Page 331 - tender-is-the-night

to the hotel and lie down with his black heart. He paid his
check and got his hat and coat.
There was dirty water in the gutters and between the
rough cobblestones; a marshy vapor from the Campagna, a
sweat of exhausted cultures tainted the morning air. A quar-
tet of taxidrivers, their little eyes bobbing in dark pouches,
surrounded him. One who leaned insistently in his face he
pushed harshly away.
‘Quanto a Hotel Quirinal?’
‘Cento lire.’
Six dollars. He shook his head and offered thirty lire
which was twice the day-time fare, but they shrugged their
shoulders as one pair, and moved off.
‘Trente-cinque lire e mancie,’ he said firmly.
‘Cento lire.’
He broke into English.
‘To go half a mile? You’ll take me for forty lire.’
‘Oh, no.’
He was very tired. He pulled open the door of a cab and
got in.
‘Hotel Quirinal!’ he said to the driver who stood obsti-
nately outside the window. ‘Wipe that sneer off your face
and take me to the Quirinal.’
‘Ah, no.’
Dick got out. By the door of the Bonbonieri some one
was arguing with the taxi-drivers, some one who now tried
to explain their attitude to Dick; again one of the men
pressed close, insisting and gesticulating and Dick shoved
him away.

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