Even When I Had Grown Accustomed To The Place, Its Singular
Appearance Of Incompleteness Kept Exciting My Attention.
I had never
seen a town so ragged at the edges.
If there had recently been a
great conflagration and almost all the whole city were being
rebuilt, it would have looked much as it did at the time of my
visit. To enter the post-office one had to clamber over heaps of
stone and plaster, to stride over tumbled beams and jump across
great puddles, entering at last by shaky stairs a place which looked
like the waiting-room of an unfinished railway station. The style of
building is peculiar, and looks so temporary as to keep one
constantly in mind of the threatening earthquake. Most of the
edifices, large and small, public and private, are constructed of
rubble set in cement, with an occasional big, rough-squared stone to
give an appearance of solidity, and perhaps a few courses of bricks
in the old Roman style. If the building is of importance, this work
is hidden beneath stucco; otherwise it remains like the mere shell
of a house, and is disfigured over all its surface with great holes
left by the scaffolding. Religion supplies something of adornment;
above many portals is a rudely painted Virgin and Child, often,
plainly enough, the effort of a hand accustomed to any tool rather
than that of the artist. On the dwellings of the very poor a great
Cross is scrawled in whitewash.
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