United States or Colombia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But he belonged to the Roman priest's party, and, recognising the heretic, turned back, and asked the foreign signorina if she could tell him anything about the sick man from Arcinazzo, who had been brought to the church that morning, when the sacristan had also seen her there.
Either from a window, or from the door of the inn, where she was, with the sick girl of Arcinazzo, Noemi saw him pass. She borrowed an umbrella from the innkeeper, and followed him, braving the wind and the rain. She followed him, distressed at seeing him bareheaded and without an umbrella, and reflecting that if he were not a Saint, one would think him insane.
They had come from the lowlands of Arcinazzo, a journey of several hours, to be healed by the Saint of Jenne. A woman from Arcinazzo, who had heart disease, had been cured some days before by simply touching his habit. Maria and Noemi spoke to the sufferers. The girl was confident, but the man, who was shaking with fever, seemed to have come simply to satisfy his people, to give this a trial also.
After a brief consultation with the muleteer, Benedetto had consented to ride down to where Signora Selva was waiting. Left alone, he seated himself near the cross, and waited for the man to return with the water and the parasol. The crescent moon was rising, gilding the bright sky, above the hills of Arcinazzo; the evening was warm and breathless.
It was a quarter of an hour before they reached the works, the longest quarter of an hour Del Ferice remembered in his whole life. Neither spoke a word. Giovanni hailed a sturdy-looking fellow who was breaking stones by the roadside. "Get up, Carluccio," he said. "This good monk has lost his way. You must take him round the mountain, above Ponza to Arcinazzo, and show him the road to Trevi.
He added that his reason for inquiring was, that he had been ordered to wait for the parish priest, who was going to carry the viaticum to the man. Noemi knew that the young man from Arcinazzo was dying, but that was all. "I see," said the sacristan, raising his voice intentionally. "He probably does not wish for Christ. These are their fine miracles!
I could tell you just how every stone on the road looks Rojate, the narrow pass beyond, and then the long valley with the vines; then the road turns away and rises as you go along the plateau of Arcinazzo, which is hollow beneath, and you can hear the echoes as you tread; then at the end of that the desperate old inn, called by the shepherds the Madre dei Briganti, the mother of brigands, smoke-blackened within and without, standing alone on the desolate heath; farther on, a broad bend of the valley to the left, and you see Trevi rising before you, crowned with an ancient castle, and overlooking the stream that becomes the Aniene afterwards; from Trevi through a rising valley that grows narrower at every step, and finally seems to end abruptly, as indeed it does, in a dense forest far up the pass.
Word Of The Day