United States or Rwanda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Poor Lisetta was very much frightened, but told her story to this angry stranger with true Southern palaver. She said the little lady loved Italy so, and wanted to be a peasant, and insisted she would run away quite by herself if Lisetta would not take her, and so she consented, knowing she could, through the padrona, send word to the friends. "And the man?" asked Norman, impatiently. "What man?
They wandered into a little church, one of the many Roman churches, and knelt side by side, Lisetta with her beads and her penance, and Mae with her thoughts, which grew dreary enough before the peasant was ready to go.
And when I asked him why he used me thus, he answered: ''Tis because thou didst to-day presume to speak slightingly of the celestial charms of Monna Lisetta, whom I love next to God Himself. Whereupon I asked: 'And who are you? And he made answer that he was the Angel Gabriel.
All I remember about it now is that it was called La Nuova Lucrezia ossia La Gatteria del Spropositi, a monstrous travesty of the story of Lucrece. One of the castrati Pamfilo by name played the part of Lisetta, "una putta di undici anni," and exhibited the most remarkable turn of satirical observation and humour I have ever seen before or since.
May I share your day of Heaven? It would be paradise for me, too." All this in the same soft, deferential manner. "Well, well," half laughed, half sighed Mae. "All this is a dream, unless, indeed, I go home with Lisetta." "Who is Lisetta?" "Our padrona's cousin. She is here on a visit. She lives within a mile of Sorrento, on the coast. She goes home at the end of Carnival.
"Because, because, yes, I will tell you," said Mae, remembering her wrongs, and suddenly moved by the sympathy and softness of the great eyes above her, "because they think I am home ill, and here I am, you see," and she laughed a little hurriedly, "besides, I go away with Lisetta to-morrow morning, hush, let no one hear, to Sorrento. You must never, never tell. How do I look?
This speech was received with new applause, and the padrona handed around the glasses saying: "We must drink first to the health of our new Italian. May she never leave us." "Yes, yes," called Lisetta, lifting high her glass. "Yes, yes," cried all, and Mae drank as heartily as any of them. Then she shook her head and gazed very scornfully down on her dark, stylish clothes.
The gossip, to whom it seemed a thousand years till she should be whereas she might repeat these things, took her leave of Madam Lisetta and foregathering at an entertainment with a great company of ladies, orderly recounted to them the whole story. They told it again to their husbands and other ladies, and these to yet others, and so in less than two days Venice was all full of it.
Is she like the Madre Ilkana?" Lisetta shook her head. "No, no, Signorina, La Madre is as plump and round as a loaf of bread, and as soft as the butter on it. She has five double chins that she shakes all the while, but then she has stiff bristles, like a man's, growing on them, and her knitting-needles and her words are all sharp as la Signora Maria Anne R-o-o-g-eers, I doubt not. But her eyes!
Now, Fra Alberto was a stout, handsome fellow, whose legs bore themselves right bravely; and being bedded with Monna Lisetta, who was lusty and delicate, he covered her after another fashion than her husband had been wont, and took many a flight that night without wings, so that she heartily cried him content; and not a little therewithal did he tell her of the glory celestial.
Word Of The Day