Read "Saint Veronica's Kerchief" by Selma Lagerlof online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
After this, the vine-dresser and his wife never again spoke to the old woman about the Emperor. Between themselves they marveled that she, at her great age, had had the strength to renounce all the wealth and power to which she had become accustomed. "I wonder if she will not soon go back to Tiberius? " they asked themselves. "It is certain that she still loves him. It is in the hope that it will awaken him to reason and enable him to repent of his low conduct, that she has left him."
"A man as old as the Emperor will never begin a new life," said the laborer. "How are you going to rid him of his great contempt for mankind? Who could go to him and teach him to love his fellow man? Until this happens, he can not be cured of suspicion and cruelty."