Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 2).djvu/190

172 rapidity, without the police interfering in the matter. The pedestrians ranged themselves against the walls; then the trampling of horses and the clashing of steel were heard. A detachment of carbineers, fifteen abreast, galloped up the Corso in order to clear it for the barberi. When the detachment arrived at the Palazzo di Veuezia, a second volley of fireworks was discharged to announce that the street was clear.

Almost instantly, in the midst of a tremendous and general outcry, seven or eight horses, excited by the shouts of three hundred thousand spectators, passed by like lightning. Then the Castle of San Angelo fired three cannons to indicate that number three had won.

Immediately, without any other signal, the carriages moved on, flowing on toward the Corso, down all the streets, like torrents pent up for a while, which again flow into the parent river; and the immense stream again continued its course between its two banks of granite.

A new source of noise and movement was added to the crowd. The sellers of moccoletti entered on the scene.

The moccoli, or moccoletti, are candles which vary in size from the pascal taper to the rushlight, and which give the actors on the great scene which terminates the Carnival two different occupations:

First. How to preserve their moccoletto alight.

Second. How to extinguish the moccoletti of others.

The moccoletto is like life: man has found but one means of transmitting it, and that one comes from God. But he has discovered a thousand means of taking it away, although the devil has somewhat aided him.

The moccoletto is kindled by approaching it to a light. But who can describe the thousand means of extinguishing the moccoletto! the gigantic bellows, the monstrous extinguishers, the superhuman fans.

Every one hastened to purchase moccoletti Franz and Albert among the rest.

The night was rapidly approaching; and already, at the cry of "Moccoletto!" repeated by the shrill voices of a thousand venders, two or three stars began to burn among the crowd. It was a signal. At the end of ten minutes fifty thousand lights glittered, descending from the Palazzo di Venezia to the Piazza del Popolo, and mounting from the Piazza del Popolo to the Palazzo di Venezia. It seemed the fete of Jack-o'-lanterns.

It is impossible to form any idea of it without having seen it. Suppose all the stars had descended from the sky and mingled in a wild dance on the face of the earth; the whole accompanied by cries that were never heard in any other part of the world. The facchino follows the prince, the prince the Transteverino, the Transteverino the citizen,