'Maria! Maria!
He listened.
'Maria!'
He only heard the sound of the door closing behind her—she was gone.
[CHAPTER X]
At ten o'clock in the morning of June 20th the sale began of the furniture and hangings belonging to His Excellency the Minister Plenipotentiary for Guatemala.
It was a burning hot morning. Summer blazed already over Rome. Up and down the Via Nationale ran the tram-cars, drawn by horses with funny white caps over their heads to protect them against the sun. Long lines of heavily-laden carts encumbered the road, while the blare of trumpets mingled with the cracking of whips and the hoarse cries of the carters.
Andrea could not make up his mind to cross the threshold of that house, but wandered about the street a long time, weighed down by a horrible sense of lassitude, a lassitude so overwhelming and desperate as to be almost a physical longing for death.
At last, seeing a porter come out of the house with a piece of furniture on his shoulder, he decided to go in. He ran rapidly up the stairs. From the landing already he could hear the voice of the auctioneer.