"
"And Ruffo," she said, as if correcting him.
"Ruffo! Si, Signora, of course."
Hermione looked at the house. It was evidently let out in rooms to
people who were comparatively poor; not very poor, not in any
destitution, but who made a modest livelihood, and could pay their
fourteen or fifteen lire a month for lodging. She divined by its
aspect that every room was occupied. For the building teemed with
life, and echoed with the sound of calling, or screaming, voices. The
inhabitants were surely all of them in a flurry of furious activity.
Children were playing before and upon the door-step, which was flanked
by an open shop, whose interior revealed with a blatant sincerity a
rummage of mysterious edibles--fruit, vegetables, strings of strange
objects that looked poisonous, fungi, and other delights. Above, from
several windows, women leaned out, talking violently to one another.
Two were holding babies, who testified their new-born sense of life by
screaming shrilly. Across other window-spaces heads passed to and fro,
denoting the continuous movement of those within.
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