原文：

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's beam, till at last the whole little city twinkled and sparkled up in the sky like a nest of stars.

譯文：

老太太總以自家花園里那棵高大的玫瑰樹為榮。她非常喜歡告訴別人，數年前她初次結婚時從羅馬帶回來的枝條，是如何長成如今這般高大的。那時，她與丈夫乘馬車從羅馬旅行歸來(那時還沒有火車)，途經錫耶那南部的崎嶇路段時，馬車壞了，他們被迫就宿于路邊的小屋里。住宿條件當然非常差;她一夜未能安眠，一早便起身穿好衣服，立于窗前，感受著撲面而來的席席涼風，等待著黎明的到來。事隔多年，她仍然記得那情景。明月高懸在青山群巒之上。遠處山峰上的小鎮逐漸明亮起來，月亮慢慢消退，晨曦把群山涂得粉紅。突然之間，一束陽光照亮了城鎮。城里的窗戶相繼明亮起來，反射出耀眼的光芒。最后，整個小城宛若繁星，在天空中不停閃爍。