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 - First book - I. Mongibello
<< 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)
30
THE MIRACLES OF AJVTICHRIST
Lucifer and all the damned. No, he never would
have the courage to come there, she said.
Otherwise there was no danger in living there, for
the mountain feared the saints. Donna Elisa said
that it feared many saints, but most Santa Agata of
Catania. If the Catanians always were as they
should be to her, then neither earthquake nor lava
could do them any harm.
Gaetano stood quite close to her and he laughed
at everything she said. How had he come there and
why could he not stop laughing? It was a
wonderful signora.
Suddenly he said, in order not to deceive her,
“Donna Elisa, I am going to be a monk.” — “Oh,
are you?” she said. Then without anything more
she began again to tell about the mountain.
She said that now he must really listen; now she
was coming to the most important of all. He was
to follow her to the south side of the mountain so far
down that they were near the castle of Catania, and
there he would see a valley, a quite big and wide
oval valley. But it was quite black; the lava streams
came from all directions flowing down into it.
There were only stones there, not a blade of grass.
But what had Gaetano believed about the lava?
Donna Elisa was sure that he believed that it lay as
even and smooth on Etna as it lies in the streets.
But on Etna there are so many surprises. Could he
understand that all the serpents and dragons and
witches that lay and boiled in the lava ran out with
it when there was an eruption ? There they lay and
crawled and crept and twisted about each other, and
tried to creep up to the cold earth, and held each
other fast in misery until the lava hardened about
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
