She does not even know in what
direction from Rome her native village, Camerino, lies. I will try to
get hold of a map, or a globe. Yesterday, we read the word
_inferno_. She said: "There is no hell; things are bad enough on
earth; if we are to burn afterwards, there would be two hells." "Good
gracious! Filomena, is life so bad? Why, you sing all day long." "I sing
because I am well; that is perfectly natural, but how can I be content?"
"What do you wish for then?" "So much money (_denari_) that I
should be sure of never being hungry again. You do not know how it
hurts. Then there is one other thing I should like, but it is
impossible. I should like not to die; I am so horribly afraid of death.
I should certainly wish there were a Paradise. But who can tell! Still,
my grandmother lived to be a hundred all but three years, and she was
never ill for a day; when she was only three years from being a hundred
she still went to the fields like the rest of us and worked, and was
like a young woman (_giovanotta_). Mother is forty-two, but
although she is two years older than my aunt, she looks quite young.
_Chi lo sa!_ Perhaps I may live to be a hundred too, never be ill--
I never have been yet, one single day,--and then go in and lie down on
the bed like she did and be dead at once.
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