ery
different. In those days which can never come back, the Corso was a
sight to see and not to be forgotten. The small citizens who had small
houses in the street let every window to the topmost story for the whole
ten days; the rich whose palaces faced the favoured line threw open
their doors to their friends; every window was decorated, from every
balcony gorgeous hangings, or rich carpets, or even richer tapestries
hung down; the street was strewn thick with yellow sand, and wheresoever
there was an open space wooden seats were built up, row above row, where
one might hire a place to see the show and join in throwing flowers, and
the lime-covered 'confetti' that stung like small shot and whitened
everything like meal, and forced everyone in the street or within reach
of it to wear a shield of thin wire netting to guard the face, and thick
gloves to shield the hands; or, in older times, a mask, black, white, or
red, or modelled and painted with extravagant features, like evil beings
in a dream.

[Illustration: TWIN CHURCHES AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE CORSO

From a print of the last century]

In the early afternoon of each day except Sunday it all began, day after
day the same, save that the fun grew wilder and often rougher as the
doom of Ash Wednesday drew near. First when the people had gathered in
their places, high and low, and already thronged the street from side to
side, there was a distant rattle of scabbards and a thunder of hoofs,
and all fell back, crowding and climbing upon one another, to let a
score of cavalrymen trot through, clearing the way for the carriages of
the 'Senator' and Municipality, which drove from end to end of the Corso
with their scarlet and yellow liveries, before any other vehicles were
allowed to pass, or any pelting with 'confetti' began. But on the
instant when they had gone by, the showers began, right, left, upwards,
downwards, like little storms of flowers and snow in the afternoon
sunshine, and the whole air was filled with the laughter and laughing
chatter of twenty thousand men and women and children--such a sound as
could be heard nowhere else in the world. Many have heard a great host
cheer, many have heard the battle-cries of armies, many have heard the
terrible deep yell that goes up from an angry multitude in times of
revolution; but only those who remember the Carnival as it used to be
have heard a whole city laugh, and the memory is worth having, for it is
like no other