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Meanwhile, they had quite driven away
all sentimental effusion (of which I felt more, really, than I expected)
about the Lake of Thrasymene.
The inn of Passignano promised little from its outward appearance; a
tall, dark old house, with a stone staircase leading us up from one
sombre story to another, into a brick-paved dining-room, with our
sleeping-chambers on each side. There was a fireplace of tremendous
depth and height, fit to receive big forest-logs, and with a queer,
double pair of ancient andirons, capable of sustaining them; and in a
handful of ashes lay a small stick of olive-wood,--a specimen, I suppose,
of the sort of fuel which had made the chimney black, in the course of a
good many years. There must have been much shivering and misery of cold
around this fireplace. However, we needed no fire now, and there was
promise of good cheer in the spectacle of a man cleaning some lake-fish
for our dinner, while the poor things flounced and wriggled under the
knife.
The dinner made its appearance, after a long while, and was most
plentiful, .


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