Now Mastro Peppe was the owner of a piece of land and a small farm house, situated upon the right bank of the river, just at the spot where the current of the river, turning, forms a sort of greenish amphitheatre. The soil being well irrigated, produced very abundantly, not only grapes and cereals, but especially large quantities of vegetables. The harvests increased, and each year Mastro Peppe’s pig grew fat, feasting under an oak tree which dropped its wealth of acorns for his delectation. Each year, in the month of January, La Brevetta, with his wife, would go over to his farm, and invoke the favour of San Antonio to assist in the killing and salting of the pig.
One year it happened that his wife was somewhat ill, and La Brevetta went alone to the slaughtering of the beast. The pig was placed upon a large board and held there by three sturdy farm-hands, while his throat was cut with a sharp knife. The grunting and squealing of the hog resounded through the solitude, usually broken only by the murmuring of the stream, then suddenly the sounds grew less, and were lost in the gurgling of warm vermilion blood which was disgorged from the gaping wound, and while the body was giving its last convulsive jerks, the new sun was absorbing from the river the moisture in the form of a silvery mist. With a sort of joyous ferocity La Brevetta watched Lepruccio burn with a hot iron the deep eyes of the pig, and rejoiced to hear the boards creak under the weight of the animal, thinking of the plentiful supply of lard and the prospective hams.
The murdered beast was lifted up and suspended from a hook, shaped like a rustic pitchfork, and left there, hanging head downward. Burning bundles of reeds were used by the farm-hands to singe off the bristles, and the flames rose almost invisible in the greater light of the sun. At length, La Brevetta began to scrape with a shining blade the blackened surface of the animal’s body, while one of the assistants poured boiling water over it. Gradually the skin became clean, and showed rosy-tinted as it hung steaming in the sun. Lepruccio, whose face was the wrinkled and unctuous face of an old man, and in whose ears hung rings, stood biting his lips during the performance, working his body up and down, and bending upon his knees. The work being completed, Mastro Peppe ordered the farm-hands to put the pig under cover. Never in his life had he seen so large a bulk of flesh from one pig, and he regretted that his wife was not there to rejoice with him because of it.
Since it was late in the afternoon, Matteo Puriello and Biagio Quaglia, two friends, were returning from the home of Don Bergamino Camplone, a priest who had gone into business.
These two cronies were living a gay life, given to dissipation, fond of any kind of fun, very free in giving advice, and as they had heard of the killing of the pig, and of the absence of Pelagia, hoping to meet with some pleasing adventure, they came over to tantalise La Brevetta. Matteo Puriello, commonly called Ciavola, was a man of about forty, a poacher, tall and slender, with blond hair and a yellow tinted skin, with a stiff and bristling moustache. His head was like that of a gilded wooden effigy, from which the gilding had partly worn off. His eyes round and restless, like those of a race-horse, shone like two new silver coins, and his whole person, usually clad in a suit of earth colour, reminded one, in its attitudes and movements and its swinging gait, of a hunting dog catching hares as he ran across the plain.
Biagio Quaglia, so-called Ristabilito, was under medium height, a few years younger than his friend, with a rubicund face, of the brilliancy and freshness of an almond tree in springtime. He possessed the singular faculty of moving his ears and the skin of his forehead independently, and with the skin of the cranium, as does a monkey. By some unexplained contraction of muscles, he was in this way enabled greatly to change his aspect, and this, together with a happy vocal power of imitation, and the gift of quickly catching the ridiculous side of men and things, gave him the power to imitate in gesture and in word the, different groups of Pescara, so that he was greatly in demand as an entertainer. In this happy, parasitical mode of life, by playing the guitar at festivals and baptismal ceremonies, he was prospering. His eyes shone like those of a ferret, his head was covered with a sort of woolly hair like the down on the body of a fat, plucked goose before it is broiled.
When La Brevetta saw the two friends, he greeted them gently, saying:
“What wind brings you here?”
After exchanging pleasant greetings, La Brevetta took the two friends into the room where, upon the table, lay his wonderful pig, and asked:
“What do you think of such a pig? Eh? What do you think about it?”