Moscardino Read Free

honorary physician to the Confraternity of the Misericordia, and High Chamberlain of the Church of San Lorenzo; he had had, therefore, a magnificent funeral.
    The Signora Pellegrina showed no signs of grief at his passing. She said: Well out of it; you are.

    Then she assembled her three sons and called Cleofe, the general servant who had come from the mountains, to act as witness:
    You are all three grown men.
    Your progenitors are no longer. Divide what is left.
    The clothes I have on are my own. Don’t grumble if I wear silk.
    After that she forgot to talk, as if turned mute.
    My grandfather was the youngest of the Signora’s three sons. The middle one was named Lorenzo after the town’s patron saint and also because he had been born in the year that the doctor had been made High Chamberlain (or accountant) of the Church of San Lorenzo. He had been sickly from the start, didn’t walk till he was five, stuttered a little, and his remarks were so peculiar that people thought he was making up fairy tales. His father had intended him for the priesthood. That was another reason for calling him Lorenzo after the saint and the church with the marble steps and stone bench against its façade, and the chairs tilted against the outer wall from where one can watch the river with the winter sun beating down on poor men’s bent shoulders.
    Be it said that these oldsters were lined up like culprits with a cane gripped between their knees, and that they mumble without moving their lips so that they shan’t make a draft or displace the air with their thin bodies. Noon stirs them and they carry off as much sun as
has sunk into them, walking quickly because the shade of the acacias is full of pitfalls for age, and the acacias, lined up before the old folk’s home, throw a shade even in winter, and steal thereby that much sun from the aged.
    I don’t remember the eldest brother’s name but he had a terror of blood, he was grumpy and ugly and watched himself perpetually in the mirror, terrified and bursting into tears at the slightest provocation.
    Servants did not stay long. It was not an easy house for a servant.
    The Doctor and Signora Pellegrina used to get up for mass at sunrise and for communion. The girl was expected to tell Mrs. Pellegrina not to swallow water while she was washing, she was expected to hand the doctor the grey shawl that he wore like a cape over his shoulders.
    If the boys had committed a misdemeanor they were expected to confess after mass, especially if it had been of an embarrassing nature.
    Grumpy had his coffee in bed. He stared up fixedly at the servant girl, from foot to head with his knees hunched up to his chest and his horse face unshaved. The girl approached him with a feeling of terror and loathing, and Grumpy continued to keep his hands under the covers as if there was nothing in front of him holding a cup. Which nothing finally said: Hurry up! Signor Padrone. Whereafter he would at leisure bring out a hairy paw like an ape’s.

    The abbé wandered about the house all day long with his hands in the folds of his soutane. The servant was expected to say: Don Lorenzo, take your hands out of the slits. Then Don Lorenzo sniggered; went into the kitchen, lifted the lids of the pots with the ugly hands that had been in the slits of his soutane.
    In the evenings when the abbé was in bed, the girl was expected to patch up the facings.
    As my grandfather could not stand the click-clack of heels at certain times of the day the girl had to walk on tip-toe. He loathed seeing the abbé slinking about like a shadow. Every now and again he would rush at him, grab his long hair, pull out a few hairs from back-centre: O.K. that’s where you’ll be having your tonsure. He also picked on Grumpy, but less often.
    He also slapped the servant. He was a devil when he got into a temper, upset the whole house, tore the bedspreads with his teeth, and if his terrorized family