The young fellow
who hears her has been often and often to the opera and the theatres. As
she plays Don Juan, Zerlina comes tripping over the meadows, and Masetto
after her, with a crowd of peasants and maidens: and they sing the
sweetest of all music, and the heart beats with happiness, and kindness,
and pleasure. Piano, pianissimo! the city is hushed. The towers of the
great cathedral rise in the distance, its spires lighted by the broad
moon. The statues in the moonlit place cast long shadows athwart the
pavement: but the fountain in the midst is dressed out like Cinderella
for the night, and sings and wears a crest of diamonds. That great sombre
street all in shade, can it be the famous Toledo?--or is it the Corso?--
or is it the great street in Madrid, the one which leads to the Escurial
where the Rubens and Velasquez are? It is Fancy Street--Poetry Street--
Imagination Street--the street where lovely ladies look from balconies,
where cavaliers strike mandolins and draw swords and engage, where long
processions pass, and venerable hermits, with long beards, bless the
kneeling people: where the rude soldiery, swaggering through the place
with flags and halberts, and fife and dance, seize the slim waists of the
daughters of the people, and bid the pifferari play to their dancing.
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