[1] Among the licenses which Italians take with the terminations of their words, not the least is altering the gender. ‘Candeliere’ (masc.), otherwise ‘candelliere,’ is the proper form; and I do not think ‘candeliera’ will be found in any dictionary; but as the story requires the female gender, the word is readily coined. [↑]
THE TWO HUNCHBACKED BROTHERS.[1]
There was once a man who had one son, who married a widow who also had one son, and both were hunchbacks. The wife took very good care of her own son, but the son of her husband she used to put to hard work and gave him scarcely anything to eat. Her son, too, used to imitate his mother, and sadly ill-treat his stepbrother.
After treating him ill for a long time, she at last sent him away from the house altogether.
The poor little hunchback wandered away without knowing where to go.
On, on, on he went, till at last he came to a lonely hut on a wide moor. At his approach a whole host of little hunchbacks came out and danced round him, chanting plaintively—
Sabbato!
Domenica!
a great number of times. At last our little hunchback felt his courage stirred, and, taking up the note of their chant, chimed in with—