The rain stopped and what was left of the clouds had scattered completely… He wandered in the dark night with his clothes wet and his hair unkempt looking for a cranny he might take shelter in… He arrived, without knowing, at the crumbling and time-caried crypt of the cloister, which he approached warily, smelled and licked it about 56 times in succession without getting any results. Feeling frustrated he grabbed his sword and rushed into the cloister's courtyard… But he was softened right away by the meek look of a hen that came out to meet him and which, with a timid motion that was full of Christian charity, invited him to wait for a few moments in the chancery… Having gradually calmed down, moved to tears, and gripped in the shivers of repentance, he gave up all and any plans of revenge and, after kissing the hen on the forehead, he put her in a secure place for safe-keeping. He took to sweeping all the cells and scrubbing their floors with rubble. He counted his loose change and climbed on a tree to await the dawn. "How brilliant! How grand!" he exclaimed in ecstasy before nature, occasionally coughing pointedly and leaping from bough to bough as he periodically released some flies in the air under the tails of which he had attached long strips of fine writing paper. His happiness though did not last… three passers-by who first pretended they were friends of his, and in the end claimed they had gone there on assignment from the internal revenue office, started giving him all sorts of trouble and questioning, first off, the right itself of climbing a tree…But to show their good upbringing, and to avoid making direct use of the structures the law set at their disposal, they tried through all sorts of obligque means to force him to leave the tree… first by promising him a stomach rinse on a regular basis, but throwing in, as well, bagfuls in rent, aphorisms, and wood shavings. He was unmoved, however, by all these enticements, and confined himself to taking out his certificate of indigence which he happened to have on his person that day, and which, among other exemptions, entitled him to squat on a tree branch absolutely free of charge for as long as he wanted…Nevertheless, to show them that he harbored no hard feelings toward them, and to teach them a subtle lesson in tactfulness and urbaneness, he came down, took his sword off and went of his own free will into the muddy and infected pond nearby where he swam hare-like for one hour; instantly the embarrassed and humiliated fiscal commission took to its heels spreading, wherever it went – towns, hamlets, plains and mountains – one pestilential fiscal stink.Pained and disheartened after the trying hard times he had been through, he counted his loose change and once again climbed on the tree from where he could survey the entire terrain, this time, and smiled cynically…Then, regretting deeply what he had done, but having gained a lot morally, he came down, dusted himself with a tape measure, and singing the hymn to liberty and sticking the hen under his smock, vanished with it in the deep dark…It is believed that he took the road to his native village where, fed up with living as a bachelor, it is likely that he decided to make a home for himself and the hen, and to make himself useful to his folks by teaching them the art of midwivery. English version by Stavros DELIGIORGIS
by Urmuz (Dem. Dumitrescu-Buzău) (1883-1923)
