Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Part one - VIII
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She was to have painted Berner — papa. She had begun to
call him thus when his own children started to talk, and also
to call her mother mamma. This marked to her mind the
change that had taken place in the relations between her and
the mother of her brief childhood.
The first part of the time out here, when at last she was
freed from the constant strain, was not pleasant. She realized
that her every nerve was quivering from the strain, and she
thought it impossible ever to regain her youth. From her stay
in Florence she remembered only that she had been cold, felt
lonely, and been unable to assimilate all that was new around
her. Little by little the endless treasure of beauty was
revealed to her, and she was seized by a great longing to grasp
it and live in it, to be young, to love and be loved. She thought
of the first spring days when Cesca and Gunnar took her to
Viterbo — of the sunshine on the bare trees and the masses of
anemones, violets, and cowslips in the faded grass. Of the
steppe-like plain outside the city, with fumes of boiling, strongly
smelling sulphur springs wafted through the air, and the ground
all round white with curdling lime. The thousands of swift
emerald-green lizards in the stone walls, the olive trees in the
green meadows, where white butterflies fluttered about. The
old city with singing fountains and black mediaeval houses,
and the towers in the surrounding wall with moonlight on
them. And the yellow, slightly effervescent wine, with a fiery
taste from the volcanic soil on which it was grown.
She called her new friends by their names. In the night
Francesca made a confession of her young, eventful life, and
crept into her bed at last to be comforted, repeating time after
time: “Fancy, you being like this! I was always afraid of
you at school. I never thought you could be so kind!”
Gunnar was in love with both of them. He was full of fire,
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