The Inn Was A Series Of Strange Galleries Surrounding A Yard Where
Our Coach, And A Waggon Or Two, And
A lot of fowls, and firewood,
were all heaped up together, higgledy-piggledy; so that you didn't
know, and couldn't
Have taken your oath, which was a fowl and which
was a cart. We followed a sleepy man with a flaring torch, into a
great, cold room, where there were two immensely broad beds, on
what looked like two immensely broad deal dining-tables; another
deal table of similar dimensions in the middle of the bare floor;
four windows; and two chairs. Somebody said it was my room; and I
walked up and down it, for half an hour or so, staring at the
Tuscan, the old priest, the young priest, and the Avvocato (Red-
Nose lived in the town, and had gone home), who sat upon their
beds, and stared at me in return.
The rather dreary whimsicality of this stage of the proceedings, is
interrupted by an announcement from the Brave (he had been cooking)
that supper is ready; and to the priest's chamber (the next room
and the counterpart of mine) we all adjourn. The first dish is a
cabbage, boiled with a great quantity of rice in a tureen full of
water, and flavoured with cheese. It is so hot, and we are so
cold, that it appears almost jolly. The second dish is some little
bits of pork, fried with pigs' kidneys. The third, two red fowls.
The fourth, two little red turkeys.
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