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falco falcone 29i
29I
swears over the lilies, and the anemones fall to
pieces if only he looks at them.
Falco sits there in his leather breeches and the
long, buttoned coat, immured in flowers as a saint on
a feast-day. Biagio and Passafiore, his nephew, have
gathered them for him. They have piled up before
him an Etna of the finest specimens that grow in the
quarry. Falco can choose between lilies,
cactus-blossoms and roses and geraniums. And he thunders
at the flowers that he will trample them to dust
under his leather sandals if they submit not to his
will.
Never before has Falco had anything to do with
flowers. As long as he has lived, he has never made
a bouquet for a girl, or plucked a rose to place in
his buttonhole. He has not even laid a wreath on
his mother’s grave.
Therefore the delicate flowers are rebellious
towards him. Creepers entangle themselves in his
hair and hat, and petals have fastened in his bristly
beard. He shakes his head violently, and the scar on
his cheek glows fiery red, as it used to do in former
days when he fought with the carabinieri.
Nevertheless the wreath grows, and thick as a tree
trunk it twines about Falco’s feet and limbs. Falco
swears over it as though it were the iron-fetter, which
once dragged between his ankles. He complains
more when he scratches himself on a thorn or stings
himself on a nettle than he did when the
galley-warder’s lash cut his back.
Biagio and Passafiore, his nephew, dare not show
themselves, but lie hidden in a cave until all is ready.
They are in fits of laughter, because such
lamenta-20
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