Except for here and there
a private carriage, or the coupe evidently of a doctor, the streets were
empty, and the tourists had to join the citizens in their pedestrian
exercise.
The shopkeepers had been notified to close their places of business on
the tacit condition of having their windows broken for non-compliance,
but in the early forenoon they were still slowly and partially putting
up their shutters. You could get in through the darkened doors up till
noon; after that it was more and more difficult. But it would be hard to
say how far and how deep the _sciopero_ went. In our hotel we knew of it
only the second day through the failure of the morning rolls, for there
had been no baking overnight. Most of the in-door service was of Swiss
or other foreign extraction, and the mechanism of our comfort, our
luxury, was operated as usual. Our floor _facchino,_ or porter, went to
the meeting of the unions in the evening, being an Italian. Otherwise
the strike fell especially on the helpless and guiltless foreigner, who
might be, and very often was, in sympathy with the strikers.
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