In the sailor’s district, on the contrary, everything is open and above-board.  The disreputable houses are full of noise and light; there is dancing and shouting and fighting.  On the ground floors, in the low rooms, women in filmy attire sit on the benches that line the white-washed walls lighted by an oil lamp; others, in the doorway, beckon to you, and their animated faces stand out in relief on the background of the lighted resort, from which issues the sound of clinking glasses and coarse caresses.  You can hear the kisses which fall on the opulent shoulders of the women and the laughter of the girl who is sitting on some tanned sailor’s lap, her unruly locks slipping from under her cap and her bare shoulders issuing from her chemise.  The street is thronged, the place is packed, the door is wide open, anybody who wishes may go in.  Men come and peep through the windows or talk in an undertone to some half-clad creature, who bends eagerly over their faces.  Groups stand around and wait their turn.  It is all quite informal and unrestrained.

Being conscientious travellers, and desiring to see and study everything at close range, we entered.

In a room papered in red, three or four girls were sitting at a round table, and a man with a cap on his head and a pipe in his mouth was reclining on the sofa; he bowed politely when we entered.  The women wore Parisian dresses and were modest in their demeanour.  The mahogany furniture was covered with red plush, the floor was polished and engravings of battles decorated the walls.  O Virtue! you are beautiful, for very stupid is vice.  The woman who was sitting by my side had hands which were sufficient in themselves to make a man forget her sex, and not knowing how to spend our time we treated the whole company to drinks.  Then I lighted a cigar, stretched out on the divan, and, sad and depressed, while the voices of the women rose shrilly and the glasses were being drained, I said to myself: 

Where is she?  Where can she be?  Is she dead to the world, and will men never see her again?

She was beautiful, in olden times, when she walked up the steps leading to the temple, when on her shell-like feet fell the golden fringe of her tunic, or when she lounged among Persian cushions, twirling her collar of cameos and chatting with the wise men and the philosophers.

She was beautiful when she stood naked on the threshold of her cella in the street of Suburra, under the rosin torchlight that blazed in the night, slowly chanting her Campanian lay, while from the Tiber came the refrains of the orgies.

She was beautiful, too, in her old house of the Cite behind the Gothic windows, among the noisy students and dissipated monks, when, without fear of the sergeants, they struck the oaken tables with their pewter mugs, and the worm-eaten beds creaked beneath the weight of their bodies.

She was beautiful when she leaned over the green cloth and coveted the gold of the provincials; then she wore high heels and had a small waist and a large wig which shed its perfumed powder on her shoulders, a rose over her ear and a patch on her cheek.