It was all arranged, too, but at
the last moment he wouldn't go. He told them that, if they wanted to
separate him from Agnes, they had better bring his coffin because he
would be dead before they got him to the door."
When she had gone I lay a long time in the dark, listening to the sounds
on the other side of the partition.
Giovanni awoke with an alarming fit of coughing, and in the querulous,
plaintive, fretful, sometimes angry tones which invalids have, he
grumbled at Angela and then cried over her, saying what a burden he was
to her, while she, moving about the room in her bare feet, coaxed and
caressed him, and persuaded him to take his milk or his medicine.
Through all this I would hear at intervals the drumming noises of the
singing downstairs, which sounded in my ears (as the singers were
becoming more and more intoxicated) like the swirling and screeching of
an ironical requiem for the dying man before he was dead:
"_Oh bella Napoli, Oh suol beato
Onde sorridere volle il creato_.
Pages:
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933