Page:Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse by Paul Selver.djvu/137

Rh carts, horses, with goods in transport, with uproar, with the cries of dealers and the thousand-fold voices of workmen, who were pouring along in multitudes to the Old Town; they walked in the middle of the road or by the side of the pavement; their many-coloured shawls which they had twisted about their necks, lent a touch of brightners to the general grey-grimy tint of the street.

The Old Town and all the little streets round about, quivered with the usual Sunday bustle.

On the rectangular space, flanked by old, one-storeyed houses which had never been renovated, and full of shops, taverns and so-called Bierhallen, littered with hundreds of hideous booths and stalls, there thronged several thousand people, hundreds of carts and horses—the whole a mingled shouting, talking, cursing, pushing.

This shrieking chaos was surging from one side of the square to the other. Above this tangle of heads, dishevelled hair, upraised arms, horses' heads, butchers' axes flashing swiftly in the sunshine, as they were lifted above the hacked joints of meat, huge loaves of bread, which the jostle of the crowd had raised above the heads, yellow, green, red, violet scarves fluttering like banners from the clothing-stalls; caps and hats hanging on poles, boots, woollen shawls, which, like coloured snakes fluttered in the wind and beat against the faces of the crowd; tin vessels