Tales of Madness (11 page)

"Here, Simone! There, Simone!"

"I don't want to do it!"

"Simone, I'll beat you. I told you to collect the manure! No?"

The donkey, now pricking up this, now that bald ear, seemed to listen to him patiently, though she was bothered by a certain inconvenience that for some time now her master had been inflicting on her, but which she was at a loss to identify. It was something that, as she moved along, bumped against her hind legs, back there under her tail.

It was a small wicker basket without a handle, tied with two straps to the crupper of the saddle and suspended under the poor animal's tail. Its function was to collect and retain the fuming hot pellets of manure that she would otherwise have planted along the road.

Everyone laughed when they saw the old donkey with that basket behind her, ready for use, and Simone Lampo had the time of his life.

The townsfolk knew quite well how openhandedly he had once lived and what little regard he had had for money. But now, he had had to learn his lesson from the provident ants who,
b-a-ba, b-a-ba,
had taught him this expedient for not losing even a bit of those droppings, good for enriching the soil! Yes, indeed!

He was referring to another brainstorm of his that could have been a perfect match for the basket hanging under the donkey's tail.

Several months before, he had pretended to believe that he could again become rich by raising birds. He had converted five rooms of his house in town into one large coop (hence it was called "the madman's coop"). He had confined himself to living in two small rooms on the upper floor, with the few kitchen utensils he had saved from his bankruptcy, and with the doors, blinds, and panes of the small and large windows that he had covered with screens in order to provide ventilation for his birds.

From morning to night, to the great delight of the neighborhood, there arose from the five rooms below, snarls and squeals and screeches and cheeps, the warbling of blackbirds, the chirping of finches - a twittering, a dense, continuous, deafening chatter of birds.

But for quite a number of days now, fearing that that venture would be unsuccessful, Simone Lampo had been eating small birds at every meal, and there in his small field, had destroyed the apparatus of nets and rods that he had used to catch hundreds and hundreds of those little birds.

Having saddled the donkey, he rode towards town.

Nina would not have hastened her pace, not even if her master had rained lashes down upon her. It seemed she purposely went slowly in order to make him better savor, with the slowness of her pace, the sad thoughts that, according to him, came to his mind also because of her. They came to him because her slow pace forced him to continually nod his head. Yes sir! Since his head went up and down as he sat atop the animal, looked about, and saw the desolation of the fields that darkened by degrees with the last glimmers of twilight, he couldn't help lament his ruin.

It was the sulphur mines that had ruined him.

How many mountains he had disemboweled, all for the mirage of hidden treasure! He had believed he would find another California in every mountain. Californias everywhere! Pits as deep as 600 or even 900 feet, ventilation shafts, steam-engine systems, aqueducts for drainage, and so, so many other expenses for a small vein of sulphur that ultimately was not really worth mining. The sad experience he had had on several occasions, and his vow never again to attempt other enterprises,
had been of no use in discouraging him from new ventures, until
he ended up as he was now, practically on the street. What is more, his wife had left him to move in with a wealthy brother of hers, because their only daughter had become a nun out of desperation.

Now he was alone, without even an old servant around the house. He was alone, and consumed by a constant feeling of anxiety that made him commit all those crazy acts.

Yes, he knew it; he was aware of his crazy acts; he committed them purposely to spite the people who, when he was rich, had so greatly respected him and who now turned their backs and laughed at him. Everybody, everybody laughed at him and
avoided him. There was no one who wanted to help him. No one
said: "Old friend, what are you doing? Come here. You know how to work. You've always worked and done your work honestly. Quit doing those crazy things. Join me in a good enterprise!" No one.

The restless torment he experienced in having been aban— doned by everyone, in having been left in that stark and bitter solitude, continued to grow, exasperating him more and more.

The uncertainty of his condition was his greatest torture. Yes, because he was no longer either rich or poor. He could no longer mingle with the rich, and the poor refused to recognize him as one of their own because he had a house in town and that small field up there. But what did the house yield him? Nothing. Taxes, that's all it yielded. And as for the small field, the fact is that it only produced a small amount of grain which, if harvested within a few days, would perhaps allow him to pay the bishop's land tax What then would be left for him to eat? Those poor little birds there... And even this was dreadful! As long as it was just a question of trapping them in order to attempt a business venture that would make people laugh, so be it; but now, to have to go down into the enormous coop and catch, kill, and eat them...

"Come on, Nina, come on! Are you sleeping this evening? Let's
go!"

That damned house and that damned field! These possessions kept him even from being a decent pauper, that is, one who's poor and mad, there in the middle of the road, poor and carefree, like so many he knew and of whom he felt painfully envious, given the state of exasperation in which he found himself.

All of a sudden, Nina came to a halt, stiffening her ears.

"Who's there?" cried out Simone Lampo.

"Who's there?"

The person lying on his back scarcely lifted his head and let out a sort of grunt.

"Oh, it's you, Nazzaro! What are you doing there?"

"I'm waiting for the stars."

"Are you going to eat them?"

"No, I'm going to count them."

"And then what?"

Irritated by these questions, Nazzaro sat up on the parapet and shouted angrily through his long, thick, wadded beard:

"Don Simo', go away! Don't bother me. You know perfectly well that at this hour I'm through doing business and that I don't want to chat with you!"

So saying, he again lay back on the parapet, belly up, and waited for the stars.

Whenever he earned a few cents, either by currying a couple of animals or by doing some other odd job that would quickly leave him free, Nazzaro felt he had the world in his hands. A couple of cents worth of bread and a couple of cents worth of fruit. He needed nothing more. And if someone ever asked him to do some other job that could bring in perhaps even a handsome sum, in addition to those few cents he had already earned, he would turn him down, answering in that peculiar way of his:

"I'm through doing business!"

He would set off and wander through the fields, or along the seashore, or up through the mountains. One ran into him everywhere, even where one least expected to find him. There he would be, barefoot and silent, his hands behind his back, and his eyes, clear, wandering, and smiling.

"For heaven's sake, will you or will you not go away?" he shouted, getting up again to sit on the parapet and growing angrier, since he saw that Simone had stopped with his donkey to watch him.

"Don't you want me either?" Simone Lampo then said, shaking his head. "And yet, come on now, you've got to admit that the two of us would make a fine pair."

"On account of those little birds?"

"Giddyap,"
said Simone Lampo to his little donkey.

After traveling only a few feet, he stopped again, turned around and called:

"Nazzaro!"

The vagabond didn't answer him.

"Nazzaro," repeated Simone Lampo, "do you want to come with me and set the birds free?"

Nazzaro sprang to his feet.

"Are you speaking seriously?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to save your soul? It's not enough. You should also set fire to the straw."

"What straw?"

"All the straw!" said Nazzaro, drawing near as swift and agile as a shadow.

He placed one hand on the donkey's neck, the other on one of Simone Lampo's legs, and, looking into his eyes, again asked him:

"Do you really want to save your soul?"

Simone Lampo smiled and answered him:

"Yes."

"Really and truly? Swear it! Mind you, I know what's best for you. At night I do my thinking, not only for you, but also for all the thieves and all the imposters who live down there in our town. I know what God should do for their salvation and sooner or later — have no doubt — always does! Now then, do you really want to free the birds?"

"Why, yes, I've just told you that."

"And set fire to the straw?"

"And set fire to the straw!"

"Okay. I'll take you on your word. Go ahead and wait for me. I
still have to count up to one hundred."

Simone Lampo set off again, smiling and saying to Nazzaro:

"Mind you, I'll be waiting for you."

By now one could catch sight of the dim lights of the little town down there along the shore. From that road atop the loamy plateau overlooking the town, the mysterious emptiness of the sea opened wide in the night, making that little cluster of lights down below seem even more miserable.