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THE MANIFOLD LIFE OF THE CAFÉ NUOVO, AND HOW THEY RECEIVED THE NEWS ABOUT MAGENTA.--EXCITEMENT.--ENTHUSIASM.--TEARS.--EMBRACES.
All modern Rome lives in the Café Nuovo. It was once a palace. Lofty ceilings, glittering walls, marble pavements, countless tables, luxurious couches, immense mirrors, all dazzle the eye. The hubbub is immense, the confusion overpowering.
The European mode of life is not bad. Lodgings in roomy apartments, where one sleeps and attends to one's private affairs; meals altogether at the café. There one invites one's friends. No delay with dinner; no badly-cooked dishes; no stale or sour bread; no timid, overworn wife trembling for the result of new experiments in housekeeping. On the contrary, one has: prompt meals; exquisite food; delicious bread; polite waiters; and happy wife, with plenty of leisure at home to improve mind and adorn body.
The first visit which the Club paid to the Café Nuovo was an eventful one. News had just been received of the great strife at Magenta. Every one was wild. The two _Galignani's_ had been appropriated by two Italians, who were surrounded by forty-seven frenzied Englishmen, all eager to get hold of the papers. The Italians obligingly tried to read the news. The wretched mangle which they made of the language, the impatience, the excitement, and the perplexity of the audience, combined with the splendid self-complacency of the readers, formed a striking scene.
The Italians gathered in a vast crowd in one of the billiard-rooms, where one of their number, mounted on a table, was reading with terrific volubility, and still more terrific gesticulations, a private letter from a friend at Milan.
"Bravo!" cried all present.
In pronouncing which word the Italians rolled the "r" so tumultuously that the only audible sound was--
B-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-f-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-ah! Like the letter B in a railway train.
The best of all was to see the French. They were packed in a dense mass at the furthest extremity of the Grand Saloon. Every one was talking. Every one was describing to his neighbor the minute particulars of the tremendous contest. Old soldiers, hoarse with excitement, emulated the volubility of younger ones. A thousand arms waved energetically in the air. Every one was too much interested in his own description to heed his neighbor. They were all talkers, no listeners.