Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel Read Online Free

circumcision,” a huge man boomed in a deep bass. From his massive hands and the black spots on his face Muffin could tell he was a blacksmith. “How much are you supposed to cut? A finger length? Half a finger?”
    “I can’t tell you that, Iezekia, I’m not sure myself. They told me in Moscow that one cobbler cut off his willy with scissors and afterward he almost died. I myself am thinking of abstaining for the time being. Let’s get to the Holy Land first, then we’ll see. They do say Manuila said we shouldn’t circumcise ourselves. The way I heard, He hasn’t given the Foundlings His blessing to do it.”
    “They’re raving,” the blacksmith sighed. “We should be circumcised, Ieguda, we should. A real Jew is always circumcised. Otherwise we’ll be ashamed to go to the bathhouse in the Holy Land. They’ll laugh at us.”
    “You’re right, Iezekia,” Ieguda agreed. “Even if we’re frightened, we ought to, it’s clear.”
    At that the woman piped up. Her voice had a rotten, snuffling sound, which was not surprising, since there was no nose to be seen on her face—it had completely collapsed.
    “Frightening, you say? Call yourself Jews? A pity I’m not a man, I wouldn’t be frightened.”
    What can I nick from these monsters? Muffin was thinking. Maybe the blacksmith’s sack?
    And he began creeping stealthily toward the sack—but just then the three seated people were joined by a fourth, wearing the same kind of robe, only his blue stripe wasn’t daubed on with paint, but sewn on with white thread.
    This man seemed even more repulsive to Muffin: little screwed-up eyes in a flat, oily face, greasy hair down to his shoulders, a mangy little beard. He had to be a tavern keeper.
    The other three all turned on him. “What are you doing, Solomosha, have you left him all alone?”
    And the elderly man who was called Ieguda looked around (but he didn’t see Muffin—how could he?) and said in a quiet voice: “It was agreed—there should always be two of us with the treasury!”
    Muffin thought he must have misheard. But flat-faced Solomosha gestured with one hand and said: “What can happen to the treasury? He’s asleep, and the chest’s under his pillow, and he’s got it grabbed in his paws too. It’s stuffy in that room.” He sat down, took off one boot and started rewinding his foot wrapping.
    Muffin rubbed his eyes in case he was dreaming. A treasury! A chest! Heigh-ho for the first sailing! Heigh-ho for the Sturgeon! Those gold specs he had were a worthless trinket, not to mention the other things. In a cabin, under the prophet Manuila’s pillow, there was a treasury in a chest, waiting for Muffin. There was his marrowbone!
    And you say your prophet’s gone to sleep?
    The razin was out from behind the cable locker in a flash.
    Down, down the ramp Muffin flew to the lower deck, where you couldn’t see anybody or anything except yellow patches through the whiteness—that was the cabin windows glowing. Muffin asked the yellow patches: Right, then—which one of you are they carrying the treasury in?
    There were curtains on the windows, but not all the way up to the top. If you stood on a chair (and there were chairs on the deck, as if they’d been put there deliberately for Muffin to use) you could glance in over the top.
    In the first window Muffin saw a touching scene: a family drinking tea. Papa—very respectable-looking, with a thick beard—was sipping his tea from a large glass. His wife was sitting facing him on a small sofa, doing embroidery in her house cap—she was a rather mannish creature, but her face was extremely kind and gentle. And sitting on both sides of Papa, nestling against his broad shoulders, were the children, a schoolboy son and a daughter about the same age. They weren’t twins, though—the little lad was dark, but the girl had golden hair.
    The little daughter was singing. Quietly, so Muffin couldn’t hear the words through the glass, only a kind of