The fair recipient at the lattice
never failed to respond with an ecstatic smile if this Jacob's ladder
had been sufficiently long to reach her welcoming hand. Meantime,
many bunches of flowers, some large and elegant, some small and merely
gay of color, were being thrown aloft or flung downward, making
fountains and cataracts of flowers. Sometimes these bouquets fell into
the street dejectedly, upon whose pavement little ragamuffins were
always ready to pounce for them, and sell them again as fast as
possible to passers who had exhausted their supply, had become mad
with the Carnival, and caught sight, in that very moment, of some
cherished comrade to whom they wished to throw a greeting. There was
an intoxicating enjoyment in being singled out as the recipient of
fragrant flowers, sent with a laugh of the eyes; or of a handful of
sugared almonds, tossed with a gay shout of compliment. If the passer
who thus honored us was a complete stranger, meeting us for this one
moment in racial kindness, we felt the untrammeled bonhomie which, God
knows, we were expected to feel as a matter of course not for a moment
only, but for life.
Upon all these things I delighted to think and afterwards to ponder,
because I realized that they were of vital interest to the
intelligence which was to me greatest and dearest.
CHAPTER XIII
ITALIAN DAYS: II
Between our two winters in Rome we spent the summer in Florence, to
which we journeyed by carriage over a road that was hung like a rare
gallery with landscapes of the most picturesque description, and
bordered close at hand by many a blue or crimson or yellow Italian
anemone with its black centre.
Pages:
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365