Salina thought of a medicine recently discovered in the United States of America which could prevent suffering even during the most serious operations and produce serenity amid disaster. "Morphia" was the name given to this crude substitute for the stoicism of the ancients and for Christian fortitude.
This quotation is excerpted from a really lovely book recommended to me by my grandmother called The Leopard: A Novel
Image: Morphine, painted by Santiago Rusiñol in 1894. More on Rusiñol and his relationship to morphine here.
1 comment:
It's funny. I quite by chance found this book in the local megalitteratura and after having read the back cover and the story of the author's life and the first few pages, I was hooked. It's one of those playfully dense books that speak more in passing detail than in direct illumination.
I've been reading this blog over the last couple of months. It's always nice when serendipity juxtaposes two endearing things and makes them both the brighter for their new connection. Keep up the good work.
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