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 - VII. The Bells of San Pasquale
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104 the miracles of antichrist
seven churches. She thought that she recognized
them all, until finally she asked, and heard that it
was only San Pasquale’s little bells that were
ringing.
During the first hours, and before people generally
knew that the bells were ringing all by themselves,
they noticed that the raindrops fell in time to the
sound of the bells, and that every one spoke with a
metallic voice. People also noticed that it was
impossible to play on mandolin and guitar, because
the bells blended with the music and made it
ear-splitting; neither could any one read, because the
letters swung to and fro like bell-clappers, and the
words acquired a voice, and read themselves out
quite audibly.
Soon the people could not bear to see flowers on
long stalks, because they thought that they swung
to and fro. And they complained that sound came
from them, instead of fragrance.
Others insisted that the mist floating through the
air moved in time with the sound of the bells, and
they said that all the pendulums conformed to it,
and that every one who went by in the rain tried to
do likewise.
And that was when the bells had only rung a
couple of hours, and wh6n the people still laughed
at them.
But at the third hour the ringing seemed to
increase even more, and then some stuffed cotton
into their ears, while others buried themselves under
pillows. But they felt just as distinctly how the
air quivered with the strokes, and they thought that
they perceived how everything moved in time.
Those who fled up to the dark attic found the sound
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