were also three or four American soldiers, a few Poles, and some English sailors. We joined the queue and waited our turn.
After a wait of about half an hour, during which we moved forward a yard every two minutes, we found ourselves at the entrance to the hovel. The interior of the room was screened from our gaze by a red curtain, patched and grease-stained. At the entrance stood a middle-aged man, dressed in black. He was very thin, with a stubbly, pale face. A dingy black felt hat was set at a meticulous angle on his thick grey hair. His two hands were clasped together on his chest, and between his fingers he clutched a bundle of banknotes.
"One dollar each," he said. "A hundred lire each person."
We entered and looked about us. It was the usual Neapolitan interior: a windowless room with a small door at the end, a vast bed against the wall facing us, and along the other walls a dressing-table, a rough iron wash-stand enamalled white, a chest of drawers, and, between the bed and the chest of drawers, a tabie. On the dressing-table was a large glass bell, under which stood a number of coloured wax statuettes representing the Holy Family. The walls were covered with cheap oleographs depicting scenes from Cavalleria Rusticana and Tosca, a picture of Vesuvius surmounted by columns of smoke, like a horse decked with plumes for the Piedigrotta carnival, and photographs of women, children and old men, not, to be sure, taken from life, but after death, with their subjects stretched out on their death-beds and festooned with flowers. In the corner between the bed and the dressing-table stood a miniature altar with a statute of the Virgin upon it, lit by a small oil-lamp. The bed was draped with an enormous sky-blue silk counterpane, whose long gilt fringe touched the green and red clay floor. On the edge of the bed sat a girl, smoking.
She sat with her legs dangling from the bed, and smoked silently, lost in thought, her elbows resting on her knees, her face buried in her hands. She looked very young, but she had rather lack-lustre eyes, the eyes of an old woman. Her coiffure conformed to the baroque style cultivated by the capere of the poorer quarters—a style modelled on the characteristic head-dress of Neapolitan madonnas of the seventeenth-century. Her curly, lustrous black hair was filled out with horsehair and ribbons and stuffed with tow. It rose from her head like a castle, creating the illusion that she had a tall black mitre resting on her brow. There was something Byzantine about the long, narrow, pale face, whose pallor was visible through a thick layer of paint. Byzantine too was the set of the large, slanting, jet-black eyes beneath the deep, smooth brow. But the fleshy lips, magnified by a vivid splash of rouge, lent an air of sensuality and insolence to the exquisite statuesque melancholy of the face. She wore a red silk dress, discreetly low at the neck, and flesh-coloured silk stockings, and her small, plump feet, which were encased in a pair of gaping, formless black felt slippers, swung idly to and fro. Her dress had long sleeves, narrow at the wrists, and at her throat hung one of those necklaces of pale pink coral, mellowed with age, which are the pride of every poor Neapolitan girl.
She smoked in silence, looking fixedly in the direction of the door, with a haughty air of detachment. In spite of the insolent character of her red silk dress, her baroque hair-style, her thick, fleshy lips and her gaping slippers, her vulgarity was quite impersonal. It seemed rather to be a reflection of the vulgarity of her environment, of that vulgarity which surrounded her on all sides yet scarcely touched her. Her ears were very small and exquisite, so white and translucent that they seemed artificial, as if they were made of wax. When I entered she fixed her eyes on my captain's three gold pips and smiled contemptuously, turning her face with an almost imperceptible movement towards the wall. There were about ten of
After a wait of about half an hour, during which we moved forward a yard every two minutes, we found ourselves at the entrance to the hovel. The interior of the room was screened from our gaze by a red curtain, patched and grease-stained. At the entrance stood a middle-aged man, dressed in black. He was very thin, with a stubbly, pale face. A dingy black felt hat was set at a meticulous angle on his thick grey hair. His two hands were clasped together on his chest, and between his fingers he clutched a bundle of banknotes.
"One dollar each," he said. "A hundred lire each person."
We entered and looked about us. It was the usual Neapolitan interior: a windowless room with a small door at the end, a vast bed against the wall facing us, and along the other walls a dressing-table, a rough iron wash-stand enamalled white, a chest of drawers, and, between the bed and the chest of drawers, a tabie. On the dressing-table was a large glass bell, under which stood a number of coloured wax statuettes representing the Holy Family. The walls were covered with cheap oleographs depicting scenes from Cavalleria Rusticana and Tosca, a picture of Vesuvius surmounted by columns of smoke, like a horse decked with plumes for the Piedigrotta carnival, and photographs of women, children and old men, not, to be sure, taken from life, but after death, with their subjects stretched out on their death-beds and festooned with flowers. In the corner between the bed and the dressing-table stood a miniature altar with a statute of the Virgin upon it, lit by a small oil-lamp. The bed was draped with an enormous sky-blue silk counterpane, whose long gilt fringe touched the green and red clay floor. On the edge of the bed sat a girl, smoking.
She sat with her legs dangling from the bed, and smoked silently, lost in thought, her elbows resting on her knees, her face buried in her hands. She looked very young, but she had rather lack-lustre eyes, the eyes of an old woman. Her coiffure conformed to the baroque style cultivated by the capere of the poorer quarters—a style modelled on the characteristic head-dress of Neapolitan madonnas of the seventeenth-century. Her curly, lustrous black hair was filled out with horsehair and ribbons and stuffed with tow. It rose from her head like a castle, creating the illusion that she had a tall black mitre resting on her brow. There was something Byzantine about the long, narrow, pale face, whose pallor was visible through a thick layer of paint. Byzantine too was the set of the large, slanting, jet-black eyes beneath the deep, smooth brow. But the fleshy lips, magnified by a vivid splash of rouge, lent an air of sensuality and insolence to the exquisite statuesque melancholy of the face. She wore a red silk dress, discreetly low at the neck, and flesh-coloured silk stockings, and her small, plump feet, which were encased in a pair of gaping, formless black felt slippers, swung idly to and fro. Her dress had long sleeves, narrow at the wrists, and at her throat hung one of those necklaces of pale pink coral, mellowed with age, which are the pride of every poor Neapolitan girl.
She smoked in silence, looking fixedly in the direction of the door, with a haughty air of detachment. In spite of the insolent character of her red silk dress, her baroque hair-style, her thick, fleshy lips and her gaping slippers, her vulgarity was quite impersonal. It seemed rather to be a reflection of the vulgarity of her environment, of that vulgarity which surrounded her on all sides yet scarcely touched her. Her ears were very small and exquisite, so white and translucent that they seemed artificial, as if they were made of wax. When I entered she fixed her eyes on my captain's three gold pips and smiled contemptuously, turning her face with an almost imperceptible movement towards the wall. There were about ten of
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