The Art of Killing Well Read Free Page A

desire to be overcome once again by that shyness which had always afflicted him in the houses of strangers, a shyness which nobody would ever have guessed at, looking at his hair as rigid as King Umberto’s and his military whiskers.

    â€œSo, Dottore Artusi, what do you think of my food?”
    Sitting at the head of the table, the baron was visibly satisfied. At first, he had seen Artusi serve himself parsimoniously and eatslowly, in small bites, chewing a lot, even though fish pie by its very nature is easy to swallow: the typical demeanour of someone who eats out of duty.
    By the third portion, he had changed his mind. Clearly, Artusi was a long-distance runner, not a sprinter: slow, methodical, steady, relentless. When Teodoro had asked him, “Would the signore like some?” for the third time, he had almost drawn the tray to himself. One never serves oneself three times from the same dish. It is bad manners. It gives the impression that one is only there to eat. But the gleam in the guest’s eyes had told him that they might have to use a shovel.
    Now, Artusi had the placid expression of someone who has removed the wrinkles from his stomach, and the satisfied expression of someone who has eaten really well, and he had no need to be tactful in answering the baron’s question.
    â€œExcellent, Barone, excellent,” he said, as Teodoro carried away the dish. “I know very little about pies, but this, if you’ll allow me, was superb. And exceedingly well prepared. In fact, I have a favour to ask you.”
    â€œI think I know what it is. But I’m not the one you should ask. If you like, I can send for the cook immediately.”
    â€œI’m most grateful. I should be even more so if I were allowed to go to the kitchen in person.”
    The baron was rendered speechless for a moment.
    â€œYou see,” Artusi continued, blushing, “the dish we have just tasted is actually quite complex. As you will have gathered, I should like to include it in my little treatise on the art of goodfood. But in order to reproduce this delicacy correctly, and make sure that my twenty readers can do the same, I need, I fear, to have things explained to me in the greatest detail.”
    â€œSo you personally tell your cook what to do?” asked Lapo.
    â€œNot exactly,” replied Artusi. “The first time I get ready to make a dish, I try it out myself. Then, when I am sure of the quantities and the procedure, I pass it to my cook.”
    â€œSo your wife never cooks.”
    â€œAlas, I’m not married, Signorino Lapo.”
    From the corner where the old maids sat came a brief, breathless little laugh.
    â€œAs I was saying, I need to have everything explained in great detail, and I fear that for others the conversation would be somewhat tedious.”
    You can bet your whiskers on that, said Lapo’s facial expression.
    The baron, though, smiled. “I thank you for that thought. If you would like to stay with us for dessert and coffee, Teodoro will then show you to the kitchen.”
    â€œI am most grateful.”
    â€œI hope, however, that you do not linger there for too long, given that we will then be moving into the billiard room to toast our health. Books are useful, but food and drink are necessities, are they not?”

    â€œTalking of books,” Nonna Speranza said, “I noticed that you have rather a strange one with you.”
    The dessert and the coffee had arrived in the meantime. The dessert was a fresh cheesecake on a base of crumbled butter biscuits, decorated with blueberries and raspberries, and had immediately been polished off by the dinner guests – which was why the coffee was now a necessity.
    The problem was the cup.
    When one has whiskers that are thick, drooping, and two centimetres long, not all glasses and cups are as easy to negotiate. The cup Artusi had in front of him, for example, posed the problem of how to drink the coffee