Title:  Stories by Foreign Authors:  German

Author:  Various

Release Date:  April, 2004 [EBook #5431] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on July 18, 2002]

Edition:  10

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

*** Start of the project gutenberg EBOOK, stories by foreign authors:  German ***

Nicole Apostola, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

STORIES BY FOREIGN AUTHORS

GERMAN

The fury ......  By Paul Heyse

The philosopher’s pendulum ......  By Rudolph Lindau

The bookbinder of Hort........By Leopold Von Sacher-MASOCH

The Egyptian fire-eater........By Rudolph Baumbach

The Cremona violin ........By E.T. .  Hoffmann

Adventures Of A new-year’s Eve......  By Heinrich Zschokke

THE FURY

BY

PAUL HEYSE

From “Tales from the German of Paul Heyse”

THE FURY

(L’ARRABIATA)

The day had scarcely dawned.  Over Vesuvius hung one broad gray stripe of mist, stretching across as far as Naples, and darkening all the small towns along the coast.  The sea lay calm.  Along the shore of the narrow creek that lies beneath the Sorrento cliffs, fishermen and their wives were at work already, some with giant cables drawing their boats to land, with the nets that had been cast the night before, while others were rigging their craft, trimming the sails, or fetching out oars and masts from the great grated vaults that have been built deep into the rocks for shelter to the tackle overnight.  Nowhere an idle hand; even the very aged, who had long given up going to sea, fell into the long chain of those who were hauling in the nets.  Here and there, on some flat housetop, an old woman stood and spun, or busied herself about her grandchildren, whom their mother had left to help her husband.

“Do you see, Rachela? yonder is our padre curato,” said one to a little thing of ten, who brandished a small spindle by her side; “Antonio is to row him over to Capri.  Madre Santissima! but the reverend signore’s eyes are dull with sleep!” and she waved her hand to a benevolent-looking little priest, who was settling himself in the boat, and spreading out upon the bench his carefully tucked-up skirts.