The Italians | Page 8

reward the dancing dog, which, overcome by the temptation, drops on
his four legs, runs to him, and devours it, for which delinquency the old
man beats him severely. His yells echo loudly among the pillars, and
drown the rich tide of harmony that ebbs and flows through the open
portals. The beggars have betaken themselves to their accustomed seats
on the marble steps of the cathedral, San Martin of Tours, parting his
cloak--carved in alt-relief, over the central entrance--looking down
upon them encouragingly. These beggars clink their metal boxes
languidly, or sleep, lying flat on the stones. A group of women have
jammed themselves into a corner between the cathedral and the hospital
adjoining it on that side. They are waiting to see the company pass out.
Two of them standing close together are talking eagerly.
"My gracious! who would have thought that old witch, the Guinigi,"
whispers Carlotta--Carlotta owned a little mercery-shop in a side-street
running by the palace, right under the tower--to her gossip Brigitta, an
occasional customer for cotton and buttons, "who would have thought
that she--gracious! who would have thought she dared to shut up her
palace the day of the festival? Did you see?"
"Yes, I did," answers Brigitta.
"Curses on her!" hisses out Carlotta, showing her black teeth. "Listen to
me, she will have a great misfortune--mark my words--a great
misfortune soon--the stingy old devil!"
Hearing the organ at that instant, Brigitta kneels on the stones, and
crosses herself; then rises and looks at Carlotta. "St. Nicodemus will
have his revenge, never fear."
Carlotta is still speaking. Brigitta shakes her head prophetically, again
looking at Carlotta, whose deep-sunk eyes are fixed upon her.
"Checco says--Checco is a shoemaker, and he knows the daughter of

the man who helps the butler in Casa Guinigi--Checco says she laughs
at the Holy Countenance. Domine Dio! what an infamy!" cries Carlotta,
in a cracked voice, raising her skinny hands and shaking them in the air.
"I hate the Guinigi! I hate her! I spit on her, I curse her!"
There is such venom in Carlotta's looks and in Carlotta's words that
Brigitta suddenly takes her eyes off a man with a red waistcoat whom
she is ogling, but who by no means reciprocates her attention, and asks
Carlotta sharply, "Why she hates the marchesa?"
"Listen," answers Carlotta, holding up her finger. "One day, as I came
out of my little shop, _she_"--and Carlotta points with her thumb over
her shoulder toward the street of San Simone and the Guinigi
Palace--"she was driving along the street in her old Noah's Ark of a
carriage. Alas! I am old and feeble, and the horses came along quickly.
I had no time to get into the little square of San Barnabo, out of the way;
the wheel struck me on the shoulder, I fell down. Yes, I fell down on
the hard pavement, Brigitta." And Carlotta sways her grizzly head from
side to side, and grasps the other's arm so tightly that Brigitta screams.
"Brigitta, the marchesa saw me. She saw me lying there, but she never
stopped nor turned her head. I lay on the stones, sick and very sore, till
a neighbor, Antonio the carpenter, who works in the little square, a
good lad, picked me up and carried me home."
As she speaks, Carlotta's eyes glitter like a serpent's. She shakes all
over.
"Lord have mercy!" exclaims Brigitta, looking hard at her; "that was
bad!" Carlotta was over eighty; her face was like tanned leather, her
skin loose and shriveled; a handful of gray hair grew on the top of her
head, and was twisted up with a silver pin. Brigitta was also of a goodly
age, but younger than Carlotta, fat and portly, and round as a barrel.
She was pitted by the small-pox, and had but one eye; but, being a
widow, and well-to-do in the world, is not without certain pretensions.
She wears a yellow petticoat and a jacket trimmed with black lace. In
her hair, black and frizzly as a negro's, a rose is stuck on one side.--The
hair had been dressed that morning by a barber, to whom she paid five
francs a month for this adornment.--Some rows of dirty seed-pearl are

fastened round her fat throat; long gold ear-rings bob in her ears, and in
her hand is a bright paper fan, with which she never ceases fanning
herself.
"She's never spent so much as a penny at my shop," Carlotta goes on to
say. "Not a penny. She'd not spare a flask of wine to a beggar dying at
her door. Stuck-up old devil! But she's ruined, ruined with lawsuits.
Ruined, I say. Ha! ha! Her time will come."
Finding Carlotta wearisome, Brigitta's one eye has again wandered off
to the man