"Sterminator Vesevo" (Vesuvius the great exterminator): Diary of the Eruption of April 1906 — John Shaqi
"Sterminator Vesevo" (Vesuvius the great exterminator): Diary of the Eruption of April 1906Serao, Matilde
History
"Sterminator Vesevo" (Vesuvius the great exterminator): Diary of the Eruption of April 1906
Serao, Matilde
Vesuvius (Italy); Volcanoes
She has hidden herself when meeting people who could notice her, she
has always worn modest and dark clothes, and her face has been hidden
by veils, and she has withdrawn when frivolous and curious people
have tried to observe her doings. This noble woman has not found any
rest before this terrible misfortune of ours, and her work has been a
high spiritual beauty, and the modesty and silence with which she has
surrounded herself has been really sublime. And I stamp here her moral
image with humble admiration and proud to know she is a woman as I am;
and I am happy not to have to write down only in the daily news the
Duchess of Aosta wore on her white satin waist a magnificent emerald
pin; I am happy that a feminine soul in a vigorous fibre should show
the world what is the power of virtue in a woman and in a christian.
And for all those whom she has conforted really, in the terrible hour
not caring herself for dangers and unconforts, for all the wounded and
agonizing ones, for all those who weep, and were consoled by her, I
implore on her all God's blessings and may her life be sowed with all
goods, and may her children be blessed through her.
LET THE GUILTY ONES BE PUNISHED
The night before Easter has been full of fright and confusion for the
people already prostrated by so many emotions.
This ringing of telephones, this continued and sudden ringing, in the
depth of night, repeated every where, in military offices, government
offices, newspaper offices, this anxious running to the telephones,
this news given with trembling voice, these brief dialogues sometimes
impetuous, sometimes sad, have been, and still are an incubus on
us all, from the general to the reporter, from the Prefect to the
municipal usher, from the director of a railway station to the firemen!
Indeed, this ringing which makes our nerves thrill in the most painful
way, the exhausted nerves of all those who have been obliged to suffer
for the last ten days, and think, and act, in the mean time, this
terrible, continued noise has not permitted us to sleep in this night
before Easter. We all have been the victims of a deathly joke, invented
by a man who, mad with terror, has made himself guilty of the lowest of
deeds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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