The Signora Virginia bowed and held out her hand like a great lady. As soon as he was on the stairs, he felt tired of all the jabber and quite bewildered, and it seemed to him as if he had already been to ten houses. He had two more addresses on his piece of paper, and his inclination to pursue the choice had greatly diminished. It was only by a revulsion that he was able to give orders to be driven to the Via del Gambero, No. 37, since he did not yet know the streets. The Via del Gambero had the atmosphere of mystery of the streets parallel to the Corso, affected by hurrying men and busy women. From the great Palazzo Raggi, with its courtyard like a square, with one entrance on the Corso and the other on the Via Gambero, every now and then someone would issue forth who was avoiding the crowd or in fear of dangerous encounters, and who hastened away without looking back. In the porch of No. 37, a decent-looking place, there was a wooden porter's box with a window-pane, deriving its light from the house. A little woman came out to meet the deputy.

'Have you not an apartment to let here on the third floor?'

'Yes, sir. Will you look at it?'

'I should like to see it.'

The little woman went back into her box, picked out a key from a bunch, and set forth, blinking the red eyelids which belonged to a pair of gray eyes. She was evidently the porteress. She was dressed in green cloth, faded and worn out, and rather showily trimmed; she wore a chestnut wig, with a false plait at the neck and a fluffy fringe on the forehead. As she went upstairs her dirty, red silk stockings showed. As for the flaccid, wan cheeks, white and dotted with freckles, and the pale-violet, youthful mouth, one might guess that once this face had been round, rosy, and that it had collapsed suddenly like a doll's from which the sawdust has escaped through a little hole. The staircase was spacious, and had wide turnings, a rare circumstance in Roman houses; on every landing were three doors, uniformly situated. On the first floor, to the right, the Honourable Sangiorgio read: 'Barone di Sangarzia, Deputy to Parliament'; there was nothing on the middle door, and to the left was: 'Anna Scartozzi, Tailoress.' On the second floor, to the right, the door was marked: 'Marchese di Tuttavilla, Deputy to Parliament'; no name was on the door in the centre, and that on the left bore the inscription: 'Commission and General Agency.'

'Have these two deputies also furnished rooms?'

'No, sir, they furnish their own, but the apartment is the same,' replied the woman, inserting the key in the lock of the right-hand door of the third floor, where no name was on the middle door, and on the left: 'Paolo Galasso, Dentist.'

The apartment facing the street was very light, and the furniture, which was almost new, had pretensions to elegance. A majolica flower-vase stood on a table, and there was a fireplace—a real fireplace—an extreme luxury in a Roman middle-class house.

'You can light a fire here, and after dinner, in winter, that is a pleasure,' observed the woman. 'There are fireplaces on each floor. The deputy on the first floor has his lighted in the morning; he has a blazing fire all day.'