United States or Greece ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The gilt coaches drawn by six or eight of the lively Neapolitan horses, decked with plumes and artificial flowers and preceded by running footmen who beat the foot-passengers aside with long staves; the richly-dressed ladies seated in this never-ending file of carriages, bejewelled like miraculous images and languidly bowing to their friends; the throngs of citizens and their wives in holiday dress; the sellers of sherbet, ices and pastry bearing their trays and barrels through the crowd with strange cries and the jingling of bells; the friars of every order in their various habits, the street-musicians, the half-naked lazzaroni, cripples and beggars, who fringed the throng like the line of scum edging a fair lake; this medley of sound and colour, which in fact resembled some sudden growth of the fiery soil, was an expressive comment on the abate's words.
At length, by a strong effort, she reanimated her spirits, and went to the Abate's closet to receive her sentence. He was seated in his chair, and his frowning aspect chilled her heart. 'Daughter, said he, 'you have been guilty of heinous crimes. You have dared to dispute nay openly to rebel, against the lawful authority of your father.
Much of this was unintelligible to Odo; but he was moved by any mention of Pianura, and in the abate's first pause he risked the question "Do you know the hump-backed boy Brutus?" His companion stared and pursed his soft lips. "Brutus?" says he. "Brutus? Is he about the Duke's person?" "He lives in the palace," said Odo doubtfully. The fat ecclesiastic clapped a hand to his thigh.
The abate's answer was a rush of purple to the forehead; but Don Gervaso imperturbably added, "And you lie but one night on the road."
His piety was of a stamp so different from the abate's that it vivified the theological abstractions over which Odo had formerly languished, infusing a passionate meaning into the formulas of the textbooks.
Filomena had laid a table in the stone chamber known as the bailiff's parlour, and thither the abate dragged his charge and set him down before the coarse tablecloth covered with earthen platters. A tallow dip threw its flare on the abate's big aquiline face as he sat opposite Odo, gulping the hastily prepared frittura and the thick purple wine in its wicker flask. Odo could eat nothing.
The two men, hitherto, had addressed each other as strangers; but now something in the abate's tone recalled to Odo the familiarity of their former intercourse, their deep community of thought, the significance of the days they had spent together in the monastery of Monte Cassino.
It was some time before she could recover composure sufficient to obey the summons; and when she did, every step that bore her towards the Abate's room increased her dread.
Word Of The Day