The crowd and confusion, just at that moment, hindered the sculptor from

pursuing these figures,--the peasant and contadina,--who, indeed, were

but two of a numerous tribe that thronged the Corso, in similar costume.

As soon as he could squeeze a passage, Kenyon tried to follow in their

footsteps, but quickly lost sight of them, and was thrown off the track

by stopping to examine various groups of masqueraders, in which he

fancied the objects of his search to be included. He found many a sallow

peasant or herdsman of the Campagna, in such a dress as Donatello

wore; many a contadina, too, brown, broad, and sturdy, in her finery

of scarlet, and decked out with gold or coral beads, a pair of heavy

earrings, a curiously wrought cameo or mosaic brooch, and a silver comb

or long stiletto among her glossy hair. But those shapes of grace and

beauty which he sought had vanished.

As soon as the procession of the Senator had passed, the merry-makers

resumed their antics with fresh spirit, and the artillery of bouquets

and sugar plums, suspended for a moment, began anew. The sculptor

himself, being probably the most anxious and unquiet spectator there,

was especially a mark for missiles from all quarters, and for the

practical jokes which the license of the Carnival permits. In fact,

his sad and contracted brow so ill accorded with the scene, that the

revellers might be pardoned for thus using him as the butt of their idle

mirth, since he evidently could not otherwise contribute to it.

Fantastic figures, with bulbous heads, the circumference of a bushel,

grinned enormously in his face. Harlequins struck him with their wooden

swords, and appeared to expect his immediate transformation into some

jollier shape. A little, long-tailed, horned fiend sidled up to him and

suddenly blew at him through a tube, enveloping our poor friend in a

whole harvest of winged seeds. A biped, with an ass's snout, brayed

close to his ear, ending his discordant uproar with a peal of human

laughter. Five strapping damsels--so, at least, their petticoats bespoke

them, in spite of an awful freedom in the flourish of their legs--joined

hands, and danced around him, inviting him by their gestures to perform

a hornpipe in the midst. Released from these gay persecutors, a clown in

motley rapped him on the back with a blown bladder, in which a handful

of dried peas rattled horribly.

Unquestionably, a care-stricken mortal has no business abroad, when

the rest of mankind are at high carnival; they must either pelt him

and absolutely martyr him with jests, and finally bury him beneath the

aggregate heap; or else the potency of his darker mood, because the

tissue of human life takes a sad dye more readily than a gay one, will

quell their holiday humors, like the aspect of a death's-head at a

banquet. Only that we know Kenyon's errand, we could hardly forgive him

for venturing into the Corso with that troubled face.




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