“Going to salt it?” cried Ristabilito suddenly. “Going to salt it? But, Ciá, did you ever see any man so stupid as this fellow? To let such a chance slip!”
La Bravetta, quite dumfoundered, stared first at one and then at the other with his calf-like eyes.
“Donna Pelagge has always kept you under her thumb,” continued Ristabilito. “This time she can’t see you; why shouldn’t you sell the pig, and then we’ll feast on the money.”
“But Pelagge?” stammered La Bravetta, who was filled with an immense consternation by the image of his wrathful wife presented to his mind’s eye.
“Tell her that the pig was stolen,” said Ciávola, with a gesture of impatience.
La Bravetta shuddered.
“How am I to go home and tell her that? Pelagge won’t believe me—she’ll drive me—she’ll ... You don’t know what Pelagge is!”
“Uh! Pelagge! uh! uh! Donna Pelagge!” jeered the two arch-plotters in chorus. And then Ristabilito, imitating Peppe’s whining voice, and his wife’s sharp and strident one, acted a comic scene in which Peppe was utterly routed, scolded, and finally cuffed like a naughty boy.
Ciávola walked round the pig, scarcely able to move for laughing. The unfortunate butt, seized with a violent fit of sneezing, waved his arms helplessly, trying to interrupt the dramatic representation. All the window-panes trembled with the noise. The flaming sunset streamed in on three very different human faces.