'Mon Dieu, qu'elle est gentille!'
And there stands the beauty, a thorough soldier's girl; weighs her hundred and seventy pounds, has cheeks like new-cut beefsteaks, hair black as charcoal, eyes bright as fire, and an arm capable of cooking for a regiment. She is dressed in full Albanian costume, has the dew of the fields in her air, and oh, when she smiles, she shows such splendid teeth!—the contadine have them, and don't ruin them by continual eating! The soldier stops, 'Oh lord, she is neat!' He wants to return her flowery compliment with a similar one; but, Tu bleu! one can't buy bouquets on four sous a day income—even in Rome: so he looks around for a waif, and spies on the pavement something green; he gallantly throws it up, and with a smile and, wave of the hand like a Chevalier Bayard on a bender, he bids adieu to the fair maiden. He threw up half a head of lettuce.
'Ach mein Gott! wollen sie nur?' and in return for a double handful of confetti flung into a carriage full of German artists ahead of him, 'bang!' comes into Caper's vehicle a shower of lime pills and other stunners—not including the language—and he is in for it. A minute, and the whole Corso rains, hails, and pelts flowers and white pills; nothing else is visible: up there laugh down at them whole balconies, filled with delirious men and women, throwing on their devoted heads, American, French, German, rattling, tumbling, fistfuls of confetti and wild flowers:—even that half head of lettuce was among the things flying! English, French, Dutch, Spanish, Germans, Italians, Americans, and those wild northern bloods—all grit and game—the Russians, are down on them like a thousand of bricks. Hurrah! the carriages move on—they are safe. Hurrah for a new fight with fresh faces! Avanti!
Comes a carriage load of wild Rustians. Ivan, the mondjik, fresh from the Nevskoi Prospekt, now drives for the first time in the Corso—Dam na vodka, Sabakoutchelovek, thinks he. Yes, my sweet son of a dog, thou shalt have vodka to drink after all this scrimmage is over. So he holds in his horses with one hand, crowds down his fur hat with the other, so that his eyes will be safe; and then bravely faces the stinging shower of confetti his lord and master draws down on him. Up on the back seat of this carriage, all life and fire, stands the Russian prince, with headpiece of mail and red surtout, a Carnival Circassian, 'down on' the slow-plodding Italians, and throwing himself away with flowers and fun. Isn't he a picture? how his blue eyes gleam, how his long, wavy moustache curls with the play of features! how the flowers fly—how the rubles fly for them! Look at the other Russians—there are beards for you! beards grown where brandy freezes! but, they are thawed out now. Look at these men: hear their wild northern tongue, how it rolls out the sounds that frighten Italians back to sleepy sonnets and voluptuous songs. Hurrah, my Russians! look fate in the face. Your road is—onward!
'Ah, yes; and really, my dear'—here a handful of white pills and lime dust breaks the sentence—'really my dear, hadn't we better'—'bang!' comes a tough bouquet, and hits milady on that bonnet—'better go to the hotel?'
'Indeed, now,' milady continues, 'they don't respect persons, these low Italians. They haven't the faintest idea of dignity.'
These 'low Italians' were more than probably fellow countrymen and women of the speaker; but they may have been 'low' all the same in her social barometer, for they pitched and flung, hurled and threw all the missiles they could lay hands on into the carriage of their unmistakable compatriots, with hearty delight; since the gentleman, who was not gentle, sat upright as a church steeple, never moving a muscle, and looking angry and worried at being flung at; and the milady also sat a la mode de church steeple—throwing nothing but angry looks. They went to the hotel. Sorrow go with them!
Caper and Rocjean now began to throw desperately, for they had a large supply of flowers and confetti on hand, which they were anxious to dispose of suddenly—since in ten minutes the horses would run, and then the carriages must leave the Corso. It was the last day of Carnival, and to-morrow—sackcloth and ashes. How the masks crowd around them; how the beautiful faces, unmasked, are smiling! Look at them well, stamp them on your heart, for many and many one shall we see never again. Another Carnival will bring them again, like song birds in summer; but a long, long winter will be between, and we will be far, far away.
The Corso is cleared, the infantry half keeps the crowd within bounds, a charge of cavalry sweeps the street, and then come rattling, clattering, rushing on the bare-backed horses, urged on by cries, shouts, yells; and frightened thus to top speed, while the Dutch metal, tied to their sides increases their alarm—whir! they are past us, and—the bay horse is ahead.
Again the carriages are in the Corso; here and there a few bouquets are thrown, floral farewells to the merry season: then as dusk comes on, and red and golden behind San Angelo flames the funeral pyre of the sun, and through the blue night twinkles the evening star, see down the Corso a faint light gleaming. Another and another light shines from balcony and window, flashes from rolling carriage, and flames out from along the dusky walls, till, presto! you turn your head, and up the Corso, and down the Corso, there is one burst of trembling light, and ten thousand tapers are brightly gleaming, madly waving, brilliantly swaying to and fro.