Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/180

152 hands, not knowing where she was, and sobbed as though her heart would break. The gentleman was touched: it was evident that these screams went to his soul. All the others offered the child oranges and sugar-plums; but she refused them all, growing constantly more convulsive and frightened.

“Find her mother!” shouted the gentleman to the crowd; “seek her mother!”

And every one turned to the right and the left; but the mother was not to be found. Finally, a few paces from the place where the Via Roma enters the square, a woman was seen to rush towards the chariot. Ah, I shall never forget that! She no longer seemed a human creature: her hair was streaming, her face distorted, her garments torn. She hurled herself forward with a rattle in her throat,—no one knew whether to attribute it to joy, anguish, or rage,—and darted out her hands like two claws to snatch her child. The chariot stopped.

“Here she is,” said the gentleman, reaching out the child after kissing it; and he placed her in her mother's arms, who pressed her to her breast in a transport of feeling. But one of the tiny hands rested a second longer in the hands of the gentleman; and the latter, pulling off of his right hand a gold ring set with a large diamond, and slipping it with a rapid movement upon the finger of the little girl, said:—

“Take this! it shall be your marriage dowry.”

The mother stood rooted to the spot, as though enchanted. The crowd broke into applause. The gentleman put on his mask again, his companions