Also, I am presently stunned by the clash of many voices. I can catch from the words of those who speak Maddalena's language, the tongue that I can follow, that there is a great wranglement over me and my sale price. For I am to be sold, and the foreigners who wish to buy me are loud in their dispraise of me; so much so that I do not understand why they should wish to possess me at all. In fact, they do actually go away after much heated discussion, speaking most scornfully of pictures as things no man in his senses would ever buy, and of pictures with frames like mine as the most valueless examples. I gather all this from repetitions made by others, in Maddalena's tongue, nearly but not exactly. Presently back comes one of them to say he will go to six hundred pounds, but not a penny more. Then says a woman's voice, "Ah, Signore! Six hundred and fifty!" Then he, six hundred and twenty-five. And then some price between the two. And so we are agreed at last. And I am to be put in a box and sent to a place whose name I have never heard, that sounds like L'Ombra, a name that frightens me, for it sounds like the Inferno of the great poet, Dante. But I should tell you that, before this riot, and noise, and disputation over me and my price, I had heard the unpacking and removal of the great stack of furniture that hid me. Only, as the persons who removed it have no interest for us, and did not seem from their conversation to be especially cultivated or intelligent, but rather the reverse, I have not said anything of them, nor of their valuations in _lire_ of each article as it was brought to light. Their voices were the very first that I heard; but though their words sounded strange to me, they only made me think that maybe they were from Milan or Genoa or some other place in Italy. I should not have guessed them Tuscans; that is all. Indeed, I hardly distinguished much of what they said until they had removed the last of the furniture and I was turned round to the light. Then I saw things in a cloud, and heard indistinctly. I made out, however, that I was thick with dust, and must be brought out and cleaned before anyone could see what I was like. Then I was carried away down some stairs, and in the end I was aware, but dimly, as in a dream, that I was again in the great chamber where I last saw la Maddalena lying on the ground insensible, while the old Duke prodded at her with a stick. I could see there were many people in the room, talking volubly. But I could not catch their words well until a Signora, who seemed to take the lead, wiped my face over with a wet sponge; and then I heard more. Her voice was clearest, and what she said was "_Ecco, Signori_! Now you can see the ear quite plain. _Ma com'e bella_! _Bella bella_!"--And then it was I came to hear all the clamour of voices of a sudden.