Not merely the street-way, but all the balconies and
hundreds of windows were lit up with these little torches; so that it
seemed as if the stars had crumbled into glittering fragments, and rained
down upon the Corso, some of them lodging upon the palace-fronts, some
falling on the ground. Besides this, there were gas-lights burning with
a white flame; but this illumination was not half so interesting as that
of the torches, which indicated human struggle. All this time there were
myriad voices shouting, "SENZA MOCCOLO!" and mingling into one long roar.
We, in our balcony, carried on a civil war against one another's torches,
as is the custom of human beings, within even the narrowest precincts;
but after a while we grew tired, and so did the crowd, apparently; for
the lights vanished, one after another, till the gas-lights--which at
first were an unimportant part of the illumination--shone quietly out,
overpowering the scattered twinkles of the moccoli. They were what the
fixed stars are to the transitory splendors of human life.
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