“I don’t think I’d go, if I were you,” he said firmly.
“Why not? Don’t you think there’s anything to it? You think it’s all a lot of nonsense?”
“I don’t know about that,” replied the doctor. “No, personally I think there is a dragon, though I’ve never seen it. But I wouldn’t get involved in this business. I don’t like the sound of it.”
“Don’t like the sound of it? Do you mean you really believe in the dragon?”
“My dear sir, I’m an old man,” said the doctor, “and I’ve seen many things. It may be a lot of nonsense, but it may also be true; if I were you, I wouldn’t get involved. And I warn you: the way is hard to find, the rocks are very unsafe, you only need a gust of wind to precipitate sheer disaster and there isn’t a drop of water. Give up the whole thing—why not go down to the Crocetta,” (he pointed toward a rounded grassy hill rising behind the village) “you’ll find plenty of hares there.” He was silent for a moment, then added, “I assure you, I wouldn’t go. I once heard it said—but it’s useless, you’ll only laugh . . .”
“Why should I laugh?” protested Andronico. “Please go on.”
“Well, some people say that this dragon gives off smoke, and that it’s poisonous and a small quantity can kill you.”
Forgetting his promise, Andronico laughed loudly. “I always knew that you were reactionary,” he snorted, “reactionary and eccentric. But this is too much. You’re medieval, my dear Taddei. I’ll see you this evening, and I’ll be sporting the dragon’s head.”
He waved goodbye, climbed back into the carriage and ordered the coach to move on. Giosue Longo, who was one of the hunters and knew the way, went at the head of the convoy.
“What was that old man shaking his head at?” inquired Maria, who had woken up in the interim.
“Nothing,” replied Andronico. “It was only old Taddei, who’s an amateur vet; we were talking about foot-and-mouth disease.”
“And the dragon?” inquired Count Gerol, who was sitting opposite him. “Did you ask him about the dragon?”
“No, I didn’t, to be quite honest,” replied the governor. “I didn’t want to be laughed at. I told him we’d come up here to do a bit of hunting, that’s all I said.”
The passengers felt their weariness vanish as the sun rose; the horses moved faster and the coachmen began to hum.
“Taddei used to be our family doctor. Once”—it was the governor speaking—“he had a fashionable practice. Then suddenly he retired and went into the country, perhaps because of some disappointment in love. Then he must have been involved in some other trouble and came to this one-eyed place. Lord knows where he could go from here; he’ll be a sort of dragon himself soon.”
“What nonsense!” said Maria, rather annoyed. “Always talking about the dragon—you’ve talked of nothing else since we left and it’s really becoming rather boring.”
“It was your idea to come,” replied her husband, mildly amused. “Anyway, how could you know what we were talking about if you were asleep the whole way? Or were you just pretending?”
Maria did not reply but looked worriedly out of the window; at the mountains, which were becoming higher, steeper and more arid. At the far end of the valley there appeared a chaotic succession of peaks, mostly conical in shape and bare of woods or meadows, yellowish in color and incredibly bleak. The scorching sunlight clothed them in a hard, strong light of their own.
It was about nine o’clock when the carriages came to a standstill because the road came to an end. As they climbed down, the hunting party realized that they were now right in the heart of those sinister mountains. On close inspection, the rock of which the mountains were made looked rotten and friable as though they were one vast landslide from top to bottom.
“Look, this is where the path starts,” said Longo, pointing to a trail of footsteps leading upward toward the mouth of a small valley. It was about three-quarters of an hour’s journey from there to the Burel, where the dragon had been seen.
“Have you seen about the water?” Andronico asked the hunters.
“There are four flasks, and two of wine, your Excellency,” one of them answered. “That should be enough . . .”
Odd. But now that they were so far from the town, locked in the mountains, the idea of the dragon began to seem less absurd. The travelers looked around them but saw no signs of anything reassuring. Yellowish peaks where no human being had ever trod, endless little valleys winding off into the distance: complete desolation.
They walked without speaking: first went the hunters with the guns, culverins and other hunting equipment, then Maria and lastly the two naturalists. Fortunately, the path was still in the shade; the sun would have been merciless amid all that yellow earth.
The valley leading to the Burel was narrow and winding too; there was no stream in its bed and no grass or plants growing on its sides, only stones and debris; no birdsong or babble of water, only the occasional hiss of gravel.
At a certain point a young man appeared below them, walking faster than the hunting party and with a dead goat slung over his shoulders. “He’s going to the dragon,” said Longo, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The inhabitants of Palissano, he then explained, were highly superstitious and sent a goat to the Burel every morning to placate the monster. The young men of the region took it in turns to take the offering. If the dragon was heard to roar, this portended untold disaster; all kinds of misfortunes might follow.
“And the dragon eats the goat every day?” inquired Count Gerol, jokingly.
“There’s nothing left of it the next day, that’s for certain.”
“Not even the bones?”
“No, not even the bones. It takes the goat into the cave to eat
