An extract from The Duke by Matteo Melchiorre, translated by Antonella Lettieri

It was then that I heard a knocking on the windowpane. And there, behind the glass, stood Nelso Tabiòna. He was looking at me in silence, in keeping with his most personal principle of discretion. As a matter of fact, he deems it proper to announce himself in this manner. He arrives in the courtyard, methodically peeps through each window of the ground floor, and, when he finally sees me, stops there and waits in silence. If I notice him, fine. Otherwise, he actually raps his knuckles on the glass. Once, with all due respect, I told Nelso that this behaviour of his was perhaps a touch questionable. He took offence: according to him, it most certainly was not an impertinence but rather showed commendable consideration, a most distinguished discretion.  

Nelso is not the kind of man to countenance the possibility of being wrong or to second-guess himself, his own thoughts, or his own actions, and here in Vallorgàna local wisdom has it that this is the natural inclination of a Tabiòna. Therefore, he is prone both to carrying out great feats and to telling sensational tales about said feats; and this too, in the village, is ascribed to the instinctive, hereditary character of the Tabiònas. Nelso might tell the story of how he spotted a deer, but this deer will have the grandest antlers one ever did see. He might have felled a tree, but this tree will be so enormous that no one else but he, who is the prince of woodcutters, would have ever dreamt of notching it. Nelso might have driven up the Mountain in his four-by-four with no need for chains despite the heavy snowfall. He might have manoeuvred his trailer overloaded with logs in a space where not even a wheelbarrow could turn around.  

Faced with a man like this – who is, by the way, the person to whom I am closest in the village and who has on his side not only his aptitude for great feats but also such an age that, as he loves to repeat, he might be my father – faced with a man like this, as I was saying, one can only prepare oneself to listen and to admit to one’s own insignificance. This is certainly true, but at the same time one must give him demonstrations of resoluteness, decisiveness, and practicality, since a man who is not resolute, decisive, or practical is regarded by Nelso’s system of ethics as beyond shameful.  

Therefore, on that day, after Nelso knocked upon the glass, I motioned to him to come inside, showing a certain imperious resolve. He pointed to his muddy boots, his woolly hat, his army jacket, the cigarette in his hand. He shook his head. “Get in!” I said. So he extinguished the cigarette on the sole of his boot, put the stub into his breast pocket, and came in.  

In his eyes was a certain surliness and irritation. He was clearly expecting me to ask, all meek and fearful, whatever might be bothering him. But I chose to defy him. As soon as he sat at the table, I told him that I, and no one else but I, however unworthy I might be to stand in his presence, had just that minute seen something which he, perhaps, had not only never seen before but also never even imagined. Since this kind of provocation makes Nelso’s blood boil like nothing else in the world, he closed his eyes, shook his head, and said, “Come off it!”