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 - XI. The Feast of San Sebastiano
<< 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)
THE FEAST OF SAN SEBA ST/A NO 171
nine years’imprisonment? “ said Donna Elisa. “Do
you think that he can live so long, or that any one
who loves him can live so long? He is dead,
Cavaliere; as dead for me as Giannita.”
Donna Micaela felt as if strong fetters bound her
beyond escape. It was worse, she thought, than to
be tied to a pillory and whipped.
“ All the joy of my old age is taken from me,” said
Donna Elisa. “ Both Giannita and Gaetano! I have
always expected them to marry each other. It
would have been so suitable, because they were both
my children, and loved me. For what shall I live
now, when I have no young people about me? I
was often poor when Gaetano first came to me, and
people said to me that I should have been better off
alone. But I answered: * It makes no difference,
none, if only I have young people about me.’ And
I thought that when he grew up he would find a
young wife, and then they would have little
children, and I would never need to sit a lonely and
useless old woman.”
Donna Micaela lay thinking that she could have
saved Gaetano, but had not wished to do so. But
why had she not wished? It seemed to her quite
incomprehensible. She began to count up to
herself all her reasons for permitting him to rush to
destruction. He was an atheist; a socialist; he
wished to cause a revolt. That had outweighed
everything else when she opened the garden gate for
him. It had crushed her love also. She could not
now understand it. It was as if a scale full of
feathers had weighed down a scale full of gold.
“ My beautiful boy! “ said Donna Elisa, “ my
beautiful boy! He was already a great man over there
ii
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
