ich were at all attractive were those of the pork butchers with their
salted provisions and their cheese, whose pungent smell slightly
attenuated the pestilential reek of the gutters. Lottery offices,
displaying lists of winning numbers, alternated with wine-shops, of which
latter there was a fresh one every thirty yards with large inscriptions
setting forth that the best wines of Genzano, Marino, and Frascati were
to be found within. And the whole district teemed with ragged, grimy
denizens, children half naked and devoured by vermin, bare-headed,
gesticulating and shouting women, whose skirts were stiff with grease,
old men who remained motionless on benches amidst swarms of hungry flies;
idleness and agitation appearing on all sides, whilst cobblers sat on the
sidewalks quietly plying their trade, and little donkeys pulled carts
hither and thither, and men drove turkeys along, whip in hand, and hands
of beggars rushed upon the few anxious tourists who had timorously
ventured into the district. At the door of a little tailor's shop an old
house-pail dangled full of earth, in which a succulent plant was
flowering. And from every window and balcony, as from the many cords
which stretched across the street from house to house, all the household
washing hung like bunting, nameless drooping rags, the symbolical banners
of abominable misery.

Pierre's fraternal, soul filled with pity at the sight. Ah! yes, it was
necessary to demolish all those pestilential districts where the populace
had wallowed for centuries as in a poisonous gaol! He was for demolition
and sanitary improvement, even if old Rome were killed and artists
scandalised. Doubtless the Trastevere was already greatly changed,
pierced with several new thoroughfares which let the sun stream in. And
amidst the _abattis_ of rubbish and the spacious clearings, where nothing
new had yet been erected, the remaining portions of the old district
seemed even blacker and more loathsome. Some day, no doubt, it would all
be rebuilt, but how interesting was this phase of the city's evolution:
old Rome expiring and new Rome just dawning amidst countless
difficulties! To appreciate the change it was necessary to have known the
filthy Rome of the past, swamped by sewage in every form. The recently
levelled Ghetto had, over a course of centuries, so rotted the soil on
which it stood that an awful pestilential odour yet arose from its bare
site. It was only fitting that it should