There Was Not A Soul
In Sight; A Hush Had Fallen Upon All Things; Great Pan Was Brooding Over
The Earth.
At last we entered the village, and here, once more,
deathlike stillness reigned; it was the hour of post-prandial slumber.
At our knocking the proprietor of the inn, situated in a side-street,
descended. But he was in bad humour, and held out no hopes of
refreshment. Certain doctors and government officials, he said, were
gathered together in his house, telegraphically summoned to consult
about a local case of cholera. As to edibles, the gentlemen had lunched,
and nothing was left, absolutely nothing; it had been uno
sterminio - an extermination - of all he possessed. The prospect of
walking about the burning streets till evening did not appeal to me, and
as this was the only inn at Spezzano I insisted, first gently, then
forcibly - in vain. There was not so much as a chair to sit upon, he
avowed; and therewith retired into his cool twilight.
Despairing, I entered a small shop wherein I had observed the only signs
of life so far - an Albanian woman spinning in patriarchal fashion. It
was a low-ceilinged room, stocked with candles, seeds, and other
commodities which a humble householder might desire to purchase,
including certain of those water-gugglets of Corigliano ware in whose
shapely contours something of the artistic dreamings of old Sybaris
still seems to linger. The proprietress, clothed in gaudily picturesque
costume, greeted me with a smile and the easy familiarity which I have
since discovered to be natural to all these women.
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