A bronze leaf,
cast also from the life, was as curious and more beautiful.
Taking leave of Powers, I went hither and thither about Florence, seeing
for the last time things that I have seen many times before: the market,
for instance, blocking up a line of narrow streets with fruit-stalls, and
obstreperous dealers crying their peaches, their green lemons, their
figs, their delicious grapes, their mushrooms, their pomegranates, their
radishes, their lettuces. They use one vegetable here which I have not
known so used elsewhere; that is, very young pumpkins or squashes, of the
size of apples, and to be cooked by boiling. They are not to my taste,
but the people here like unripe things,--unripe fruit, unripe chickens,
unripe lamb. This market is the noisiest and swarmiest centre of noisy
and swarming Florence, and I always like to pass through it on that
account.
I went also to Santa Croce, and it seemed to me to present a longer vista
and broader space than almost any other church, perhaps because the
pillars between the nave and aisles are not so massive as to obstruct the
view.
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