The Decapitated Chicken
Horacio Quiroga / La gallina degollada (A short story in Spanish)
Horacio Quiroga / A galinha degolada (A short story in Portuguese)
All day long the four idiot sons of the
couple Mazzini-Ferraz sat on a bench in the patio. Their tongues protruded from
between their lips; their eyes were dull; their mouths hung open as they turned
their heads.
The patio had an earthen floor and was
closed to the west by a brick wall. The bench was five feet from the wall,
parallel to it, and there they sat, motionless, their gaze fastened on the
bricks. As the sun went down, disappearing behind the wall, the idiots
rejoiced. The blinding light was always what first gained their attention;
little by little by little their eyes lighted up; finally, they would laugh
uproariously, each infected by the same uneasy hilarity, staring at the sun
with bestial joy, as if it were something to eat.
Other times, lined up on the bench, they
hummed for hours on end, imitating the sound of the trolley. Loud noises, too,
shook them from their inertia, and at those times they ran around the patio,
biting their tongues and mewing. But almost always they were sunk in the somber
lethargy of idiocy, passing the entire day seated on their bench, their legs
hanging motionless, dampening their pants with slobber.
The oldest was twelve and the youngest
eight. Their dirty and slovenly appearance was testimony to the total lack of
maternal care.
These four idiots, nevertheless, had once
been the joy of their parents' lives. When they had been married three months,
Mazzini and Berta had oriented the self-centered love of man and wife, wife and
husband, toward a more vital future: a son. What greater happiness for two
people in love than that blessed consecration of an affection liberated from
the vile egotism of purposeless love and -what is worse for love itself- love
without any possible hope of renewal?
So thought Mazzini and Berta, and, when
after fourteen months of matrimony their son arrived, they felt happiness
complete. The child prospered, beautiful, radiant, for a year and a half. But
one night in his twentieth month he was racked by terrible convulsions, and the
following morning he no longer recognized his parents. The doctor examined him
with the kind of professional attention that obviously seeks to find the cause
of the illness in the infirmities of the parents.
After a few days the child's paralyzed
limbs recovered their movement, but the soul, the intelligence, even instinct,
were gone forever. He lay on his mother's lap, an idiot, driveling, limp, to
all purposes dead.
"Son, my dearest son!" the
mother sobbed over the frightful ruin of her first-born.
The father, desolate, accompanied the
doctor outside.
"I can say it to you; I think it is a
hopeless case. He might improve, be educated to the degree his idiocy permits,
but nothing more."
"Yes! Yes...!" Mazzini assented.
"But tell me: do you think it is heredity, that...?"
"As far as the paternal heredity is
concerned, I told you what I thought when I saw your son. As for the mother's,
there's a lung there that doesn't sound too good. I don't see anything else,
but her breathing is slightly ragged. Have her thoroughly examined."
With his soul tormented by remorse,
Mazzini redoubled his love for his son, the idiot child who was paying for the
excesses of his grandfather. At the same time he had to console, to ceaselessly
sustain Berta, who was wounded to the depths of her being by the failure of her
young motherhood.
As is only natural, the couple put all
their love into the hopes for another son. A son was born, and his health and
the clarity of his laughter rekindled their extinguished hopes. But at eighteen
months the convulsions of the first-born were repeated, and on the following
morning the second son awoke an idiot.
This time the parents fell into complete
despair. So it was their blood, their love, that was cursed. Especially their
love. He, twenty-eight; she, twenty-two; and all their passionate tenderness
had not succeeded in creating one atom of normal life. They no longer asked for
beauty and intelligence as for the first born -only a son, a son like any
other!
From the second disaster burst forth new
flames of aching love, a mad desire to redeem once and for all the sanctity of
their tenderness. Twins were born; and step by step the history of the two
older brothers was repeated.
Even so, beyond the immense bitterness,
Mazzini and Berta maintained great compassion for their four sons. They must
wrest from the limbo of deepest animality, not their souls, lost now, but
instinct itself. The boys could not swallow, move about or even sit up. They
learned, finally, to walk, but they bumped into things because they took no
notice of obstacles. When they were washed, they mewed and gurgled until their
faces were flushed. They were animated only by food or when they saw brilliant
colors or heard thunder. Then they laughed, radiant with bestial frenzy,
pushing out their tongues and spewing rivers of slaver. On the other hand, they
possessed a certain imitative faculty, but nothing more.
The terrifying line of descent seemed to
have been ended with the twins. But with the passage of three years Mazzini and
Berta once again ardently desired another child, trusting that the long interim
would have appeased their destiny.
Their hopes were not satisfied. And
because of this burning desire and exasperation from its lack of fulfillment,
the husband and wife grew bitter. Until this time each had taken his own share
of responsibility for the misery their children had caused, but hopelessness
for the redemption of the four animals born to them finally created that
imperious necessity to blame others that is the specific patrimony of inferior
hearts.
It began with a change of pronouns: your
sons. And since they intended to trap, as well as insult each other, the
atmosphere became charged.
"It seems to me," Mazzini, who
had just come in and was washing his hands, said to Berta, "that you could
keep the boys cleaner."
As if she hadn't heard him, Berta
continued reading.
"It's the first time," she
replied after a pause, "I've seen you concerned about the condition of
your sons."
Mazzini turned his head toward her with a
forced smile.
"Our sons, I think."
"All right, our sons. Is that the way
you like it?" She raised her eyes.
This time Mazzini expressed himself
clearly.
"Surely you're not going to say I'm
to blame, are you?"
"Oh, no!" Berta smiled to
herself, very pale. "But neither am I, I imagine! That's all I
needed...," she murmured.
"What? What's all you needed?"
"Well, if anyone's to blame, it isn't
me, just remember that! That's what I meant."
Her husband looked at her for a moment
with a brutal desire to wound her.
"Let's drop it!" he said
finally, drying his hands.
"As you wish, but if you
mean..."
"Berta!"
"As you wish!"
This was the first clash, and other
followed. But, in the inevitable reconciliations, their souls were united in
redoubled rapture and eagerness for another child.
So a daughter was born. Mazzini and Berta
lived for two years with anguish as their constant companion, always expecting
another disaster. It did not occur, however, and the parents focused all their
contentment on their daughter, who took advantage of their indulgence to become
spoiled and very badly behaved.
Although even in the later years Berta had
continued to care for the four boys, after Bertita's birth she virtually
ignored the other children. The very thought of them horrified her, like the
memory of something atrocious she had been forced to perform. The same thing
happened to Mazzini, though to a lesser degree.
Nevertheless, their souls had not found
peace. Their daughter's least indisposition now unleashed -because of the
terror of losing her- the bitterness created by their unsound progeny. Bile had
accumulated for so long that the distended viscera spilled venom at the
slightest touch. From the moment of the first poisonous quarrel Mazzini and
Berta had lost respect for one another, and if there is anything to which man
feels himself drawn with cruel fulfillment it is, once begun, the complete
humiliation of another person. Formerly they had been restrained by their
mutual failure; now that success had come, each, attributing it to himself,
felt more strongly the infamy of the four misbegotten sons the other had forced
him to create.
With such emotions there was no longer any
possibility of affection for the four boys. The servant dressed them, fed them,
put them to bed, with gross brutality. She almost never bathed them. They spent
most of the day facing the wall deprived of anything resembling a caress.
So Bertita celebrated her fourth birthday,
and that night, as a result of the sweets her parents were incapable of denying
her, the child had a slight chill and fever. And the fear of seeing her die or
become an idiot opened once again the ever-present wound.
For three hours they did not speak to each
other, and, as usual, Mazzini's swift pacing served as a motive.
"My God! Can't you walk more slowly?
How many times...?"
"All right, I just forget. I'll stop.
I don't do it on purpose."
She smiled, disdainful.
"No, no, of course I don't think that
of you!"
"And I would never had believed that
of you...you consumptive!"
"What! What did you say?"
"Nothing!"
"Oh, yes, I heard you say something!
Look, I don't know what you said, but I swear I'd prefer anything to having a
father like yours!"
Mazzini turned pale.
"At last!" he muttered between
clenched teeth. "At last, viper, you've said what you've been wanting
to!"
"Yes, a viper, yes! But I had healthy
parents, you hear? Healthy! My father didn't die in delirium! I could have had
sons like anybody else's! Those are your sons, those four!"
Mazzini exploded in his turn.
"Consumptive viper! That's what I
called you, what I want to tell you! Ask him, ask the doctor who's to blame for
your sons' meningitis: my father or your rotten lung? Yes, viper!"
They continued with increasing violence,
until a moan from Bertita instantly sealed their lips. By one o'clock in the
morning the child's light indigestion had disappeared, and, as it inevitably
happens with all young married couples who have loved intensely, even for a
while, they effected a reconciliation, all the more effusive for the infamy of
the offenses.
A splendid day dawned, and as Berta arose
she spit up blood. Her emotion and the terrible night were, without any doubt,
primarily responsible. Mazzini held her in his embrace for a long while, and
she cried hopelessly, but neither of them dared to say a word.
At ten, they decided that after lunch they
would go out. They were pressed for time so they ordered the servant to kill a
hen.
The brilliant day had drawn the idiots
from their bench. So while the servant was cutting off the head of the chicken
in the kitchen, bleeding it parsimoniously (Berta had learned from her mother
this effective method of conserving the freshness of the meat), she thought she
sensed something like breathing behind her. She turned and saw the four idiots,
standing shoulder to shoulder, watching the operation with stupefaction.
Red...Red...
"Senora! The boys are here in the
kitchen."
Berta came in immediately; she never
wanted them to set foot in the kitchen. Not even during these hours of full
pardon, forgetfulness, and regained happiness could she avoid this horrible
slight! Because, naturally, the more intense her raptures of love for her
husband and daughter, the greater her loathing for the monsters.
"Get them out of here, Maria!"
Throw them out! Throw them out, I tell you!"
The four poor little beasts, shaken and
brutally shoved, went back to their bench.
After lunch, everyone went out; the
servant to Buenos Aires and the couple and child for a walk among the country
houses. They returned as the sun was sinking, but Berta wanted to talk for a
while with her neighbors across the way. Her daughter quickly ran into the
house.
In the meantime, the idiots had not moved
from their bench the whole day. The sun had crossed the wall now, beginning to
sink behind it, while they continued to stare at the bricks, more sluggish than
ever.
Suddenly, something came between their
line of vision and the wall. Their sister, tired of five hours with her
parents, wanted to look around a bit on her own. She paused at the base of the
wall and looked thoughtfully at its summit. She wanted to climb it; this could
not be doubted. Finally she decided on a chair with the seat missing, but still
she couldn't reach the top. Then she picked up a kerosene tin, and, with a fine
sense of relative space, placed it upright on the chair -with which she
triumphed.
The four idiots, their gaze indifferent,
watched how their sister succeeded patiently in gaining her equilibrium and
how, on tiptoe, she rested her neck against the top of the wall between her
straining hands. They watched her search everywhere for a toehold to climb up
higher.
The idiots' gaze became animated; the same
insistent light fixed in all their pupils. Their eyes were fixed on their
sister, as the growing sensation of bestial gluttony changed every line of
their faces. Slowly they advanced toward the wall. The little girl, having
succeeded in finding a toehold and about to straddle the wall and surely fall
off the other side, felt herself seized by one leg. Below her, the eight eyes
staring into hers frightened her.
"Let loose! Let me go!" she
cried, shaking her leg, but she was captive.
"Mama! Oh, Mama! Mama, Papa!"
she cried imperiously. She tried still to cling to the top of the wall but she
felt herself pulled, and she fell.
"Mama, oh, Ma-----" She could
cry no more. One of the boys squeezed her neck, parting her curls as if they
were feathers, and the other three dragged her by one leg toward the kitchen
where that morning the chicken had been bled, holding her tightly, drawing the
life out of her second by second.
Mazzini, in the house across the way,
thought he heard his daughter's voice.
"I think she's calling you," he
said to Berta.
They listened, uneasy, but heard nothing
more. Even so, a moment later they said good-by, and, while Berta went to put
up her hat, Mazzini went into the patio.
"Bertita!"
No one answered.
"Bertita! He raised his already
altered voice.
The silence was so funeral to his
eternally terrified heart that a chill of horrible presentiment ran to his
spine.
"My daughter, my daughter!" He
ran frantically toward the back of the house. But as he passed by the kitchen
he saw a sea of blood on the floor. he violently pushed open the half-closed
door and uttered a cry of horror. Berta, who had already started running when
she heard Mazzini's anguished call, cried out too. But as she rushed toward the
kitchen, Mazzini, livid as death, stood in her way, holding her back.
"Don't go in. Don't go in!"
But Berta had seen the blood-covered
floor. She could only utter a hoarse cry, throw her arms above her head, and,
leaning against her husband, sink slowly to the floor.
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