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.
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THE BELLS OF SAN PASQUALE ’ 97
appalled at the thought of fleeing with Gaetano, and
she did not know how she could stay with Don
Ferrante. She hated the one as much as the other.
Neither of them seemed able to offer her anything
but unhappiness.
She saw that the Madonna would not help. And
now she asked herself if it really would not be a
greater misery to go with Gaetano than to remain
with Don Ferrante. Was it worth while to ruin
herself to be revenged on her husband?
She suffered great anguish. She had been driven
on by a devouring restlessness the whole week.
Worst of all, she could not sleep. She no longer
thought clearly or soundly.
Time and time again she returned to her prayers.
But then she thought: “ The Madonna cannot help
me.” And so she stopped.
Then she came to think of the days of her former
sorrows, and remembered the little image that once
had helped her, when she had been in despair as
great as this.
She turned with passionate eagerness to the poor
little child. “Help me, help me! Help my old
father, and help me myself that I may not be
tempted to anger and revenge!”
When she went to bed that night, she was still
tormented and distressed. “ If I could sleep only one
hour,” she said, “ I should know what I wanted.”
Gaetano was to start on his travels early the next
morning. She came at last to the decision to speak
to him before he left, and tell him that she could
not go with him. She could not bear to be
considered a fallen woman.
She had hardly decided that before she fell asleep.
.7
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