Page:A Picture-book without Pictures and Other Stories (1848).djvu/131



is a street in Rome which is called Via della Purificazione; yet nobody can say of it that it is purified. It goes up-hill and down-hill; cabbage stalks and old broken pots lie scattered about it; the smoke comes curling out of the door of the public-house, and the lady who lives opposite to me—yes, I cannot help it, but it is true—the lady on the opposite side, she shakes her sheets every morning out of the window. In this street there generally live many foreigners; this year, however, fear of the fever and malignant sickness keeps most of them in Naples and Florence. I lived quite alone in a great big house; neither the host nor hostess ever slept there at night.