With fresh new potatoes, too, right in season!" (the season he had dreamed up himself, they were old potatoes cut into pieces, all dotted with parsley and stuck into the fat of the pig). "Potatoes of the season, ladies and gentlemen! better than hard-boiled eggs for salad! Better than capon's eggs, these potatoes, I'm here to tell you. Taste them for yourselves!" He rested for a moment to catch his breath. And then, exploding: "One-ninety the slice, roast pork! We're giving it away, ladies! It's a crying shame, that's what it is, ladies! You ought to be ashamed to buy it so cheap. One-ninety, easier done than said! Step right up, cash in hand, ladies! If you don't eat you can't work. One-ninety the slice! Nice, tender meat, meat for ladies and gentlemen all right. Taste it and you'll see what I mean: tender and tasty meat! If you try it once you'll come back for more, I promise you. You're the ones who make off of this deal. The lovely pork from the Castelli! We sent the pigs out there to wet-nurse, raised in the country, on the acorns of Emperor Caligula himself! the acorns of Prince Colonna! The big prince of Marino and Albano! who killed the worst Turks on the land and sea in the big battle of whatever it was. They still have the flags in the cathedral in Marino! with the Turk's crescent on them. Get your nice pig, ladies, roast pig with rosemary! and with potatoes of the season!": and allowing himself some peace after the spiel, as even the tragedian-actor rests after his role is played, he resumed, serious and composed, his sharpening of the knives. But after a couple of blows of the knives, he had a renewal of inspiration: a kind of jolt ran through him. It was the outburst of another variation, or so it seemed to the policeman: "Try it, gentlemen, taste it! One-ninety: you can eat pig like a pig, and your wives will thank you for it!" Then, to a local beauty, lowering his tone: "What about you, pretty girl?" the girl, at that tone of authority, couldn't restrain her laughter, "a half-pound of pork?" And, sotto voce, to her, but with a glance at the penniless tooth-puller: "I'll give you the best part, that's a promise. You're my type, all right. You're too pretty! A nice little slice specially roasted for you, with a couple of potatoes!" Then again, eternally shouting and with eyes upraised this time and with cheeks of a senseless trumpeter: "Come on an buy this pork, everybody. Let's see your money; this is the time to buy it. It's a crime to leave the pig here on the stand, when it can rain again any minute, and I know you've got the cash on you. Don't be stingy now! The pork is yours, if you'll just dig out the old ready."
The grandmother, if grandmother she was, swindling merrily with the scales and with her chatter, now gave full satisfaction to the rubicund maidservant. And he: "One-ninety! This pig's pure gold!" But meanwhile that tooth puller of a Blondie kept on looking at him, after having pushed back his hat and bared his forehead, which appeared all aflame with a thick, unruly straw, somewhere between real blond and brown. At his sides two characters had turned up, two cops a lot darker than himself, one on his left and one on his right, like the silent gendarmes that Pulcinella notices after a while, in an alarm that is sudden, but belated in action. So that he, the kid, little by little, "ladies and gentlemen, one-ninety, get your roast pork, your pork, I get it!" he seemed to say to himself, his voice sinking lower and lower, "get your . . ." he muttered, cadaverous, "your . . ." and that little breath died in his throat: like a torch's light, more and more querulous and tawny, when it drips wax and dies, in a pool of stink, with the fried wick in the middle. With those headlights on him, all of a sudden multiplied by three. So, you can figure it out for yourself: when he realized who they were, it was too late to skip. He set the knives on the counter, muttered to his grandmother "they want me": and was already untying his apron. His legs trembled. He had to put a good face on it for Blondie, who,