impatient to have news of their dear ones, to know if they were really dead of if there was any hope of saving them, and fearful of being betrayed by the doctors and orderlies, the crowd began yelling, cursing and hurling stones against the window-panes; and finally, by sheer weight of numbers, they broke open the doors. As soon as the heavy portals yielded the deafening, ferocious clamour died down as if by magic; and silently, like a pack of wolves, panting, gritting their teeth, every so often peering through doorways, running with lowered heads through the passages of the ancient building, made fetid and filthy by time and neglect, the crowd invaded the hospital.
But having reached the entrance to a cloister, from which dark corridors radiated in every direction, they burst into a terrible cry, and halted, petrified with horror. On the floors, piled up on heaps of garbage, blood-stained garments and damp straw, lay hundreds and hundreds of disfigured corpses, their heads enormous, swollen through suffocation and blue, green and purple in colour, their faces crushed, their limbs truncated or torn right off by the violence of the explosions. In a corner of the cloister stood a pyramid of heads with wide-open eyes and gaping mouths. With loud cries, frantic wails and savage laments the crowd threw themselves on the dead, calling them by name in voices that were terrible to hear, fighting for possession of those headless trunks, those torn limbs, those severed heads, those miserable remains which deluded pity and love seemed to recognize.
Surely no human eye ever witnessed a struggle so fierce, nor yet so pitiful. Every scrap of flesh and bone was fought for by ten or twenty of those demented creatures, who were maddened by grief and even by the fear of seeing their own dead carried off by others, of seeing them stolen by their rivals. And that which the raid had failed to do was finally accomplished by their macabre fury, their mad pity; for every corpse, torn, truncated, rent asunder, ripped to pieces by a hundred eager hands, became the prey of ten or twenty demented creatures, who ran off, pursued by hordes of yelling people, hugging to their breasts the miserable remains which they had succeeded in rescuing from the fierce pity of their fellows. The wild affray spread from the cloisters and corridors of the Ospedale dei Pellegrini into the streets and alleys, and finally spent its fury in the cellars of the city's slums, where the people would at least find an outlet for their pity and love in tears and in the payment of their final homage to the mangled corpses of their dear ones.
* * * *
The cortege had already vanished into the dark labyrinth of the alleys of Forcella, and by now the lamentations of the family mourners who followed in the wake of the death-cart were fading away in the distance. Negro soldiers glided along beside the walls or loitered in the doorways of the bassi, comparing the price of a girl with that of a packet of cigarettes or a tin of corned beef. The shadows were filled with whispers and hoarse voices and sighs, and the sound of stealthy footsteps. The moon lit up the edges of the roofs and the railings of the balconies with its silvery beams, though it was still too low to illuminate the depths of the alleys. Jimmy and I walked in silence through the dense and fetid gloom until we arrived outside a half-closed door. Pushing it open, we halted in the entrance.
The interior of the hovel was illuminated by the blinding white light of an acetylene lamp which lay on the marble top of a chest of drawers. Two girls, clad in gleaming, gaudily-coloured silk, stood before the little table which was in the middle of the room. On the table lay a heap of what appeared at first glance to be wigs of every size and shape. They consisted of tufts of fair hair, carefully combed. Whether they were made of flax or of silk or actually of women's hair I cannot say. Each had a
But having reached the entrance to a cloister, from which dark corridors radiated in every direction, they burst into a terrible cry, and halted, petrified with horror. On the floors, piled up on heaps of garbage, blood-stained garments and damp straw, lay hundreds and hundreds of disfigured corpses, their heads enormous, swollen through suffocation and blue, green and purple in colour, their faces crushed, their limbs truncated or torn right off by the violence of the explosions. In a corner of the cloister stood a pyramid of heads with wide-open eyes and gaping mouths. With loud cries, frantic wails and savage laments the crowd threw themselves on the dead, calling them by name in voices that were terrible to hear, fighting for possession of those headless trunks, those torn limbs, those severed heads, those miserable remains which deluded pity and love seemed to recognize.
Surely no human eye ever witnessed a struggle so fierce, nor yet so pitiful. Every scrap of flesh and bone was fought for by ten or twenty of those demented creatures, who were maddened by grief and even by the fear of seeing their own dead carried off by others, of seeing them stolen by their rivals. And that which the raid had failed to do was finally accomplished by their macabre fury, their mad pity; for every corpse, torn, truncated, rent asunder, ripped to pieces by a hundred eager hands, became the prey of ten or twenty demented creatures, who ran off, pursued by hordes of yelling people, hugging to their breasts the miserable remains which they had succeeded in rescuing from the fierce pity of their fellows. The wild affray spread from the cloisters and corridors of the Ospedale dei Pellegrini into the streets and alleys, and finally spent its fury in the cellars of the city's slums, where the people would at least find an outlet for their pity and love in tears and in the payment of their final homage to the mangled corpses of their dear ones.
* * * *
The cortege had already vanished into the dark labyrinth of the alleys of Forcella, and by now the lamentations of the family mourners who followed in the wake of the death-cart were fading away in the distance. Negro soldiers glided along beside the walls or loitered in the doorways of the bassi, comparing the price of a girl with that of a packet of cigarettes or a tin of corned beef. The shadows were filled with whispers and hoarse voices and sighs, and the sound of stealthy footsteps. The moon lit up the edges of the roofs and the railings of the balconies with its silvery beams, though it was still too low to illuminate the depths of the alleys. Jimmy and I walked in silence through the dense and fetid gloom until we arrived outside a half-closed door. Pushing it open, we halted in the entrance.
The interior of the hovel was illuminated by the blinding white light of an acetylene lamp which lay on the marble top of a chest of drawers. Two girls, clad in gleaming, gaudily-coloured silk, stood before the little table which was in the middle of the room. On the table lay a heap of what appeared at first glance to be wigs of every size and shape. They consisted of tufts of fair hair, carefully combed. Whether they were made of flax or of silk or actually of women's hair I cannot say. Each had a
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