While the noble Countess of Montagut was pregnant with her firstborn
son, Teobaldo, she had a strange and terrible dream. Perchance a divine
warning; mayhap a vain fantasy which time made real in later years. She
dreamed that in her womb she had borne a serpent, a monstrous serpent
that, darting out shrill hisses, now gliding through the short grass,
now coiling upon itself for a spring, fled from her sight, hiding at
last in a clump of briers.
“There it is! there it is!” shrieked the Countess in her horrible
nightmare, pointing out to her servitors the brambles among which the
nauseous reptile had sought concealment.
When the servitors had swiftly reached the spot which the noble lady,
motionless and overwhelmed by a profound terror, was still pointing out
to them with her finger, a white dove rose from out the prickly thicket
and soared to the clouds.
The serpent had disappeared.