Giovanni stepped into the street. A narrow strip of grey sky, faintly tinged with the roseate of evening, showed between the humid roofs: a fine rain fell through the windless air. Suddenly from a window in a neighbouring alley was wafted a song:—
'O vaghe montanine pastorelle
Donde venite si leggiadre e belle?'
(O shepherd-girls so fair,
Say from what mountain air
Light-footed have ye strayed?)
The voice was resonant and young: from the measured beat of the treadle Giovanni guessed at a loom, and at a girl singing as she threw the shuttle. He listened with vague enjoyment, and remembered that the spring had come, and felt his heart swelling with strange emotions of tenderness and melancholy.
'Nanna! Nanna! Where hast thou got to, thou little devil? What hath happened to thine ears? Haste thee! The vermicelli grows cold.' After which there was a swift clapping of wooden pattens across the floor, and then silence.
Giovanni stood long, his eyes on the window, the gay song echoing in his ears like the far-off beatings of some shepherd's pipe—
'O vaghe montanine pastorelle——'