Luigi Pirandello: quattro novelle tradotte in inglese. Four short stories traslate in english.

1. CIRCOLO DIDATTICO “SAN GIOVANNI BOSCO “ BIANCAVILLA
CT – SICILY – ITALY
ITALIAN HERO
LUIGI PIRANDELLO
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
He is a man.
He’s got an oval face.
He’s got brown eyes, a straight nose and arched black eyebrows. He’s got white hair, but he’s
almost bald, a white pointed beard and white moustache.
He’s medium-height and medium-built.
He always wears elegant clothes: dark suits, white shirts and ties, especially bowties.
He is a short stories writer and a playwright.
BIOGRAPHY
Luigi Pirandello (28 June 1867 – 10 December 1936) was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short
story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934, for his "bold and brilliant renovation of
the drama and the stage". Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40
plays, some of which are written in Sicilian. Pirandello's tragic farces are often seen as forerunners
for Theatre of the Absurd.
Pirandello was born into an upper-class family in a village with the curious name of Kaos (Chaos),
a poor suburb of Girgenti (Agrigento, a town in southern Sicily). His father, Stefano, belonged to a
wealthy family involved in the sulphur industry. They actively participated in the struggle for
unification and democracy of Italy. Stefano participated in the famous Expedition of the Thousand,
later following Garibaldi all the way to the battle of Aspromonte.
Pirandello received his elementary education at home but was much more fascinated by the fables
and legends, somewhere between popular and magic, that his elderly servant Maria Stella used to
recount to him than by anything scholastic or academic. By the age of twelve he had already written
his first tragedy.
In 1880, the Pirandello family moved to Palermo. It was here, in the capital of Sicily, that Luigi
completed his high school education. He then started writing his first poems and fell in love with
his cousin Lina.
His romantic feelings for his cousin, initially looked upon with disfavour, were suddenly taken very
seriously by Lina's family. They demanded that Luigi abandon his studies and dedicate himself to
the sulphur business so that he could immediately marry her. In 1886, during a vacation from

2. school, Luigi went to visit the sulphur mines of Porto Empedocle and started working with his
father. This experience was essential to him and would provide the basis for some of his short
stories.
Pirandello then registered at the University of Palermo in the departments of Law and of Letters.
In 1887 he moved to Rome in order to continue his studies. But the encounter with the city, centre
of the struggle for unification to which the families of his parents had participated with generous
enthusiasm, was disappointing and nothing close to what he had expected.
But not all was negative; this first visit to Rome provided him with the opportunity to assiduously
visit the many theatres of the capital. "Oh the dramatic theatre! I will conquer it. I cannot enter into
one without experiencing a strange sensation, an excitement of the blood through all my veins..."
Because of a conflict with a Latin professor he was forced to leave the University of Rome and
went to Bonn with a letter of presentation from one of his other professors. In March 1891 he
received his doctorate.
HIS WORKS
One of the most important dramatists of the twentieth century, Pirandello was also a prolific writer
of short stories. He planned to write a story for each day of the year and to collect them in a series
entitled Novelle per un anno (Short Stories for a year), intended to contain twenty-four volumes,
each of which would comprise fifteen tales. In all, Pirandello succeeded in completing two hundred
and thirty-three stories before his death. Through this vast body of work, he worked out in many
variations the quotidian struggles of characters trying to grasp the significance of life. Early in his
career Pirandello was associated with a school of regional realist writers, and many stories are set in
the author's native Sicily, with vividly rendered landscapes of sun-baked fields and oppressive
sulphur mines. Yet Pirandello's short stories often have a tinge of irony and absurdity as well as an
intellectual complexity that sets them apart from the work of typical realist writers. The
preoccupations of Pirandello's characters are generally cerebral, and the action of the stories often
hinges less on action or a climactic event than on the significance of a word or gesture. Pirandello
was awarded international acclaim for the philosophic probing of his plays, and the same themes are
found in his short stories, many of which he subsequently adapted for the stage.
In all his work Pirandello probes the conflicts between reality and appearance, the individual and
society, art and life. Influenced by verism (a literary movement), Pirandello's early fiction
unceremoniously exposes the lives of villagers—miners, clerics, olive farmers, an old man captured
by bandits, distressed brides and widows—and highlights salient features of Sicilian society: strict
Catholicism, an uncompromising code of honor, well-defined social roles, and an underlying
violent temperament. He skillfully described the landscape and inhabitants of Sicily in a naturalistic
style while simultaneously commenting on the paradoxical and contradictory aspects of life and the
restrictions of social identity.
Pirandello achieved fame because of his plays, and his reputation still rests principally on his
dramatic works. The majority of critical studies since his death have concentrated on his plays, yet
he was a popular short story writer in Italy in his day. Many of his stories were first published in
daily newspapers, where his novels were also serialized. Pirandello wrote enough for two careers,
one as a playwright, one as an author of fiction.

3. NOVELS
THE OIL JAR
An excellent crop of olives that year. Don1 Lollò Zirafa, who had a lot of them on his farm,
foreseeing that the five old ceramic oils jars wouldn’t be enough to hold all the oil, had bought a
sixth, bigger than the others
Needless to say, he had argued even with the seller over this jar. And with whom did Don Lollò
Zifara fail to argue? Even over some nonsense he would go to court.
His lawyer was tired of seeing him showing up on his mule two or three times a week.
That the new jar, for which he had paid four good onze2, was temporarily stored in the grape-
pressing shed.
The harvest began and he went around, threatening every farmhand, if a single well-grown olive
should be missing, just as if he had already counted them all, one by one, on the trees. With his
white hat, in his shirt sleeves, his chest bare, his face all red, dripping all over with sweat, he kept
running back and forth.
Now, at the end of the third day, three of the farmhands, coming into shed to put away the ladder
and the poles, stood stock still at the sight of the beautiful new jar, split almost in two pieces.
“I’m dying! I’m dying! I’m dying!” exclaimed one of the three.
“Who did it?” asked the second.
And the third: “ Oh mother! Who is going to face Don Lollo now? Who’s going to tell him?”. The
first man suggested to close the door and go away as quietly as possible. But the second man
objected: “ Are you crazy? With Don Lollò? he’s going to believe that we broke it. We stay right
here!”
He went out in front of the shed and, using the hands to amplify his voice, called: “Don Lollò, Don
Lollòoooo!” The Don was down the hillside.
“Don Lollò, Don Lollòoooo!”
1
It’s a term of respect for landowners or noble people
2
Old sicilian monetary unit

4. When he arrived and saw the broken jar he almost went mad; he seized one of them by the throat
and pinned him to the wall, shouting:
“You’ll pay for this!” and then he turned his violent rage against himself, flung his ugly hat to the
ground, and beat his head and cheeks for a long time, as if mourning the death of a dear relative:
“The new jar! four onze’s worth of jar! Not never used once!”He wanted to know who had broken
it! Did it break by itself? Someone must have broken it! Could it have arrived broken from potter’s
shop?”
The farmhands saw tried to calm him down. The jar could be repaired. A competent tinker could fix
it, make it as good as new. And Uncle Dima Licasi was the very man; he had discovered a
miraculous resin cement that couldn’t even he broken by an hammer. Don Lollò finally was
persuaded, and the next day Uncle Dima Licasi showed up at the farm with his tool chest on his
back.
He was a crooked old man, very calm and not talkative at all. When he saw the jar, he put on a pair
of eyeglasses and began to examine it very carefully. Don Lollò asked: “Will it work? But with the
cement alone I wouldn’t feel safe. I want rivets as well.”
“ In that case I’m leaving.” Uncle Dima replied, putting his tool chest behind his back again, he was
very proud of his cement, the rivets would ruin the beauty of the jar. Don Lollò caught him by one
arm: “ You must follow orders! I’ve got to put oil in there, and oil oozes out, you dumb animal! A
crack a mile long, with nothing but cement? I want rivets. Cement and rivets. I’m the one giving the
orders.”
Uncle Dima shut his eyes and pressed his lips together and shook his head. But in the end he
surrendered and started working, full of anger and disappointment. And his anger and
disappointment grew with every drill hole he made in the jar and in the detached piece for the iron
wire of the riveting to pass through.
His grunts became gradually more frequent and louder, and his face became greener with bile and
his eyes more and more sharp and inflamed with rage.
He fitted the detached piece to the jar to make sure that the holes were equidistant and matching,
than he prepared the iron wire and he called as an assistant one of the farmhands.
Then with a finger he began to spread the cement all around the edges of the detached piece and
along the crack; he took the pincers and the iron wire, and went into the open belly of the jar.
“From inside?” asked the farmhand, to whom he had given the detached piece to support.
He didn’t reply. With a gesture he ordered him to fit that piece to the jar and stayed inside. Before
beginning to insert the rivets: “Pull”! he said to the farmhand from inside the jar “Pull! See if it
comes off again! See? No need for rivets”
“The man on top gives the orders, Uncle Dima” the farmhand sighed, “and the man on the bottom is
damned! Put in the rivets, put in the rivets, please!”
And Uncle Dima began passing every piece of iron wire through the two adjacent holes. When he
finished he said: “Now help me get out” But as wide as it was around the belly, that’s how narrow
that jar was at the neck. Uncle Dima, in his rage, had paid no attention. Now, try and try again as
he would, he found no way of getting back out.
Uncle Dima, inside the jar, was like a maddened cat.
“ Get me out!” he was howling “for God’s sake, I want to get out! Help me out!” The laughter and
shouting brought Don Lollò onto the scene. At first he just couldn’t believe it. “Help? And what
help can I give you? Stupid old man, how could you? Come on, try, stick out an arm, like that! And
you head come on… What have you done? And the jar, now? Keep calm! Keep calm!... Wait!”
“Go saddle my mule!” he ordered the farmhand, scratching his forehead with his fingers. This was a
case for his lawyer! “I’ll be back in a flash. Meanwhile be still! Keep calm! Here: I’m paying you
for the job, you will get out, but in the meantime I’m paying you. Here, three liras.” He took them
out of his pocket and threw them into the jar.
At the laywer’s office he had to wait for him to stop laughing once he had explained the case. He
was annoyed at the laughter. The lawyer kept on laughing and wanted him to tell the whole story

5. over again. And he, Don Lollò, what did he want to do? To kee… kee…to keep him in there… ha ,
ha, ha… to keep him in there so as not to lose the jar?
“But do you know what this is called?” The lawyer explained “It’s called illegal confinement.” “
Confinement? And who confined him?” exclaimed Zifara “He confined himself! How am I to
blame?”
The lawyer then explained to him that there were two cases: on the one hand, he Don Lollò, was
obliged to release the prisoner at once so as not to be liable to the charge of “illegal confinement”;
on the other hand, the tinker was answerable for the damage he was causing.
“Ah” said Zifara with relief “by paying me for the jar!”
The lawyer remarked “Not as if it were new, keep that in mind! It was broken.”
“No sir! Now it’s whole. Better than whole, he says so himself! And if I now break it again, it’s a
lost jar, counselor!”
“Have it appraised in advance by him himself.”
“Many thanks, and goodbye,” said don Lollò, hurrying away.
Back at the farm, he found all the farmhands having fun. Not only had uncle Dima calmed down; he
too, had begun to enjoy his unusual adventure and was laughing.
“Ah! Are you comfortable?” he asked
“Fine.” he replied.
“Glad to hear it. I’ll have you note that this jar cost me four onze new. How much do you think it
would be worth now?”
Zi Dima reflected for a while, then said: “If you had allowed me to mend it with nothing but
cement, the way I wanted, the jar would be worth the same as before. But with these ugly rivets it
could be worth a third of its original value”
“A third. One onza, thirty-three?”
“Maybe less, not more.”
“All right. Give me one onza and 33 and I’ll let you out!” said don’t Lollò
“What? I should pay? You’re joking, sir. I’ll rot in here.” And he lit his pipe and began smoking,
driving the smoke out of the neck of the jar.
Uncle Dima refused to leave the jar, neither he nor the lawyer had foreseen this. And how could
things be settle now?
He was just about to ask for his mule again, but he stopped .
“Oh, is that so? You want to take up residence in my jar?” You’re all witnesses here! He doesn’t
want to get out, to avoid paying for it. Tomorrow I’ll sue him for squatting on my property, because
he’s preventing me from using the jar!”
“No sir. Am I here for my pleasure? Get me out, but I’m not paying a thing!”
Don Lollò, in a rage, lifted one foot to give the jar a kick, but he stopped. “ Die for hunger in there.”
We’ll see who wins!” And he went away, not thinking of the three liras he had thrown into the jar.
With that money Uncle Dima and the farmhands decided to buy some wine and have a party.
In the middle of the night, Don Lollò was awakened by the singing and shouting of the drunken
people outside. Uncle Dima was singing at the top of his voice.
Don Lollò could not control himself any longer, so he dashed over the crowd like a maddened bull
sending the jar down the hillside.
The jar smashed against an olive tree, freeing Uncle Dima. This time Don Lollò lost the fight.

6. THE TURTLE
It may seem strange, but there are those who believe that turtles bring good luck. From what came
such a belief, it is not known. It is certain, however, that they, the turtles, do not have the slightest
suspicion of all this.
One day a man receives a turtle from a friend as a gift.
He, a short and fat man, happy but with a little repulsion takes the turtle home. He shudders at the
thought that what looks like a cold and inert stone, a stone is not, but is inhabited by a mysterious
creature that, suddenly, on his hand, could take out four paws and a sinister head, wrinkled like that
of an old nun. Hopefully it won’t.
At home, his two children, a girl and a boy, don’t look thrilled at all, as soon as their father lays the
turtle down on the living room carpet.
The children ask their father why he dared to bring a turtle home.
The poor man, opening his arms, smiles and says “After all, it’s nothing but a harmless turtle which,
if you wish, you can also play with”.
He’s always been a good man and, in his heart, a grown-up boy. He wants to show his children: he
gets on his hands and knees on the carpet and carefully, gently, pushes the turtle trying to persuade
it to let its paws and head out and says to it: “Look where I brought you”.
His son kicks it outside the carpet and it falls upside down. The little creature pushes out its paws
and head trying to get back into his natural position.
The daughter starts laughing.
There is not respect for the good luck that the turtles are said to bring. There is instead the clearest
demonstration that both think it is just a stupid toy to be treated this way. Their father is very sorry,
he looks at the turtle, puts it back in place and then looks at them. He does not have the courage to
confess the reason why his friend gave him the turtle.
His wife, at the sight of the turtle on the table, turns his back and walks out of the house. After a
while, she sends him a card saying – the turtle goes, or else I will.
He asks his wife to come back home: he will take the turtle somewhere else. There is no way to
keep it at home. He took it because they told him that it brings good luck, but he’s wealthy, with a
beautiful wife and their two children, why does he need a turtle? What other luck should he wish?

7. Walking around town, he thinks he should leave it in the park near his house, but instead he decides
to go to the store where his friend had bought it. But the shop is close. He looks at the turtle and
asks himself what to do. Leave it here? No. Too bad to imagine a turtle on the road at night. No, no.
It’s an act of cruelty. The Park is now near and he decides to leave the turtle on the grass. But he
just puts it down that a police officer wants to know what he’s trying to do. Is he throwing out
trash? Not really trash, no. And he smiles at the cop telling him he would not be able to. It’s simply
a turtle. The cop tells him to pick it up immediately, it’s forbidden to introduce beasts in the park.
But for compelling family reasons, he needs to discard it completely. The officer believes he wants
to make fun of him. - They told me it brings good luck,- he adds smiling.- You would you like to
keep it?-
The cop tells him to pick up his turtle and go away immediately.
And now again, with the turtle in his hand, starts walking. Oh God, he could leave it anywhere,
even in the middle of the street, just out of sight of the policeman, who has not believed in his
serious family problems.
Suddenly, he stops with an idea. Yes, it is undoubtedly a pretext for his wife, the turtle. So he
decides to return home with the turtle.
He finds his wife in the living room. Without saying nothing put the turtle on the table, just in front
of her. There, like a pebble.
The wife jumps up, runs in the room, comes back with her hat on her head. The children are with
her: - I will tell the judge that you prefer the company of your turtle instead of your wife!-
She goes away.
As if the little animal has understood everything, it shoots out its four paws, its tail and its head and
swaying, almost dancing, starts to move around the room.
The man, happily claps his hands and more and more confident he says – Luck! Luck!-

8. THE LICENSE
Judge D’andrea was nearly 40, he was very thin and pale and had thick and curly dark hair. Life
and its ups and downs had left a tangle of lines on his wide forehead. He was very thin and seemed
always tired. One of his shoulders was higher than the other one and when he walked he went
always sideways. Morally, he was straight as a candle, though. Everybody knew that.
He always spent his nights thinking about life and decisions to make. He sat at his window,
touching his hair, looking at the stars. In the morning he went to his office, ready to administer
justice to men. He always worked late, every file was promptly taken care of, every decision was
made on time.
Yet, it was the very first time, a file had been sitting on his desk for over a week. He had waited and
waited, but he wasn’t able to take a decision on this very case. Because of it he was in a bad mood,
nervous and gloomy. Every time he looked at it he became even more nervous and angry.
The trial was unfair: the victim wanted to face the impossible. He had picked the first two people
who happened to be his way, and justice would say he was wrong. Justice was not fair in this case:
he was just a victim.
Every time Judge D’Andrea mentioned Mr. Chiàrchiaro (the said victim) to his colleagues, they
winced and, as soon as they had the chance, they touched wood (in Italy we say touch metal), and
did other gestures to ward off bad luck: touching their horn-shaped amulets and other objects.
Someone would say: “Oh, please! Just shut up!”
But he couldn’t be quiet. He could not think of anything else and he always ended talking about it,
just to have advice.
Chiàrchiaro was a Jinx, he was said to bring bad luck to anybody he met. He wanted to sue two
people he had caught doing gestures against bad luck while he was passing by. But, why now?
Chiarchàro had known for a long time he had this reputation, that people had always made these
kind of gestures in front of him, even the judges! Why now?
The judge had met the defendants’ lawyers, Mr. Grigli (who looked like a crow) and the fat Mr.
Baracca, and they had laughed, while touching their amulets, saying they would win the case. Now
he decided to call Mr. Chiàrchiaro and try to convince him to let it go, that justice wouldn’t punish
the two men, and that he would lose the case.
One day Chiàrchiaro comes to the Judge’s office. The Judge, who is focused on some papers, looks
at him and almost chokes:

9. “What are you doing? What is this? Shame on you!”
Chiàrchiaro really looks like a Jinx: he has got a brushed beard on his extremely pale cheeks, he
wears a big pair of glasses which make him look like an owl, he also wears a dark suit too big for
him, he has got a cane.
“Why? Don’t you believe I bring bad luck?”
“Nonsense! Are you crazy? Sit, sit, please!” the judge tells him trying to touch his shoulder.
“No! don’t touch me! Be careful! You could go blind!” Chiàrchiaro says moving away from him.
“Please, sit down! I want to help you”
“Help me? How can you help me if you don’t believe I’m a jinx?” waving his cane and finally
sitting.
“I just want you to understand that you will lose the case and make your reputation worse. Let it
go!”
“Never!”
“Never? You are suing two people because they say you bring bad luck and then you come here
dressed like this? These two things are opposite”
Chiàrchiaro shakes his head: “You don’t understand”
“Please explain!” the judge asks.
“Of course! I will show you the facts. I will show you that I, in fact, am a JINX!”
“But… I don’t understand! You are suing these men because they touch their amulets every time
they see you…. And YOU want to show me you ARE really a jinx? Why did you do it, then?” the
judge seems shocked.
Chiàrchiaro, more and more angry at the stupidity of the judge, stands up yelling: “I want, your
honor, a public acknowledgement of my status! Don’t you see? My frightening power is my only
resource” he starts beating his cane on the floor.
“And what are you going to do with this so called power?” asks the judge with his head in his
hands.
“What am I going to do? Tell me, did you get a degree and a license to be a judge?”
“Yes, of course I did.”
“Well, I want my license, your honor, my bad luck license. With a Court stamp. I want to be a
licensed jinx”
“And then what?”

10. “Your honor. I used to work as a clerk in a bank, they fired me because they said there were no
customers because of me; my wife is ill and my two girls will never get married, because they’re
my daughters. We eat thanks to my son, who lives in Naples, but he has family too and he can’t
give us much. Your honor, the only thing left for me to do is dressing like this, waiting for my
license.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“A lot of people believe I bring bad luck. I don’t have to say anything. Every time I go somewhere
people will pay me to leave. Shops, factories, everyone will pay a tax! I had so many troubles
because of the people’s ignorance that I really think I could bring down the whole town if they
don’t pay me!”
The Judge is so moved by Chiàrchiaro’s sadness that he hugs him.
“If you really care about me you will go on with the trial and will give me what I want.” Sais
Chiàrchiaro
“The license?”
Chiàrchiaro solemnly brings his hand on his heart and bangs again the cane on the floor: “THE
LICENSE”
THE BARREL MAKER AND THE COCKERELS
The barrel maker’s wife wanted desperately to dine alone with her husband, at least once. Every
day, holiday or not, he came home with guests, friends or relatives or even just acquaintances.
The good woman had raised to little cockerels for Christmas and on Christmas Eve she showed
them to her husband:
“Look how nice they are! If you promise not to invite anyone I’ll cook a delicious meal just for the
two of us”. And so he promised.
On Christmas morning he was about to go out, wearing his best suit, when his wife stopped him
“No, my dear, you won’t go out today. I’m sure you’ll come back with someone”
“I solemnly promise you…”
“No promises. Give me your hat, you are not going out today!”
“She’s right” he thought “it’s so sweet being alone, with no one around, just the two of us! I want to
make her happy for once”. But, as usual, the devil put his claws. The woman had bought everything
she needed to cook, but she forgot to but some parsley: just two cents worth of parlsey.
“Oh dear! How can I cook without?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll go”

11. “No! you won’t set foot outside today!”
“Come on! I promised you and the greengrocer’s is just near here. Or you can go.”
“I can’t, I’m cooking. All right… you go, but I’ll watch you from the doorstep, don’t you dare to
stop and talk to anybody!”
“I’ll be back in a minute! I promise”. But he hadn’t walked for more than a few meters, that he met
the old priest of a nearby village “Oh, my dear reverend! How are you? What brings you here?”
“Business” he replied smiling
“I see you’re in good health. I’m good too, work is good, thanks to the Lord. I’m going to buy some
parsley for my wife. She always asks me about you and she would be happy to see you. You know
what? She would be happy to have you at lunch. Please, I insist, don’t say no”
“Thanks son, but I can’t. I must go back home”
“Why the rush? Don’t you want to eat with us? Don’t you want to come to my house? You can
leave later. Please, please…”
“Oh, all right! If you insist so much… Thank you for the invitation then…”
“It’s an honor for me and my wife. Go to my home, that one over there. I’ll be back soon, after a
buy 2 cents of parsley for my wife”.
The good priest waved hello to the barrel maker’s wife as soon as he approached their house. “He
did it again! He did it again!” she thought angrily as she saw the priest going towards her “But he’ll
pay this time!”
“How are you dear father? What a pleasure to see you!”
“Your husband insisted so much to have me come for lunch that I couldn’t refuse”
“Oh my dear reverend! Oh…” she said becoming sad all of a sudden and almost crying.
“What is it? Why are you crying?” he asked, worried.
“Come in, come in and I’ll tell you. Don’t you know?”.
Meanwhile her husband came back with a bunch of parsley in his hand “Here you are my dear wife.
Did you see? Our good priest accepted to join us for lunch” and then to the priest “You know… just
this morning she told me we would be alone for lunch today, just the two of us. But luckily I met
you!”
The wife tried to smile but she was, of course, annoyed and disappointed.
“By the way my dear” she said to her husband “I realized we don’t have any wine left. Can you go
and buy some?”
“Of course, I’ll go right away. Forgive me, father, I’ll be back soon”. And he went out again.
“It was just an excuse” said the woman starting to cry again “we have enough wine at home, but I
had to send him away…”
“Why my dear?”
“To save you” and seeing the priest a little puzzled, she went on “Yes, yes… don’t you know? My
poor husband is a little…” and she touched her head with a finger meaning that her husband had
lost his mind.
“Crazy? But… how? What’s happened? He didn’t seem crazy to me…”
“Yes, yes…” crying louder and louder “I’m desperate, you see… every time he looks at people’s
eyes he has an incredible urge to rip them out!”
“Oh my Lord! What a tragedy!” he cried, suddenly scared and worried to be the barrel maker’s next
victim, and approached the door as to run away from that house.
“Please, father, go away. I’m doing it for you. Please, I’ll wrap these two cockerels up for you, but
don’t stay for lunch.”
But the good priest, more and more afraid to lose his eyes, didn’t care at all about lunch and
cockerels. He could barely breathe and, despite his old age, he started to run “Keep your cockerels,
I’m in a hurry, sorry…” and so he went.
“Good” the woman thought, rubbing her hands satisfied “and now, my dear husband… is your
turn”.

12. When, a few minutes later, her husband came back, he found her alone and crying desperately:
“What happened? Where’s the reverend? What’s wrong with you?”
“Oh, that priest! I hope this will be a lesson for you! He stole our cockerels and run away!”
“Thief! Thief! I’m going to catch him” he cried, running out and looking for the priest. Menawhile,
the priest had reached the end of the village on his donkey, and when the barrel maker saw him he
started to yell “Reverend, reverend… give me at least one, at least one!”
The priest, thinking he was talking about his eyes, kicked his donkey harder to make it go faster
“Goodbye, my friend” he yelled back at the barrel maker “I want to keep them both!”.
“At least one….at least one!!” he kept asking, while his wife was comfortably sitting at her kitchen
table eating the delicious cockerels all by herself.