Un Po' Di Calma!" My Explosion Of
Laughter At This Inimitable Utterance Put An End To The Strife.
The
youth laughed with me; his mistress bustled him out of the room, and
then began to inform me that he was weak in his head.
Ah! she
exclaimed, her life with these people! what it cost her to keep them
in anything like order! When she retired, I heard her expectorating
violently in the corridor; a habit with every inmate of this genial
hostelry.
When the worst of my fever had subsided, the difficulty was to
obtain any nourishment suitable to my state. The good doctor, who
had suggested beefsteak and Marsala when I was incapable of taking
anything at all, ruled me severely in the matter of diet now that I
really began to feel hungry. I hope I may never again be obliged to
drink goat's milk; in these days it became so unutterably loathsome
to me that I had, at length, to give it up altogether, and I cannot
think of it now without a qualm. The broth offered me was infamous,
mere coloured water beneath half an inch of floating grease. Once
there was a promise of a fowl, and I looked forward to it eagerly;
but, alas! this miserable bird had undergone a process of seething
for the extraction of soup. I would have defied anyone to
distinguish between the substance remaining and two or three old kid
gloves boiled into a lump. With a pleased air, the hostess one day
suggested a pigeon, a roasted pigeon, and I welcomed the idea
joyously.
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