Yes, indeed! Filomena's tall
figure and fresh mountain blood would freshen up the Goldschmidtian
human race to such an extent that they would become better men and women
in his next books.
I have seen a little of the Carnival. This morning Filomena came to my
room, to fetch a large Italian flag which belongs there. "I am going to
wave it on Thursday," she said, and added, with blushing cheeks, "then I
shall have a mask on." But this evening she could not restrain herself.
For the first time during the five months I have lived here, and for the
first time during the month I have been ill, she came in without my
having called or rung for her. She had a red silk cap on, with a gold
border. "What do you say to that, sir!" she said, and her clear laughter
rang through the room. It revived my sick self to gaze at ease at so
much youth, strength and happiness; then I said a few kind words to her,
and encouraged by them she burst into a stream of eloquence about all
the enjoyment she was promising herself. This would be the first
carnival she had seen; she came from the mountains and was going back
there this Spring. She was in the seventh heaven over her cap. She
always reminds me, with her powerful frame, of the young giantess in the
fairy tale who takes up a peasant and his plough in the hollow of her
hand.
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