Page:The Pentamerone, or The Story of Stories.djvu/78

54 Quick then, I say! take his hand, and set off with him home this very instant; for I will not have that saucy, impudent face a minute longer in my sight."

Poor Porziella, seeing herself thus caught in the net, with the face of a person condemned to death, with the eye of one possessed, with the mouth of one who has taken an emetic, with the heart of a person whose head is lying between the axe and the block, took the hand of the ogre, who dragged her off, without any one accompanying them, to a wood, where the trees made a palace for the meadow, to prevent its being discovered by the sun, and the brooks murmured at having knocked against the stones in the dark, whilst the wild-beasts wandered where they liked without paying toll, and went safely through the thicket, whither no man ever came unless he had lost his way. Upon this spot, which was as black as an unswept chimney, and hideous as the face of hell, stood the ogre's house, ornamented and hung all round with the bones of men whom he had devoured. Think but for a moment, good Christians, on the trembling, the quivering, the horror and affright which the poor girl endured! depend upon it there did not remain a drop of blood in her body.

But all this was nothing at all in comparison with what was to come. Before dinner she had peas, and