I Must Say, That I Never Saw Anything, Out Of November, So Like The
Popular English Commemoration Of The Fifth Of That Month.
A bundle
of matches and a lantern, would have made it perfect.
Nor did the
Pope, himself, at all mar the resemblance, though he has a pleasant
and venerable face; for, as this part of the ceremony makes him
giddy and sick, he shuts his eyes when it is performed: and having
his eyes shut and a great mitre on his head, and his head itself
wagging to and fro as they shook him in carrying, he looked as if
his mask were going to tumble off. The two immense fans which are
always borne, one on either side of him, accompanied him, of
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 clothes-
basket 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
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 housetop, 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.
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