Campagna, in company with some of his city acquaintances of a similar
class. In dark corners huge wine-casks present their round dusty faces
to the doubtful light, the smell of the kitchen pervades everything,
tempered by the smell of wine from the neighbouring cellars; the floor
is of rough stone worn by generations of cooks, potboys, and guests.
Beyond this again a short flight of steps leads to a narrow doorway,
passing through which one enters the last and most retired chamber of
the huge inn. Here there is barely room for a dozen persons, and when
all the places are full the bottles and dishes are passed from the door
by the guests themselves over each other's heads, for there is no room
to move about in the narrow space. The walls are whitewashed and the
tables are as plain as the chairs, but the food and drink that are
consumed there are the best that the house affords, and the society,
from the point of view of Marzio Pandolfi and his friends, is of the
most agreeable.

The chiseller took his favourite seat in the corner furthest from the
window. Two or three men of widely different types were already at the
table, and Marzio exchanged a friendly nod with each. One was a florid
man of large proportions, dressed in the height of the fashion and with
scrupulous neatness. He was a jeweller. Another, a lawyer with a keen
and anxious face, wore a tightly-buttoned frock coat and a black tie.
Immense starched cuffs covered his bony hands and part of his fingers.
He was supping on a salad, into which he from time to time poured an
additional dose of vinegar. A third man, with a round hat on one side of
his head, and who wore a very light-coloured overcoat, displaying a
purple scarf with a showy pin at the neck, held a newspaper in one hand
and a fork in the other, with which he slowly ate mouthfuls of a ragout
of wild boar. He was a journalist on the staff of an advanced radical
paper.