Then the woman counted the price of
blood, which had so unexpectedly fallen into her hands. The bank-
notes were many and broad, and crisp and new, for Giovanni had not
reckoned the cost. It was long since old Caterina Ranucci had seen
so much money, and she had certainly never had so much of her own.
"Qualche innamorato!" she muttered to herself as she smoothed the
notes one by one and gloated over them and built castles in the
air under the light of her little oil lamp. "It is some fellow in
love. Heaven pardon me if I have done wrong! He seemed so anxious
to know that the woman had been here--why should I not content
him? Poveretto! He must be rich. I will always tell him what he
wants to know. Heaven bring him often and bless him."
Then she rocked herself backwards and forwards, hugging her pot of
coals and crooning the words of an ancient Roman ditty--
"Io vorrei che nella luna Ci s'andasse in carrettella Per vedere
la piu bella Delle donne di la su!"
What does the old song mean? Who knows whether it ever meant
anything? "I wish one might drive in a little cart to the moon, to
see the most beautiful of the women up there!" Caterina Ranucci
somehow felt as though she could express her feelings in no better
way than by singing the queer words to herself in her cracked old
voice.
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