The Art of Killing Well Read Free

English title, and in the other a wicker basket containing two of the fattest cats ever seen. He was wearing a frock coat and a top hat. Between his whiskers, a broad, good-natured smile could be made out.
    No sooner had he got off than Teodoro cleared his throat and, in a distinct voice, recited his greeting:
    â€œSignor Pellegrino Artusi, welcome to Roccapendente.”

Friday, seven in the evening
    It was dinner time at the castle. And this evening, as always when there were visitors, dinner was served in the so-called Olympus Room.
    If the baron and his dinner guests had raised their eyes, they would have had the opportunity to admire the wonderful frescoes of Jacopuccio da Campiglia, a painter known to posterity for having frescoed the entire castle of Roccapendente and even better known to his contemporaries for the incredible number of debts incurred in the taverns and wine shops of the Val di Cornia. It was on this ceiling, where the gods of Olympus chased one another in an eternal, motionless race, that Jacopuccio had given the best of himself, and while Heracles crushed the lion, Orpheus moved the stones to tears and Zeus seduced Aphrodite (pictorial licence, of course: good old Jacopuccio could barely read), they all watched tirelessly over the master of Roccapendente and his family – who, for their part, heads down and jaws going at full tilt, were tearing apart a fish pie of colossal dimensions and completely ignoring all that beauty.

    The one eating slowly was the baron, who must have gazed admiringly at that ceiling a thousand times, without ever tiringof it – but when there was something to eat, you ate.

    The one eating listlessly was Gaddo, who might have the sensitivity of spirit to appreciate beauty but was now busy casting sidelong glances at the self-styled man of letters as the latter stuffed himself with pie, his white whiskers moving up and down in time to the rhythm of his jaws.

    The one eating briskly and noisily was Lapo, who preferred beautiful things of flesh and blood rather than on walls, and was now watching his sister and thinking that if she didn’t dress like a penitent she might almost look like a woman, and then it might actually be possible to find her a husband and get her out of his hair – with that female arrogance of hers, she was always finding fault with him.

    The one eating with small bites was Cecilia, who was looking curiously at the bewhiskered guest and completely ignoring Lapo’s bovine gaze and his all too obvious thoughts (if you could call them that). Men never understood that women were able to guess what they were thinking from their behaviour, the look in their eyes, the way they were sitting, and so on. This was true of all men, let alone Lapo, who had all the intelligence of a fruit bowl. Signor Artusi, on the other hand, was eating away in silence, completely engrossed, clearly savouring every mouthful. He seemed like someone who thought about what he was doing, and Cecilia liked that.

    The one who would have been eating Parisina’s excellent pie was Nonna Speranza, if age and illness had not taken away her appetite and this family of good-for-nothings had not taken away the high spirits we all begin to lose even when we are young. Horses, women, poetry! The only one of her grandchildren with a modicum of brains was unfortunate enough to have been born a woman. As unfortunate as she herself was, confined by a body she had not chosen within a family she would never have chosen if she had had any choice in the matter.

    The one eating without thinking anything at all was Signor Ciceri, his jaw rotating slowly without in any way modifying his smile. In fact, Fabrizio Ciceri rarely lost his smile, and never his appetite.

    And last but not least, the one eating with gusto was the bewhiskered guest, sometimes with his eyes closed. Partly to savour that divine pie, and partly not to feel the eyes of the other dinner guests on him: he had no