Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Part one - IV
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he would worry me? Not much. And I might have children.
Some day I will come into money, and he is so poor. We could
live abroad and we could both work. There is something
refined about all his work, don’t you think? That relief of the
boys playing, for instance, and the cast for the Almquist
monument. Not very original, perhaps, in composition, but so
beautiful, so noble and restful, and the figures so perfectly
plastic.”
Jenny smiled a little and stroked the hair from Francesca’s
forehead; it was wet with tears.
“I wish I could work like that — always — but I have those
eternal pains in my heart and my head. My eyes hurt me too,
and I am dead tired always.”
“You know what your doctor says — only nerves — every
bit of it. If you only would be sensible!”
“I know. That is what they all say, but I am afraid. You
say that I have no instincts — not in the way you mean, but I
have them all right in another way. I have been a devil all this
week — I know it perfectly well — but I have been waiting all
the time for something awful I knew was going to happen.
You see, I was right.”
Jenny kissed her again.
“I was down at S. Agostino tonight. You know that image
of the Madonna that works miracles; I knelt before it and
prayed to the Virgin. I think I should be happier if I turned
Catholic. A woman like the Virgin Mary would understand.
I ought really never to marry. I ought to go into a convent —
Siena, for instance. I might paint copies in the gallery and
earn some money for the convent. When I copied that angel
for Melozzo da Forli in Florence there was a nun painting every
day. It wasn’t so bad.” She laughed. “I mean, it was
awful. I hated it. But they all said my copies were so good
— and so they were. I believe I should be happy in that way.
Oh, Jenny, if I only felt well and were at peace in my mind,
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