When the hour had come at which Ser Zambo was wont to repair to the piazza, there to transact business with the other merchants, he went out of the house, and as soon as he had taken his departure Madonna Felicetta went to the pig-trough to devise some scheme for getting rid of her brothers-in-law, so that Ser Zambo might have no suspicion that she had given them shelter. But when she uncovered the trough she found them lying there both stark dead, and looking exactly like two pigs. The poor woman, when she saw what had happened, fell into a terrible taking of grief and despair, and, in order that her husband might be kept altogether in ignorance of what had occurred, she spent all her force in trying to throw them out of the house, so that the mishap might be hidden from Ser Zambo, and from all the rest of the city as well.
I have heard people say that in Rome there is a certain custom according to which, should the dead body of any stranger or pilgrim be found in the public streets or in any man’s house, it is straightway taken up by certain scavengers[[43]] appointed for this purpose and carried by them outside the walls of the city and then cast into the Tiber, so that of such unfortunates nothing more is ever heard or seen. Now Madonna Felicetta, having gone to look out of the window to see whether by chance any friends of hers might be passing by who would lend aid in getting rid of the two dead bodies, by good luck espied one of these corpse-bearers, and called to him to come in, telling him that she had a corpse in the house, and that she wanted him to take it away at once and cast it into the Tiber, according to the custom of the place. Already Madonna Felicetta had pulled out one of the corpses from under the cover of the trough, and had left it lying on the floor near thereto; so, when the corpse-bearer had come upstairs, she helped him to load the dead body on his shoulders, and bade him come back to the house after he had thrown it into the river, when she would pay him for his services. Whereupon the corpse-bearer went outside the city wall and threw the body into the Tiber, and, having done his work, he returned to Madonna Felicetta and asked her to give him a florin, which was the customary guerdon. But while the corpse-bearer was engaged in carrying off the first body, Madonna Felicetta, who was a crafty dame, drew out from the trough the other body and disposed it at the foot of the trough in exactly the same place where the first had lain, and when the corpse-bearer came back to Madonna Felicetta for his payment, she said to him: ‘Did you indeed carry the corpse I gave you to the Tiber?’ And to this the fellow replied, ‘I did, madonna.’ ‘Did you throw it into the river?’ said the dame; and he answered: ‘Did I throw it in? indeed I did, and in my best manner.’ At this speech Madonna Felicetta said: ‘How could you have thrown it in, as you say you have? Just look and see whether it be not still here.’ And when the corpse-bearer saw the second dead body, he really thought it must be the one he had carried away, and was covered with dismay and confusion; and, cursing and swearing the while, he hoisted it upon his shoulders, and, having carried it off, he cast it into the Tiber, and stood for a while to watch it as it floated down the stream.[[44]] And whilst he was once more returning to Madonna Felicetta’s house to receive his payment, it chanced that he met Ser Zambo, who was on his way home, and when the corpse-bearer espied the man who bore so strong a likeness to the two other hunchbacks whom he had carried to the Tiber, he flew into such a violent fit of rage that he seemed, as it were, to spit forth fire and flames on all sides and gave a free rein to his passion. For in truth he deemed the fellow before him to be no other than the one whom he had already twice cast into the river, and that he must be some evil spirit who was returning to his own place; so he stole softly behind Ser Zambo and dealt him a grievous blow on the head with an iron winch which he carried in his hand, saying: ‘Ah! you cowardly, villainous loon, do you think that I want to spend the rest of my days in haling you to the river?’ and as he thus railed he mishandled him so violently that poor Zambo, on account of the cudgelling he got, was soon a dead man and went to talk to Pilate.[[45]]
When the corpse-bearer had got upon his shoulders the third corpse, which was still warm, he bore it away and threw it into the Tiber after the two others, and thus Zambo and Bertaz and Santì miserably ended their lives. Madonna Felicetta, when she heard the news of this, was greatly delighted thereat, and felt no small content that she was freed from all her hardships and might again enjoy her former liberty.
Molino’s fable here came to an end. It had pleased the ladies so mightily that they could not forbear from laughing thereat and talking it over. And although the Signora more than once bade them be silent, she found it no easy matter to put an end to their merry laughter. At last, in order to bring the company once more into a sedater mood, she commanded Molino to set them to guess an enigma in the same dialect, and he, ever ready to obey her, gave his riddle in the following words:
Out of their prison grave so dark
Arise the bones of dead men stark,
And ’twixt the hours of tierce and sext,
By signs will tell to mortals vext
What chance’s smiles or frowns of fate
May bless or ban till time grows late.