Their Sound Is Clear By Day; After Midnight, When The Traffic Has
Died Down, It Waxes Thunderous.
He hears it through the window - hears it
perforce, since the streets are ringing with that music, and you cannot
close your ears.
He listens, growing hotter and more restless every
moment. He thinks.... That splash of waters! Those frigid wavelets and
cascades! How delicious to bathe his limbs, if only for a moment, in
their bubbling wetness; he is parched with heat, and at this hour of the
night, he reflects, there will not be a soul abroad in the square. So he
hearkens to the seductive melody, conjuring up the picture of that
familiar fountain; he remembers its moistened rim and basin all alive
with jolly turmoil; he sees the miniature cataracts tumbling down in
streaks of glad confusion, till the longing grows too strong to be
controlled.
The thing must be done.
Next day he finds a handful of old donkeys solemnly inquiring into his
state of mind....
I can sympathise with that state of mind, having often undergone the
same purgatory. My room at present happens to be fairly cool; it looks
north, and the fountain down below, audible at this moment, has not yet
tempted me to any breach of decorum. Night is quiet here, save for the
squeakings of some strange animals in the upper regions of the
neighbouring Pantheon; they squeak night and day, and one would take
them to be bats, were it not that bats are supposed to be on the wing
after sunset.
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