Oldal 155 [155]
SEB ÉR EE CLE non's
Nothing can stop a heart hurried away by passion. The
prince roamed over Egypt, India, and China, going from
province to province, from city to city, from house to house,
and from cabin to cabin, everywhere seeking the original
of the fair image that was engraved on his heart, but im
vain. He saw women of all colors and shades, brown,
blond, olive, sandy, white, yellow, red, and black, but he
did not see her whom he loved.
Always seeking and never finding, Carlino at last reached
the end of the world. There was nothing more before him
but the ocean and the sky. His hopes were at an end; his
dream had vanished. As he was walking despairingly up and
down the seashore, he spied an old man warming himself im
the sun. The prince asked him if there was nothing beyond
these waves that stretched as far as the eye could reach.
"No, said the old man; "no one has ever discovered any¬
thing in this shoreless ocean, or, at least, those who have
ventured on it have never returned to tell the story. I
remember, however, having heard the old men among us
say, when I was a child,” he added, "that their fathers had
told them that yonder, a long, long way off, far beyond the
horizon, was the Island of the Fates; but woe to the im¬
prudent man who approaches these merciless fairies; he
is struck with death at their sight."
“What does that matter?” cried Carlino. "I would face
death itself to gain my wishes."
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