Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XXXI. The Regatta
<< 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)
boys and girls in the Blue Grotto. How his
grandson Nero had had his own mother beaten
to death by his oarsmen in view of the island,
how his nephew Caligula had drowned thousands
of people off Pozzuoli. At last she said in her
inimitable dialect:
“They must have been very bad all these
people, nothing but camorristi.”
“I should think so,” said the Professor,
“didn’t you hear me say that Tiberio strangled
the boys and girls in the Blue Grotto, that . . .”
“Are they all dead?”
“Yes, of course, nearly two thousand years
ago.”
“But why on earth should we then trouble
about them, do let us leave them alone,” she
said with her enchanting smile.
Thus ended her education.
After the death of her husband she had returned
to her island and gradually drifted back to the
simple life of her ancestors with a lineage two
thousand years older than that of her milord
inglese. We found her sitting in the sun on her
little pergola, a rosary in her hand and a cat
in her lap, a dignified Roman matron, stately
as the mother of the Gracchi. Lord Dufferin
kissed her hand with the courtesy of an old
courtier. She had forgotten nearly all her
English and fallen back to the dialect of her
childhood, and the ambassador’s classical Italian
was as unintelligible to her as to me.
“Tell her,” said Lord Dufferin as we rose to
go, “tell her from me that she is at least as great
a lady as her milord inglese was a gentleman.”
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
