This serpent must be twenty centuries old.

If it had not been for Ferragut she would have been able to have taken it up in her hands....

She would have spoken to it....

She was accustomed to converse with others....
Ulysses was about to express his doubts rudely as to the mental equilibrium of the exasperated widow when the doctor interrupted them.
She was contemplating the swampy plains of acanthus and ferns trembling under the shrill chirping of the cicadas, and this spectacle of green desolation made her recall the roses of Paestum of which the poets of ancient Rome had sung.

She even recited some Latin verses, translating them to her hearers so as to make them understand that the rose bushes of this land used to bloom twice a year.