United States or French Southern Territories ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
And although Dario named the pompous and historical palaces, Bonaparte, Doria, Odescalchi, Sciarra, and Chigi; although he pointed out the column of Marcus Aurelius on the Piazza Colonna, the most lively square of the whole city with its everlasting throng of lounging, gazing, chattering people; although, all the way to the Piazza del Popolo, he never ceased calling attention to churches, houses, and side-streets, notably the Via dei Condotti, at the far end of which the Trinity de' Monti, all golden in the glory of the sinking sun, appeared above that famous flight of steps, the triumphal Scala di Spagna Pierre still and ever retained the impression of disillusion which the narrow, airless thoroughfare had conveyed to him: the "palaces" looked to him like mournful hospitals or barracks, the Piazza Colonna suffered terribly from a lack of trees, and the Trinity de' Monti alone took his fancy by its distant radiance of fairyland.
The smaller side-streets were one unbroken procession of children and old women and small employers in their aprons. Old gouty seamen awoke from their decrepit slumber and hobbled away, their hands dropped to the back of their loins and their faces twisted with pain. "Toot aroot aroot aroot. All the pitchy snouts!"
We soon turned up one of the side-streets, and about half-way up that we turned into a very narrow street, with rather poor-looking houses on one side, and what seemed to be coach-houses and stables on the other. My owner pulled up at one of the houses and whistled. The door flew open, and a young woman, followed by a little girl and boy, ran out.
An enormous crowd, reinforced and agitated by tributary currents from the side-streets, jostling one against another, surging, stormy, and whence ascended an ominous hum. This hubbub resolved itself into one word, into one name which issued simultaneously from every mouth, and which expressed the whole of the situation: "Soulouque!" Denis and the Porte St.
And one afternoon it happened that as they were strolling along Broadway, between Twenty-third Street and Union Square, and were crossing one of the side-streets, a horse belonging to one of Lord and Taylor's delivery-wagons became frightened, and bolted round the corner. One of the hind wheels of the vehicle came in contact with Grace's shoulder, and knocked her down.
After a time the congested crowd down one of the side-streets was agitated by the approach of a body of armed men. At the same instant a similar group began to appear at the end of another and converging street. The columns came steadily forward, as the people gave way. The men wore no uniforms, and the glittering steel of their bayonets furnished the only military touch.
Following the crowd, which already began to pour in from the side-streets, in a few moments I was in the broad, grove-like allee, and in the midst of the masqueraders.
They traversed a number of narrow side-streets and gloomy alleys, and presently came out in the broad Plaza de la Libertad, where some patriotic orator was volubly holding forth about the rights of man and the iniquity of the Chilian invasion.
As for the chambre garnie, which had been engaged for me in the Rue de la Tonnellerie, one of the narrow side-streets which link the Rue St. Honore with the Marche des Innocents, I felt positively degraded at having to take up my abode there.
In the side-streets were many smithies, where lance-heads and knives were being forged by men who had not the most distant belief that such weapons would ever be turned into pruning-hooks. There were also workers in leather, who sewed up passages of the Koran in leathern cases and sold them as amulets to be worn on necks and arms.
Word Of The Day