Yes, Cecchino certainly recognised her now. Strolling about in that
damp May twilight among the old, tortuous streets, he had mechanically
watched the big black horses draw up at the posts which closed that
labyrinth of black, narrow alleys; the servant in his white waterproof
opened the door, and the tall, slender woman got out and walked quickly
along. And mechanically, in his wool-gathering way, he had followed the
lady, enjoying the charming note of delicate pink and grey which her
little frock made against those black houses, and under that wet, grey
sky, streaked pink with the sunset. She walked quickly along, quite
alone, having left the footman with the carriage at the entrance of that
condemned old heart of Florence; and she took no notice of the stares
and words of the boys playing in the gutters, the pedlars housing their
barrows under the black archways, and the women leaning out of window.
Yes; there was no doubt. It had struck him suddenly as he watched her
pass under a double arch and into a kind of large court, not unlike that
of a castle, between the frowning tall houses of the old Jews' quarter;
houses escutcheoned and stanchioned, once the abode of Ghibelline
nobles, now given over to rag-pickers, scavengers and unspeakable
trades.
As soon as he recognised her he stopped, and was about to turn: what
business has a man following a lady, prying into her doings when she
goes out at twilight, with carriage and footman left several streets
back, quite alone through unlikely streets? And Cecchino, who by this
time was on the point of returning to the Maremma, and had come to the
conclusion that civilisation was a boring and loathsome thing, reflected
upon the errands which French novels described ladies as performing,
when they left their carriage and footman round the corner.... But the
thought was disgraceful to Cecchino, and unjust to this lady--no, no!
And at this moment he stopped, for the lady had stopped a few paces
before him, and was staring fixedly into the grey evening sky. There
was something strange in that stare; it was not that of a woman who is
hiding disgraceful proceedings. And in staring round she must have
seen him; yet she stood still, like one wrapped in wild thoughts. Then
suddenly she passed under the next archway, and disappeared in the dark
passage of a house. Somehow Cecco Bandini could not make up his mind, as
he ought to have done long ago, to turn back. He slowly passed through
the oozy, ill-smelling archway, and stood before that house. It was
very tall, narrow, and black as ink, with a jagged roof against the
wet, pinkish sky. From the iron hook, made to hold brocades and Persian
carpets on gala days of old, fluttered some rags, obscene and ill-omened
in the wind. Many of the window panes were broken. It was evidently one
of the houses which the municipality had condemned to destruction for
sanitary reasons, and whence the inmates were gradually being evicted.
"That's a house they're going to pull down, isn't it?" he inquired in a
casual tone of the man at the corner, who kept a sort of cookshop, where
chestnut pudding and boiled beans steamed on a brazier in a den. Then
his eye caught a half-effaced name close to the lamp-post, "Little
Street of the Grave-digger." "Ah," he added quickly, "this is the street
where old Sora Lena committed suicide--and--is--is that the house?"
Then, trying to extricate some reasonable idea out of the extraordinary
tangle of absurdities which had all of a sudden filled his mind, he
fumbled in his pocket for a silver coin, and said hurriedly to the man
with the cooking brazier,
"See here, that house, I'm sure, isn't well inhabited. That lady has
gone there for a charity--but--but one doesn't know that she mayn't
be annoyed in there. Here's fifty centimes for your trouble. If that
lady doesn't come out again in three-quarters of an hour--there! it's
striking seven--just you go round to the stone posts--you'll find her
carriage there--black horses and grey liveries--and tell the footman to
run upstairs to his mistress--understand?" And Cecchino Bandini fled,
overwhelmed at the thought of the indiscretion he was committing, but
seeing, as he turned round, those rags waving an ominous salute from the
black, gaunt house with its irregular roof against the wet, twilight
sky.