“Saw what, Goro?” said a man of slim figure, whose eye twinkled rather roguishly. He wore a close jerkin, a skullcap lodged carelessly over his left ear as if it had fallen there by chance, a delicate linen apron tucked up on one side, and a razor stuck in his belt. “Saw the bull, or only the woman?”
“Why, the woman, to be sure; but it’s all one, mi pare : it doesn’t alter the meaning— va !” answered the fat man, with some contempt.
“Meaning? no, no; that’s clear enough,” said several voices at once, and then followed a confusion of tongues, in which “Lights shooting over San Lorenzo for three nights together”—“Thunder in the clear starlight”—“Lantern of the Duomo struck with the sword of Saint Michael”—“ Palle ” —“All smashed”—“Lions tearing each other to pieces”—“Ah! and they might well”—“ Boto caduto in Santissima Nunziata !”—“Died like the best of Christians”—“God will have pardoned him”—were often-repeated phrases, which shot across each other like storm-driven hailstones, each speaker feeling rather the necessity of utterance than