with an earthen pot of charcoal ashes in one hand, went up and
down, crying his wares. A pastry-merchant divided his attention
between the scaffold and his customers. Boys tried to climb up
walls, and tumbled down again. Priests and monks elbowed a passage
for themselves among the people, and stood on tiptoe for a sight of
the knife: then went away. Artists, in inconceivable hats of the
middle-ages, and beards (thank Heaven!) of no age at all, flashed
picturesque scowls about them from their stations in the throng.
One gentleman (connected with the fine arts, I presume) went up and
down in a pair of Hessian-boots, with a red beard hanging down on
his breast, and his long and bright red hair, plaited into two
tails, one on either side of his head, which fell over his
shoulders in front of him, very nearly to his waist, and were
carefully entwined and braided!
Eleven o’clock struck and still nothing happened. A rumour got
about, among the crowd, that the criminal would not confess; in
which case, the priests would keep him until the Ave Maria
(sunset); for it is their merciful custom never finally to turn the
crucifix away from a man at that pass, as one refusing to be
shriven, and consequently a sinner abandoned of the Saviour, until
then. People began to drop off. The officers shrugged their
shoulders and looked doubtful. The dragoons, who came riding up
below our window, every now and then, to order an unlucky hackneycoach
or cart away, as soon as it had comfortably established
itself, and was covered with exulting people (but never before),
became imperious, and quick-tempered. The bald place hadn’t a
straggling hair upon it; and the corpulent officer, crowning the
perspective, took a world of snuff.
Suddenly, there was a noise of trumpets. ‘Attention!’ was among
the foot-soldiers instantly. They were marched up to the scaffold
and formed round it. The dragoons galloped to their nearer
stations too. The guillotine became the centre of a wood of
bristling bayonets and shining sabres. The people closed round
nearer, on the flank of the soldiery. A long straggling stream of
men and boys, who had accompanied the procession from the prison,
came pouring into the open space. The bald spot was scarcely
distinguishable from the rest. The cigar and pastry-merchants
resigned all thoughts of business, for the moment, and abandoning
themselves wholly to pleasure, got good situations in the crowd.
The perspective ended, now, in a troop of dragoons. And the
corpulent officer, sword in hand, looked hard at a church close to
him, which he could see, but we, the crowd, could not.
After a short delay, some monks were seen approaching to the
scaffold from this church; and above their heads, coming on slowly
and gloomily, the effigy of Christ upon the cross, canopied with
black. This was carried round the foot of the scaffold, to the
front, and turned towards the criminal, that he might see it to the
last. It was hardly in its place, when he appeared on the
platform, bare-footed; his hands bound; and with the collar and
neck of his shirt cut away, almost to the shoulder. A young man –
six-and-twenty – vigorously made, and well-shaped. Face pale;
small dark moustache; and dark brown hair.
He had refused to confess, it seemed, without first having his wife
brought to see him; and they had sent an escort for her, which had
occasioned the delay.
He immediately kneeled down, below the knife. His neck fitting
into a hole, made for the purpose, in a cross plank, was shut down,
by another plank above; exactly like the pillory. Immediately
below him was a leathern bag. And into it his head rolled
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Dickens, Charles – Pictures From Italy
instantly.
The executioner was holding it by the hair, and walking with it
round the scaffold, showing it to the people, before one quite knew
that the knife had fallen heavily, and with a rattling sound.
When it had travelled round the four sides of the scaffold, it was
set upon a pole in front – a little patch of black and white, for
the long street to stare at, and the flies to settle on. The eyes