I Have Tried To Give A Sense Of The Grand-Opera Effect Of The Street
Scene, But I Have Record Of Only One Passage Such As One Often Sees In
Italy Where Moments Of The Street Are Always Waiting For Transfer To The
Theater.
A pair had posed themselves, across the way from our hotel,
against the large closed shutter of a shop which made an admirable
background.
The woman in a black dress, with a red shawl over her
shoulders, stood statuesquely immovable, confronting the middle-class
man who, while people went and came about them, poured out his mind to
her, with many frenzied gestures, but mostly using one hand for
emphasis. He seemed to be telling something rather than asserting
himself or accusing her; portraying a past fact or defining a situation;
and she waited immovably silent till he had finished. Then she began and
warmed to her work, but apparently without anger or prejudice. She
talked herself out, as he had talked himself out. He waited and then he
left her and crossed to the other corner. She called after him as he
kept on down the street. She turned away, but stopped, and turned again
and called after him till he passed from sight. Then she turned once
more and went her own way. Nobody minded, any more than if they had been
two unhappy ghosts invisibly and inaudibly quarreling, but I remained,
and remain to this day, afflicted because of the mystery of their
dispute.
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