"Here, here," she said, "who is to talk, you or I? There are some people who stick their noses everywhere and who—Now do you want to know what the priest said? and how the poor condemned creature walked with courage? and how in one instant he was in heaven in the company of the angels?"
"And what did the child say?"
"The little child did not want to go along. He said:—'I know that it is beautiful in Paradise, that the angels live there, and the kind God, and there lives the good Madonna: but I would rather stay here with Papa and Mamma; I would rather stay with them!' he repeated, and cried."
"Sacred innocence!" exclaimed one of the listeners by an instinctive compassion, and shed a few tears; but if any one had questioned him regarding the justice of putting the child to death, he would have unhesitatingly answered in the affirmative.
Our eloquent Radegonda continued:—
"But the priest! Is there any one here who did not see his face? Well, you know how it looks when it rains and shines at the same time,—when they say the Devil beats his wife,—that was the face of the good monk. Tears large as the beads of a rosary ran down his cheeks, and at the same time he had a smile like an angel.... He said to the boy, 'Your father goes with you to Paradise!' The child looked at him with sad eyes, and asked, 'But Mamma?'—'Your mother,' replied the priest, 'will come with us.'—'If I stay on earth,' said the child, 'I must then live without them?' The monk answered 'Yes'; and then the little one consented to kneel."
Here sobs checked the course of the narrative; and the narrator was half ashamed at being affected by the fate of the condemned ones, just as a young lady is ashamed when she is caught weeping at the theatre. Pizzabrasa concluded the recital:
"The child dropped upon his knees, and raised towards heaven his little hands that were whiter than snow, and then the executioner cut his hair and opened his great eyes to frighten him."
"How much I would have been willing to pay to have been present," exclaimed one of the group; "such affecting scenes delight me."
"Then why didn't you come?" asked a neighbor.