even with that eye straight, I would not have been handsome. I had very good health, and that was enough for me.
At the age of eighteen, my face was engulfed by a reddish, curly beard, to the detriment of my rather small nose, which looked lost between the beard and the broad, serious forehead. Perhaps if men were able to choose the right nose for their faces, or if on seeing some poor fellow oppressed by a nose too large for his wan face, we could say “That nose would suit me, and I’ll have it,” maybe I would have been happy to change mine, and my eyes too, and many other of my physical features. But, knowing full well that one cannot, I was resigned to my looks and did not think too much about them.
Berto on the other hand was handsome in face and body (at least compared with me) and could not keep away from the mirror, constantly smoothing and stroking. He spent a fortune on new ties, the most exquisite colognes, on linen and on his wardrobe in general. Just to spite him, I took a new, flamecoloured tailcoat from his wardrobe one day, a very elegant black velvet waistcoat, and a top hat, and went off hunting decked out like that.
Meanwhile, Batta Malagna hung around my mother, wingeing about the bad harvests which were obliging him to incur very heavy debts to cover our excessive spending and the maintenance work which was constantly required on our lands.
“Another disaster,” he would say, every time he walked in.
The foggy weather had destroyed the olives before they had even taken properly at Le Due Riviere; or else phyloxera had attacked the vineyards at Lo Sperone. We would have to plant American vines, which were resistant to disease. This of course meant more debts. Then he advised us to sell Lo Sperone, just to get rid of the loan- sharks who were besieging him. So, first Lo Sperone was sold, then Le Due Riviere, then San Rocchino. The houses and the farm at La Stia were left, with the mill. My mother expected him to come round one day and say the spring had dried up.
It is true that we did not work and that we spent money carelessly; but it is also true that a more thieving rogue than Batta Malagna will never be born again on this earth. This is the least I can say about him, bearing in mind the relationship I eventually found myself obliged to establish with him.
He was crafty enough to ensure that we lacked nothing while my mother was alive; but that sense of luxury, that freedom to indulge every whim, which he let us enjoy, served to conceal the abyss which, once my mother died, swallowed me up. It only affected me because my brother was fortunate enough to make a wealthy marriage just in time. My marriage was a different story ….
“I suppose I’ll have to tell them about my marriage, won’t I, don Eligio?” Perched up there on his lamplighter’s ladder, don Eligio replies,
“And why not? Of course you must. Decently ….”
“What do you mean, ‘decently’? You know perfectly well that …”
Don Eligio laughs and the whole church echoes with the sound. Then he advises,
“If I were you, Signor Pascal, I would first take a look at a couple of Boccaccio or Bandello stories. To find the right tone, the right tone …”
Don Eligio has an obsession about the right tone. Not to worry, I will set it down as it comes to mind. Here it is then. I must be brave.
One day, while out hunting, I was struck by the sight of a scarecrow, dwarfish and pot-bellied, with a saucepan perched on the pole as a head.
“You remind me of someone,” I said to it, “you really do …” Then the answer came to me.
“Yes! Batta Malagna!” I cried.
I took a pitchfork which was there lying on the ground, and stuck it into its belly with such zest that the saucepan on top nearly fell off. Now it looked like Batta Malagna when he was sweating and breathless and wore his hat crooked.
Everything was crooked about him: his eyebrows and eyes were crooked in his long face; his nose was crooked above his silly moustache and collar; his shoulders were crooked on his neck; even his stomach hung crooked, an enormous, drooping belly reaching almost to the ground. This was because his stomach stuck out so much that his tailor was obliged to cut his trousers extremely generously in order to clothe his legs, with the result that, from a distance, he looked as if he were wearing a long jacket and his belly reached to the ground.
Now, how could he get away with being such a thief, with a face and body like that, I really do not know.
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