Pictures From Italy

by Dickens, Chales

  course, on this occasion. As they carried him along, he blessed

  the people with the mystic sign; and as he passed them, they

  kneeled down. When he had made the round of the church, he was

  brought back again, and if I am not mistaken, this performance was

  repeated, in the whole, three times. There was, certainly nothing

  solemn or effective in it; and certainly very much that was droll

  and tawdry. But this remark applies to the whole ceremony, except

  the raising of the Host, when every man in the guard dropped on one

  knee instantly, and dashed his naked sword on the ground; which had

  a fine effect.

  The next time I saw the cathedral, was some two or three weeks

  afterwards, when I climbed up into the ball; and then, the hangings

  being taken down, and the carpet taken up, but all the framework

  left, the remnants of these decorations looked like an exploded

  cracker.

  The Friday and Saturday having been solemn Festa days, and Sunday

  being always a DIES NON in carnival proceedings, we had looked

  forward, with some impatience and curiosity, to the beginning of

  the new week: Monday and Tuesday being the two last and best days

  of the Carnival.

  On the Monday afternoon at one or two o'clock, there began to be a

  great rattling of carriages into the court-yard of the hotel; a

  hurrying to and fro of all the servants in it; and, now and then, a

  swift shooting across some doorway or balcony, of a straggling

  stranger in a fancy dress: not yet sufficiently well used to the

  same, to wear it with confidence, and defy public opinion. All the

  carriages were open, and had the linings carefully covered with

  white cotton or calico, to prevent their proper decorations from

  being spoiled by the incessant pelting of sugar-plums; and people

  were packing and cramming into every vehicle as it waited for its

  occupants, enormous sacks and baskets full of these confetti,

  together with such heaps of flowers, tied up in little nosegays,

  that some carriages were not only brimful of flowers, but literally

  running over: scattering, at every shake and jerk of the springs,

  some of their abundance on the ground. Not to be behindhand in

  these essential particulars, we caused two very respectable sacks

  of sugar-plums (each about three feet high) and a large clothesbasket

  full of flowers to be conveyed into our hired barouche, with

  all speed. And from our place of observation, in one of the upper

  balconies of the hotel, we contemplated these arrangements with the

  liveliest satisfaction. The carriages now beginning to take up

  their company, and move away, we got into ours, and drove off too,

  armed with little wire masks for our faces; the sugar-plums, like

  Falstaff's adulterated sack, having lime in their composition.

  The Corso is a street a mile long; a street of shops, and palaces,

  and private houses, sometimes opening into a broad piazza. There

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  are verandahs and balconies, of all shapes and sizes, to almost

  every house - not on one story alone, but often to one room or

  another on every story - put there in general with so little order

  or regularity, that if, year after year, and season after season,

  it had rained balconies, hailed balconies, snowed balconies, blown

  balconies, they could scarcely have come into existence in a more

  disorderly manner.

  This is the great fountain-head and focus of the Carnival. But all

  the streets in which the Carnival is held, being vigilantly kept by

  dragoons, it is necessary for carriages, in the first instance, to

  pass, in line, down another thoroughfare, and so come into the

  Corso at the end remote from the Piazza del Popolo; which is one of

  its terminations. Accordingly, we fell into the string of coaches,

  and, for some time, jogged on quietly enough; now crawling on at a

  very slow walk; now trotting half-a-dozen yards; now backing fifty;

  and now stopping altogether: as the pressure in front obliged us.

  If any impetuous carriage dashed out of the rank and clattered

  forward, with the wild idea of getting on faster, it was suddenly

  met, or overtaken, by a trooper on horseback, who, deaf as his own

  drawn sword to all remonstrances, immediately escorted it back to

  the very end of the row, and made it a dim speck in the remotest

  perspective. Occasionally, we interchanged a volley of confetti

  with the carriage next in front, or the carriage next behind; but

  as yet, this capturing of stray and errant coaches by the military,

  was the chief amusement.

  Presently, we came into a narrow street, where, besides one line of

  carriages going, there was another line of carriages returning.

  Here the sugar-plums and the nosegays began to fly about, pretty

  smartly; and I was fortunate enough to observe one gentleman

  attired as a Greek warrior, catch a light-whiskered brigand on the

  nose (he was in the very act of tossing up a bouquet to a young

  lady in a first-floor window) with a precision that was much

  applauded by the bystanders. As this victorious Greek was

  exchanging a facetious remark with a stout gentleman in a doorway -

  one-half black and one-half white, as if he had been peeled up the

  middle - who had offered him his congratulations on this

  achievement, he received an orange from a house-top, full on his

  left ear, and was much surprised, not to say discomfited.

  Especially, as he was standing up at the time; and in consequence

  of the carriage moving on suddenly, at the same moment, staggered

  ignominiously, and buried himself among his flowers.

  Some quarter of an hour of this sort of progress, brought us to the

  Corso; and anything so gay, so bright, and lively as the whole

  scene there, it would be difficult to imagine. From all the

  innumerable balconies: from the remotest and highest, no less than

  from the lowest and nearest: hangings of bright red, bright green,

  bright blue, white and gold, were fluttering in the brilliant

  sunlight. From windows, and from parapets, and tops of houses,

  streamers of the richest colours, and draperies of the gaudiest and

  most sparkling hues, were floating out upon the street. The

  buildings seemed to have been literally turned inside out, and to

  have all their gaiety towards the highway. Shop-fronts were taken

  down, and the windows filled with company, like boxes at a shining

  theatre; doors were carried off their hinges, and long tapestried

  groves, hung with garlands of flowers and evergreens, displayed

  within; builders' scaffoldings were gorgeous temples, radiant in

  silver, gold, and crimson; and in every nook and corner, from the

  pavement to the chimney-tops, where women's eyes could glisten,

  there they danced, and laughed, and sparkled, like the light in

  water. Every sort of bewitching madness of dress was there.

  Little preposterous scarlet jackets; quaint old stomachers, more

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  wicked than the smartest bodices; Polish pelisses, strained and<
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  tight as ripe gooseberries; tiny Greek caps, all awry, and clinging

  to the dark hair, Heaven knows how; every wild, quaint, bold, shy,

  pettish, madcap fancy had its illustration in a dress; and every

  fancy was as dead forgotten by its owner, in the tumult of

  merriment, as if the three old aqueducts that still remain entire

  had brought Lethe into Rome, upon their sturdy arches, that

  morning.

  The carriages were now three abreast; in broader places four; often

  stationary for a long time together, always one close mass of

  variegated brightness; showing, the whole street-full, through the

  storm of flowers, like flowers of a larger growth themselves. In

  some, the horses were richly caparisoned in magnificent trappings;

  in others they were decked from head to tail, with flowing ribbons.

  Some were driven by coachmen with enormous double faces: one face

  leering at the horses: the other cocking its extraordinary eyes

  into the carriage: and both rattling again, under the hail of

  sugar-plums. Other drivers were attired as women, wearing long

  ringlets and no bonnets, and looking more ridiculous in any real

  difficulty with the horses (of which, in such a concourse, there

  were a great many) than tongue can tell, or pen describe. Instead

  of sitting IN the carriages, upon the seats, the handsome Roman

  women, to see and to be seen the better, sit in the heads of the

  barouches, at this time of general licence, with their feet upon

  the cushions - and oh, the flowing skirts and dainty waists, the

  blessed shapes and laughing faces, the free, good-humoured, gallant

  figures that they make! There were great vans, too, full of

  handsome girls - thirty, or more together, perhaps - and the

  broadsides that were poured into, and poured out of, these fairy

  fire-shops, splashed the air with flowers and bon-bons for ten

  minutes at a time. Carriages, delayed long in one place, would

  begin a deliberate engagement with other carriages, or with people

  at the lower windows; and the spectators at some upper balcony or

  window, joining in the fray, and attacking both parties, would

  empty down great bags of confetti, that descended like a cloud, and

  in an instant made them white as millers. Still, carriages on

  carriages, dresses on dresses, colours on colours, crowds upon

  crowds, without end. Men and boys clinging to the wheels of

  coaches, and holding on behind, and following in their wake, and

  diving in among the horses' feet to pick up scattered flowers to

  sell again; maskers on foot (the drollest generally) in fantastic

  exaggerations of court-dresses, surveying the throng through

  enormous eye-glasses, and always transported with an ecstasy of

  love, on the discovery of any particularly old lady at a window;

  long strings of Policinelli, laying about them with blown bladders

  at the ends of sticks; a waggon-full of madmen, screaming and

  tearing to the life; a coach-full of grave mamelukes, with their

  horse-tail standard set up in the midst; a party of gipsy-women

  engaged in terrific conflict with a shipful of sailors; a manmonkey

  on a pole, surrounded by strange animals with pigs' faces,

  and lions' tails, carried under their arms, or worn gracefully over

  their shoulders; carriages on carriages, dresses on dresses,

  colours on colours, crowds upon crowds, without end. Not many

  actual characters sustained, or represented, perhaps, considering

  the number dressed, but the main pleasure of the scene consisting

  in its perfect good temper; in its bright, and infinite, and

  flashing variety; and in its entire abandonment to the mad humour

  of the time - an abandonment so perfect, so contagious, so

  irresistible, that the steadiest foreigner fights up to his middle

  in flowers and sugar-plums, like the wildest Roman of them all, and

  thinks of nothing else till half-past four o'clock, when he is

  suddenly reminded (to his great regret) that this is not the whole

  business of his existence, by hearing the trumpets sound, and

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  seeing the dragoons begin to clear the street.

  How it ever IS cleared for the race that takes place at five, or

  how the horses ever go through the race, without going over the

  people, is more than I can say. But the carriages get out into the

  by-streets, or up into the Piazza del Popolo, and some people sit

  in temporary galleries in the latter place, and tens of thousands

  line the Corso on both sides, when the horses are brought out into

  the Piazza - to the foot of that same column which, for centuries,

  looked down upon the games and chariot-races in the Circus Maximus.

  At a given signal they are started off. Down the live lane, the

  whole length of the Corso, they fly like the wind: riderless, as

  all the world knows: with shining ornaments upon their backs, and

  twisted in their plaited manes: and with heavy little balls stuck

  full of spikes, dangling at their sides, to goad them on. The

  jingling of these trappings, and the rattling of their hoofs upon

  the hard stones; the dash and fury of their speed along the echoing

  street; nay, the very cannon that are fired - these noises are

  nothing to the roaring of the multitude: their shouts: the

  clapping of their hands. But it is soon over - almost

  instantaneously. More cannon shake the town. The horses have

  plunged into the carpets put across the street to stop them; the

  goal is reached; the prizes are won (they are given, in part, by

  the poor Jews, as a compromise for not running foot-races

  themselves); and there is an end to that day's sport.

  But if the scene be bright, and gay, and crowded, on the last day

  but one, it attains, on the concluding day, to such a height of

  glittering colour, swarming life, and frolicsome uproar, that the

  bare recollection of it makes me giddy at this moment. The same

  diversions, greatly heightened and intensified in the ardour with

  which they are pursued, go on until the same hour. The race is

  repeated; the cannon are fired; the shouting and clapping of hands

  are renewed; the cannon are fired again; the race is over; and the

  prizes are won. But the carriages: ankle-deep with sugar-plums

  within, and so be-flowered and dusty without, as to be hardly

  recognisable for the same vehicles that they were, three hours ago:

  instead of scampering off in all directions, throng into the Corso,

  where they are soon wedged together in a scarcely moving mass. For

  the diversion of the Moccoletti, the last gay madness of the

  Carnival, is now at hand; and sellers of little tapers like what

  are called Christmas candles in England, are shouting lustily on

  every side, 'Moccoli, Moccoli! Ecco Moccoli!' - a new item in the

  tumult; quite abolishing that other item of ' Ecco Fiori! Ecco

  Fior-r-r!' which has been making itself audible over all the rest,

  at intervals, the whole day through.

  As the bright hangings and dresses are all fading into one dull,

  heavy, uniform colour in the decline of the day, lights begin


  flashing, here and there: in the windows, on the housetops, in the

  balconies, in the carriages, in the hands of the foot-passengers:

  little by little: gradually, gradually: more and more: until the

  whole long street is one great glare and blaze of fire. Then,

  everybody present has but one engrossing object; that is, to

  extinguish other people's candles, and to keep his own alight; and

  everybody: man, woman, or child, gentleman or lady, prince or

  peasant, native or foreigner: yells and screams, and roars

  incessantly, as a taunt to the subdued, 'Senza Moccolo, Senza

  Moccolo!' (Without a light! Without a light!) until nothing is

  heard but a gigantic chorus of those two words, mingled with peals

  of laughter.

  The spectacle, at this time, is one of the most extraordinary that

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  can be imagined. Carriages coming slowly by, with everybody

  standing on the seats or on the box, holding up their lights at

  arms' length, for greater safety; some in paper shades; some with a

  bunch of undefended little tapers, kindled altogether; some with

  blazing torches; some with feeble little candles; men on foot,

  creeping along, among the wheels, watching their opportunity, to

  make a spring at some particular light, and dash it out; other

  people climbing up into carriages, to get hold of them by main

  force; others, chasing some unlucky wanderer, round and round his

  own coach, to blow out the light he has begged or stolen somewhere,

  before he can ascend to his own company, and enable them to light

  their extinguished tapers; others, with their hats off, at a

  carriage-door, humbly beseeching some kind-hearted lady to oblige

  them with a light for a cigar, and when she is in the fulness of

  doubt whether to comply or no, blowing out the candle she is

  guarding so tenderly with her little hand; other people at the

  windows, fishing for candles with lines and hooks, or letting down

  long willow-wands with handkerchiefs at the end, and flapping them

  out, dexterously, when the bearer is at the height of his triumph,

  others, biding their time in corners, with immense extinguishers

  like halberds, and suddenly coming down upon glorious torches;

  others, gathered round one coach, and sticking to it; others,

  raining oranges and nosegays at an obdurate little lantern, or