Note: Translator Pauline Bancroft Flach died in 1966, less than 70 years ago. Therefore, this work is protected by copyright, restricting your legal rights to reproduce it. However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now. Read more about copyright.
Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Third book - II. In Palermo
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has been proofread at least once.
(diff)
(history)
Denna sida har korrekturlästs minst en gång.
(skillnad)
(historik)
IN PALERMO
331
for a moment. Magnificent cakes and towerlike
bouquets are incessantly passing up the stairway,
and poems of welcome and telegrams of
congratulation are constantly coming. There is no end to
them.
The poor bronze emperor on the Piazza Bologna,
poor, ugly Charles the Fifth, who is forlorn and
thin and wretched as San Giovanni in the desert,
has in some inscrutable manner got a bunch of
flowers in his hand. When the students standing
on Quattro Canti, quite near by, hear of it, they
march up to the emperor in a procession, light him
with their torches, and raise a cheer for the old
despot. And one of them takes his bunch of
flowers to give it to the great socialist.
Then the students march down to the harbor.
Long before they get there their torches are
burnt out, but they do not care. They come with
arms about each other’s necks, singing loudly, and
sometimes breaking off in their song to shout:
“ Down with Crispi! Long live Bosco !” The
song begins again, but it is again broken off,
because those who cannot sing throw their arms
round the singers and kiss them.
Guilds and corporations swarm out of the quarters
of the town where the same trade has been carried
on for more than a thousand years. The masons
come with their band of music and their banner;
there come the workers in mosaic; here come the
fishermen.
When the societies meet, they salute one another
with their banners. Sometimes they take time to
stop and make speeches. Then they tell of the five
released prisoners, the five martyrs whom the gov-
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
