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 HOME-COMING 341
weep if a single old beggar-woman has died in your
absence.
No, you did not know that to come home was so
strange.
You came out of prison a few weeks ago, and the
torpor of the prison still has possession of you.
You hardly know if you will take the trouble to go
home. Your beloved is dead; it is too terrible to
tear your longing from its grave. So you drift
aimlessly about, and let one day pass like the next.
At last you pluck up courage. You must go home
to your poor mother.
And when you are there, you feel that you have
been longing for every stone, every blade of grass.
• ••••••••
Ever since he came into the shop Donna Elisa has
thought: “ Now I will tell him of Micaela. Perhaps
he does not even know that she is alive.” But she
puts it off from minute to minute, not only because
she wishes to have him for a while to herself alone,
but also because as soon as she mentions Micaela’s
name he will fall into the anguish and misery of
love. For Micaela will not marry him; she has said
so to Donna Elisa a thousand times. She would
like to free him from prison, but she will not be
the wife of an atheist.
Only for one half-hour will Donna Elisa keep
Gaetano for herself; only for one half-hour.
But even so long she may not sit with his hand in
hers, asking him a thousand questions, for the people
have learned that he has come. All at once the
whole street is full of those who wish to see him.
Donna Elisa has bolted the door, for she knew that
she would not have him in peace a moment after
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