spesso l'uomo non sa che compie l'estremo cammino; se lo sapesse, non farebbe quel cammino, prenderebbe un'altra strada.

And now Christine felt as if her face was bursting open and glowing coals were being birthed from it, quickening into life and swarming across her face and all her limbs, and everything within her face had sprung to life, a fiery swarming all across her body. In the lightning’s pallid glow she saw, long-legged and venomous, innumerable black spiderlings scurrying down her limbs and out into the night, and as they vanished they were followed, long-legged and venomous, by innumerable others.

All had suddenly lost their taste for vainglory and pride, they consigned these vices to the lowest circle of hell and would scarcely have believed even God had He assured them that just days before they themselves had ignominiously flaunted them; they were pious once more, wearing their meanest clothes and holding their old, despised rosaries in their hands, altogether convinced that they had always been like this, and if God Himself was not convinced, it was not for their want of trying.

Usually the knights would build their castles above a road, just as inns are now built beside the road, the better to plunder the people going past, though admittedly in different ways.

Then the green man’s face grew even blacker, the red beard so red it seemed to crackle and sparkle like fir twigs on the fire; the mouth contracted to an arrow-like point before it opened to inquire in the sweetest, gentlest tones.

Hard by the church stood the public house; so often the two are closely conjoined, honorably sharing both joys and sorrows.