I asked a man sitting with a basket of them at a street corner to give me the worth of a soldo (a half-penny); he began to fill my pocket, and when I cried that it was enough, that I could carry no more, he held up one particularly fine fruit, smiled as only an Italian can, and said, with admirable politeness, "_Questo per complimento_!" I ought to have shaken hands with him.
Even when I had grown accustomed to the place, its singular appearance of incompleteness kept exciting my attention.

I had never seen a town so ragged at the edges.

If there had recently been a great conflagration and almost all the whole city were being rebuilt, it would have looked much as it did at the time of my visit.

To enter the post-office one had to clamber over heaps of stone and plaster, to stride over tumbled beams and jump across great puddles, entering at last by shaky stairs a place which looked like the waiting-room of an unfinished railway station.

The style of building is peculiar, and looks so temporary as to keep one constantly in mind of the threatening earthquake.