Romola

arrow streets behind the Badia, now rarely threaded by the stranger, unless in a

E IL DIVI

rival families; but in the fifteenth century, they were only noisy with the unhistorical quar

ach other: one was stooping slightly, and looking downward with the scrutiny of curiosity; the othe

itself out in the deep lines about his brow and mouth seemed intended to correct any contemptuous inferences from the hasty workmanship which Nature had bestowed on his exterior. He had deposited a large well-filled bag, made of

he man to steal. The cat couldn't eat her mouse if she didn't catch it alive, and Bratti couldn't relish gain if it had no taste of a bargain. Why, young man, one San Giovanni three years ago, the Saint sent a dead body in my way - a blind beggar, with his cap well lined with pieces - but, if you'll believe me, my stomach turned against the mon

t he understood the action of pointing to his ring: he looked down at it, and, with a half-automatic obedience

y. 'Anybody might say the saints had sent you a dead body; but if you took the jewel

est. For an instant he turned on Bratti with a sharp frown; but he immediately recovered an air of indifference, took off the red Levanti

kling of the sea as well as the rain. The fact is, I'm a stranger in Florence, and when I came in footsore last night I preferred flinging myself in a

your throat, so that a Christian and a Florentine can't tell a hook from a hanger

than where I can go to for a mouthful of breakfast. This city of yours turns a grim look on me j

ecchio to say an Ave at the Badia. That, I say, is your good fortune. But it remains to be seen what is my profit in the matter. Nothing for nothing, young man. If I show y

let us set off to this said Mercato, for I feel the want of a

his reply, and burst out in loud, harsh toncs, not unlike the creaking and grating of a cart-

olfi, or with a paternoster of the best mode, I could let you have a great bargain, by making an allowance for the clothes; for, simple as I stand here, I've got the best furnished shop in the Ferravecchi, and it's close by the Mercato. The Virgin be praised! it's n

out a bargain,' said the stranger. 'You've offered

the stomach a little though he may win no hose by it. If I take you to the pret

apt to look forth of doors and windows. No, no. Besides, a sharp trader, like you

f hell that want to get all the profit of usury to themselves and leave none for Christians; and when you walk the Calimara with a piece of yellow cloth in your cap, it will spoil your beauty more than a sword-cut across that smooth olive cheek of yours. - Abbaratta, baratta - chi abbaratta? - I tell you, youn

with for nothing,' said the stranger, rather scornfull

ou tell me something, young man, though you're as hard to hold as a lamprey. San Giovanni be

Antonio Pucci accounts a chief glory, or dignita, of a market that, in his esteem, eclipsed the markets of all the earth beside. But the glory of mutton and veal (well attested to be the flesh of the right animals; for were not the skins, with the heads attached, duly displayed, according to the decree of the Signoria?) was just now wanting to the Mercato, the time of Lent not being yet over. The proud corporation, or 'Art,' of butchers was in abeyance, and it was the great harvest-time of the market-gardeners, the cheesemongers, the vendors of macaroni, corn, eggs, milk, and dried fruits: a change which was apt to make the women's voices predominant in the chorus. But in all seasons there was the experimental ringing of pots and pans, the chinking of the money-changers, the tempting offers of cheapness at the old-clothes s

hi perde co

colla mano

dar di mol

using; and, better than all, there were young, softly-rounded cheeks and bright eyes, freshened by the start from the far-off castello at daybreak, not to speak of older faces with the unfading charm of honest goodwill in them, such as are never quite wanting in scenes of human industry. And high on a pillar in the centre of the place

that some common preoccupation had for the moment distracted the attention both of buyers and sellers from their proper business. Most of the traders had turned their backs on their goods, and had joined the knots of talkers who were concentrating themselves at different points in the piazza. A vendor of old clothes, in the act of hanging out a pair of long hose, had distracte

h at the nuts and dried figs, others preferred the farinaceous delicacies at the cooked provision stalls - delicacies to which certain fourfooted dogs also, who had learned to take kindly to Lenten fare, applied a discrimin

w what this is. But never fear: it seems a thousand years to you till you see the pretty Tessa, and get your cup of milk; but keep hold of me, and I'll hold to my bargain. Remember,

in her ear: 'Here are the mules upsetting all your bunches of parsley: is the world coming to an end, then?' 'Monna Trecca' (equivalent to 'Dame Greengrocer') turned round at

first volley of her wrath against Bratti, who wlthout heeding the malediction, quietly slipped into her place, within hearing

s in Santa Maria Novella, and saw it myself. The woman started up and threw out her arms, and cried ou

rkin, a skullcap lodged carelessly over his left ear as if it had fallen there by chance, a delicate

e, mi pare: it doesn't alter the meaning - v

ions tearing each other to pieces' - 'Ah! and they might well' - 'Boto caduto in Santissima Nunziata!' - 'Died like the best of Christians' - 'God will have pardoned him' - were often-repeated phrases, which shot across each other like storm-driven hailstones, each speaker feeling rather the necessity of u

as within hearing of the barber. 'It appears the Magnifico

or at some other time, whenever it pleases the Frati Serviti, who know best. And several cows and women have had still-born calves this Quaresima; and for the bad eggs that have bee

tturals. It came from the pale man in spectacles, and had the effect he intended; for t

That is what is meant by qualification now: netto di specchio no longer means that a man pays his dues to the Republic: it means that he'll wink at robbery of the people's money - at robbery of their daughters' dowries; that he'll play the chamberer and the philosopher by turns - listen to bawdy songs at the Carnival and cry "Bellissimi!" - and listen to sacred lauds and cry again "Bellissimi!" But this is what you love: you grumble and raise a riot over your quattrini bianchi' (white farthings); 'but you take no notice when the public treasury has got a hole in the bo

y; politics is the better horse,' said Nello. 'But if you talk of portents, wh

another bystander, very much out at elbows. 'Better don a cow

osing, as he did so, the sallow but mild face of a short man who had been sta

ay? Suffocation! I should think we do grumble; and, let anybody say the word, I'll turn out into the piazza with the readiest, sooner than have our money altered in our hands as if the magistracy were so many necromancers. And it's true Lorenzo might have hindered such work

two or three meanings into one sentence, it were mere blasphemy not to believe tha

the notary, 'but it is not the less true that every revelation, whether by visions, dreams, porte

who follow him are like to have the fate of certain swine that ran headlong into the sea - or some hotter place. With San Domenico roaring e vero in one ear, and San Francisco screaming e falso in the other, what is a poor barber to do - unless he were illuminated?

me his leeks and shake his flanks over his wool-beating. He'll mend matters more that way than by showing his tun-shaped body in the piazza,

bared to the shoulder, was deepened by the keen sense and quiet resolution expressed in his glance and in every furrow of his cheek and brow. He had often been an unconscious model to Domenico Ghirlandajo, when that great painter was making the walls of the churches reflect the life of Florence, and translating pale aerial traditions i

ye on the frank speaker with a look of

Gallo on a festa. I've heard you say yourself, that a man wasn't a mill-wheel, to be on the grind, grind, as long as he was driven, and then stick in

avement as thou dost, Goro, with snout upward, like a pig under an oak-tree. And as for Lorenzo - dead and gone before his time - he was a man who had an eye for curious iron-work and if anybody says he wanted to make himself a tyrant, I say, "Sia; I'll not deny which way the wind blows when every man can see the weathercock." But that only mea

scourge is at hand. And when the Church is purged of cardinals and prelates who traffic in her inheritance that their hands may be full to pay the price of blood and to satisfy their own lusts, the S

creen happened to fall, I were stifled under it, surely enough. That is no bad image of thine, Nanni - or, rather, of the F

arning is ringing in the ears of all men: and it's no new story; for the Abbot Joachim prophesied of the coming time three hundred years ago, and

ccolo; 'for that pitiable tailor's work of thine makes thy noddle so overhang thy legs, t

ather than of his dignity. But Niccolo gave him no opportunity for replying; for he turned away to t

knot of talkers, 'they are safest who cross themselves and jest at nobody. Do you know t

God will have pardoned him.' 'He died like the best of

ill have given h

tman going back to Careggi, and he told him the Frate had been sent for ye

something about it in his sermon this morning; is i

to go and hear 'new things' from the Frate ('new things' were the nectar of Florentines); others by the sense that

ning as I was coming in from Rovezzano, and I can spell him out no better than I can the letters on that scarf I bought from the French cavalier. It isn't my wit

ils into gold, even as thou dost,' said Nello, 'and he had also some

round, with an ai

rue he was hungry, and I forgot him. But we shall find him in the

und of the Mercato,

ushed their way together. 'There isn't much in the way of cut and c

aid Nello, 'after he has se

hope. Besides, this stranger's clothes are good Italian merchandise, and the hose he wears were dyed

ne of the entrances of the piazza, and before he could resume it they had ca