The ornaments on high days and holidays were gold necklaces and crosses,
a profusion of rings and pendants. This of course was the _contadina_,
or peasant girl. Opposed to her was the _sartorella_, or little
tailoress, which may be said to be synonymous with the French _grisette_.
I always called Trieste _Il Paradiso delle Sartorelle_, because the
_sartorella_ was a prominent figure in Trieste, and Fortune's favourite.
She was wont to fill the streets and promenades, especially on _festa_
days, dressed _a quatre epingles_, powdered and rouged and _coiffee_
as for a ball, and with or without a veil. She was often pretty, and
generally had a good figure; but she did not always look 'nice'; and
her manners, to put it mildly, were very _degagees_. There were four
thousand of these girls in Trieste, and they filled the lower-class
balls and theatres. There was a _sartorella_ in every house, off and
on. For example, a family in Trieste always had a dress to make or
petticoat, and the _sartorella_ came for a florin a day and her food,
and she worked for twelve hours, leaving off work at six, when she began
her 'evening out.' I am fain to add the _sartorella_ was often a sort
of whited sepulchre. She was gorgeously clad without, but as a rule
had not a rag, not even a chemise, underneath, unless she were 'in luck.'
'In luck,' I grieve to say, meant that every boy, youth, and man in
Trieste, beginning at twelve and up to twenty-five and twenty-eight, had
an _affaire_ with a _sartorella_; and I may safely assert, without being
malicious, that she was not wont to give her heart--if we may call it
so--gratis.
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