Seeing Turlendana fall, Binchi-Banche and the customs officer came over to him. Taking him, one by the head and the other by the feet, they lifted him up and laid him full length upon the body of Barbara, in the position of a loving embrace. Laughing at their deed, they departed.
And thus Turlendana lay upon the camel until the sun rose.
V THE GOLD PIECES
Passacantando entered, rattling the hanging glass doors violently, roughly shook the rain-drops from his shoulders, took his pipe from his mouth, and with disdainful unconcern looked around the room.
In the tavern the smoke of the tobacco was like a bluish cloud, through which one could discern the faces of those who were drinking: women of bad repute; Pachio, the invalided soldier, whose right eye, affected with some repulsive disease, was covered by a greasy greenish band; Binchi-Banche, the domestic of the customs officers, a small, sturdy man with a surly, yellow-hued face like a lemon without juice, with a bent back and his thin legs thrust into boots which reached to his knees; Magnasangue, the go-between of the soldiers, the friend of comedians, of jugglers, of mountebanks, of fortune-tellers, of tamers of bears,—of all that ravenous and rapacious rabble which passes through the towns to snatch from the idle and curious people a few pennies.
Then, too, there were the belles of the Fiorentino Hall, three or four women faded from dissipation, their cheeks painted brick colour, their eyes voluptuous, their mouths flaccid and almost bluish in colour like over-ripe figs.
Passacantando crossed the room, and seated himself between the women Pica and Peppuccia on a bench against the wall, which was covered with indecent figures and writing. He was a slender young fellow, rather effeminate, with a very pale face from which protruded a nose thick, rapacious, bent greatly to one side; his ears sprang from his head like two inflated paper bags, one larger than the other; his curved, protruding lips were very red, and always had a small ball of whitish saliva at the corners. Over his carefully combed hair he wore a soft cap, flattened through long use. A tuft of his hair, turned up like a hook, curled down over his forehead to the roots of his nose, while another curled over his temple. A certain licentiousness was expressed in every gesture, every move, and in the tones of his voice and his glances.
“Ohe,” he cried, “Woman Africana, a goblet of wine!” beating the table with his clay pipe, which broke from the force of the blow.
The woman Africana, the mistress of the inn, left the bar and came forward towards the table, waddling because of her extreme corpulence, and placed in front of Passacantando a glass filled to the brim with wine. She looked at him as she did so with eyes full of loving entreaty.
Passacantando suddenly flung his arm around the neck of Peppuccia, forced her to drink from the goblet, and then thrust his lips against hers. Peppuccia laughed, disentangling herself from the arms of Passacantando, her laughter causing the unswallowed wine to spurt from her mouth into his face.