Sometimes
there is a woman playing on a fiddle, while her husband blows a wind
instrument. In the streets it is not unusual to find a band of half a
dozen performers, who, without any provocation or reason whatever, sound
their brazen instruments till the houses re-echo. Sometimes one passes a
man who stands whistling a tune most unweariably, though I never saw
anybody give him anything. The ballad-singers are the strangest, from
the total lack of any music in their cracked voices. Sometimes you see a
space cleared in the street, and a foreigner playing, while a girl--
weather-beaten, tanned, and wholly uncomely in face and shabby in attire
dances ballets. The common people look on, and never criticise or treat
any of these poor devils unkindly or uncivilly; but I do not observe that
they give them anything.
A crowd--or, at all events, a moderate-sized group--is much more easily
drawn together here than with us. The people have a good deal of idle
and momentary curiosity, and are always ready to stop when another person
has stopped, so as to see what has attracted his attention. I hardly
ever pause to look at a shop-window, without being immediately incommoded
by boys and men, who stop likewise, and would forthwith throng the
pavement if I did not move on.
June 30th.--If it is not known how and when a man dies, it makes a ghost
of him for many years thereafter, perhaps for centuries.
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