Aunt Porredda thereupon let out upon her all the vials of wrath she would fain have emptied upon her guests, calling her by all the names which, in her secret heart, she was applying to Giovanna--"shameless," "vile," "ungrateful," "despicable," and so on, and threatening to strike her over the head with the ladle. In her terror, the girl grated the skin off one finger, and she was in the act of displaying it with the blood streaming down when the lawyer-son limped briskly into the room. He was enveloped in a long, black overcoat, so full that it looked like a cloak with sleeves. His smooth, fresh-coloured little face beamed with the self-satisfied expression of a nursing child. Asking immediately what there was to eat, he dropped into a seat beside Aunt Bachissia, and sat there chatting until supper was ready. After him the little Minnia came running in, rosy, breathless, and dishevelled, and threw herself down by the servant-maid. The boy had died three years earlier. The little girl's dress, of black and red flannel, was pretty enough, but her shoes were torn and her hands dirty. She had spent the entire day tearing around in a neighbouring truck-garden, and began to pour out confidences to the servant in an eager undertone. "Upon my soul!" repeated the servant, in the same tone as before. Next Uncle Efes Maria's big face, with its thick, wide-open lips, appeared in the door, wanting to know why they could not have supper right away. The dining-room was now furnished with two tall, shining cupboards of varnished wood, and the whole apartment had quite an air of elegance--strips of carpet on the stone floor, a stove, and so on. Poor Aunt Porredda, with her big feet and hobnailed shoes, never felt really at home there; while Uncle Efes Maria had not yet cured himself of the habit of staring proudly around him. Grazia, tall and elegant, always withdrew into herself when her relations came into this room, where she passed most of her time eagerly devouring the _Unique Mode_, the _Petite Parisienne_, and the fashion articles of a family journal,--sufficiently immoral in its tone, since it fomented such unhealthy dreams in her foolish head. Ah, those low-cut gowns, covered with embroidery; those scarfs worked in gold; those bodices with their great wings of silver lace, the rainbow hues, the spangles glittering like frost! Ah, those hats covered with artificial fruits, and the long flower boas, and petticoats trimmed with lace at thirty lire a yard, and the painted gloves, and fans made of human skin! How beautiful it all was,--horribly, terrifyingly beautiful! Merely to read about these things gave her a sort of spasm, they were so beautiful, so beautiful, so beautiful. And afterwards, how ugly and common and flat everything seemed,--the simple old grandmother, with her fat, wrinkled face; and the dull grandfather, gazing about him with such ignorant satisfaction and pride! It was all simply stultifying.