who was buried there. ‘The poor people, Signore,’ he said, with a
shrug and a smile, and stopping to look back at me – for he always
went on a little before, and took off his hat to introduce every
new monument. ‘Only the poor, Signore! It’s very cheerful. It’s
very lively. How green it is, how cool! It’s like a meadow!
There are five,’ – holding up all the fingers of his right hand to
express the number, which an Italian peasant will always do, if it
be within the compass of his ten fingers, – ‘there are five of my
little children buried there, Signore; just there; a little to the
right. Well! Thanks to God! It’s very cheerful. How green it
is, how cool it is! It’s quite a meadow!’
He looked me very hard in the face, and seeing I was sorry for him,
took a pinch of snuff (every Cicerone takes snuff), and made a
little bow; partly in deprecation of his having alluded to such a
subject, and partly in memory of the children and of his favourite
saint. It was as unaffected and as perfectly natural a little bow,
as ever man made. Immediately afterwards, he took his hat off
altogether, and begged to introduce me to the next monument; and
his eyes and his teeth shone brighter than before.
CHAPTER VI – THROUGH BOLOGNA AND FERRARA
THERE was such a very smart official in attendance at the Cemetery
where the little Cicerone had buried his children, that when the
little Cicerone suggested to me, in a whisper, that there would be
no offence in presenting this officer, in return for some slight
extra service, with a couple of pauls (about tenpence, English
money), I looked incredulously at his cocked hat, wash-leather
gloves, well-made uniform, and dazzling buttons, and rebuked the
little Cicerone with a grave shake of the head. For, in splendour
of appearance, he was at least equal to the Deputy Usher of the
Black Rod; and the idea of his carrying, as Jeremy Diddler would
say, ‘such a thing as tenpence’ away with him, seemed monstrous.
He took it in excellent part, however, when I made bold to give it
him, and pulled off his cocked hat with a flourish that would have
been a bargain at double the money.
It seemed to be his duty to describe the monuments to the people –
at all events he was doing so; and when I compared him, like
Gulliver in Brobdingnag, ‘with the Institutions of my own beloved
country, I could not refrain from tears of pride and exultation.’
He had no pace at all; no more than a tortoise. He loitered as the
people loitered, that they might gratify their curiosity; and
positively allowed them, now and then, to read the inscriptions on
the tombs. He was neither shabby, nor insolent, nor churlish, nor
ignorant. He spoke his own language with perfect propriety, and
seemed to consider himself, in his way, a kind of teacher of the
people, and to entertain a just respect both for himself and them.
They would no more have such a man for a Verger in Westminster
Abbey, than they would let the people in (as they do at Bologna) to
see the monuments for nothing.
Again, an ancient sombre town, under the brilliant sky; with heavy
arcades over the footways of the older streets, and lighter and
more cheerful archways in the newer portions of the town. Again,
brown piles of sacred buildings, with more birds flying in and out
of chinks in the stones; and more snarling monsters for the bases
of the pillars. Again, rich churches, drowsy Masses, curling
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Dickens, Charles – Pictures From Italy
incense, tinkling bells, priests in bright vestments: pictures,
tapers, laced altar cloths, crosses, images, and artificial
flowers.
There is a grave and learned air about the city, and a pleasant
gloom upon it, that would leave it, a distinct and separate
impression in the mind, among a crowd of cities, though it were not
still further marked in the traveller’s remembrance by the two
brick leaning towers (sufficiently unsightly in themselves, it must
be acknowledged), inclining cross-wise as if they were bowing