Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/418

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And so it has actually turned out! During the night the most violent shower has fallen. In the morning I set out very early in order to be an eye-witness of the marvel. The stream of rain-water pent up between the two raised pavements, had carried the lightest of the rubbish down the inclined street, either into the sea or into such of the sewers as were not stopped up, while the grosser and heavier dung was driven from spot to spot. In this a singular meandering line of cleanliness was marked out along the streets. On the morning, hundreds and hundreds of men were to be seen with brooms and shovels, busily enlarging this clear space, and in order to connect it where it was interrupted by the mire; and throwing the still remaining impurities now to this side, now to that. By this means, when the procession started, it found a clear serpentine walk prepared for it through the mud, and so both the long-robed priests and the neat-booted nobles, with the viceroy at their head, were able to proceed on their way unhindered and unsplashed.

I thought of the children of Israel passing through the waters on the dry path prepared for them by the hand of the angel; and this remembrance served to ennoble what otherwise would have been a revolting sight,—to see these devout and noble peers parading their devotions along an alley flanked on each side by heaps of mud.

On the pavement there was now, as always, clean walking; but in the more retired parts of the city, whither we were this day carried in pursuance of our intention of visiting the quarters we had hitherto neglected, it was almost impossible to get along, although even here the sweeping and piling of the filth was by no means neglected.

The festival gave occasion to our visiting the