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?©, 1861-1896

"The Social Cancer"


Basilio murmured his prayers and lay down near his mother, who was
upon her knees praying. He felt hot and cold, he tried to close his
eyes as he thought of his little brother who that night had expected
to sleep in his mother's lap and who now was probably trembling with
terror and weeping in some dark corner of the convento. His ears were
again pierced with those cries he had heard in the church tower. But
wearied nature soon began to confuse his ideas and the veil of sleep
descended upon his eyes.
He saw a bedroom where two dim tapers burned. The curate, with
a rattan whip in his hand, was listening gloomily to something
that the senior sacristan was telling him in a strange tongue with
horrible gestures. Crispin quailed and turned his tearful eyes in
every direction as if seeking some one or some hiding-place. The
curate turned toward him and called to him irritably, the rattan
whistled. The child ran to hide himself behind the sacristan, who
caught and held him, thus exposing him to the curate's fury.


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