it seemed to pall on
the good-natured, easily amused folks who must have seen it all so
often before. Much laughter was being excited by the remarks of a
vender of quack medicines, who was talking with extreme volubility to a
number of gayly dressed girls and fishermen. I could not distinguish
his words, but I judged he was selling the "elixir of love," from his
absurd amatory gestures--an elixir compounded, no doubt, of a little
harmless eau sucre.

Flags tossed on the breeze, trumpets brayed, drums beat; improvisatores
twanged their guitars and mandolins loudly to attract attention, and
failing in their efforts, swore at each other with the utmost joviality
and heartiness; flower-girls and lemonade-sellers made the air ring
with their conflicting cries: now and then a shower of chalky confetti
flew out from adjacent windows, dusting with white powder the coats of
the passers-by; clusters of flowers tied with favors of gay-colored
ribbon were lavishly flung at the feet of bright-eyed peasant girls,
who rejected or accepted them at pleasure, with light words of badinage
or playful repartee; clowns danced and tumbled, dogs barked, church
bells clanged, and through all the waving width of color and movement
crept the miserable, shrinking forms of diseased and loathly beggars
whining for a soldo, and clad in rags that barely covered their
halting, withered limbs.

It was a scene to bewilder the brain and dazzle the eyes, and I was
just turning away from it out of sheer fatigue, when a sudden cessation
of movement in the swaying, whirling crowd, and a slight hush, caused
me to look out once more. I perceived the cause of the momentary
stillness--a funeral cortege appeared, moving at a slow and solemn
pace; as it passed across the square, heads were uncovered, and women
crossed themselves devoutly. Like a black shadowy snake it coiled
through the mass of shifting color and brilliance--another moment, and
it was gone. The depressing effect of its appearance was soon
effaced--the merry crowds resumed their thousand and one freaks of
folly, their shrieking, laughing and dancing, and all was as before.
Why not?

The dead are soon forgotten; none knew that better than I! Leaning my
arms lazily on the edge of the balcony, I finished smoking my cigar.
That glimpse of death in the midst of life had filled me with a certain
satisfaction. Strangely enough, my thoughts began to busy themselves
with the old modes of torture that use