Antonio Canova. Antonio Canova. of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin: the whole text, 234 sentences and 3151 words. Every sentence has its own page with its syntax tree and pragmatics, parsed by Mova itself; 5 of them are in the tales treebank and were checked by a teacher model.
1 A good many years ago there lived in Italy a little boy whose name was An-to'ni-o Ca-no'va. 2 He lived with his grand-fa-ther, for his own father was dead. 3 His grand-fa-ther was a stone-cut-ter, and he was very poor. 4 An-to-ni-o was a puny lad, and not strong enough to work. 5 He did not care to play with the other boys of the town. 6 But he liked to go with his grandfather to the stone-yard. 7 While the old man was busy, cutting and trimming the great blocks of stone, the lad would play among the chips. checked by a teacher 8 Sometimes he would make a little statue of soft clay; sometimes he would take hammer and chisel, and try to cut a statue from a piece of rock. 9 He showed so much skill that his grandfather was de-light-ed. 10 "The boy will be a sculp-tor some day," he said. 11 Then when they went home in the evening, the grand-moth-er would say, "What have you been doing to-day, my little sculp-tor?" 12 And she would take him upon her lap and sing to him, or tell him stories that filled his mind with pictures of wonderful and beautiful things. 13 And the next day, when he went back to the stone-yard, he would try to make some of those pictures in stone or clay. 14 There lived in the same town a rich man who was called the Count. 15 Sometimes the Count would have a grand dinner, and his rich friends from other towns would come to visit him. 16 Then Antonio's grandfather would go up to the Count's house to help with the work in the kitchen; for he was a fine cook as well as a good stone-cut-ter. 17 It happened one day that Antonio went with his grandfather to the Count's great house. 18 Some people from the city were coming, and there was to be a grand feast. 19 The boy could not cook, and he was not old enough to wait on the table; but he could wash the pans and kettles, and as he was smart and quick, he could help in many other ways. 20 All went well until it was time to spread the table for dinner. 21 Then there was a crash in the dining room, and a man rushed into the kitchen with some pieces of marble in his hands. 22 He was pale, and trembling with fright. 23 "What shall I do? 24 What shall I do?" he cried. " 25 I have broken the statue that was to stand at the center of the table. 26 I cannot make the table look pretty without the statue. 27 What will the Count say?" 28 And now all the other servants were in trouble. 29 Was the dinner to be a failure after all? 30 For everything de-pend-ed on having the table nicely arranged. 31 The Count would be very angry. 32 "Ah, what shall we do?" they all asked. 33 Then little Antonio Ca-no-va left his pans and kettles, and went up to the man who had caused the trouble. 34 "If you had another statue, could you arrange the table?" he asked. 35 "Cer-tain-ly," said the man; "that is, if the statue were of the right length and height." 36 "Will you let me try to make one?" asked Anto-nio "Perhaps I can make something that will do." 37 The man laughed. 38 "Non-sense!" he cried. " 39 Who are you, that you talk of making statues on an hour's notice?" 40 "I am Antonio Canova," said the lad. 41 "Let the boy try what he can do," said the servants, who knew him. 42 And so, since nothing else could be done, the man allowed him to try. 43 On the kitchen table there was a large square lump of yellow butter. 44 Two hundred pounds the lump weighed, and it had just come in, fresh and clean, from the dairy on the mountain. 45 With a kitchen knife in his hand, Antonio began to cut and carve this butter. 46 In a few minutes he had molded it into the shape of a crouching lion; and all the servants crowded around to see it. 47 "How beautiful!" they cried. " 48 It is a great deal pret-ti-er than the statue that was broken." 49 When it was finished, the man carried it to its place. 50 "The table will be hand-som-er by half than I ever hoped to make it," he said. 51 When the Count and his friends came in to dinner, the first thing they saw was the yellow lion. 52 "What a beautiful work of art!" they cried. " 53 None but a very great artist could ever carve such a figure; and how odd that he should choose to make it of butter!" 54 And then they asked the Count to tell them the name of the artist. 55 "Truly, my friends," he said, "this is as much of a surprise to me as to you." 56 And then he called to his head servant, and asked him where he had found so wonderful a statue. 57 "It was carved only an hour ago by a little boy in the kitchen," said the servant. 58 This made the Count's friends wonder still more; and the Count bade the servant call the boy into the room. 59 "My lad," he said, "you have done a piece of work of which the greatest artists would be proud. 60 What is your name, and who is your teacher?" 61 "My name is Antonio Canova," said the boy, "and I have had no teacher but my grandfather the stonecutter." 62 By this time all the guests had crowded around Antonio. 63 There were famous artists among them, and they knew that the lad was a genius. 64 They could not say enough in praise of his work; and when at last they sat down at the table, nothing would please them but that Antonio should have a seat with them; and the dinner was made a feast in his honor. 65 The very next day the Count sent for Antonio to come and live with him. 66 The best artists in the land were em-ployed to teach him the art in which he had shown so much skill; but now, instead of carving butter, he chis-eled marble. 67 In a few years, Antonio Canova became known as one of the greatest sculptors in the world. 68 PICCIOLA. 69 Many years ago there was a poor gentleman shut up in one of the great prisons of France. 70 His name was Char-ney, and he was very sad and un-hap-py. 71 He had been put into prison wrong-ful-ly, and it seemed to him as though there was no one in the world who cared for him. 72 He could not read, for there were no books in the prison. 73 He was not allowed to have pens or paper, and so he could not write. 74 The time dragged slowly by. 75 There was nothing that he could do to make the days seem shorter. 76 His only pastime was walking back and forth in the paved prison yard. 77 There was no work to be done, no one to talk with. 78 One fine morning in spring, Char-ney was taking his walk in the yard. 79 He was counting the paving stones, as he had done a thousand times before. 80 All at once he stopped. 81 What had made that little mound of earth between two of the stones? 82 He stooped down to see. 83 A seed of some kind had fallen between the stones. 84 It had sprouted; and now a tiny green leaf was pushing its way up out of the ground. 85 Charney was about to crush it with his foot, when he saw that there was a kind of soft coating over the leaf. 86 "Ah!" said he. " 87 This coating is to keep it safe. 88 I must not harm it." 89 And he went on with his walk. 90 The next day he almost stepped upon the plant before he thought of it. 91 He stooped to look at it. 92 There were two leaves now, and the plant was much stronger and greener than it was the day before. 93 He staid by it a long time, looking at all its parts. 94 Every morning after that, Charney went at once to his little plant. 95 He wanted to see if it had been chilled by the cold, or scorched by the sun. He wanted to see how much it had grown. 96 One day as he was looking from his window, he saw the jailer go across the yard. 97 The man brushed so close to the little plant, that it seemed as though he would crush it. 98 Charney trembled from head to foot. 99 "O my Pic-cio-la!" he cried. 100 When the jailer came to bring his food, he begged the grim fellow to spare his little plant. ← previous V. the Fortune.↑ back to Fifty Famous Stories Retold This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/54/