Page:Under the shadow of Etna; Sicilian stories from the Italian of Giovanni Verga (IA undershadowofetn00vergrich).pdf/186

158 it on the ass to go and sell it. But the ass on the way up stumbled under the weight, and went down on its knees, just as Saint Joseph's ass knelt before the infant Jesus, and would not get up again.

"Souls of the dead!" stammered the woman, "won't you carry this load of wood for me."

And the passers-by pulled the ass's tail, and they bit its ears, so as to make it get up.

"Don't you see it's dying?" at last remarked a carter, and so at least the others let it alone, because the ass had the eye of a dead fish, a cold nose, and a shudder ran over its skin.

The woman, meantime, thought of her son, who was delirious with fever, and a flushed face, and cried,—

"Now what shall we do,—what shall we do?"

"If you will sell it, and all the wood on its back for five tarì, I'll give that much," said the carter who had an empty cart; and