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The Story of Saint Joseph’s Ass
by
And he embraced the ass’s mistress also, talking in her ear, to get her on his side. But she shrugged her shoulders and replied with a sullen face: “It’s my man’s business. It’s nothing to do with me. But if he lets you have it for less than nine dollars he’s a simpleton, in all conscience! It cost us more!”
“I was a lunatic to offer eight dollars this morning,” put in Neighbor Neli.”You see now whether you’ve found anybody else to buy it at that price. There’s nothing left in all the fair but three or four scabby sheep and the ass of Saint Joseph. Seven dollars now, if you like.”
“Take it,” suggested the ass’s mistress to her husband, with tears in her eyes.”We haven’t a cent to buy anything tonight, and Turiddu has got the fever on him again; he needs some sulfate.”
“All the devils!” bawled her husband.”If you don’t get out, I’ll give you a taste of the halter!”
“Seven and a half, there!” cried the friend at last, shaking him hard by the jacket collar.”Neither you nor me! This time you’ve got to take my word, by all the saints in paradise! And I don’t ask as much as a glass of wine. You can see the sun’s gone down. Then what are you waiting for, the pair of you?”
And he snatched the halter rope from the owner’s hand, while Neighbor Neli, swearing, drew out of his pocket the fist with the eight dollars, and gave them him without looking at them, as if he was tearing out his own liver. The friend drew aside with the mistress of the ass, to count the money on a stone, while the owner of the ass rushed through the fair like a young colt, swearing and punching himself on the head.
But then he permitted himself to go back to his wife, who was very slowly and carefully counting over again the money in the handkerchief, and he asked: “Is it right?”
“Yes, it’s quite right; Saint Gaetano be praised! Now I’ll go to the druggist.”
“I’ve fooled them! I’d have given it him for five dollars if I’d had to; those colored donkeys are all Jonahs.”
And Neighbor Neli, leading the little donkey behind him down the slope, said: “As true as God’s above I’ve stolen his foal from him! The color doesn’t matter. Look what legs, like pillars, neighbor. He’s worth nine dollars with your eyes shut.”
“If it hadn’t been for me,” replied the friend, “you wouldn’t have done a thing. Here, I’ve still got half a dollar of yours. So if you like, we’ll go and drink your donkey’s health with it.”
And now the colt stood in need of all his health to earn back the seven and a half dollars he had cost, and the straw he ate. Meanwhile he took upon himself to keep gamboling behind Neighbor Neli, trying to bite his jacket in fun, as if he knew it was the jacket of his new master, and he didn’t care a rap about leaving forever the stable where he had lived in the warmth, near his mother, rubbing his muzzle on the edge of the manger, or butting and capering with the ram, or going to rouse up the pig in its corner. And his mistress, who was once more counting the money in the handkerchief in front of the druggist’s counter, she didn’t either once think of how she had seen the foal born, all black and white with his skin as glossy as silk, and hecouldn’t stand on his legs yet, but lay nestling in the sun in the yard, and all the grass that he had eaten to get so big and stout had passed through her hands. The only one who remembered her foal was the she-ass, who stretched out her neck braying toward the stable door; but when she no longer had her teats swollen with milk, she too forgot about the foal.
“Now this creature,” said Neighbor Neli, “you’ll see he’ll carry me ten quarters of buckwheat better than a mule. And at harvest I’ll set him threshing.”
At the threshing the colt, tied in a string with the other beasts, old mules and broken-down horses, trotted around over the sheaves from morning till night, till he was so tired he didn’t even want to open his mouth to bite at the heap of straw when they had put him to rest in the shade, now that a little wind had sprung up, so that the peasants could toss up the grain into the air with broad wooden forks, to winnow it, crying, “Viva Maria!”