A minute or two passed before I could even hit the drift of her furious speech; she was always the most difficult of the natives to understand, and in rage she became quite unintelligible.

Little by little, by dint of questioning, I got at what she meant.

There had been _guai_, worse than usual; the mistress had reviled her unendurably for some fault or other, and was it not hard that she should be used like this after having _tanto, tanto lavorato_! In fact, she was appealing for my sympathy, not abusing me at all.

When she went on to say that she was alone in the world, that all her kith and kin were _freddi morti_ (stone dead), a pathos in her aspect and her words took hold upon me; it was much as if some heavy-laden beast of burden had suddenly found tongue, and protested in the rude beginnings of articulate utterance against its hard lot.

If only one could have learnt, in intimate detail, the life of this domestic serf! How interesting, and how sordidly picturesque against the background of romantic landscape, of scenic history! I looked long into her sallow, wrinkled face, trying to imagine the thoughts that ruled its expression.