and marriages, posted on a black-board outside the door, to be seen of all, adorns it.  The Cafe of the Tricolor, and such shops as Corellia boasts of, are there opposite.  Men, smoking, and drinking native wine, are lounging about.  Ser Giacomo, the notary, spectacles on nose, sits at a table in a corner, reading aloud to a select audience a weekly broad-sheet published at Lucca, news of men and things not of the mountain-tops.  Every soul starts up as they hear wheels approaching.  If a bomb had burst in the piazza the panic could not be greater.  They know it is the marchesa.  They know that now the marchesa is come she will grind and harry them, and seize her share of grapes, and corn, and olives, to the uttermost farthing.  Silvestro, her steward, a timid, pitiful man, can be got over by soft words, and the sight of want and misery.  Not so the marchesa.  They know that now she is come she will call the Town Council, fine them, pursue them for rent, cite them to the High Court of Barga, imprison them if they cannot pay.  They know her, and they curse her.  The ill-news of her arrival runs from lip to lip.  Checco, the butcher, who sells his meat cut into dark, indescribably-shaped scraps, more fit for dogs than men, first sees the carriage turn into the piazza.  He passes the word on to Oreste, the barber round the corner.  Oreste, who, with his brother Pilade, both wearing snow-white aprons, are squaring themselves at their open doorway, over which hangs a copper basin, shaped like Manbrino’s helmet, looking for customers—­Oreste and Pilade turn pale.  Then Oreste tells the baker, Pietro, who, naked as Nature made him, has run out from his oven to the open door, for a breath of air.  The bewildered clerk at the Municipio, who sits and writes, and sleeps by turns, all day, in a low room beside a desk, taking notes for the sindaco (mayor) from all who come (he is so tired, that clerk, he would hear the last trumpet sound unmoved), even he hears the news, and starts up.

Now the carriage stops.  It has drawn up in the centre of the piazza.  It is the marchesa’s custom.  She puts her head out of the window, and takes a long, grave look all round.  These are her vassals.  They fear her.  She knows it, and she glories in it.  Every head is uncovered, every eye turned upon her.  It is obviously some one’s duty to salute her and to welcome her to her domain.  She has stopped for this purpose.  It is always done.  No one, however, stirs.  Ser Giacomo, the notary, bows low beside the table where he has been caught reading the Lucca broad-sheet; but Ser Giacomo does not stir.  How he wishes he had staid at home!

He has not the courage to move one step toward her.  Something must be done, so Ser Giacomo he runs and fetches the sindaco from inside the recesses of the cafe, where he is playing dominoes under a lighted lamp.  The sindaco must give the marchesa a formal welcome.  The sindaco, a saddler by trade—­a snuffy little man, with a face drawn and yellow as parchment, wearing his working-clothes—­advances to the carriage with a step as cautious as a cat.