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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TWO SONGS
• 123
Nothing could be more light and airy; nothing more
captivating and affecting. No one could think that
human hands were touching the strings. It was as
if bees and crickets and grasshoppers were giving a
concert.
“There is some one again who has fallen in love
with Giannita,” said Don Ferrante. “That is a
woman, Giannita. Any one can see that she is
pretty. If I were young I should fall in love with
Giannita. She knows how to love.”
Donna Micaela started. He was right, she thought.
The mandolin-player meant Giannita. That evening
Giannita was at home with her mother, but
otherwise she always lived at the summer palace. Donna
Micaela had arranged it so since Don Ferrante had
been ill.
But Donna Micaela liked the mandolin playing,
for whomever it might be meant. It came sweet,
and soft, and comforting. She went gently into her
room to listen better in the dark and loneliness.
A sweet, strong fragrance met her there. What
was it? Her hands began to tremble before she
found a candle and a match. On her work-table lay
a big, widely opened magnolia-blossom.
On one of the flower petals was pricked: “ Who
loves me?” And now stood under it: “Gaetano.”
Beside the flower lay a little white book full of
love-songs. And there was a mark against one of
the little verses: —
“ None have known the love that I have brought thee,
Silent, secret, born in midnight’s measure.
All my dreams have stolen forth and sought thee;
Miser-like, the while, I watched my treasure:
Tho’ the priest shall seek to shrive me, dying,
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