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 157
bronze vase, which belonged in the music-room.
A few steps higher up she found a knife. It
was a sheath-knife, with a long, dagger-like blade.
When she lifted it up a couple of dark drops rolled
down from its edge. She knew that it must be
blood.
And she understood too that what she had feared
all the autumn had now happened. Bandits had
been in the summer-palace for plunder. And
everyone who could run away had run away; but her
father, who could not leave his bed, must be
murdered.
She could not tell whether the brigands were not
still in the house. But now, in the midst of danger,
her fears vanished; and she hurried on, unheeding
that she was alone and defenceless.
She went along the gallery into the music-room.
Broad rays of moonlight fell upon the floor, and
in one of those rays lay a human form stretched
motionless.
Donna Micaela bent down over that motionless
body. It was Giannita. She was murdered; she
had a deep, gaping wound in her neck.
Donna Micaela laid the body straight, crossed the
hands over the breast, and closed the eyes. In so
doing, her hands were wet with the blood; and when
she felt that warm, sticky blood, she began to weep.
“Alas, my dear, beloved sister,” she said aloud, “it
is your young life that has ebbed away with this
blood. All your life you have loved me, and now
you have shed your blood defending my house. Is
it to punish my hardness that God has taken you
from me? Is it because I did not allow you to love
him whom I loved that you have gone from me?
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
