diff --git a/display.c b/display.c
index 0d0326e..d5b50f5 100644
--- a/display.c
+++ b/display.c
@@ -434,11 +434,67 @@ static int reframe(struct window *wp)
 	return TRUE;
 }
 
+static unsigned utf8_to_unicode(char *line, unsigned index, unsigned len, unicode_t *res)
+{
+	unsigned value;
+	unsigned char c = line[index];
+	unsigned bytes, mask, i;
+
+	*res = c;
+	line += index;
+	len -= index;
+
+	/*
+	 * 0xxxxxxx is valid utf8
+	 * 10xxxxxx is invalid UTF-8, we assume it is Latin1
+	 */
+	if (c < 0xc0)
+		return 1;
+
+	/* Ok, it's 11xxxxxx, do a stupid decode */
+	mask = 0x20;
+	bytes = 2;
+	while (c & mask) {
+		bytes++;
+		mask >>= 1;
+	}
+
+	/* Invalid? Do it as a single byte Latin1 */
+	if (bytes > 6)
+		return 1;
+
+	value = c & (mask-1);
+
+	/* Ok, do the bytes */
+	for (i = 1; i < bytes; i++) {
+		if (i > len)
+			return 1;
+		c = line[i];
+		if ((c & 0xc0) != 0x80)
+			return 1;
+		value = (value << 6) | (c & 0x3f);
+	}
+	*res = value;
+	return bytes;
+}
+
 static void show_line(struct line *lp)
 {
-	int i;
-	for (i = 0; i < llength(lp); ++i)
-		vtputc(lgetc(lp, i));
+	unsigned i = 0, len = llength(lp);
+	struct video *vp;
+
+	vp = vscreen[vtrow];
+
+	while (i < len) {
+		unicode_t c;
+
+		i += utf8_to_unicode(lp->l_text, i, len, &c);
+		if (vtcol >= term.t_ncol)
+			vp->v_text[term.t_ncol - 1] = '$';
+		else if (vtcol >= 0)
+			vp->v_text[vtcol] = c;
+		++vtcol;
+	}
 }
 
 /*