Trains of people, sometimes in white robes and sometimes
in black, carrying blazing torches and a cross elevated on a high pole
before a coffin, pass through the streets chanting the service for the
dead.
The Brethren of Mercy may also be seen engaged in their office. The
rapidity of their pace, the flare of their torches, the gleam of their
eyes through their masks, and their sable garb, give them a kind of
supernatural appearance. I return to bed, and fall asleep amidst the
shouts of people returning from the opera, singing as they go snatches of
the music with which they had been entertained during the evening.
Such is a picture of what passes every day at Florence - in Pisa, on the
contrary, all is stagnation and repose - even the presence of the
sovereign, who usually passes a part of the winter here, is incompetent
to give a momentary liveliness to the place. The city is nearly as large
as Florence, with not a third of its population; the number of strangers
is few; most of them are invalids, and the rest are the quietest people in
the world. The rattle of carriages is rarely heard in the streets; in some
of which there prevails a stillness so complete that you might imagine
them deserted of their inhabitants. I have now been here three weeks, and
on one occasion only have I seen the people of the place awakened to
something like animation.
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