“For the first time, a witch was noticed when she performed her devilish rites on the night of the full moon after Christmas of this year. I will ask Giacomo, the miller's son, to tell what he saw ...

- Your Eminence, I saw everything as well as now - you and the most respectable audience. She ... She sat by the river ...

- And what? Go on, my son ...

- She, with permission to say ... howled ...

- What?!

- She howled, Your Eminence, looking at the moon ...

- Take the trouble to explain better, my son.

- She sat on the river bank without ... I mean ... she ...

- Come on!

- She sat on the beach naked, Your Eminence, and howled, looking at the moon!

- Did you hear any words, did she give any signs to heaven or earth?

- I don’t know ... I don’t remember ... I felt so scared that I ran home, barely hearing these sounds ...

"... How did you run away, bitch ..." - She licked broken lips - "And who jerked behind a bush, interfering with my conversation with the sky? You only then began to run, when I called you to me so that you would not suffer in vain ... Lord! It would all be over soon ... But not before I see Him again ... I must ... "

- Rev. Bartolomeo, tell us what happened a month ago in your monastery ...

- In our, Your Eminence, in our ...

- Well, in our monastery. So what happened then?

“You deserve to remember ...”

- Now I ask you, my brother, and take the trouble to answer my question ...

- Yes, yes, of course ... This ... This woman knocked on our gate ... And ... And ...

- Go on! You are famous for eloquence among our flock!

- She knocked to us, crying for help, wrapped up in rags and kneeling ...

“And you let her in?”

- I did not let her in, but my brother ...

- Good. He will also tell us why he did it. What happened next?

- She went to the kitchen, and stayed there for about an hour ... We did not rush her. She, your honor ..., had a very emaciated look ...

- and?

“I don’t know that she mixed us in the drink, but after half an hour all the brothers felt possessed by the devil ...”

- Farther.

- She came to us in the refectory and ...

- and?

- And ...

- Come on!

- And danced on the table ... And we ... we ...

“My brother, where has your eloquence gone?”

“We clapped our hands and sang along with her, your preosve ...

“Yes, yes ... Tell me more about what happened then ... You have a pretty good gimlet, my good boar! No wonder you are so eloquent! I remember, I remember your sweaty ass, which I tried not to touch with my hands when you snuffled in my ear ... If only you, Your Eminence, would not be shamed then in front of the whole little fraternity! What did I not do then with your rag so that she would unwrap her bundle? ... If I could do it, I would be safe and sound now ... Intact and unharmed ... Lord! Well, at least for an hour, at least for a minute, bring Him to me! I must tell him ... "

- Venerable Lucretia, tell us how the witch bewitched your son!

 — ...

- Why are you silent, kind woman? Why are you all silent? Or this ... This hellish offspring filed you languages? ..

- My son ... My ... son ...

- Do not Cry. When, if not now, can you get even with this generation of darkness?

“It will not return my boy to me, your excellence ...”

“But this will punish the killer!”

- She did not kill him, your preo ... You know, he hanged himself, and I still bother to be allowed to be transferred to the Christian cemetery ...

- What are you saying? Do you try to justify a witch who charmed your son and brought him to the grave?

- No, your pr ... He ... He ...

- Come on!

- He just loved her. And she was indifferent to him.

"Yes. Poor boy, how I told him not to do stupid things! And how he tried not to do them ... Until the last ... Until the last ... It was not necessary to caress him then, in the bread barn ... But I didn’t caress ... I just let him do whatever he wanted ... Why should I be responsible for what he wants to love me so much ... Why ... Good lord Well, where is he? I must have time to tell him that ... "

- By the highest command of the spiritual court, we sentence the witch to the test of water. Being thrown in chains into the water, she either drowns, and then we will bury her as a pious woman, or she will pop up, and then we will subject her to execution without shedding blood on a slow fire. Amen!

“I will not float. Oh, I will not float ... You, maybe, would emerge, a piece of shit in a cassock, but I will not succeed ... What did I do to you? I have always loved, and if He was far away, I loved the one who is closer ... Who dares to reproach me for this? You lustful evil old man? Or are you pimply jerking off? Do not you got what you dreamed about your sleepless nights? So why should I hate me so much? Why kill me? Why kill me, without giving me a talk with my beloved? Where did you hide Him? I will get tired of waiting for him in heaven ... I must tell him that the old woman Martha ... " * * *

... And yet, they managed to meet again. When she was carried to sink, he held her foot. Not for the one whose fingers he loved so much to kiss, but for the second, which he used to call dearly The Maid ... The Maid at the Hostess ... The procession moved slowly, torches burned, gurgled prayers, but She didn’t care. She spent all the remaining strength not to open her mouth and not to tell Him that for the third year the old woman Martha has a funny, naughty little boy ... © Mr. Kiss, One Hundred Splinters of One Sense, 1998–1999