Free The Nonexistent Knight by Italo Calvino

meticulous care that he put into every other ceremonial act of the day.
    The courses were the usual ones in a military mess: stuffed turkey roasted on the spit, braised oxen, suckling pig, eels, gold fish. Scarcely had the lackeys offered the platters than the paladins flung themselves on them, rummaged about with their hands and tore the food apart, smearing their cuirasses and squirting sauce everywhere. The confusion was worse than battle—soup tureens overturning, roast chickens flying, and lackeys yanking away platters before a greedy paladin emptied them into his porringer.
    At the corner of the table where Agilulf sat, on the other hand, all proceeded cleanly, calmly and orderly. But he who ate nothing needed more attendance by servers than the whole of the rest of the table. First of all—while there was such a confusion of dirty plates everywhere that there was no chance of changing them between courses and each ate as best he could, even on the tablecloth—Agilulf went on asking to have put in front of him fresh crockery and cutlery, plates big and small, porringers, glasses of every size and shape, innumerable forks and spoons and knives that had to be well sharpened. So exigent was he about cleanliness that a shadow on a glass or plate was enough for him to send it back. He served himself a little of everything. Not a single dish did he let pass. For example, he peeled off a slice of roast boar, put meat on one plate, sauce on another, smaller, plate, then with a very sharp knife chopped the meat into tiny cubes, which one by one he passed on to yet another plate, where he flavored them with sauce, until they were soaked in it. Those with sauce he then put in a new dish and every now and again called a lackey to take away the last plate and bring him a new one. Thus he busied himself for half hours at a time. Not to mention chickens, pheasants, thrushes—at these he worked for whole hours without ever touching them except with the points of little knives, which he asked for specially and which he very often had changed in order to strip the last little bone of its finest and most recalcitrant shred of flesh. He also had wine served, and continuously poured and repoured it among the many beakers and glasses in front of him; and the goblets in which he mingled one wine with the other he every now and again handed to a lackey to take away and change for a new one. He used a great deal of bread, constantly crushing it into tiny round pellets, all of the same size, which he arranged on the tablecloth in neat rows. The crust he pared down into crumbs, and with them made little pyramids. Eventually he would get tired of them and order the lackeys to brush down the table. Then he started all over again.
    With all this he never lost the thread of talk weaving to and fro across the table, and always intervened in time.
    What do paladins talk of at dinner? They boast as usual.
    Said Roland, “I must tell you that the battle of Aspramonte was going badly before I challenged King Agolante to a duel and bore off Excalibur. So attached to it was he that when I cut off his right arm at a blow, his fist remained tight around its hilt and I had to use pliers to detach ’em.”
    Said Agilulf, “I do not wish to contradict, but in the interests of accuracy I must record that Excalibur was surrendered by our enemies in accordance with the armistice treaties five days after the battle of Aspramonte. It figures in fact in a list of light weapons handed over to the Frankish army, among the conditions of the treaty.”
    Exclaimed Rinaldo, “Anyway that’s nothing compared with my sword Fusberts. When I met that dragon, passing over the Pyrenees I cut him in two with one blow and, d’you know that a dragon’s skin is harder than a diamond?”
    Interrupted Agilulf, “One moment, let’s just get this clear. The passage of the Pyrenees took place in April, and in April, as everyone knows, dragons slough their skins and are soft