United States or Bosnia and Herzegovina ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
And his heart trembled with rapture when he reflected upon the wondrous harmony which daily revealed itself between his own and his Olimpia's character; for he fancied that she had expressed in respect to his works and his poetic genius the identical sentiments which he himself cherished deep down in his own heart in respect to the same, and even as if it was his own heart's voice speaking to him.
It seemed more awful now, more unendurable than ever, because she knew there was no good disguising it because it stood for something else. Ah, ah! she was in danger. So sure as she thought of this, Olimpia's heart stood still, and then suddenly throbbed as if it must break. It surged up into her throat.
"The boy Gasparo appeared to take no further interest in the elucidation of the truth," reported the judges, "and we recommend that he be chastised for contumacy." He was, at any rate, no witness of the scene which followed Olimpia's entry. There was that about her, a subdued haste, a deliberation, a kind of intensity got by rote, which fascinated the youngster and left him staring in the hall.
"Come, child, it is time for bed," she declared, "I suppose even this entertainment must have a term." There was no gainsaying it. The lovers were torn apart by the moral force of Olimpia's attendance; but not until it was demonstrated that, though good-night is a word of two syllables, it needs four lips, and is therefore capable of infinite extension.
Plunged into the depths of despair, goaded by longing and ardent desire, he hurried outside the walls of the town. Olimpia's image hovered about his path in the air and stepped forth out of the bushes, and peeped up at him with large and lustrous eyes from the bright surface of the brook. Clara's image was completely faded from his mind; he had no thoughts except for Olimpia.
His own was, "Unless I fear Justice I need not fear Borso. Dante saw the death of his lady to be just. Courage then!" "Mistress Castaneve," said Duke Borso, "you declare yourself innocent?" "Excellency, I do, I do! Ah, Mother of God!" The panic was creeping up Olimpia's legs, to loosen the joints of her knees. The Judge turned half. "Mistress Bellaroba, you also declare yourself innocent?"
The Captain was given to know that Ferrara was a great city, with more houses in it than one; in fine, he was shown the door. Supper first was an extreme and contemptuous condescension of Olimpia's, urged by the thought that a fed Mosca might be a more desperate Mosca, while a lean one would be desperate only for a meal.
But Coppola threw the figure across his shoulder, and, laughing shrilly and horribly, ran hastily down the stairs, the figure's ugly feet hanging down and banging and rattling like wood against the steps. Nathanael was stupefied; he had seen only too distinctly that in Olimpia's pallid waxed face there were no eyes, merely black holes in their stead; she was an inanimate puppet.
Nathanael was about to fly into a rage, but he recollected himself and replied, "Tell me, Siegmund, how came it that Olimpia's divine charms could escape your eye, so keenly alive as it always is to beauty, and your acute perception as well? But Heaven be thanked for it, otherwise I should have had you for a rival, and then the blood of one of us would have had to be spilled."
He could not but confess to himself that he had never seen a finer figure. However, with Clara mistress of his heart, he remained perfectly unaffected by Olimpia's stiffness and apathy; and it was only occasionally that he sent a fugitive glance over his compendium across to her that was all. He was writing to Clara; a light tap came at the door.
Word Of The Day