Read Online The Day of the Owl by Leonardo Sciascia - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Leonardo Sciascia
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Contemporary, Crime, Mystery, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Crime Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, Thrillers & Suspense
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carabiniere picket raised the cloth; the body was contracted in the dark womb of death as though in prenatal sleep. 'I'm dead,' he had written, and here he was dead by his own doorstep. Through the closed windows came the moans of his wife, and the murmur of neighbours hurried in to comfort her. The captain looked at the body for a moment, then made a sign for it to be covered again. The sight of the dead always disturbed him, particularly this one. Followed by the sergeantmajor, he went back to barracks.
His plan was this: to arrest forthwith the two mentioned in Parrinieddu's farewell message and interrogate, separately and almost simultaneously, under conditions and in a way which he had already carefully worked out, both of them and the third man already under arrest. The sergeantmajor considered the arrest of Rosario Pizzuco an easy matter, that is to say, without troublesome consequences. But, with the second name, the one that the informer had only had the courage to write when dead, he had visions of successive calamities rolling down from one step to another like a rubber ball, till finally they bounced up into the face of SergeantMajor Arturo Ferlisi, commanding the Carabiniere Station of S.; not for much longer, the way things were going. In his bewilderment he took upon himself to point out respectfully the consequences to the captain. The captain had already weighed them up. There was nothing for it, then, but to tie up the donkey where its owner wanted it; SergeantMajor Ferlisi felt he was tying it up amid a lot of crockery and that the effect of its kick would be something to remember for the rest of his days.
*
'I just can't understand, it's unthinkable; a man like Don Mariano Arena, upright, devoted to family and parish, old too, and with so many infirmities and crosses to bear ... And they arrest him like a common criminal while, if you'll forgive my saying so, there are so many real ones walking around under our very noses, or rather yours. But I do know how much you personally try to do and I appreciate your work highly, even though it's not for me to give it its full due.'
'Thank you, but we all do our best.'
'No, let me have my say ... When in the middle of the night they knock up an honoured household, yes, honoured, and pull out of bed a poor creature who's also aged and decrepit, and drag him off to jail like a common criminal, causing anguish and consternation to an entire family; no, no, it's not only inhuman, it's rank injustice ...'
'But there are well-founded suspicions that...'
'Founded? Where and how? Say someone goes out of his mind and sends you a note with my name on it; then you come along here, at dead of night, and, old as I am, without regard for my past record as a citizen, drag me off to jail as if I were anyone ...'
'Well, to tell the truth, there are some stains on Arena's record ...'
'Stains? Listen to me, my friend, let me talk as a Sicilian and as a man in my position, if that offers any guarantee. The famous Mori wasted blood and tears in these parts ... That was one of the sides of fascism on which it's better not to dwell; and, mark you, I'm no detractor of fascism; some newspapers, in fact, even go as far as to call me one myself... And was there no good in fascism? Indeed there was, and how ... Now this rabble who call liberty the mud they sling about to besmirch the finest people and the purest sentiments ... But don't let's go into that... Mori, as I was saying, was a scourge of God here; he swept up all and sundry, guilty and innocent, honest and dishonest, according to his own whims and his spies ... It was a catastrophe for the whole of Sicily, my friend ... And now you come and talk to me of stains. What stains? If you knew Don Mariano Arena as I do, you'd not talk of stains. He's a man, let me tell you, of whom there are few of his kind about. I'm not referring to the integrity of his faith, which to you, rightly or wrongly, may be a matter of indifference;
His plan was this: to arrest forthwith the two mentioned in Parrinieddu's farewell message and interrogate, separately and almost simultaneously, under conditions and in a way which he had already carefully worked out, both of them and the third man already under arrest. The sergeantmajor considered the arrest of Rosario Pizzuco an easy matter, that is to say, without troublesome consequences. But, with the second name, the one that the informer had only had the courage to write when dead, he had visions of successive calamities rolling down from one step to another like a rubber ball, till finally they bounced up into the face of SergeantMajor Arturo Ferlisi, commanding the Carabiniere Station of S.; not for much longer, the way things were going. In his bewilderment he took upon himself to point out respectfully the consequences to the captain. The captain had already weighed them up. There was nothing for it, then, but to tie up the donkey where its owner wanted it; SergeantMajor Ferlisi felt he was tying it up amid a lot of crockery and that the effect of its kick would be something to remember for the rest of his days.
*
'I just can't understand, it's unthinkable; a man like Don Mariano Arena, upright, devoted to family and parish, old too, and with so many infirmities and crosses to bear ... And they arrest him like a common criminal while, if you'll forgive my saying so, there are so many real ones walking around under our very noses, or rather yours. But I do know how much you personally try to do and I appreciate your work highly, even though it's not for me to give it its full due.'
'Thank you, but we all do our best.'
'No, let me have my say ... When in the middle of the night they knock up an honoured household, yes, honoured, and pull out of bed a poor creature who's also aged and decrepit, and drag him off to jail like a common criminal, causing anguish and consternation to an entire family; no, no, it's not only inhuman, it's rank injustice ...'
'But there are well-founded suspicions that...'
'Founded? Where and how? Say someone goes out of his mind and sends you a note with my name on it; then you come along here, at dead of night, and, old as I am, without regard for my past record as a citizen, drag me off to jail as if I were anyone ...'
'Well, to tell the truth, there are some stains on Arena's record ...'
'Stains? Listen to me, my friend, let me talk as a Sicilian and as a man in my position, if that offers any guarantee. The famous Mori wasted blood and tears in these parts ... That was one of the sides of fascism on which it's better not to dwell; and, mark you, I'm no detractor of fascism; some newspapers, in fact, even go as far as to call me one myself... And was there no good in fascism? Indeed there was, and how ... Now this rabble who call liberty the mud they sling about to besmirch the finest people and the purest sentiments ... But don't let's go into that... Mori, as I was saying, was a scourge of God here; he swept up all and sundry, guilty and innocent, honest and dishonest, according to his own whims and his spies ... It was a catastrophe for the whole of Sicily, my friend ... And now you come and talk to me of stains. What stains? If you knew Don Mariano Arena as I do, you'd not talk of stains. He's a man, let me tell you, of whom there are few of his kind about. I'm not referring to the integrity of his faith, which to you, rightly or wrongly, may be a matter of indifference;
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