he
could at last rest his eyes on something pleasant.

Behind them came Pierre, likewise full of admiration, whilst Narcisse
spoke to him of the scrupulosity of his own tastes, which were for the
rare and the subtle. "She's beautiful, no doubt," said he; "but at bottom
nothing can be more gross than the Roman style of beauty; there's no
soul, none of the infinite in it. These girls simply have blood under
their skins without ever a glimpse of heaven."

Meantime Pierina had stopped, and with a wave of the hand directed
attention to her mother, who sat on a broken box beside the lofty doorway
of an unfinished mansion. She also must have once been very beautiful,
but at forty she was already a wreck, with dim eyes, drawn mouth, black
teeth, broadly wrinkled countenance, and huge fallen bosom. And she was
also fearfully dirty, her grey wavy hair dishevelled and her skirt and
jacket soiled and slit, revealing glimpses of grimy flesh. On her knees
she held a sleeping infant, her last-born, at whom she gazed like one
overwhelmed and courageless, like a beast of burden resigned to her fate.

"_Bene, bene,_" said she, raising her head, "it's the gentleman who came
to give me a crown because he saw you crying. And he's come back to see
us with some friends. Well, well, there are some good hearts in the world
after all."

Then she related their story, but in a spiritless way, without seeking to
move her visitors. She was called Giacinta, it appeared, and had married
a mason, one Tomaso Gozzo, by whom she had had seven children, Pierina,
then Tito, a big fellow of eighteen, then four more girls, each at an
interval of two years, and finally the infant, a boy, whom she now had on
her lap. They had long lived in the Trastevere district, in an old house
which had lately been pulled down; and their existence seemed to have
then been shattered, for since they had taken refuge in the Quartiere dei
Prati the crisis in the building trade had reduced Tomaso and Tito to
absolute idleness, and the bead factory where Pierina had earned as much
as tenpence a day--just enough to prevent them from dying of hunger--had
closed its doors. At present not one of them had any work; they lived
purely by chance.

"If you like to go up," the woman added, "you'll find Tomaso there with
his brother Ambrogio, whom we've taken to live with us. They'll know
better than I what to say to you. Tomaso is resting; but what else can he
do? It's like Tito--he's