103/164 A suit of grey clothes was hanging from one nail, a broad-brimmed black hat from another. Frequent flashes of lightning could be seen through the open window; breaths of the dark, stormy night blew in, causing the flame of the petroleum lamp on the pedestal to flare and the light and the shadows to tremble, as they fell upon the not too clean sheets, the two fleshless hands, the cluster of roses lying loose between them, on the flannel shirt of the sick man, who had pulled himself up into a sitting position, and on his deeply lined, thin face, greyish with a month-old beard. On the other side of the poor bed in the gloaming stood Benedetto. The sick man gazed at the flowers in silence. His hands and his lips trembled. |