Behind them, at a proper distance to
indicate that they were spectators and not participants, came
the students. Alone, and at a much greater distance, walked the
_carabinieri_, forming the end of this winding, snake-like line of
people, which slipped into a crack between the dilapidated houses,
huddled together opposite the church, and disappeared.
It disappeared, writhing through dark lanes, with pompous names, which
lead to another side of the village, the most miserable, the most
deformed part. Here, on the steep and rocky hillside, loosely fastened
to projections, to slabs of rock, the hovels, piled one above the other,
slide downwards among the stones. The small black windows, like empty
sockets in a skull, stare into the silence of the deep and narrow
valley. The doors pour out crazy flights of stairs upon the slope, most
of them reduced to three or four splintered steps, while some of
the doors are entirely widowed of their steps. When one has, with
difficulty, succeeded in climbing in at one of these doors, one finds a
cave without light or air.
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