老太太总以自家花园里那棵高大的玫瑰树为荣。她非常喜欢告诉别人，数年前她初次结婚时从罗马带回来的枝条，是如何长成如今这般高大的。那时，她与丈夫乘马车从罗马旅行归来(那时还没有火车)，途经锡耶那南部的崎岖路段时，马车坏了，他们被迫就宿于路边的小屋里。住宿条件当然非常差;她一夜未能安眠，一早便起身穿好衣服，立于窗前，感受着扑面而来的席席凉风，等待着黎明的到来。事隔多年，她仍然记得那情景。明月高悬在青山群峦之上，远处山峰上的小镇逐渐明亮起来，月亮慢慢消退，晨曦把群山涂得粉红。突然之间，一束阳光照亮了城镇。城里的窗户相继明亮起来，反射出耀眼的光芒。最后，整个小城宛若繁星，在天空中不停闪烁。
The old lady had always been proud of the great rose-tree in her garden, and was fond of telling how it had grown from a cutting she had brought years before from Italy, when she was first married. She and her husband had been travelling back in their carriage from Rome ( it was before the time of railways ) and on a bad piece of road south of Siena they had broken down, and had been forced to pass the night in a little house by the road-side. The accommodation was wretched of course; she had spent a sleepless night, and rising early had stood, wrapped up, at her window, with the cool air blowing on her face, to watch the dawn. She could still, after all these years, remember the blue mountains with the bright moon above them, and how a far-off town on one of the peaks had gradually grown whiter and whiter, till the moon faded, the mountains were touched with the pink of the rising sun, and suddenly the town was lit as by an illumination, one window after another catching and reflecting the sun' beam, till at last the whole little city twinkled and sparkled up in the sky like a nest of stars.
