one
o'clock after midnight
When the streets were quiet he would have carried the body away upon the hand-cart that stood in the entry of the outer room . It was not far -- scarcely three hundred yards , allowing for the turnings -- to the place where the Via Montella ends in a mud bank by the dark river . A deserted neighbourhood , too -- a turn to the left , the low trees of the Piazza de ' Branca , the dark , short , straight street to the water . At one o'clock after midnight who was stirring ? It would all have been so simple , so terribly effectual . And then there would have been no more Paolo , no more domestic annoyances , no more of the priest 's smooth-faced disapprobation and perpetual opposition in the house . He would have soon brought Maria Luisa and Lucia to reason .