Then
a story of a donkey who had kicked a youth in the chest and killed him.
But the women were tired, they would go to bed. Still the two young men
would not go away. We all went out to look at the night.
The stars were very bright overhead, the mountain opposite and the
mountains behind us faintly outlined themselves on the sky. Below, the
lake was a black gulf. A little wind blew cold from the Adige.
In the morning the visitors had gone. They had insisted on staying the
night. They had eaten eight eggs each and much bread at one o'clock in
the morning. Then they had gone to sleep, lying on the floor in the
sitting-room.
In the early sunshine they had drunk coffee and gone down to the village
on the lake. Maria was very pleased. She would have made a good deal of
money. The young men were rich. Her cupidity seemed like her
very blossom.
_6_
IL DURO
The first time I saw Il Duro was on a sunny day when there came up a
party of pleasure-makers to San Gaudenzio. They were three women and
three men. The women were in cotton frocks, one a large, dark, florid
woman in pink, the other two rather insignificant.
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