E troppo fredo! Vis ne me
assassinare? Veni de Lugano - e piu - non e possibile ritornare!'_ and
so forth.
They answered in strophe and antistrophe, sometimes together in full
chorus, and again in semichorus, and with variations, that it was
impossible. Then a light showed in the chinks of their great door; the
lock grated, and it opened. A third person, a tall youth, stood in the
hall. I went forward into the breach and occupied the hall. He blinked
at me above a candle, and murmured, as a man apologizing 'It is not
possible.'
Whatever I have in common with these southerners made me understand
that I had won, so I smiled at him and nodded; he also smiled, and at
once beckoned to me. He led me upstairs, and showed me a charming bed
in a clean room, where there was a portrait of the Pope, looking
cunning; the charge for that delightful and human place was sixpence,
and as I said good-night to the youth, the man and woman from above
said good-night also. And this was my first introduction to the most
permanent feature in the Italian character. The good people!
When I woke and rose I was the first to be up and out. It was high
morning. The sun was not yet quite over the eastern mountains, but I
had slept, though so shortly yet at great ease, and the world seemed
new and full of a merry mind.
