eBooks Base 2000

At first there is a shade entirely across the street, and all the
within-doors of the village empties itself there, and keeps up a
babblement that seems quite disproportioned even to the multitude of
tongues that make it. So many words are not spoken in a New England
village in a whole year as here in this single day. People talk about
nothing as if they were terribly in earnest, and laugh at nothing as if
it were all excellent joke.
As the hot noon sunshine encroaches on our side of the street, it grows a
little more quiet. The loungers now confine themselves to the shady
margin (growing narrower and narrower) of the other side, where, directly
opposite the albergo, there are two cafes and a wine-shop, "vendita di
pane, vino, ed altri generi," all in a row with benches before them. The
benchers joke with the women passing by, and are joked with back again.
The sun still eats away the shadow inch by inch, beating down with such
intensity that finally everybody disappears except a few passers-by.


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