United States or Sierra Leone ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It is perhaps in the Via Garibaldi, Via Cairoli, and Via Balbi, avenues of palaces narrow because of the summer sun, bordered on either side by triumphant slums, that the real Genoa splendid and living may best be surprised. Here, amid all the grave and yet homely magnificence of the princes of the State, life, with a brilliance and a misery all its own, ebbs and flows, and is not to be denied.
It would be easy for one of them to lower the other by means of the rope. But it was not apparent how, hereafter, the other was to follow. Thus reasoned Casanova. "You had better lower me, anyhow," said Balbi, without hesitation; for no doubt he was very tired of that slippery roof, on which a single false step might have sent him to his account.
The tourists found the streets in the older part of Genoa narrow, seldom more than ten feet wide, with lofty buildings on either side. But in the new portions, especially on the wide Strada Nuova and the Strada Balbi, the palaces and edifices present fine architecture. Nearly a day was spent in driving about Genoa with its flower-crowned terraces.
He was not in, but I found Balbi in an abbe's dress, with his hair covered with white powder, which set off in a new but not a pleasing manner the beauties of his complexion of about the same colour as a horse chestnut.
His fine cloak of floss silk he gave to Balbi, who looked for all the world as if he had stolen it. Thus dressed, his fine hat laced with point of Spain on his head, Casanova opened a window and looked out.
But these doors the main entrance of the palace were locked, and, at a glance, Casanova saw that nothing short of a hatchet would serve to open them. There was no more to be done. With a resignation that seemed to Balbi entirely cynical, Casanova sat down on the floor. "My task is ended," he announced. "It is now for Heaven or Chance to do the rest.
Almost without further difficulty, he succeeded now in introducing the ladder until, of its own weight, it swung down into position. A moment later he had joined Balbi in the attic, and together they groped about in it the dark, until finding presently a door, they passed into another chamber, where they discovered furniture by hurtling against it.
Our sudden appearance rather surprised the good people, but you may fancy their astonishment when they heard Balbi say to them: "Under penalty of death, and by order of the Council of Ten, I command you to follow us immediately, without making the slightest noise; as to you, my good woman, you need not be frightened, you will be escorted to your house."
In mediaeval times there was one very real obstacle to the use of the alphabetical method, and that was the uncertainty of spelling. Both Papias and Balbi allude to it in their prefaces; but it did not deter them from their enterprise. Even in the days of printing language takes a long time to crystallize down into accepted forms, correct and incorrect.
The Subterranean Prisons Known as the Wells Lawrence's Vengeance I Enter into a Correspondence With Another Prisoner, Father Balbi: His Character I Plan With Him a Means of Escape How I Contrived to Let Him Have My Pike I Am Given a Scoundrelly Companion: His Portrait. I was thus anxious and despairing when two of the guards brought me my bed.
Word Of The Day