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anything, she said she was delighted. After passing
Gare Montparnasse she began to lose her bearings
and soon she did not know at all where she was.
We drove through some sombre, evil-smelling
slums. Dozens of ragged children were playing
about in the gutter, choked with filth and refuse
of all sorts, and almost before every door sat a
woman with a baby at her breast and other small
children at her side, huddled around the brazier.
“Is this Paris?” asked the Countess with an
almost frightened look in her eyes.
Yes, this is Paris, la Ville Lumière! And this
is l’Impasse Rousselle, I added, as we stopped
before a blind alley, damp and dark like the
bottom of a well. Salvatore’s wife was sitting on
the family’s only chair with Petruccio, her child
of sorrow, on her lap, stirring the polenta for the
family dinner, eagerly watched by Petruccio’s
two eldest sisters, while the youngest child was
crawling about on the floor in pursuit of a kitten.
I told Salvatore’s wife I had brought a kind lady
who wanted to give the children a present. I
understood by her shyness it was the first time
the Countess had ever entered the house of
the very poor. She blushed scarlet as she
handed the first doll to Petruccio’s mother,
for Petruccio himself could not hold anything in
his withered hand, he had been paralyzed ever
since he was born. Petruccio showed no sign of
being pleased, for his brain was as numb as his
limbs, but his mother was sure that he liked the
doll very much. His two sisters received each a
doll in their turn and ran away in delight to hide
themselves behind the bed to play at little
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